“RENT” “RENT”

Transcription

“RENT” “RENT”

9
Celebrity Crossword PAGE
tribute to
Phil Ivey
12
44
14
17
20
PAGE
HEAVYWEIGHT
CHAMPIONSHIP
Danny Robison
OFprofile
POKER—“THE
by BIG ONE”
PAGE
Entertainment
Best Bets
48
25
Do you have the confidence to
Phil Hevener
compete in the world’s
LARGEST buy-in
tournament?
Details on
page
28
POKER PLAYER
Vol. 10 Number 9 October 30, 2006 A Gambling Times Publication www.pokerplayernewspaper.com Copyright ©2006 Bi-Weekly $3.95 USA/$4.95 CANADA
Poker Goes Electronic Bigger Is
at Hollywood Park
Better
at the
Bike’s
Oktober
Event
The first
ever ePOKER
ROOM opened
in Hollywood Park
Casino in Los Angeles,
California, on October
12, 2006. It includes
state-of-the-art Poker Pro
tables created by Poker
Tek Inc. It’s as if the
Jetsons meet poker world.
The Poker Pro tables
have been approved and
certified by Gaming
Laboratory International,
a company that tests gaming products.
According to Amy
LeFoy, promotions
coordinator for Poker
Tek, the benefits of this
poker medium include:
no chips, faster-paced
Horseman
Gallops Off
with Top Tunica Prize
By Max Shapiro
Mark “Pegasus” Smith,
who breeds and races
thoroughbreds, found himself far behind Manelic
“Manny” Minaya in the
late stages of the $5,000
(Continued on page 11)
Frank Earnest of
Chino Hills, CA,
wins $32,400 in
event 16
The good cheer of
Oktoberfest is in the air
-- not only in Germany,
but also in Bell Gardens,
California, where crowds of
poker afficionados gather
for the Big Poker Oktober
action at the Bicycle
Mike Caro
Mark Smith of Georgetown, KY wins $306,003 in final event
the 109th Congress on
its final day. As previously reported, the law
includes a section making
it a crime to accept funds
for internet gambling.
For effects of the law see
Pages 10, 26, 34 and 36.
Today’s word is...
“RENT”
Turn to page 8 for more
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0
9
4 4>
A Word from the
“Mad Genius,”
President Signs Prohibition
Of Internet Gambling
On Friday, October 13,
2006, President George
W. Bush signed the Port
Security Bill enacted by
Casino. As we go to press,
sixteen events are already
completed and the finale
is only a few days away.
Everything about this event
is big – the crowds, the
prize pools and the gen-
*See Web site for details. Enjoy the free games, and before playing in the real money games, please check with your local jurisdiction regarding the legality of Internet poker. ©2005 Full Tilt Poker. All rights reserved.
100% SIGN-UP BONUS UP TO $600*
w w w. p o ke r p l a y e r n e w s p a p e r. c o m
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P O K E R P L AY E R
1
2
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NOVEMBER 23-DECEMBER 10
DATE
THU
DAY
EVENT
11/23 Turkey Shootout Limit Hold‘em
(Philippine trip added-$3,000 value.)
FRI
11/24 No Limit Hold‘em
SAT
11/25 No Limit Hold‘em** $100,000 Guaranteed
SUN
11/26 No Limit Hold‘em Shootout
MON
TUE
11/27 Bounty No Limit Hold‘em ($25 Bounty)
11/28 No Limit Hold‘em*
WED
11/29 No Limit Hold‘em
THU
11/30 Limit Hold‘em
FRI
12/1
No Limit Hold‘em
SAT
12/2
Toys for Tots/M.A.D.D. No Limit Hold‘em** ✖
($30 entry fee or a new unwrapped toy with receipt of $10 or more.)
SUN
12/3
SUN
12/3
Ladies Queen of Queens
(No Limit Hold‘em) (2:15pm Start Time)
Mega Super Satellite (7:15pm start time)
MON 12/4 Bounty No Limit Hold‘em ($25 Bounty)
TUE
12/5 No Limit Hold‘em Shootout
WED 12/6 No Limit Hold‘em
THU
12/7 Pot Limit Hold‘em
FRI
12/8 Mega Super Satellite (No Limit Hold‘em)
SAT
12/9 No Limit Hold‘em (2 Day Event)
SUN
12/10 No Limit Hold‘em (Finals at 6:15 P.M.)
SUN
12/10 No Limit Hold‘em Player Appreciation
BUY-IN+ENTRY
$200+$30
$300+$40
$300+$40
$200+$30
$225+$30
$200+$30
$300+$40
$300+$40
$500+$50
$200+30
$100+$25
$110+$20
$325+$40
$300+$40
$300+$40
$300+$40
$110+$20
$1,000+$80
$100+$25
10k added to 1st place
Tournaments start at 7:15 P.M. Mon.-Fri.,
4:15 P.M. Sat. & Sun. unless otherwise noted.
*One Optional Rebuy. **Multi-Rebuys. ✖ $20 donation from each entry & rebuy to M.A.D.D.
Satellites Mon.-Fri. 2:00 P.M., Sat/Sun. 11:00 A.M.
7301 Eastern Ave., Bell Gardens, CA 90201 ♦ (562) 806-4646 ♦ www.thebike.com
*Based on number of entries. The Bicycle Casino reserves the right to cancel or modify this promotion at its sole discretion. All promotions and jackpots: no purchase necessary.
See the Welcome Center for Details. For a Complete Schedule of Events, call The BIKE at 562/806–4646, or visit www.thebike.com
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5
Cherokee Casino West Siloam Springs Presents
Benefiting the Boys & Girls Club’s Toy Drive
Bring in a new, unwrapped toy valued at $10 or more and
receive an additional $3,000 tournament starting chips!
Date
Nov. 18
Time
2 p.m.
Event
Super Satellite
Buy-in
$45
Nov. 25
2 p.m.
Super Satellite
$45
Nov. 28
7 p.m.
Ladies No Limit Texas Hold ‘em
$100 + $20
Nov. 29
7 p.m.
No Limit Texas Hold ‘em
$100 + $20
Nov. 30
7 p.m.
Seniors No Limit Texas Hold ‘em
$100 + $20
Dec. 1
7 p.m.
No Limit Texas Hold ‘em
$200 + $30
Dec. 2
12 p.m.
No Limit Texas Hold ‘em Bounty
$100 + $20
Dec. 2
7 p.m.
Omaha Hi/Lo Split
$200 + $30
Dec. 3
12 p.m.
No Limit Texas Hold ‘em Main Event
$300 + $30
U.S. Hwy 412 & State Hwy 59
West Siloam Springs, OK
(800) 754-4111
Three percent of total prize pool will be withheld for staff appreciation. Minimum of $10 er player per event. Know your limits. Gambling problem? Call (800) 522-4700. Management reserves all rights.
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Caro’s Word: “Rent”
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Today’s word is “Rent”
Your bankroll is precious.
One way to preserve it is to
understand how the casino
makes money from spreading poker games.
Poker is unlike casino
games where you’re gambling against the house. In
poker, the casino has no
financial interest in who
wins the pots. Management
and owners aren’t gambling
against you. It’s you against
the other players.
So, how does the cardroom or casino make
money? Two ways. One
is rake. The dealer, acting on the house’s behalf,
takes money from the pots.
Usually, this is a percentage
– often five or 10 percent
up to a ceiling, such as $4.
Beyond that, in most public
cardrooms, no more rake
is taken from large pots.
The other is rent. With rent,
you’re buying your seat,
typically by the hour or
half-hour, and nothing is
extracted from the pots you
win.
Does it matter which
method is used? Definitely.
And you need to be aware
of whether you’re paying
rent or having your pots
raked. And you must adjust
your strategy accordingly.
This is a lecture I gave
years ago, teaching how to
make those adjustments.
Rent versus rake
No matter what level of
poker you play, if you hang
around a public poker room
long enough, you’re sure to
hear someone complain that
you can’t beat the smalllimit games because the
rake is too much to overcome and the players are
too loose.
The concepts I’m going
to tell you about today are
very important, even if you
never play in those smalllimit games. If you expect
to win money overall in
your poker career, or if you
want to be a professional
player, you’re going to
need to know the difference
between poker games where
the house rakes the pots and
poker games where you rent
your seat.
Games where you rent
your seat, usually by the
half hour or hour are often
called “time” games or
“collection” games. By the
way, there is another kind of
rent game that most players
confuse with a rake game.
That’s where the dealer
position puts up a certain
amount of money each
hand, say $4, and that goes
to the house in advance of
the deal. That may seem
like a rake, but it isn’t.
It’s just rent by the hand,
instead of by the hour or
half hour.
Why is that important?
It’s important because you
must play a different strategy in rake games than you
do in rent games.
Money is gone
The reason your strategy
must differ between rake
games and rent games is
because in rent games, it’s
just as if you had paid years
ago or someone else had
paid for you. That money is
gone and it should have no
influence on the way you
play your hands. Rent will
influence your profit in the
long run, of course, but you
should play your hands the
same way you would in a
game in your own house
where you were charged
nothing. Rent is independent
of your strategy, so you play
the same.
But rake games are much
different. In a rake game,
money is taken directly
from the pot. So, if you
never win a pot, you don’t
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8
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
personally pay anything to
the house. But when you
win pots, you pay, because
that rake came out of your
pot and diminished your
winnings.
So, you see, there’s a
penalty for winning pots
in a rake game. Because
of this penalty, you need
to be more selective about
the hands you play than
you would in a rent game,
where winning pots is not
penalized. This is especially
true of all those marginal,
borderline hands you would
have been able to play as
break even or for a small
profit without the rake. Add
the rake and you can’t play
them anymore – and they
account for a great deal of
the hands you’d be tempted
to play. So, against the same
opponents who are playing
the same way, you must
play tighter in a rake game
than you would in a rent
game.
But, wait! The big complaint against small-limit
rake games is that you can’t
win, because players are
too loose. You’re apt to get
called down to the river by
too many opponents trying to draw out on you,
and usually someone does.
Players tell you that you
can’t win in these games.
But they lie!
Rake penalty
You see, in real-world
casinos the rakes are often
the same in smaller limits
like $3/$6 games as they
are at twice the limits. This
means that the rake penalty
in proportion to the amount
you bet is much higher and
harder to overcome. That’s
important and I’ll repeat
it. In the smallest limits,
the rake is usually about as
large as at somewhat larger
limits, because the casino’s
costs are pretty much the
same, no matter what you
play. So, in smaller limits,
the rake penalty is larger in
proportion to the amount
you bet and harder to overcome.
But those frustrated players that tell you they can’t
win because opponents
are too loose are terribly
mistaken about that notion.
Often, the ONLY way you’ll
be able to beat a low-limit
rake game is if your opponents are loose. Otherwise,
POKER
PLAYER
A Gambling Times Publication
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Len Butcher
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
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Wendeen H. Eolis
EDITORIAL CONSULTANT
Phil Hevener
CONSULTANT
Contributing
Columnists
Nolan Dalla
George Epstein
“Oklahoma Johnny” Hale
Ashley Adams
Diane McHaffie
James McKenna
I. Nelson Rose
John Vorhaus
Poker Player will be published Bi-Weekly by
Gambling Times Incorporated,
Stanley R. Sludikoff, President.
Volume 10 Number 9.
Copyright © October 2006 by Gambling
Times Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without
written permission is prohibited.
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PUBLISHER’S STATEMENT
This notice will certify that 48,000 copies of Volume
10, Number 9 of Poker Player were printed at Valley
Printers, 16230 Filbert Street, Sylmar, CA 91342.
Distribution to newsstands, card clubs, poker rooms and
other distribution points throughout the United States,
Canada, the Caribbean, Central America and Europe.
POKER NEWS
By John Caldwell
FALLOUT FROM PASSAGE OF
THE UNLAWFUL INTERNET
GAMBLING ACT
Over the course of the nearly two weeks since the Unlawful
Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed by Congress, a lot has happened in the online poker business. Almost immediately, market leader Party
Poker announced it would no longer take U.S. players. This was followed by a
few other rooms (most notably 888 Holdings, which owns Pacific Poker) also
announcing their withdrawal from the U.S.
Almost as quickly online room Full Tilt notified players that they would indeed
stick by their U.S. customers, and pretty much said it would be business as usual.
The two firms that chose not to announce right away were both very crucial
to the online poker landscape. Both PokerStars, and e-wallet provider Neteller
took their time, and waited nearly two weeks before announcing that they
would both stay in the U.S. market.
Poker players were cheered by these decisions, especially Neteller, as most
of the language in the newly passed bill deals with preventing U.S. banks from
taking online gaming transactions. E-wallets like Neteller, the largest e-wallet
company that takes online gaming transactions, are especially crucial, as they
will continue to provide a way for players to transact business with the online
poker rooms.
WSOP WILL “MOST LIKELY NOT” BE
TAKING ONLINE QUALIFIERS IN 2007
The majority of the players who played in this years World Series of Poker Main
Event qualified online for the tournament. Players would win online satellites,
and be registered for the tournament by the online poker room, which would
pay the players’ buy in.
All of that will apparently change in 2007, as Harrah’s has told the online
poker rooms that they will “most likely not” be accepting third-party registrations from them for the Main Event in 2007. Harrah’s indicated they “most
likely” would be taking brick & mortar casino satellite winners, and other types
of promotional third-party entries, such as contest winners. If this decision
sticks, it could severely reduce the number of entrants into the Main Event,
unless the online rooms devise another way to let satellite players in.
SHANA HIATT GETS TO GO TO WORK
As reported in this column in the last issue, Shana Hiatt had filed suit against
the World Poker Tour for preventing her from seeking work with other poker
television outlets, specifically NBC, which had offered her a job. Hiatt was
seeking an injunction to allow her to take the job as well as punitive damages.
The injunction was granted, and NBC has announced that Hiatt will host
‘Poker After Dark’ a poker show which will run at 2 A.M. six nights a week. The
show will debut January 2nd, 2007. Shana is also rumored to be one of the
hosts of the highly popular “NBC National Heads Up Championship,” which will
air later in the spring.
AMARILLO SLIM FOILS ROBBERY ATTEMPT
Former World Series of Poker Champion ‘Amarillo Slim’ Preston showed he can
still make an aggressive decision in an instant when he foiled a robbery attempt
recently in Amarillo, Texas.
Slim was driving in the wee hours of the morning, when a yellow car cut him
off, and forced his car to the curb. An assailant armed with a pistol jumped out,
pointed the gun at Slim, and demanded money. Slim responded by throwing the
car into reverse, and trying to escape. The man fired three shots, with two of
them hitting Slim’s car, then proceeded to jump back in his car, and chase Slim.
Slim was able to evade the man, and call police. Amarillo Slim was unharmed.
THE ‘EPOKER ROOM’ IS HERE
On October 12 Hollywood Park Casino in Los Angeles opened its ‘ePoker Room’.
An epoker room has automated poker tables that do not require dealers.
Players control all their actions at a touch-screen terminal in front of their
seat. This makes for faster, error-free play.
The electronic tables are already in use in several casinos around the country and aboard many cruise ships. To start with, the tables at Hollywood Park
will mostly host low-limit hold ‘em, small buy-in no limit hold ‘em, and Sit N Go
tournaments. PokerTec, the company that manufactures the tables, says the
software to host multi-table tournaments on these tables is near completion
and should be introduced in early 2007.
John Caldwell is the Editor-In-Chief of PokerNews.com,
a leading poker information portal. Prior to PokerNews,
John spent 15 years in music artist management, working
with artists like Stone Temple Pilots, and Hootie and the
Blowfish. Originally from Redondo Beach, CA, John lives
in Los Angeles, and spends about 4 months a year in Las
Vegas.. Reach him by e-mail at [email protected].
10
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Must be 21 or older. Management reserves all rights. ©2006 Station Casinos, Inc., Las Vegas, NV.
Know Your Limits! If you think you have a gambling problem, call 1-800-522-4700.
First-Ever ePoker Seneca Niagara Casino
Room at Holly Park Expands Poker Room
(Continued from page 1)
games, computer accuracy, no dealer gratuity
and the elimination of
human errors. Instead of
buying chips, the player
opens an account, deposits money and gets a card
the casino issues that is
similar to a debit card.
When beginning to play,
you insert the card into
the table. Compared to
traditional poker, several
more hands are dealt per
hour. There is no waiting for split pots and side
pots because it happens
instantaneously. This
technology is ideal for
players who are used to
playing poker online.
There are no dealers,
so there is no tipping.
This futuristic medium
is 100% accurate; if a
player disputes a hand it
can be “replayed” instantly. This new technology
marries the efficiency of
online gaming with the
social interaction of a
casino. Poker Tek calls
it the “Same Game. Only
Better.”
On Monday, October 2, 2006,
Spencer Gauthier, Director of
Poker Operations, cut the ribbon
officially welcoming guests into
the newly expanded world-class
poker room at Seneca Niagara
Casino, one of three Seneca
Nation properties with public
poker rooms. The expansion
of 1,790 square feet accommodates eight new poker tables
so that it is now even easier to
get into a game. Players will
find Texas Hold’Em, Omaha
and 7-Card Stud available at all
levels. The opening ceremony
coincided with the beginning of a new promotion at
Seneca Niagara, the Bad Beat
Progressive Jackpot. For the
rules, see www.senecapokerrooms.com/badbeat.php.
Mark Smith
Wins WSOP
Circuit
Championship
at Tunica
Championship event of
the WSOP Circuit tour at
Grand Casino Tunica. But
he got out his whip, surged
ahead and crossed the finish
line first to win $306,003
plus a seat in next year’s
WSOP main event, along
with the striking gold ring
that heralds his title.
Smith, 54, of Georgetown,
Kentucky has three children,
is also a real estate developer,
owns a waste water public
utility company and is the
chief deputy coroner for
Scott County, Kentucky. That
leaves him time for maybe
one tournament every three
months.
GRAND CASINO - TUNICA, MS
WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT
EVENT #9
10/4/06
LIMIT HOLD’EM
CHAMPIONSHIP
FINAL DAY
Where fortunes have been made.
And more than a few legends, too.
Daylight Challenge
Monday – Thursday @ 1:30 p.m. No Limit Hold’em
Friday & Saturday @ 1:30 p.m. . .No Limit Hold’em
The Poker Zone Tournaments
Sunday @ 5 p.m. . . . .
Monday @ 7 p.m. . . .
Tuesday @ 7 p.m. . . .
Wednesday @ 7 p.m..
Thursday @ 7 p.m. . . .
.
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.No
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Limit
Limit
Limit
Limit
Limit
Hold’em
Hold’em
Hold’em
Hold’em
Hold’em
BUY-IN $5,000 + $50
PLAYERS 197
PRIZE
POOL
$955,450
mirage.com
For Room Reservations
800-77-POKER
(8OO-777-6537)
Tournament Information
702-791-7291
1. Mark Smith AKA
“Pegasus” . . . . . . . . . .$306,003
plus...WSOP Package
Georgetown, KY, USA
2. Manelic Minaya
AKA “Manny” . . . . .$160,557
Tampa, FL, USA
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
11
Playing the Odds
KRIEGER’s CORNER
By Lou Krieger©
We can spare you the drudgery of doing arithmetic
and playing poker at the same time. If memorizing
this chart is not your thing, you can always multiply your outs by two,
add two to that sum, and you’ll have a rough approximation of the
chance that you’ll make your hand.
With a flush draw on the turn you have nine outs. Nine times 2
equal 18, and 18 plus 2 equals 20. That’s pretty close to the 19.6 percent chance you’d come up with if you worked out the answer mathematically.
This chart shows the chance of making your hand expressed as a
percentage, along with the odds against it occurring with two cards to
come (flop to river), as well as with one card (turn to river) remaining.
Odds and percentages are two different ways of looking at the
same thing. Odds give you the bad news first and are a ratio of failures to successes. The first number is the predicted failures and the
second number represents expected successes. When you say, “What
are the odds,” you are really asking “What is the expected ratio of
failures to successes?” If the odds against your horse winning are 7to-2 it means that if this race were to be run nine times (7 + 2) your
horse figures to win two of those races while losing seven.
A percentage in this chart represents the chances of a given hand
being completed. If you flop a flush draw, you can expect to complete
it either on the turn or on the river 35 times out of 100.
Odds and Outs From the Flop and the Turn to the River
Flop to the River Turn to the River
Outs
Common Draws
Percent Odds Percent Odds
20
67.5 0.48-to-1 43.5
1.30-to-1
19
65.0 0.54-to-1 41.3
1.42-to-1
18
62.4 0.60-to-1 39.1
1.56-to-1
17
59.8 0.67-to-1 37.0
1.71-to-1
16
57.0 0.75-to-1 34.8
1.88-to-1
15 Straight + Flush
54.1 0.85-to-1 32.6
2.07-to-1
14
51.2 0.95-to-1 30.4 2.29-to-1
13
48.1
1.08-to-1 28.3 2.54-to-1
12
45.0 1.22-to-1 26.1
2.83-to-1
11
41.7
1.40-to-1 23.9
3.18-to-1
10
38.4 1.60-to-1 21.7
3.60-to-1
9 Flush
35.0 1.86-to-1 19.6
4.11-to-1
8 Straight
31.5
2.17-to-1
17.4
4.75-to-1
7
27.8 2.60-to-1 15.2
5.57-to-1
6
24.1
3.15-to-1 13.0
6.67-to-1
5
20.3 3.93-to-1 10.9
8.20-to-1
4 Pair or Inside Straight Draw
16.5 5.06-to-1
8.7
10.50-to-1
3
12.5 7.00-to-1
6.5
14.33-to-1
2
8.4 10.90-to-1 4.3 22.00-to-1
1
4.3 22.26-to-1 2.2 45.00-to-1
Other Probabilities
A wired pair flops a set nearly 12 percent of the time
A-K flops at least one ace or king 32.4 percent of the time
Two suited cards will make a flush 6.5 percent of the time
Two suited cards flops a flush 0.8 percent of the time
Two suited cards flops a four flush 10.9 percent of the time
Two unpaired cards make a split pair 2.2 percent of the time
Here’s how you can put this to use: If you have a twenty percent
chance of winning, the cost of your call should not be more than
twenty percent of the pot’s total. With a thirty-two percent chance,
you can call a bet up to one-third the size of the pot. If your chances
of winning are only ten percent, don’t call any bet that’s more than
ten percent of the pot’s size.
Hanging on to unprofitable draws for whatever reason can be a
major leak in one’s game. For many it’s the sole reason they are lifelong losing players instead of lifelong winners.
There’s no real excuse for that kind of play, even if you are not
mathematically inclined (and if you’re in this category, you’re in
the majority). All the calculations have been worked out for you in
advance. Just count or approximate the size of the pot, and the pot
odds are the ratio of the size of the pot to the bet you have to call.
Then compare that to the odds against making your hand. If the pot
is $60 and you had to call a ten-dollar bet, the pot is offering 6-to-1
odds. If you have a flush draw, the odds against completing it are only
1.86-to-1. Since the pot odds exceed the odds against making your
hand, it pays to call this bet in the long run. It’s that easy.
Visit Lou Krieger online and check out all his
books at www.loukrieger.com. You can read his
blog at http://loukrieger.blogspot.com and write
directly to him at [email protected].
12
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
Online
by Nicole Gordon
Review
Doyle’s Room: Play with a Legend
We’ve all read the book. The
Bible of poker. The one, the
only Super/System. We’ve
watched him win WPT titles
and his record-setting tenth
WSOP bracelet. We’ve heard
the stories that filter out of
the Bellagio’s “big game”
where he holds court nearly
every night of the week
and we’ve all stopped and
wondered at some point in
our own poker lives what it
must have been like to be a
shotgun-carrying road
gambler in 1950’s Texas.
Doyle Brunson did it
all, lived to tell about it,
and is still perhaps the
world’s best all-around
poker player at the age
of 73. It only makes
sense that he would
venture into the online
game, where his namesake
site Doyle’s Room is quickly
turning into a significant
force in the internet poker
world. And true to his “don’t
mess with Texas” philosophy, Doyle’s Room has
vowed to continue serving
their U.S. customers in the
wake of the current legislative battle over the legality
of online poker. Your money
is 100% safe at Doyle’s
Room– Brunson personally
guarantees it.
In addition to Doyle
Brunson, his WSOP braceletwinning son Todd, and “Mad
Genius” Mike Caro, Doyle’s
Room boasts an impressive lineup of pro endorsers.
“Team Brunson” includes
WSOP champions Hoyt
Corkins, Cyndy Violette,
Max Pescatori, “Captain”
Tom Franklin and Dewey
Tomko along with young
up-and-coming pros Jennifer
“Jennicide” Leigh and Marco
Traniello. A rotating cast of
these pros along with celebrity special guests like Nicky
Hilton and Pamela Anderson
all have targets on their
backs in Doyle’s Room’s
signature weekly tournament
“The Bounty,” which runs on
Thursday evenings. Knock
any bounty player out of the
tournament and you’ll win
an instant $500. Knock out
two “key” bounties (usuallly
Doyle, Todd, and Caro) and
pocket $15,000. Knock out
all three and you’re rolling
in fifty grand. Talk about an
insta-bankroll.
Doyle’s Room also runs a
plethora of satellites to major
events on the live tournament
circuit. Though they’re not
yet available at most online
poker sites, satellites for the
2007 WSOP Main Event are
already running at Doyle’s
Room with buy-ins as low
as a dollar. $1! Additionally,
$15,000 “Winners Choice”
packages are up for grabs via
$220 super satellites. This
package is good for a buy-in
and travel expenses to any
WPT event remaining on the
Season 5 schedule, including
Foxwoods, Bellagio, Niagra,
Bay 101 Shooting Star, and
the L.A. Poker Classic. SNG
and MTT satellite feeders
into the $220 supers start at
only a $3 buy-in.
Doyle’s Room also boasts
an excellent variety of cash
game options. Limit and nolimit hold’em, limit and potlimit Omaha and Omaha hilo are spread at limits from
$0.02-$0.04 to $150-$300.
In addition to traditional
limit stud and stud hi-lo, the
unusual and hard-to-find ½
pot limit varieties of both
these games are available at
the $0.10-$0.20 to $50-$100
levels. Doyle’s Room is also
the only online poker room
to spread Badugi. That’s
right, Badugi. It’s a totally
bizarre but hopelessly addicting 4-card form of triple
draw lowball, where the best
hand is an A-2-3-4 of all different suits. Badugi was all
over the high limit mixed
cash games at this year’s
WSOP and now anyone can
give it a whirl online.
For a beginning player just
building a bankroll, singletable SNGs are a great way
to do it. While offering the
typical $5-$1000 buy-in
SNGs you’ll find anywhere
online, Doyle’s Room goes
a step further and spreads
micro-limit SNGs with buyins from $0.10-$3. Full ring,
shorthanded (6 max), headsup, speed, and turbo varieties are all spread 24/7.
Promotions and bonuses
for winning consecutive
SNGs are also frequently
available.
Another great feature
of the Doyle’s Room
interface are the buddy
lists. Not only can players keep track of when
their friends are online, but
they’re also incredibly useful for “tagging the fish.”
Want to remember that guy
who dumped off $1000 in
fifteen minutes of $10-$20
LHE? Stick him on your
buddy list. Dying for a stud
lesson from Cyndy Violette?
Put her on there too, and
you’ll know whenever she’s
playing. Doyle’s Room is
also one of the few online
rooms currently running a
bad beat jackpot. Lose with
aces full of kings or better in
any hold’em cash game and
$1500 is instantly yours. It
sure makes losing that 20-1
favorite on the river just a
little less painful.
Whether you’re a rank
beginner, a serious amateur ready to do battle with
poker’s greatest living legend, or just want to see what
the heck Badugi is all about,
Doyle’s Room is a perfect
place to play. Personally, I’ll
be gunning for that other
“Nicky” (the Hilton variety)
next Thursday night. Care to
join me?
Nicole Gordon is a writer
and poker player from Los
Angeles, CA. She can be
reached via email at
spadeflush310@hotmail.
com.
Natural Born Winners
By David Lloyd,
Editor of Gutshot.com
When Europe’s biggest poker room takes on
Dublin’s finest in a tag
team poker event, you can
expect a different kind of
poker to anything you’ve
experienced before.
As part of the Poker
Masters festival, a large
group of Irish players got
themselves on a plane
bound for England’s
capital and headed for the
Gutshot club in London’s
Clerkenwell Road. Some
played in the surrounding
Omaha and Hold’em events
as well as the cash games
but to most, there was only
one reason for crossing
the Channel: winning back
the Gutshot – Fitzwilliam
Challenge Cup, the bragging rights and all the glory
that goes with shiny silver
things.
This was to be the fourth
time that the two clubs
had fought for the Cup.
The Fitzwilliam had won
the first two but a Gutshot
team had gone over to
Dublin in the Spring and
brought the trophy back to
England for the first time.
In the past, the event had
been a straight No Limit
Hold’em freeze-out with
points being awarded to
team players, the higher
they went up the ladder.
This one was going to be
slightly different, though.
This would be a tag
team event, built around
Hold’em (of course), where
players from both sides
split into pairs, tagging
every fifteen minutes and
playing off the same stack.
My partner for the event
was my good friend Mr Jim
‘007’ Banks, Gutshot’s bar
and restaurant supremo. I
knew that what Jim lacked
in poker experience, would
be well compensated for
by a natural competitive
streak that you just can’t
buy in the shops. We were
ready for them and we had
a plan!
Well…I say we had a
plan.
The starting stacks were
3,000 per team and the
opening blinds were 25/50
on a 15-minute turbo clock.
At that rate we’d get roughly one round through the
blinds per level. Our plan
went like this…
“Should I play the first
level!” said Jim, without
hint of a question mark.
“OK, you play the first
level…but don’t play anything below Ace/Jack…
EVER!” said I.
On the second hand
Jim called a pre-flop raise
to see a Jack high flop.
Jim came out betting 200.
“Great, I thought, we must
be all over this like a rash!”
The button re-raised it up
to 500 and Jim pushed our
cards toward the muck…
where they belonged, it
seems.
“#!!$#@%!!” I thought.
Gutshot Final Team “A”
Something similar happened on a King, Queen,
ten flop. We bet out…
someone raised and ‘we’
folded like lambs again!
“#!!$#@%!!” I thought.
Over on the other side of
the room Gutshot were the
first to lose a team, when
Gutshot got it all-in pre-
flop holding Aces against
the Fitzwilliam Kings, only
to see a cowboy appear
like the Irish cavalry on the
DW\QS0cÙW]W\dWbSag]cb]O
[WZZW]\R]ZZOàe]`bV
]TTc\
$EWZRV]àS4OZZ>]YS`@]c\RC^%/RRSR
#
Day
Date
ss
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tues
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
11-8
11-9
11-10
11-11
11-12
11-13
11-14
11-15
11-16
11-17
11-18
Tournament
Super satellite for #10
No-Limit hold ‘em
No-Limit hold ‘em
Limit hold ‘em
No-Limit hold ‘em
7-Card stud
Ladies No-Limit
Omaha split 8
No-Limit hold ‘em
No-Limit Shoot-out
No-Limit hold ‘em
Totals
Buy in
Entry
fee
$100
$200
$250
$225
$200
$200
$200
$225
$250
$250
$500
$10
$10
$10
$10
$10
$10
$10
$10
$10
$10
$10
Added
money
$5,000
$5,000
$5,000
$5,000
$5,000
$5,000
$5,000
$5,000
$10,000
$10,000
$10,000
$70,000
Projected
Entries
prize money* last time
76 entries to #10
$125,800
$155,000
$102,650
$125,800
$40,200
$37,400
$70,025
$131,750
$119,750
$260,500
$1,173,875
328
604
600
434
604
176
162
289
507
439
501
* Projected prize money is based on simply matching the number of entries for last Spring’s PRU
All tournaments start at noon; except the Super Satellite starts at 6:30 PM and the Ladies starts at 2:30 PM
For hotel reservations call Billie Robbins, Monday through Friday 8am - 4pm, at (541) 966-1549
For information call tournament Host & Director Roland Waters at (541) 966-1573
•
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Management reserves the right to alter, suspend, or withdraw any part of promotion at any time.
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
13
Michael Jordan Wins Inaugural
Trent Tucker Celebrity
Poker Tournament
MIDWEST MILIEU
By bonnie demos
In a room of stars, Michael Jordan proved he
still shines the brightest. Poker icons and NBA
legends packed
Canterbury Park
on Friday night
September 8 for
the Inaugural
Trent Tucker
Celebrity Poker
Tournament benefiting the Trent
Tucker Youth
Program, but in
the end Michael
Jordan ended up
with all the chips.
“I just came to
have a good
time and help
the Trent Tucker
Non-Profit
Organization,” said Jordan. “This was for fun,
and I just played my cards. I didn’t care if I won
or lost,” added Jordan, who donated back the
first place prize money to the Trent Tucker NonProfit Organization.
Jordan gained the chip lead early on the 85person field, which featured a lengthy list of fellow NBA greats such as Scottie Pippen, Charles
Oakley and Kevin Garnett along with a dozen
poker professionals including Johnny Chan,
Phil Hellmuth, and Greg Raymer. With Bravo’s
Celebrity Poker Host Phil Gordon announcing,
Jordan took home the final pot and first place
with pocket fives.
“It was a fantastic event. Everyone had a
great time and we raised a lot of money,” said
Trent Tucker who this year added the poker
tournament to his annual charitable golf outing
(www.trenttucker.org). “It was nice to partner
with a great team like Canterbury Park.”
“We were thrilled to host this amazing collection of celebrities and poker stars for a fun
evening, great cause, and exciting tournament”
said Randy Sampson, president of Canterbury
Park, which boasts the Midwest’s largest poker
room.
The tournament brought together the largest
collection of NBA stars and poker players ever
to compete in the same tournament, which was
viewed by over 500 spectators. Tournament
seats were available to the public for $2,500
with $2,000 going to the charity.
World Poker Store CEO Chuck Chastain,
whose organization recruited the star-studded
list of poker players for the tournament, stated,
“We are very proud to work with Trent Tucker
and Canterbury Park, and help make this happen for the Trent Tucker Youth Programs. It
was an exciting night for everyone who attended, and we are looking forward to building upon
this success next year.”
Bonnie Demos from the midwest, Gambler, poker player and
award winning chef, has enjoyed working in the gaming industry for the past several years. Write her at [email protected]
14
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
Natural Born Winners
river! D.J. Delboy could
only watch his own and his
partner’s elimination, helplessly from the rail without
so much as even touching
the cards.
Back over on our side of
the room, nervous teammates from both sides,
suddenly realised that
we, too, could share the
same fate. With people
cheering and laughter all
around, Gutshot owner,
Derek Kelly, leaned over
sideways with a narrowed
conspirator’s eye and whispered, “This is what it’s
all about… It’s the social
thing…” For an Irishman
playing for Gutshot against
his own countrymen, Derek
was doing his level best to
kid himself that winning
wasn’t an issue, but one
look at him and you knew
it was.
“Who’s your partner?” I
asked.
“Gutshot’s newest member, he replied proudly,
“Joined 20 minutes ago…
Bob the Butcher they call
him…he’s a pro from up
north!”
I smiled back, the smile
of a man too worried to
smile. It seemed like an
hour, but clock read 15
minutes. By the time we
eventually tagged, my partner Jim had seen five of
the nine flops and my heart
was sinking fast.
“How much do we have
left?” I asked
“Oh….about half!” Jim
replied with the air of a
nonchalant man, unaccustomed to being physically
assaulted by friends.
It was at this point I
realised the full ramifications of playing team poker
and how much fun and
anxiety it could generate,
as teammates cursed and
consoled each other and
bated the opposition at
every turn. All-ins attracted
‘standing room only’
crowds around the tables as
(Cont’d from page 13)
Gutshot Final Team “B”
players cheered each other
on, craning their necks just
to get a look at the board.
The noise was wonderful
and the camaraderie palpable.
By the time Jim and I got
to the final (and I’d love to
tell you it was ALL skill)
we’re close to chip lead
with only one Irish team
left to eliminate. The situation isn’t, however, as rosy
as it looks. It seems that
Gutshot faired poorly in the
early stages of the event
with Fitzwilliam doing better in the middle stages, on
the way to the final. If two
of our men fall before their
last man falls, it’ll be a win
for the Fitzwilliam Club
and they’ll be taking the
cup home to Dublin.
Thankfully, that didn’t
happen. The last Irish
team were eliminated and
Gutshot were declared
champions once more to a
roar of approval that could
easily be heard outside on
the streets of London. We
did, however, say a very
big thank you to all our
new-found friends from the
Fitzwilliam Club for putting up a great fight and
for being so sporting in
the face of such a narrow
defeat.
But defeat it was...all the
same…
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O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
15
Sam Mudaro is the...
Sam Mudaro, BA, MBA, is a practicing tax accountant and financial executive originally from New York with over 35 years of
analytical business expertise. He and his wife Eva are nineyear Las Vegas residents. Sam uses simulation software to
analyze and develop strategies for Omaha Hi/Lo and other
forms of poker. Reach Sam at: [email protected].
B
efore I attempt to
answer some of Henry’s
questions let me talk a about
the e-mails I receive. I appreciate all your support and all
your e-mails. I truly enjoy
answering the ones that ask
questions or pose a simulation. Not all of them are
answered in print for obvious
reasons. I do have a request.
When you pose a question or
describe a situation involving
your hand, please supply all
or at least enough information for me to set up a simulation. At minimum I need
the following:
2. If relevant, the exact
holdings of your opponent and not just the two
cards that beat you.
3. If relevant, the rank and
suit of the board cards.
A-2-K-K and a Flop of 3-4-5
3. You have a straight
which may win the high.
4. You have a draw to the
nut flush.
5. You have an inside draw
to a straight flush.
6. There are no pairs on the
board.
1. The rank and suite of all
your cards. Not just the
two winning or losing
cards or cards of interest.
1. The number of players
that started the hand or
how many you would like
the simulation to be run
with.
2. The stakes in which your
situation occurred or what
stakes you would like to
have it simulated at.
3. The type or texture of
the game. Was it a tight,
average or loose table?
It is impossible for me to
duplicate every factor such
as betting action. I am
able to control those listed
above.
Henry, As-2s-KsKf is a great starting hand.
It is ranked 74th out of
270,725! A great hand to
raise with before and after a
flop of 3s-4f-5s. After
that flop I would be hard
pressed to stop raising. If it
were no limit, I would be
all in unless I felt I could
get more money in the pot
by not pushing all in. Let’s
take a little inventory:
1. You have a made nut
low.
2. Your low cannot be
counterfeited.
The A-2-K-K with the given
flop is indeed a good hand.
It wins 68% of the time and
returns an average net win
of $91.04 in $10/20 game.
Interestingly, the A-2 suited
with two randomly dealt
cards given the same flop
actually performs better.
It wins 72% or 4% more
often and return $102.77 or
$10.96 more. The reason for
this is that you randomly
hit often enough some of
those 73 other better hands.
Remember you are still
guaranteed a portion of the
pot.
Looking at the K-K
with two randomly dealt
cards and the same flop the
results are much different.
The win rate drops to 5%
and the net falls to a loss of
$6.57.
Let’s take a quick look
at what hands you win with
and lose with and how and
when you win holding the
A-2-K-K with this flop.
The chart below shows
the high hands that win and
lose with this combination
of starting hands and flop.
You win with your straight
slightly over 31.5% more
then you lose with it. You
do lose with your flush over
6.5% of the time. This is
obviously not to a higher
flush but a different or to
a full house or better. Your
Well, Henry, I hope I
answered your questions,
and I thank you for your
input.
Getting back to the development of our point-count
system, last time we were
looking at the net win for
various non-suited A-2 starting hand combinations. I
mentioned then that the A-2
combined with a pair affords
us an excellent way to
evaluate the value of pairs.
This is attributable to the A2
being common to all hands.
In the chart below I compare
all the A-2 non-suited hands
that contain a pair and listed
the hands in their natural
order from low to high. In
this case I decided to set
the performance factor (PF)
equal to the net win rounded. One problem does exist.
The chart does not contain
a value for the A-A or A-2.
To resolve this issue, I plotted the values on a chart and
extended the graph in both
directions to derive a value
for the 2-2 and the A-A.
that profile under a different
name. By choosing the new
profile name the player will
play the new system. In order
to hold as much constant
as possible I used the same
profile to play 3 different
point-count systems in a tight
game. I ran 500,000 simulations using each. The results
are listed below. Note that
the only part of the pointcount system I changed was
the values assigned to pairs.
The count system labeled
“original” in the chart on
the left, is the original (K)
count system “out of the
box” assigned to profile
(20). I then took a different
existing count system, (I)
and assigned it to the same
profile, (20). Those results
are listed under the unaltered
caption. The purpose of this
was to be able to check the
results of profile 20, playing
count system K, I and the
16
Other information that
would be useful in duplicating the situation would be:
Hand
A-2-3-3
A-2-4-4
A-2-5-5
A-2-6-6
A-2-7-7
A-2-8-8
A-2-9-9
A-2-T-T
A-2-J-J
A-2-Q-Q
A-2-K-K
Net
Win
PF
8.25
5.34
3.70
1.59
(0.00)
0.08
2.43
6.68
8.91
11.66
17.19
8
5
4
2
2
7
9
12
17
The result of that extension assigned a value of 34
to the A-A and 12 to the 2-2.
See the chart to the right for
the rest of the values.
But now you say, OK,
Guru, but how do you know
your results hold water? The
answer is, I don’t, at least not
at this point. I do, however,
have a method of testing
these values. In Wilson’s
software you may enter your
own count system and then
assign it to a profile and save
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
Count System
Original (K)
Altered
Unaltered (I)
Win %
7.50%
8.00%
8.00%
There are 5 spades out,
leaving 8 in the deck. You
are not concerned if the
board pairs with the 4 of
spades so that you will
have the nuts on the turn
if any spade comes. There
are 8 spades and 45 unseen
c
AƄ2Ƅ
AƄ2Ƅ
X-X
KƄKƅ
X-X
KƄKƅ
Flop
3Ƅ4ƅ5Ƅ
3Ƅ4ƅ5Ƅ
3Ƅ4ƅ5Ƅ
Situation
Hands won with
Hands Lost with
Hands on the turn
Hands on the river
Net Win
0.10
0.13
0.09
Profit
49,052
64,231
44,595
LIMIT•••
Start with
$10,000 in chips
No rebuys, $100 buy-in, $20 entry fee
Club Caribe
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WP
68.20%
72.20%
5.30%
Net
91.04
102.77
(6.57)
opponents will complete
a better straight flush than
you less then 10% of the
time. More then half of
your straight flushes are
completed on the turn.
Straight
369,788
281,157
82,089
650,935
EVERY SUNDAY 7:00 PM
•••NO
cards. Your chance of hitting a spade on the turn is
1 in 5.63 or 17.8%. If you
don’t catch a spade on the
turn you have an 8 out of
44 chance on the river or 1
in 5.5 or 18.2%. The board
may pair with a 3, 4 or 5
on the turn. As mentioned
before, the 4s would be a
blessing in disguise. So that
leaves exactly 8 possible
cards to pair the board, (9-1
= 8). The math is exactly
the same as for you to catch
a spade.
The key thing to remember here is that your wheel
may not be the best straight.
You would still be a dog to
a 6 or 7 high straight.
The chart below shows
the results of dealing
1,000,000 rounds to the
hands indicated with the
given flop at a full tight
table.
Flush
262,898
18,526
157,148
281,424
St Flush
43,564
374
22,353
43,938
count system I modified. The
modified results are reported
on the “altered” line.
Next time I will expand
upon these results, disclose
the original point-count
systems for pairs and why I
decided to modify them in
the first place.
So what have we learned?
As-2s-Ks-Kf is certainly a great hand. You may
replace the K-K with two
random cards and improve
the net win. If you try replacing the A-2 with two random
cards you will take a great
hand and turn it into a loser.
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
17
$36 Sisters
STRAIGHT SKINNY
By RICHARD G. BURKE
My local poker room was jammed on a
Friday afternoon in summer. Under the
gun at a full $4-8 Hold’Em table, Fred peeked and saw
aQ-fQ. He raised, making it $8 to go. Five players
folded; the Cutoff and the Button called; the Small
Blind folded; the Big Blind called.
The dealer flopped aK-f7-s2. Fred led the betting
with $4, figuring that if anyone had a Set, Two Pairs,
or Kings, then she would raise and he would fold. None
raised; two called; the Big Blind folded.
The dealer burned and turned the a5. Although it
was possible that someone had an inside Straight draw
or a Flush draw, Fred thought those unlikely. Maybe his
hand was best. He again led the betting. Both called
the $8 bet.
The dealer burned and turned the ÐJ for this tableau,
aK-f7-s2-a5-fJ. Fred observed that a Straight and
a Flush weren’t possible. No one else had raised preFlop, so he discounted pocket Aces or Kings, and Big
Slick, leaving a Set, Two Pairs, or Kings as dangers.
Fred led the betting with $8; the Cutoff folded; the
Button raised. Fred paid him off. The Button showed
down dK-dJ, and Fred mucked his $36 Queens. “What
had he done wrong?” he asked.
We retired to a quiet area where Fred bought adult
beverages. Your early position, pre-Flop raise was
good, I told him, because you likely narrowed the field.
Instead of the usual five or more hopeful players paying to see the Flop, you had only three opponents.
When you hold the ‘Sorry Sisters,’ I told Fred, you
want neither an Ace nor a King on the Flop, a 59%
chance, as given by C(42,3)/C(50,3). You were a bit
unlucky that an overcard flopped.
Still, a King on the Flop was better than an Ace, I
told him. At low-limit Hold’Em most everyone plays
Ace-Any starts; fewer play King-Any starts. However,
they will call two bets cold with starting hands like
dK-d2, aK-sJ, and even fJ-aT. Even without overcards, a suited, connected, or paired Flop like a8-sJsT, or aK-dT-sT, would leave your Queens drawing
slim. Fred nodded.
Your post-Flop bet was okay, I said, because you
represented top Set, pocket Aces, or Big Slick. Your
first mistake was your plan to fold if raised. Even without Kings, an advanced player might raise to test your
strength, to slow you down, and/or to obtain a ‘free’
card on the Turn. My action would depend on who
raised.
Your next mistake was lead betting on the Turn.
Although you hate giving them a free card, they both
smooth-called your post-Flop bet with that King on the
tableau. You should assign them hands like Big Slick, a
weak King, or possibly aA-a7. With Kings being likely,
I would have checked the Turn and then mucked if an
opponent showed strength.
I too would have checked the River. If the Cutoff bet
and the Button called (or raised), then I would have
folded, because the Cutoff might have been bluffing, but not the Button. If the Cutoff checked and the
Button bet, then I would fold, call, or raise, based on
my read of the Button.
“Even heads-up pocket pairs are a coin toss against
two overcards, plus it’s rare to get heads-up before
the Flop at limit Hold’Em,” I said. “With overcards on
the tableau, bad position, and two or more opponents,
rather than lead bet, I look for reasons to muck.”
Mr. Burke is the author of Flop: The Art of Winning at
Low-Limit Hold ’Em, on sale at amazon, gamblersbook,
& kokopellipress.com. E-mail your Hold ’Em questions to
[email protected]
18
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
addict, a sobering drunkand-disorderly, a bad-tempered wife-beater, a crazy
homeless guy, a person of
questionable gender and
his and/or her pimp—are
becoming increasingly
unhappy with my endless
The crazy homeless guy,
who looks like he’d be more
than glad to bite my hand
off, asks, “Hey, lucky, what
you in here for?”
I look around the surly
losers and tell them the
truth, “Murder.” I don’t
Badly Beaten
plain about any cheating.
Detective Sweeney is
frowning, “The good news
for you is that you didn’t kill
‘Jessica Doe.’ The girl, whoever she was, was struck
and killed by a car racing
down the alleyway.”
Suddenly Sweeney breaks
out into a smile. “The good
news for me is that I get to
release you onto the street,
where someone other than
me wants you dead.”
I think about confessing
to something, anything, in
order to stay in the slammer.
Sweeney says, “I’ve just
dealt you a Get Out Of Jail
Free Card.” He opens the
door, “Get Out!”
tell them that, with some
winning streak. I usually
don’t cheat hand after hand. shotgun-wielding lunatic
calling himself “The Poker
That’s not smart. But I’m
Avenger” out to kill me, this
bored out of my mind just
is also “The Safest Place On
sitting
here
and
these
people
A Poker Player Murder Mystery by Robert Arabella
Earth.”
should be under arrest for
“Thayer! Jack Thayer!”
the
inability
to
play
poker.
I
cards
I’ve
withheld
the
A card thief by definicalls the guard. I leave the
am, though, thinking about
last ten hands, waiting for
tion breaks the law.
losing a hand quickly before game up fifty-five cigarettes.
Unfortunately for me, when a hand that will fit them.
When you tell people you’re
someone pulls out someAfter a couple of wins, I’m
“Jessica” ran through the
being held on a murder
thing sharp and I lose a
up thirty cigarettes. My
door, I could not break the
(To be continued in the next
charge, they tend not to comopponents—a shaking crack hand slowly.
law of physics that states
issue of Poker Player)
two objects cannot occupy
the same space at the same
time. The force of the crash
made me drop the Poker
Avenger’s chip. As the two
of us fell over, I watched the
chip disappear in the dark.
We fell, she and I, in a
lovers’ embrace, rolling
“I’m-on-top-you’re-on-top
” down the alley. I was
woozy when we stopped,
and woozier still when she
began to strangle me. “Give
me the chip!” she screamed,
squeezing on my throat with
all her might. “Give me the
damned chip!”
Manual strangulation is
an ugly way to die. Without
the free flow of air, a person will lose consciousness
within a minute and, for
me, that minute was up. I
lost consciousness. When I
came to, Detective Sweeney
asked, “Still alive?”
When I answered, “Yes,”
he said, “Good. Then you
can explain why she’s not.”
“Jessica,” my would-be
wife, lay like a stomped-todeath rag doll, at the end of
the alley. She looked very
badly beaten.
To a card cheat like me,
“The Happiest Place On
Earth” is a table full of
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Forget Disneyland. I’m
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is why I’ve just filled an
inside straight with two
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
19
Better Now?
D E B B I E B U R K H E A D I N T E RV I E WS . . .
POwer POKER PSYCHOLOGY
Mike Kassinger
By JAMES A. M C KENNA, P H D.
P O K E R R O O M M A N AG E R AT S U N S E T S TAT I O N
Anyone who has gotten their eyes examined is
used to these questions: “Better now? Or better
now?” It’s about which lens is more in focus to make the right
prescription. Focus is also a major issue in poker. Whether you
are new to the game or a seasoned professional, the ability to stay
focused is essential to success. There are essentially two kinds of
poker players—those who stay focused and those who don’t. This
can change even for professional poker players. Things in life can
be distracting and at times can take even the best player off his or
her game. So what else is important about staying focused?
Let’s put first things first. In Texas Hold’em being focused
means deciding what two hole cards to play. This not only involves
the value of the cards. It also means knowing how to read other
players. With some players, it is safe to play good cards with small
“kickers” in late position. With other players, this can be a disaster in a showdown.
Secondly, focus means paying attention to the “outs” and the
“odds” of each hand. For example, in early position with a small
pair (2’s, 3’s, or 4’s), the chance of being raised is high. Is it worth
two bets? And, then again, the odds of making trips on the flop
are 8% (or 11:1). So a focused player is more apt to lay down little
pairs in early position (or at least, if raised).
Concentration is the thing that cannot be lost if a player is
going to stay focused. Some players can do this but appear to be
distracted. Part of staying focused is the ability to concentrate of
what’s happening between you and your opponents. This includes
focusing on what others think you have, what they think you are
thinking, and what you think that they think that you are thinking.
Such thinking takes concentration—a gift not easily maintained by
the distracted.
If you are having difficulty maintaining focus at any given time,
it’s important to assess what might be undermining you. Staying
focused includes evaluating hands that you won as well as hands
that you lost. By such study, you can discover what could undermine you and correct it. Getting back in focus is as natural to the
game of poker as it is to a pair of binoculars. One of the ways that
players lose focus is to get stuck in the past. When a bad beat
happens or a player sucks out on you, it’s important to be able to
let the emotion go and get into the “now” for the present hand. If
you are not ready to do this, then take a break until you are.
Finally, players who can stay in focus have essential things
going for them. They know how to keep things simple and not
think themselves out of calling, raising, or folding. I recently saw
a great player, whose strength is figuring out other players’ moves,
think himself into a wrong move. His opponent with the worst hand
went all-in and after much self-talk, this player folded the best
hand. It simply amounted to the other player going all-in to get
the best hand to fold. Sometimes, it’s just that simple. Knowing
when it’s a move and when you are beat is a skill that comes from
years of practice.
The other essential thing that focused players have is their
race-horse ability to put the “blinders” on. They have the ability
to know when other players are bluffing and when they are not.
They are blind to attempts to intimidate them and will call big
raises at times. They are able to shape themselves by being attentive to subtle clues that unfocused players miss.
So, put your poker prescription to use for the best view in the
game. Stay focused and put
FIRST THINGS FIRST, pay attention to your
OUTS and ODDS,
CONCENTRATE, discover what is
UNDERMINING YOU, and
SHAPE yourself into a winner.
James A. McKenna, PhD., has been a practicing individual
and group therapist for over thirty-five years. His knowledge of human behavior combined with over thirty years of
gaming experience gives him a unique perspective on the
psychology of the gamer. His book, “Beyond Tells-Power
Poker Psychology,” was recently published by Kensington
Press. Write to him at [email protected].
20
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
A native of St. Petersburg,
Florida, Mike Kassinger
moved at the age of
five with his family to
Middletown, New Jersey,
where he grew up. For
most of his childhood he
attended Catholic schools,
graduating from Mater Dei
High School in 1973. He
completed his education
with two years at Seton Hall
University in South Orange,
New Jersey, then worked
for two years as a Manager
at Burger King before he
decided it was time for a
change.
He packed his bags and
moved to Las Vegas in
1977, where he thrived. He
landed a job as a shill at
the Silverbird while training to be a dealer. In 1982
he took a position dealing
poker at the Castaways and
five years later moved to
the Riviera, where within
a month he was promoted
to Supervisor. Leaving the
Riviera in 1988, he was
hired to deal poker at the
Sahara; there, too, within a
month he was promoted to
Supervisor.
Then in 1996 he moved
farther up the strip to
Hurrahs as a combination
Dealer/Supervisor until the
poker room closed in 2001.
After the closing Mike
took a six-month sabbatical. When he came back, he
took a dealing position at
Texas Station and within a
month he was once again
promoted to Supervisor.
This year Mike Doe,
Cardroom Manager of the
Red Rock, and Mike opened
a dealers’ school for two
months to train poker dealers for the new room at
Red Rock. When the room
opened in April, Kassinger
was appointed Day Shift
Supervisor.
In September Mike
was appointed Cardroom
Manager of Sunset Station,
where he oversees a ninetable cardroom and a staff
of 27.
appointment as Cardroom
Manager?
MK: We are in the process
of upgrading and improving the quality of the room.
We are also planning some
major changes in the near
future but nothing I can
reveal at this time.
DB: What is your main
goal as the new Cardroom
Manager at Stations?
MK: I intend to bring the
room back to what it was
in the past, the friendliest
poker room in Las Vegas. I
hope to rebuild our database
and revive our clientele. I
would like to invite players
to come by and meet me.
DB: What live games can
players expect to have
spread at Sunset Station?
MK: We spread $3-$6
limit hold’em, $3-$6 and
$4-$8 limit hold‘em with a
half kill and a $1-$3 blind
no-limit game, with a $100
minimum and $300 maximum buy-in. We will be
bringing back several other
games as well, $6-$12 limit
hold’em, $3-$6 Omaha
high, and the $2-$5 blind
no-limit with a $200 minimum and $500 maximum
buy-in.
DB: What daily tournaments
does Sunset offer its poker
players?
MK: We run tournaments
TUSCANY
Suites & Casino
seven days a week. On
Mondays at 10 a.m. we hold
a $35 buy-in limit event.
Players receive $1,000 in
chips and there are no rebuys.
On Tuesdays at 10 a.m. we
hold a $35 buy-in Omaha
high event. Players receive
$1,000 in chips and there
are no rebuys. Wednesdays
through Sundays the events
are no-limit with a $50 buyin and the players receive
$2,000 in chips. There are
no rebuys and we accept
alternates for the first hour.
We also hold a Ladies limit
hold’em event at 3 p.m. on
the second Sunday and last
Sunday of each month. The
buy-in is $50, players receive
$1,500 in chips and there are
no rebuys.
DB: Do you offer any freerolls or qualifying events?
MK: Yes, Stations is
famous for its Poker Plus
event that draws upwards
to 2600-2700 players with
a prize pool of $500,000.
The qualifying period for
the upcoming event on
October 21 ran from June
26-September 26. Players
need 75 hours of live play
to qualify. The event is held
at Texas Station and anyone
who shows up is guaranteed
no less than $100. There are
four flights on Saturday with
the remaining players coming back on Sunday to play
255 E. Flamingo Road
Las Vegas, Nevada
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Friendliest Poker Room in Town
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Must be 21 years of age or older. Management reserves all rights.
DB: What changes have
you made since your
See Tuscany Poker Room for Rules and Details on all Promotions
P
oker in Sweden has
exploded in recent
years. Judging by
the enthusiastic response
below from several managers involved with Casino
Cosmopol, it’s one of the
best places to play when
visiting Europe.
Gambling has an interesting history in Sweden. Back
in the year 1020, so the
legend goes, Sweden’s King
Olaf and Norway’s King
Olaf (no relation) rolled
dice to decide ownership of
a district. The Swedish Olaf
rolled two 6s. The other
king rolled a 6 on one die,
but Norway Olaf’s other die
broke, showing a 7.
Sweden has an ancient
card game called Skitgubbe,
played three-handed. Its
likely origin is Finland, and
is called Myllymatti there
– and is called Mattis in
Norway. It’s a trick-based
first casino in Sweden
opened. Casino Cosmopol
Sundsvall was the first,
and since then, Casino
Cosmopol has expanded to
three additional locations,
all of which offer poker.
There have been several top poker players
from Sweden. Erik Friberg
made the final table of the
WSOP this year, finishing 8th. William Thorsson
finished 13th in the same
event, and also cashed in a
side event at the 2005 WPT
LA Poker Classic, taking fifth. Peter Lindstrom
won the Everest Poker
European Championship in
September. Martin de Knijff
won the WPT Five-Star
World Poker Classic back
in Season 2, winning a cool
$2.7 million. And that’s
just the tip of the iceberg.
Bottom line – if you’re facing down a Swedish player
“Fixed limit from 50/100
(SEK) and pot limit and no
limit from 50/50. At present, 100/100 pot limit is the
highest played, although
we offer higher limits (up
to 500/500). The opening
hours of the casino are 1
p.m. until 4 a.m., all days of
the year. The poker room is
open for cash games from
8 p.m., and tournaments
usually start at 6 p.m. Cash
games are offered 7 days
a week, but Wednesday
to Sunday are the most
popular days. Mondays are
coming up, but on Tuesdays
there is usually no game.
Tournaments are held on
Mondays, Wednesdays and
Sundays – 30 to 50 seats.”
(Note: 1 SEK or Swedish
Krona = $0.13.)
When asked how
business was at Casino
Cosmopol Malmö,
Hagström responded: “It is
coming up more and more
as interest is expanding. We
have had a good development of our poker room
over the last years, and we
are actively working on
improvements to meet the
demands.”
Speaking of popularity:
“The demand has increased
a lot,” Hagström says.
“When the poker room
first opened we offered
only Texas Hold’em fixed
limit, and since 2002, we
have offered Omaha/dealers
choice pot limit, and now,
as of October 7, No-Limit
as well. Our tournaments
are also getting more popular. On Mondays, we have
Poker Rooms in Sweden
# ON
MAP
CASINO
LOCATION
OPEN
HOURS
# OF
TABLES
GAMES
NL?
HIGH
LIMITS
TOURNAMENT
BUY-IN
S/
NS
HOTEL
8-15
H, O,
7, L,
RbyR
Y
400/400
SEK
1000-20800
SEK
B
N
1
Casino Cosmopol
Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Sun-Thu
6:30p4a;
Fri-Sat
5:30p4a
2
Casino Cosmopol
Malmö
Malmö
7 days
6p-4a
5
H, O,
7, L,
RbyR
Y
100/100
SEK
1000-20800
SEK
B
N
3
Casino Cosmopol
Stockholm
Stockholm
7 days
6p-5a
10+
H, O,
7, L,
RbyR
Y
300/600
SEK
5000-25900
SEK
B
N
4
Casino Cosmopol
Sundsvall
Sundsvall
7 days
6p-4a
6-15
H, O,
7, L,
RbyR
Y
300/600
SEK
1000-20800
SEK
B
N
Note: 1 SEK = $0.13
S/NS – Poker room allows smoking (S), non-smoking (NS) or both (B)
Days open, hours of operation, games offered and tables may vary
game where players collect
cards in one phase, and then
get rid of them in the second phase. The last player
left with cards is called the
skitgubbe, or goat.
On June 30, 2001, the
in a major event, odds are
he’ll be a good one.
“We offer: Texas
Hold’em, Omaha, 7-Card
Stud, and Dealer’s Choice,”
says Karin Hagström of
Casino Cosmopol Malmö.
low buy-in tournaments,
which are extremely popular, and the interest for our
higher ones is usually very
good. We can see that people in general are willing to
put in more money on poker
than before, and the sizes of
the pots are getting bigger.”
Though the big poker
tours haven’t yet taken
notice of poker in Sweden,
the country is not without
its share of major events.
“No WSOP, WPT or EPT as
yet; hopefully in the years
to come,” says Hagström.
“We had our annual tournament, Malmö Open, played
for the second year, in June
2006, with a prize pool of
1,800,000 SEK. This year in
October (10-15), we are the
host for the Swedish Open
poker tournament - an event
that has been held in Casino
Cosmopol in Gothenburg
ting bigger and bigger. We
have been struggling the
past year to find a place for
all of our players. The new
poker room was warmly
welcomed by the players
and staff.”
Korpela goes into more
detail about the poker
explosion in Stockholm.
SWEDEN
By Steve Horton
and Stockholm in previous
years. Two hundred seats
with buy-in 20,000+800
SEK, played October 1314. There will be a super
satellite, a No-Limit Texas
Hold’em freezeout, a PotLimit Omaha rebuy, plus a
team tournament on the last
day. For further information
about the Swedish Open,
please check our website:
www.casinocosmopol.se.
“Our ambition is, of
course, to establish Casino
Cosmopol internationally, with a competent and
high-standard poker room.
We offer Texas Hold’em
(fixed limit, no limit and pot
limit), Omaha (pot limit),
7-Card Stud, and Dealers
Choice (pot limit), with
Texas Hold’em and Dealers
Choice being the most popular games played,” says
Tiina Korpela, the former
poker manager at Casino
Cosmopol Stockholm and
now the poker manager for
all four Casino Cosmopol
casinos in Sweden; she
refers to the Stockholm
casino in this interview.
“Pot limit 200/200 SEK,
No limit 200/200 SEK and
fixed limit 300/600 SEK,”
Korpela says when asked
about high limits at Casino
Cosmopol Stockholm.
“Limits higher than this
might run during special
tournament weeks. The
poker room is open daily
from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m.
During special events, the
poker room opens at 1
p.m.”
Business is good in
Stockholm, according to
Korpela. “It just keeps get-
“From having one weekly
tournament for 30 players in
2003, the number has gone
up to 80 seats, four times a
week. These tournaments
are constantly sold out and
divided into two categories:
ranking tournaments and
‘beginners’ tournaments.
Ranking tournaments are
both re-buy and freezeout
tournaments, and the games
and buy-ins vary. Ranking
tournaments often create
prize pools up to 200,000
SEK. The ‘beginners’
tournaments are No-Limit
freezeouts with 500 SEK
and 1000 SEK buy-ins.”
Stockholm also has
several major poker
events – it appears there
are plenty to go around
Sweden! “Stockholm’s
annual international poker
tournament is Nordic
Masters, played at the end
of March or beginning of
April.” Korpela says. “This
tournament is the biggest
event in Sweden, creating prize pools considered
high by European standards. Stockholm has even
hosted the Swedish Open
Championships, and plans
to do that even in the future,
as the interest from players
has been enormous. Three
to four times a year, Poker
Weekends are offered: this
includes a two-day NoLimit Texas Hold’em freezeout with a 10,000 SEK
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
21
PLAN B
POKER COUNSELOR
By John Carlisle, MA, NCC
The football coach had a well thoughtout game plan. The team had practiced
an entire set of plays all week long. They thought they
knew exactly how their opponents would play. By halftime the coaching staff knew it was time to scrap the
initial game plan. They were being outplayed and outcoached. Their opposition was tossing schemes at them
that they had never anticipated. They had to change
everything they had planned on in quick fashion. If they
did not execute a successful plan “B” in a hurry, they
were doomed to lose the game.
I think that way too many poker players have one
plan and one gear. They find it nearly impossible to
adjust their style, their pace, and their mindset. They
fail to realize how imperative it is to make adjustments on the fly, much like a football coach changing
the game plan as the game unfolds. Due to their stubbornness and inflexibility, they suffer frustration time
and time again. They may survive a few blind levels
in a tournament, only to run into trouble and bust out
before the bubble. They may spike a quick profit at the
start of the playing session, only to leak the chips back
as the time passes. Sticking to their guns causes them
to “stick” to a losing pattern.
Over the course of a single playing session, we
have to be prepared to be a poker chameleon. We
have to adjust to the table conditions to produce optimal results. Within a short time you could go from a
supremely aggressive to an extremely tight style of
play. You could work to badger an opponent into a call
one minute and then play the role of a meek and passive individual the next. You have to find any way you
can to extract chips from the stacks of those around
the table. Playing the game does not simply involve
playing the dealt cards. Use your adaptability as a
weapon.
You can even shift to plan B within the flow of an
individual hand. Many players map out their actions in
a hand too early. They plan to execute a bluff on the
Turn even before the actions on the Flop have run their
course, and then, when the Turn does not bring a card
favorable to pulling off the bluff, the player pulls the
trigger anyway. Other times we plan to slow-play our
Aces and attack after the Flop. When a player bets and
another raises before you get a chance to act, it may
be time to change the plans immediately. Single-minded
poker is losing poker. If you cannot continually reevaluate a hand in progress and change your direction, you
will be on the rail in short order.
If you find that you are not reaching your optimal
poker potential, look inward to see if you are too rooted
on plan “A.” Are you like a stubborn football coach who
refuses to adapt his playbook during the game? Can
you adapt and enact plan B to take advantage of a table
bully? Can you change gears to match up against a tight
table trying to cruise into the money? Can you put the
brakes on within a single hand to fold when you were initially intending to fire a bluff? Single-tracked minds are
losing minds when it comes to this complicated game.
Things literally change with each moment that passes.
If you cannot change with it, you’ll be sure to leave the
game with a broken spirits and empty pockets.
Now go make it happen.
In addition to being an avid poker enthusiast, John is a
certified Counselor in the state of Pennsylvania. He has
a Master of Arts degree in Counseling from West Virginia
University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a
minor in Sociology from Lock Haven University.
You can ask the “Poker Counselor” your
question at [email protected].
22
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
Going Down
Under
A Joe & Hobby fiction by
David J. Valley
obby, have you
forgotten the
tournament at Commerce
tonight?”
“Not a problem, Joe. We’ll
be back in plenty of time.
Just sit back and relax while
we put Lazybuns through a
little sea trial. I’ll even fix
you a margarita,” Hobby
said.
That sold me. “How long
will this excursion last?” I
asked.
“Couple hours. We’ll head
up to the Channel Island at
about three-quarter speed
and then open her up on the
way back.”
Hobby’s mechanic, Mike,
who was aboard, had done
some work on the big diesel that powers the yacht.
Hobby wanted to test its performance.
I was on the bridge and
into my second margarita
when we made the turn and
headed south. I could feel
the surge as Hobby upped
the throttle. “Hey, Hobby,
there’s a ship or something
on the horizon, just off the
port bow.
“Yeah, I see it. I’ll check
the radar,” he said as he
turned it on. “It’s about 4000
yards out. I’ll keep my eye
on it. I don’t think we’ll
intercept it.”
I watched the blip for
several minutes and said,
“Doesn’t look like it’s moving.”
“Probably a fishing boat at
anchor,” Hobby suggested.
As we got closer I said, “It
looks like one end is sinking
and then other end is up out
of the water.”
“Joe! That’s exactly what
it is,” Hobby said as he
altered course and went full
throttle.
“Mike,” Hobby hollered
into the intercom, “come to
the bridge immediately—
Joe, I’ll give the con to Mike
while we take a look!”
Hobby and I were at the
rail as we came alongside the
fast sinking vessel. “There’s
probably someone aboard,
Joe. I’ll take a look.”
“It’s too late, Hobby. It
“H
will be under in ….” Hobby
jumped overboard and began
swimming toward the sinking vessel. “Seconds,” I said
to myself.
Mike was watching from
the bridge and maneuvered
the yacht in close. There
was very little left of the
other craft above the water
when Hobby reached it. He
dove under. A minute or
so later he came up for air
and said, “Someone’s down
there. Have a line ready.” He
abruptly disappeared again.
The entire boat was under
water now.
It was a couple agonizing
minutes before Hobby’s head
broke the surface. Panting he
said, “I’ve got him,” as he
tugged a body to the surface.
I tossed the line and
Hobby secured it around
himself and his passenger
who appeared to be unconscious.
After we got them on
deck Hobby rolled over the
limp body of a man onto his
face and lifted him by his
waist. “Make sure his mouth
is open, Joe.” When I spread
his jaws water gushed out.
“Did he drown, Hobby?”
“No. But he probably
swallowed some water on
the way to the surface. The
cabin was watertight until
I opened the hatch. He was
lying on the floor covered
with blood.”
I noticed a wound on the
man’s head and traces of
blood.
“Mike,” Hobby shouted to
the bridge, “top speed back
to the marina!”
The man had a pulse and
was breathing irregularly,
but showed no sign of consciousness. I carried him into
the salon and laid him on
the sofa while Hobby got on
his satellite phone and made
arrangements for an ambulance to meet us.
“What do you make of it,
Hobby?”
“Weird, Joe. A lot of
questions. Like, was there
anyone else aboard? And,
how did the guy get his head
smashed?”
“Yeah,” I added, “and
what caused the boat to
sink?”
Hobby was quiet for a
moment, then said, “It could
have been a bow collision
that the skipper never saw
coming. He was probably propelled forward and
smashed his head into the
console.”
“Good theory, Hobby,” I
said as I pondered another
question. “But, if that’s what
happened, what did he collide with?”
“Jeez, Joe, there could be
another boat on the bottom. I
better report this to the Coast
Guard.”
Hobby turned from the
phone and called to me.
“Joe, check and see if there’s
any ID on him.”
I went through the guy’s
Caro’s Word: “Rent”
CONT’D FROM PAGE 8
you might be able to outplay more sensible opponents, but you won’t be able
to overcome the rake.
So, we’ve learned that in
rent games, where you pay
by the hour, the half hour,
or even by the hand, you
can play as if there were
no rent at all. Marginally
good hands are OK. But in
rake games, where the winner of the pot is penalized,
you need to be much more
selective about the hands
you enter pots with. And
we’ve learned that it’s silly
to complain about smalllimit rake games being too
loose to beat. The only way
you’re going to overcome
the rake is if they are loose.
This is “The Mad Genius
of Poker” Mike Caro and
that’s my secret today.
Mike Caro is widely
regarded as the world’s
foremost authority on
poker strategy, psychology,
and statistics. A renowned
player and founder of Mike
Caro University of Poker,
Gaming, and Life Strategy,
he is known as “the Mad
Genius of Poker,” because
of his lively delivery of concepts and latest research.
You can visit him at www.
poker1.com.
Tunica Grand’s WSOP Circuit
3. Glyn Banks AKA “Rachet” . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$94,445
Smithville, TN, USA
4. Harold Mahaffey AKA
“Big Daddy” . . . . . . . .$75,556
Anderson, SC, USA
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Jody Stanfill . . . . . . . .$56,667
Jae C Chang . . . . . . . .$47,223
Hoyt Lance . . . . . . . . .$37,778
Ryan Lenaghan . . . . .$28,334
Ronald Huerkamp . . .$18,889
Nursing Student
Beats Writer to Win
WSOP Tunica Ladies
Championship
Christie Parham, a Little
Rock, Arkansas nursing
student in her junior year,
and Sharla Lehrmann, a
poker tournament writer
for PokerPages.com,
engaged in a lengthy
heads-up battle with several chip lead changes.
Eventually, Parham got
all the chips, a $15,330
payday and a striking gold
pendant verifying her
ladies championship status
for winning the $200 nolimit ladies event.
This was the second
time a nurse, or an aspiring
nurse, had won an event
in this WSOP Circuit tournament at Grand Casino
Tunica. In event number
two, $500 no-limit, surgery
nurse Angel Word placed
first and won $75,944.
Parham’s nickname is
“Nochie,” which is short
for “dominocious,” which
in turn refers to dominoes,
a reference to her status as
a domino queen. (That’s
the game of dominoes, not
dominatrix, by the way.)
Lehrmann came to
Tunica to provide coverage
for the three-day, $5,000
championship event that is
up next, but also decided
to play in the ladies event
because she needed a
break.
This was the first WSOP
win for Parham, who also
won a no-limit event at the
Isle of Capri the first time
she played a tournament.
She plays two tournaments
a month, either at Tunica
or the Isle of Capri, and
enjoys watching poker on
TV for entertainment. Her
style of play? “Just like
Daniel Negreanu. I love
to see flops. Basically, I’ll
call with almost any two
cards.”
WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT
EVENT #8
10/1/06
LADIES - NO LIMIT
HOLD’EM
BUY-IN $200 + $30
PLAYERS 247
PRIZE
POOL
$49,400
1. Christy Parham . . . . .$15,330
Little Rock, AR, USA
2. Sharla Lehrmann . . . . . $8,434
Austin, TX, USA
3. Paula Holder . . . . . . . . . $4,313
Lighthouse Point, FL, USA
4.
.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Connie Rice . . . . . . . . . . $3,354
Carolyn Starnes . . . . . . $2,875
Stephanie Zimmerman $2,396
Esther Fedorkevich . . . $1,917
Nguyet Lee . . . . . . . . . . $1,438
Sarah Pritchard . . . . . . . $958
Ex-Dealer Andy Alina
Slow-Plays His Way to
Win in $1,500
No-Limit
The conventional wisdom in poker is that you
shouldn’t slow-play pocket
aces because doing so can
get you in a lot of trouble.
Andy Alina, a former dealer
at the Gold Strike, ignored
that advice, trapped a player
into going all in, and ended
up raking in a pot of over
180,000 that gave him a
chip lead he would never
relinquish. He went on
to win the seventh event
of the WSOP Circuit tour
at Grand Casino Tunica,
$1,500 no-limit hold’em,
for a payday of $106,161,
his biggest by far to date.
Alina is testing the
waters before deciding
whether to play poker professionally. He’s had two
other tournament cash-outs
in no-limit events this year,
but his game of choice is
pot-limit Omaha.
Second finisher Corrado,
is a 75-year-old Florida
retiree originally from
Chicago, and has been playing poker for half a century,
and took home $58,386.
Alina, who lives in
Hernando, MS, won
$23,901 for a secondplace finish at the Gold
Strike’s World Poker
(Cont’d from page .11)
Open Event this year, and
also had a $10,000 cash
in the Oklahoma State
Championships.
WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT
EVENT #7
9/30/06
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
BUY-IN $1,500 + $70
PLAYERS 228
PRIZE
POOL
$331,740
1. Melandro Alina AKA
“Andy” . . . . . . . . . . . .$106,161
Hernando, MS, USA
2. Ed Corrado . . . . . . . . .$58,386
Naples, FL, USA
3. James Williams . . . . . .$29,857
Clarksdale, MS, USA
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Alan Barnes . . . . . . . . .$23,222
Todd Phillips . . . . . . . .$19,904
Rogen Chhabra . . . . .$16,587
John Davis . . . . . . . . . .$13,270
Joe Choy Simmons . . . $9,952
James Henson . . . . . . . . $6,635
John Gordon Knocks
Out 8 Players And
Romps to $1,000 NoLimit Win
John Gordon, a 43-year-old
real estate investor, was a
THERE’S MORE... ONLINE! NOW THE #1 POKER WEBSITE!
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
23
LESSON 86:
An Interview With Mike Caro About Poker
Lessons from mike caro
university of poker
BY DIANE M C HAFFIE
As part of my MCU training, I asked
Mike if I could interview him from
time to time. Today’s interview
focuses on the psychology of poker.
DM: You mentioned that until
recently psychology hasn’t played a
major role in many of the top players’ arsenal of weapons against their
opponents. Evidently with the continued popularity of your Caro’s Book
of Tells, and your many seminars,
you’ve tried to convince them how
important psychology is to poker.
First, do you agree that there has
been a change in how players regard
psychology as part of their weaponry? Second, if you do agree, what do
you think has caused this change?
MC: I agree that, after 30 years of
denial, many top pros are grudgingly
acknowledging that poker psychology is more important than previously
believed. There are two main reasons. One, oddly, is Internet poker.
That sounds strange, because on
the Internet you can’t act in physical
ways that will influence opponents
to call or fold.
Players can’t see each other. As a
consequence, they don’t have many
opportunities to gain extra income
by social exchanges and reading
tells. So, how has that made poker
players more accepting of the value
of psychology in poker? Simple.
In the Internet poker arena, skillful players become more cognizant
of what they would like to do, but
can’t. Maybe if they could produce
that perfect, whimsical smile at this
moment, the opponent might feel
conned and decide to make a weak
call. But online, the best you can do
is type fast and say, “Call me.”
DM: Since you’re unable to see your
opponents’ faces online, you can’t
choose the right words to bring
about the reactions that you might
hope for. That’s an important factor,
correct?
MC: Yes. Maybe typing, “Don’t call
me,” would be better, but you don’t
really know, because you can’t watch
your opponent and make an educated guess about what psychological warfare to use. Besides, maybe
your opponent isn’t paying attention
to what you type. Psychology isn’t
a powerful tool, like it is in the real
world. They wish they could manipulate their opponents in real-world
ways.
And it’s the fact that they can’t
that underscores what’s missing.
You’ve heard the saying, you don’t
know what you have until it’s gone.
Well, playing online poker and not
24
being able to save a
pot or win an important
call, using psychology,
is a good example of realizing what
you had because now it’s gone.
DM: Are strong players the only
one’s who are aware that psychology
is absent from online poker?
MC: No. Some weak players probably realize that they’re safer online,
because they can’t be psychologically manipulated and strong opponents can’t read their tells. Players
who are weak at reading opponents
and guiding them toward wrong decisions benefit most online. It takes
away the advantage of those who
have these skills. Some of those
weak opponents must recognize
this and feel more comfortable and
confident. In doing so, they also realize that psychology is much more
important than they previously
thought.
DM: You said there were two things
that contributed to the renewed
realization that poker psychology is
important. What’s the other one?
MC: Television. We see players –
even world-class ones – ponder when
an astute opponent says something.
Those who previously thought that
big-league poker players were impervious to manipulation can now point
to contrary instances. So, televised
poker also stresses the importance
of psychology.
DM: Psychology matters least
among top players and most when a
strong player is manipulating a weak
one. Isn’t that right?
MC: Yes and no. Yes, because in
the real world of poker, most profit
is made from weak opponents.
And when you read their tells or
maneuver them into making especially weak calls, you win a lot more
money. No, because in the toughest
games, tactical poker skills tend to
be fairly even. About the only thing
that will make a dramatic difference
in long-range overall profit is a superior understanding of poker psychology and tells.
DM: Thanks for the interview. You’ve
given me and my readers a lot to
ponder.
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
Diane McHaffie is Director of Operations
at Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming,
and Life Strategy. Her diverse career
spans banking, promotion of major financial seminars and the raising of Whitetailed Deer. You can write her online at
[email protected].
buy-in, and longer opening
hours at the poker room.
Unless a Poker Weekend
or international event is
running, a 5000 SEK NoLimit freezeout will be
offered monthly. In 2005
Stockholm hosted one of
the first Swedish TV tournaments, the Swedish Poker
Challenge,” she said.
Korpela believes in
the future of poker in
Stockholm. “It’s hard to
say how much more it can
grow. Right now it seems
like we are able to offer the
tournaments and games the
majority is looking after. I
believe Nordic Masters will
be attracting an even bigger
group of international players in the future. One thing
is sure: poker has become
a major part of the casino
business in Stockholm.”
“We offer: Texas
Hold’em, Omaha, 7-Card
Stud and Dealer’s Choice,”
says Niklas Johansson,
duty manager at Casino
Cosmopol, referring to
the Gothenburg casino.
“The most frequent limits are as follows: Fixed
limit: 50/100, 100/200, and
200/400 SEK, buy in 20 x
Big Blind; Pot limit: 20/20,
50/50, 100/100 and 200/200
SEK, buy in 50 x Big Blind;
No Limit: 50/50, min buy
in: 1000 / max 5000 SEK;
100/100: min Buy in: 2000
/max 10,000 SEK; 200/200:
min buy in: 5000 / max
20,000 SEK; 400/400: min
buy in: 10,000 / max 40,000
SEK. The poker room is
open daily for cash games,
Sunday to Thursday, 6:30
p.m. to 4 a.m., and Friday
to Saturday 5:30 p.m. to
4 a.m. Tournaments are
Sunday to Thursday, starting
at 6:30 p.m.”
Johansson is positive
about business at Casino
Cosmopol Gothenburg:
“Good. The interest is still
growing and we see new
players in the poker room
every day.”. He adds, “We
now also offer complimentary poker packages for
beginners. We have gone
from tournaments three days
a week to five, and with the
possibility to buy-in over
the Internet at our website.
We went from five cash
game tables to eight in our
poker room. Recently, we
started to offer lower limits
at a 20/20 pot, and we also
started to offer a No-Limit
cash game.”
As for special events
at Gothenburg, Johansson
mentions the 4th Annual
Christmas Poker Week
event, from December 2530, a big poker event which
culminates in a two-day,
20,800 SEK buy-in freezeout. “I think more and more
people will choose to play
live poker,” Johansson says.
What is Rakeback?
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D
anny Robison’s an
every day regular
in the stud game
at LA’s Commerce Club
Casino. He’ll occasionally take a break from the
Commerce to join Hustler
publisher Larry Flynt’s
big poker game where the
limits can get up to fourand eight-thousand. And
on Wednesday night at the
showed only limited interest
in Robison’s explanation of
events but eventually they
said they’d drop all charges
if only Robison would tell
them the identity and location of his friend. Robison
stares the cops down, saying
to him, “What friend?”
ahead of them on the day
on a day in the early 1970s
when Reese called Robison
in Ohio and suggested he
get himself out to Phoenix
because the gin rummy
action would make the trip
worthwhile. (Robison had a
reputation at that time as one
of the hottest gin players in
the country.)
Robison went out to
PLAYER
DANNY
BY PHIL HEVENER
Robison
Profile
Commerce, the 61-yearold Robison never misses
the Bible study group
that is a must with this
self-described born-again
Christian, who says he has
given up drugs and booze,
but not poker.
His present life is a long
way from those wild and
crazy days of 35-40 years
ago in the Dayton, Ohio,
area when getting out of
town in a hurry seemed
like an example of sound
career planning. Dayton was
where Robison had done his
early gambling and hustling
before and after his stint at
Ohio University.
Robison’s problem was
that the local law wanted
him to bend . . . bend his
sense of right and wrong
enough to tell them who
was the big man behind the
poker Robison was regularly
running. “I looked after the
game for this fella when he
wasn’t there and was taking
his cut for him.”
The cops wanted
Robison’s friend and one
night sent an undercover
agent into the game. “The
guy got broke pretty quick,”
Robison says, “and wanted
to pawn his gun.” Robison
took the gun, emptied the
bullets out, put them in one
pocket and the pistol in
another. But as he quickly
realized, what he should
have done was throw it out
the window.
Minutes later, the cops
charged in, slapping Robison
with a gambling charge and
for carrying a concealed
weapon, to wit: the undercover agent’s gun. They
Time went by, and there
were other arrests, because
the cops were not going to
give up pressing Robison
for names and places.
Several arrests later and with
Robison finally staring at a
year or so in jail, Robison’s
attorney works out a plea
deal Danny figures he’d
better grab while he can. It
would keep him out of jail,
but it also requires that he
leave Dayton for greener
pastures elsewhere.
As luck would have
it, this is about the time
that his longtime friend
David “Chip” Reese calls
from Phoenix, where he
was working a sales job
between his graduation from
Dartmouth and his expected
enrollment in law school.
Reese and Robison had
met on a putting green
because a passion for golf
was one of the things they
both had in common.
Neither of them had any reason to assume their relationship, that began on an Ohio
golf course, would lead to
one of the most interesting
partnerships the poker business has ever known.
Robison has a seven-card
stud bracelet from the 1995
World Series of Poker in
addition to several cashes
in other major tournaments
such as the Super Bowl of
Poker. Reese is one of the
most respected cash game
players ever to slide into a
big money game anywhere,
But all this was still
Poker Player is pleased to welcome Phil Hevener back to its pages.
Hevener was the Managing Editor of Poker Player from July 1983 to
December 1985. Phil wanted to produce his own publication, which he
did with Larry Hall. They called it, “Las Vegas Style.” A popular journalist who writes for many major publications, Phil was replaced in 1985 by
Gary Thompson, who is now the spokesman for Harrahs Entertainment.
Phoenix, found the action
Reese had pointed to and
ended up beating a guy for
$10,000 who paid him off
with a hot check. Years later
that memory rates an oh well
kind of laugh.
And that was enough of
Phoenix, so far as Robison
was concerned, but since he
was already in the neighborhood he decided to head up
the highway to Las Vegas,
where he figured to take a
shot at some of the poker
action. Maybe even play
some gin.
“In Vegas,” he says, “I got
offered a deal by this guy
who would pay me to play
gin rummy with all the tourists walking around looking
for some action.” Robison
and his backer talked about
other things Robison might
like to do while he was in
the gambling capital of the
world and Robison says,
“Well, the truth is I play
poker pretty good. Matter of
fact, I think I’m about the
best in the world . . .”
“The guy laughed at me,”
telling him to get rid of that
kind of thinking. “He said
these are all pros out here in
Las Vegas.” Robison shoots
him a look that says, So?
“I decided I wanted a
piece of whatever poker
had to offer,” Robison says
now, remembering how it
all went down. The backer
thinks about that and finally
says, “Tell you what, I’ll
loan you ten-thousand based
on your gin rummy ability
and you can go ahead and
play poker on your own.”
“I got excited” Robison says,
“because that was a lot of
money then back, in, oh . .
. it was probably late 1972,
maybe early 1973.”
He called Reese and told
him about the deal, urging
his friend to get up to Vegas
so they could play poker.
“I knew Chip could play. I
taught him some of what I
knew and Chip being a very
smart man learned a lot on
his own. Why don’t you
come out here, I told him.
We’ll split everything down
the middle, take turns playing poker and take the town
for a lot of money.”
That was the way Robison
had it figured and that’s
pretty much the way it happened. The big games of
that time with the four- and
eight-hundred-dollar limits
were a bit rich for them in
the beginning, but Robison
decided they could do nicely
with the thirty-sixty and the
fifty and a hundred limits as
they worked on building a
bankroll.
“We just sort of took the
town by storm,” Robison
remembers. “We were winning every time we played.
I think we lost just one time
in the first three and a half
months we played . . .
We just beat it, beat it, beat
it.” Things were going well,
as they played mostly 20-40
and 30-60 limits with occasional forays to higher limits
as they built a bankroll of
more than forty-thousand.
But one problem eventually reached up to grab him
around the throat: Robison
was developing a cocaine
habit that haunted him
much of the next decade
until 1984. “Which is when
I became a Christian.” He
needed some kind of helping hand. “Because when
you’re smoking the stuff
like I was you’re just a gone
cookie.”
Robison struggled to
keep a lid on things so we
could win enough to support his habit. He did that
with some success because,
“I was pretty much the best
stud player around at that
time.” Robison stuck to stud
as Reese was using their
joint bank roll to try other
games such as high-low split
and razz.
They built their bankroll
to about sixty thousand
and then one day Reese
calls his partner. He was
excited, explaining that he
was watching a four- and
eight-hundred straight high
low split game with – get
this – Johnny Moss, Doyle
Brunson, “Puggy” Pearson
and he mentioned two or
three other people – all of
them members in good
standing of poker’s “A” List
at that time.
“These guys were known
as the best poker players in
the world,” Robison says
but on that afternoon at the
Flamingo they were struggling with a game that was
relatively new to them. It
was high-low split, “not
eight or better,” Robison
says, “but just regular highlow split.” Reese wanted his
partner’s okay to take a shot
at the game with their joint
bankroll, convinced that he
had just stumbled across a
gold mine. “But we can lose
everything we have with
those limits,” Robison protested. “Not with this crew
we won’t,” Reese argued.
Robison shrugged, said
okay and went over to watch
Reese get into this game and
almost double their bankroll,
winning about fifty thousand. “We never looked back
after that,” Robison says.
“We just kept winning and
winning . . . Of course I
was doing the drugs pretty
good.”
But their success at the
poker tables kept them moving forward to the point that
Brunson one day says to
Robison and Reese, “It looks
like you boys know how to
play this poker pretty good.
I want to show you a new
game. You boys know anything about golf?” They tried
to be cool about it, Robison
saying that, yeah, he knew a
little. Reese agreeing that he
did too. The truth was that
Robison had “about 150 golf
trophies” to his credit and
had given a lot of thought to
turning pro at one point.
So they take up playing golf with Brunson and
his best buddy Horseshoe
Casino owner Jack Binion.
“The thing was,” Robison
says, “that Doyle Brunson,
as big and fat as he was,
could just flat play.”
Robison consulted with a
friend who liked the moneymaking possibilities. The
friend offered to underwrite
the golfing venture for Reese
and Robison because no
one imagined that these four
gamblers were going to be
spending time on the golf
course because they liked
all that sunshine. “Just make
sure you’re losing six- to
ten-thousand a day for a
while,” the backer warned
Robison.
“Lose!” Robison exploded, “What do you mean
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
25
There are certain things that
happen to me if I decide
to play poker after a situation has arisen. The frame
NxNW Dealers Cash at
Dealers’ Championship
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
The first annual POKER DEALERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP was held
recently at Binion’s Horseshoe, in downtown Las Vegas. It’s clear
this event is going to become one of the highlights of Poker every
year. Dealer/players from every part of the country participated.
It is also apparent that the strongest dealer/players come from
northern California, northern Nevada and the Northwest, the
“North-by-Northwest” region of the country covered in this column. NxNW dealer/players brought back more prize money than
any other part of the country.
The first event, Omaha Hi/Low 8-or-Better, was for the bungeejumpers of Poker. They were up ‘n down and all around, squealing
with delight and despair. But, when the sun set on Omaha, Chris
Schoolfield, from the Rainbow Casino in Wendover NV, was the
only dealer still bouncing. He got the first place trophy and an all
expense paid vacation to Nebraska’s capital.
The second event was Limit Hold’em. It’s like prospecting for
gold. You have to sift through a lot of mud hoping to discover a
nugget. Most players only find fool’s gold.
NxNW dealer/players Billy Huynh, from the San Pablo Casino
in San Pablo CA, panned his way to 2nd Place and Kevin Ellis,
from the Queen of Hearts Casino in Billings MT, hit pay dirt for
3rd Place.
The third and final event was No-Limit Hold’em, “Major
League” Poker. Everyone wants to find the biggest bat they can
and knock all the chips out of the pot. On this occasion the game
goes to the “Sultan of Swat”, Low Saetern, from the Feather
Falls Casino in Oroville. He knocked it out of the park and turned
out the lights.
Two other NxNW dealer/players cashed in the No-Limit Hold’em
contest. David Catmull, from the Montego Bay Casino in
Wendover NV was 3rd base and Joe Mongkol-Ua-Aree, from the
Casino Fandango in Carson City NV, crossed the plate for the 6th
run.
*
*
*
The CHUKCHANSI GOLD Resort & Casino, near Yosemite
National Park, is well on its way to becoming a major, popular
poker power in the Golden State. If you haven’t heard about it,
you will. If you haven’t visited the Resort, you should… you won’t
be disappointed.
The Chukchansi Resort is a world-class property. It sits high on
a mountain top in the foothills of the Sierras surrounded by magnificent, ever-changing views and vistas. The hotel is exquisite
and every room enjoys an outdoor panorama.
The beautiful interior is designed and constructed using wood
and rock extensively. The new carpet, lush and soft, gives you the
feeling you’re walking in the forest.
Poker players are in for a special treat. The new poker room is
spacious and strikingly handsome. Poker Manager Julie Morgan
is a gracious host, and there are a wide variety of limit and nolimit games from which to choose.
Chukchansi was the site selected for the recent Heartland
Poker Tour’s only California tournament. The HPT final table
championship event was televised and shown on cable TV
throughout central California immediately following the Monday
Night Football game. That kind of exposure will soon make
Chukchansi a familiar name to poker players around the country.
Winner of the Heartland Poker Tour tournament at Chukchansi
was Mattthew Lessinger, from Alamo CA. He was the last man
standing when the smoke cleared. Matt collected $31,400 for 1st
Place.
Dennis Dubey came all the way from Menominee MI to take
2nd Place for $15,200, while Debra Gouldaragon from Los Gatos
CA, took 3rd Place and $9,200.
Manager Morgan has already announced satellites for the
WSOP. For more information, call toll free: (866) 794-6946.
Byron Liggett, originally from the Northwest, lives in Reno
and has been a gaming & poker writer, columnist and consultant for 25 years. email: [email protected]
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
two. He was really letting
me have it. When… let
us just say his enjoyment
came to an abrupt ending
Excuse Me, Please!
By Byron Liggett
26
out an “excuse me.” At this
point if I am still under the
illusion that I can co-exist
with all these distractions,
DEALER
VIBES
By Donald W. Woods, Jr.
of mind that I need to be in
to engage the game at full
strength is somehow diluted
before I ever sit down. Yes,
negative energy seeps into
the crevices of my normally
free-flowing blood stream
and eventually invades my
psyche. Even though every
fiber in my body is screaming “no,” “deal me in” is
the way I will usually go.
Knowing that I need to
focus more than ever, my
mind starts to drift about
things that I hate at the
table.
Why is it that no matter how good-looking the
woman is at the table, the
guy in the seat next to me
is leaning almost in my lap,
tilted away from the lady.
This particular behavior is
a hard one for me to figure
out, and it usually takes
me up to 30-40 hands to
let it go. When I am really
off my game, there is no
trick that I will not try to
correct this mistake. If the
culprit decides to get up
for any reason, I am usually going to move his chair
away from me closer to the
woman. Lo and behold,
when the offender returns
he is able to sniff out the
change and immediately
returns the chair into my
lap! Even when I take the
first table change - when
the stars are aligned, the
stars are aligned – some
other guy will take up the
challenge of making me
commit all of my energies
to this – yeah, these things
consume me. Not only that,
but what is this insensitive
thing that some players do
without shame that is offensive and rude? Well, I don’t
know about you but, when
someone is continually
coughing all over the table
without regard to the players east or west of them,
not covering their mouths,
I even forget about the guy
sitting in my lap. My total
attention is now focused on
how many times is this guy
going to cough on me with-
I will make
a concerted
effort not to say anything,
but my unkind glare in
their direction trumpets the
point. At this point, I have
to tell you a story.
All these things were in
effect in this particular
game, and I was more than
beginning to get really
agitated at the guy sitting
beside me. He was just
coughing and coughing to
the point where I began
to unconsciously count
how many times, and for
how long. Then suddenly,
he won a pot and noticed
that I was nearly cowering away from his hacking
coughs. Well, the more he
coughed, the more pots he
won, and he certainly made
the correlation between the
with this interjection, “You
stupid @###$%$tch, will
you cover your $$#%@#$
mouth?” Needless to say,
he was startled that I had
reacted that way, but he
deserved it. That speaks
to how many poker players believe that some
good luck charm or other
ritual is guiding their paths.
However, to rely on coughing on another player to
bring you luck is downright
sick!
Donald W. Woods, Jr. is a
9 year professional dealer.
Some of his diversified
interests include, track
and field coach at the
high school level yielding
a championship in 2002.
He is currently penning an
original script, outside the
poker arena, for his maiden
voyage to movie-land. For
more information, contact
him at mrexcite20032000@
yahoo.com
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There ar
Satellites are currently being held at
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Rules and agreements will be found on
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Click on the Heavyweight Championship of Poker logo.
A list of Direct buy-in players who have already signed up will also be posted here.
28
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
Will you be good enough to
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re only 100 seats available and they are going fast!
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Stan Sludikoff
Dick Gatewood
Jerry Reed
310.674.3365
702.456.7777 *ASK FOR POKER ROOM
650.327.4810
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
29
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Mon. Nov 27th $600+$60
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Mon. Oct 23rd $600+$60
Sat. Nov 11th $300+$40
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Mon. Nov 13th $600+$60
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Mon. Dec 4th
Sat. Oct 28th
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Sat. Nov 18th $300+$40
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Mon. Nov 20th $600+$60
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30
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
·
1·800·937·6537
·
w w w. b i n i o n s . c o m
Time. Some events
C start after the hour
...........AM, PM
O A,WkP................Week
..... Additional gameD &.times
on this day. Call.
E ........Hold’em
.No Limit Hold’em
.Limit Hold’em
N .............No Limit
L ................... Limit
.............Stud
..7-Card Stud
..5-Card Stud
........ Omaha
H/L .High/Low Split
Pi...........Pineapple
Po...........Pot Limit
Pn.........Panginque
Mx ..Mexican Poker
DC .Dealer’s Choice
MONDAY
•GOLD BAR DENOTES ADVERTISER
TIME
|
HH ...... Headhunter
B ............ Bounties
Sp .............. Spread
Al .........Alternates
Z........... Freezeout
Cz ................ Crazy
E..........Elimination
TUESDAY
GAMES BUY-IN| TIME
Q ............... Qualify
Sh ...........Shootout
+ ..Re-Buys and/or
Add-Ons allowed
F ............... Freeroll
Lad ..... Ladies Only
Men ........Men Only
DAILY TOURNAMENTS
NOW! Get Tournament Listings at our website:
Note: All tournaments are subject to change. Check with the Cardroom for any updates. Cardrooms—
please send your schedules to Managing Editor A.R. Dyck, [email protected]
| WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
|
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
FRIDAY
| SATURDAY |
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
SUNDAY
GAMES BUY-IN
Aladdin
Caesars Palace
Cannery Casino
Circus Circus
Col.Belle-Laughlin
Flamingo Laughlin
NEVADA NORTH
LAS VEGAS & NEVADA SOUTH
Golden Nugget
Harrah’s Las Vegas
Mandalay Bay
Nevada Palace
Oasis-Mesquite
Plaza Casino
Rio Suite Casino
River Palms
Speedway
Stardust
Virgin River Casino
Wynn Las Vegas
Atlantis Casino
Boomtown
Cactus Petes-Jackpot
Carson Valley Inn
Circus Circus
Eldorado
Harrah’s Reno
Harvey’s Tahoe
Peppermill
Rainbow Cas. W Wendover
Reno Hilton
DA I LY TO U R N A M E N T L I ST I N G S CO N T I N U E O N PAG E 32
Gus Hansen to Represent Full Tilt at Betfair’s
Asian Poker Tour Event in Singapore
Gus Hansen will represent Full Tilt’s stable of
famous professional poker
players at Betfair Asian
Poker Tour’s inaugural
event which will take
place November 12-17
at the Meritus Mandarin
Hotel in Singapore.
“The Betfair Asian
Poker Tour is Asia’s first
major poker tournament
so I am very excited to be
going,” Hansen enthused.
There he expects to take
on such Betfair pros
as Ben “Milybarkid”
Grundy, Thomas “Buzzer”
Bhil and Bengt Sonnert,
as well as top Asian players such as Willie Tann,
the Singapore native who
was Europe’s no. 1 poker
player in 2005.
Though poker has traditionally been illegal in
Singapore, Betfair teamed
up with a respected local
company, Capital Events,
to obtain a special license
for the event. “This event
is proof that poker is
becoming truly international and is here to stay,”
Hansen observed.
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
31
Time. Some events &. ........ Additional
Limit Hold’em
start after the hour
gametimes. Call. N ..........No Limit
A, P ....... AM, PM
..... Hold’em L ................ Limit
Wk .............Week
.No Limit Hold’em
..........Stud
MONDAY
CALIFORNIA—SAN DIEGO &
INLAND EMPIRE
CALIFORNIALOS ANGELES
TIME
B ......... Bounties
T ............... Turbo
.7-Card Stud
..... Omaha Pi........Pineapple Pn......Panginque DCDealer’s Choice Sp ........... Spread
.5-Card Stud H/LHigh/Low Split Po........Pot Limit Mx .Mexican Poker HH ...Headhunter Al ......Alternates
DAILY TOURNAMENTS (CONT’D FROM PAGE 31)
|
TUESDAY
GAMES BUY-IN| TIME
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
|
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
FRIDAY
Z........ Freezeout Sh ........Shootout
Cz ............. Crazy + Re-buys and/or
E...... Elimination Add-ons allowed
Q ............Qualify F ............Freeroll
| SATURDAY |
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
SUNDAY
GAMES BUY-IN
Commerce Club
Crystal Casino
Hustler Casino
Normandie Casino
Casino Morongo
Casino Pauma
Harrah’s Rincon
Lucky Lady
Oceans Eleven
Sycuan
Viejas
Village Club
CALIFORNIA—NORTH
Artichoke Joe’s
Cache Creek
California Grand
Casino San Pablo
Club One Casino, Fresno
Colusa Casino
Feather Falls Cas., Oroville
Garden City
Gold Country Cas.-Oroville
Gold Rush
Golden West-Bakersfield
Kelly’s Cardroom
Limelight Cardroom-Sac’to
Lucky Chances
Lucky Derby Casino
Oaks Card Club-Emeryville
Sonoma Joe’s
Tachi Palace Casino
SOUTHWEST
Blue Water Casino
Bucky’s Casino
AZ
Casino Del Sol
Cliff Castle
Fort McDowell
Gila River/Wild Horse Pass
CO
KS
Gila River-Vee Quiva
Harrah’s Ak Chin
Hon-Dah Casino
Paradise Casino
Gilpin Hotel & Casino
Midnight Rose-Cripple Crk
Ute Mountain
Harrah’s Prarie Band
DA I LY TO U R N A M E N T L I ST I N G S CO N T I N U E O N PAG E 3 3
Debbie Burkhead interviews Mike
Kassinger
for the remaining money.
DB: Are there any new
promos in the works for
Sunset players?
MK: On November 1 we
are starting our Moonlight
Monthly High-Hand
32
Tournament. Players may
qualify by making one or
more of the three highest
hands of the day between
the hours of 12 a.m. and 8
a.m. The highest hand per
day will receive $300 in
chips, the second highest
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
hand will receive $200 in
chips and third will receive
$100 in chips. Everyone
that qualifies throughout
the month will start the
tournament with $1,000 in
chips plus whatever tournament chips they were
awarded throughout the
month. The key is, the
more qualifying high hands
you make throughout the
month the better chance
you have in the final tournament. The final tournament will be held at 3 a.m.
on the first Wednesday of
the following month.
DB: Are there any other
promos that Sunset offers?
MK: Stations pays $1,000
for any Royal Flush using
both cards in your hand.
We also have a $1.00 per
hour comp policy, using
your boarding pass, which
is good at any Stations
property.
SATELLITES FOR THE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP OF POKER!
$10,000,000 PRIZE POOL - $5,000,000 FIRST PRIZE*
*BASED
UPON 100
ENTRIES
ONLY 100 Players • A $100,000 Buy-in event + $5,000 Entry Fee • Final Event to be held at Sam’s Town®, Las Vegas. Dec 20-23, 2006 • Super Satellites on Dec 18 & 19, 2006
In Las Vegas...
at Sam’s Town
FURTHER RULES AND
D E TA I L S W I L L B E
F O U N D AT :
EVERY SATURDAY Buy-in & Fee $1,100
Winner receives a Super Satellite seat—
seat—Super
Super Satellite Winner receives Buyin and Entry Fee for the Main Event. Contact: Dick Gatewood, Poker Manager,
702-454-8092
MONDAY
SOUTHWEST
TIME
NM
|
TUESDAY
GAMES BUY-IN| TIME
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
|
FRIDAY
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
| SATURDAY |
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
GAMES BUY-IN|TIME
SUNDAY
GAMES BUY-IN
Cities of Gold
Isleta Casino & Resort
Route 66 Casino
OK
Thunderbird Casino, Norman
MIDWEST
NORTHEAST
NORTHWEST
PACIFIC NORTHWEST
OR
Chinook Winds Casino
Blue Mountain Casino
Chips Bremerton
Chips La Center
Chips Lakewood
Chips Tukwila
Final Table Cas., Everett
WA Goldie’s
Little Creek Casino
Muckleshoot Casino
Northern Quest
Point Defiance Cafe & Cas., Tacoma
Suquamash Clearwater
Wild Grizzly
MT Black Jack’s Casino
4 Bears Casino
ND Dakota Magic
NE Rosebud Casino
SD
Dakota Sioux
Gold Dust Cas., Deadwood
Rosebud Casino
Silverado Casino Deadwood
CT
Foxwoods
NJ
Caesar’s Atlantic City
Harrah’s Atlantic City
Tropicana
Trump Taj Mahal
Akwesasne Mohawk
Majesty Casino Boar
NY
IA
IL
Turning Stone
Catfish Bend
Isle of Capri
Winn-A-Vegas
Hollywood Casino-Aurora
DA I LY TO U R N A M E N T L I ST I N G S CO N T I N U E O N PAG E 35
Fast Answers About
Anything POKER!
pokerplayernewspaper.com
Get us on the web!
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
33
Bad Beated
by Frist
ONLINE POKER
Going Down
Under
Paul “Dr. Pauly” McGuire
Could this be my last “Online Poker” column? On Friday night
September 29th, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn) sneakily attached anti-online gaming legislation to the non-partisan Port
Security Bill. “Gambling is a serious addiction that undermines the
family, dashes dreams, and frays the fabric of society,” argued Frist.
Weeks earlier, the online gaming industry survived a close call
when Frist unsuccessfully attempted to attach the gaming legislation
to the defense spending bill, which was never passed. As online poker
players were on the verge of celebrating a massive victory, Frist rivered a one outer. He demonstrated why he’s one of the most powerful
men in politics when he added the anti-online gaming language to the
weak Port Security Bill knowing that any politicians who dared to vote
against that bill would be labeled unpatriotic, especially with midterm
elections coming up.
The result was immediate confusion and uncertainty for online
poker players. Late Sunday night, Party Gaming announced that they
would close Party Poker to all American players, who generated 78%
of their revenue. When the London Stock Exchange opened the following Monday morning, shares of Party Gaming plunged 58% and lost
over $3 billion in value in a single trading day.
“This development is a significant setback for our company, our
shareholders, our players and our industry,” said Mitch Garber, CEO
of Party Gaming. Financial analysts suggested that the ban on online
gambling companies from operating legally in the United States would
force several companies out of business. In order to compete, several
smaller companies would have to consolidate while the larger companies would have to alter their business models. The American player
pool was by far the largest source of income for the online gaming
industry. And inside of a few days, a $10 billion industry was crippled
in a single blow orchestrated by right-wing conservative American
politicians.
Various online poker sites scrambled to address the situation.
Party Poker, Cryptologic, and Titan Poker closed business to American
players. Full Tilt and BoDog openly welcomed Americans, while companies like Poker Stars and Paradise Poker adopted a “wait and see”
approach. Most of the industry players are telling their American
clients to carry on with business as usual as they wait to see how the
situation unfolds over the next 270 days while the enforcement procedures are being designed.
I’m not an attorney, but according to the lawyers in my home
game, the language in the bill does not specifically state that playing
online poker is a criminal act. The onus is placed upon the banks to
police transactions to and from online gaming sites and third party
financial intermediaries such as Neteller. For the average online poker
player that leaves an extremely grey area on how you can fund your
poker account and how to access your funds when you request a withdrawal.
I predict that eventually the bigger sites will pull out of the
American market for fear of their employees and owners being
arrested and prosecuted by the federal government like such gaming
industry executives as David Carruthers and Peter Dicks. But that
does not mean Americans will stop playing poker. Americans drank
during prohibition, right? Hippies passed around the peace pipe in the
1960s, right?
“Poker is an ‘American tradition’ loved by over 70 million
Americans and deserves the same free pass that was provided to
horseracing, state lotteries, and fantasy sports. We deserve another
deal,” Michael Bolcerek, president of the Poker Players Alliance said
in his reaction to the recent legislation.
So what does this mean to you online poker players? If you are not
a member of the Poker Player’s Alliance (www.pokerplayersalliance.
org), I suggest you stop by their website and join up today. In the
meantime, stay tuned for updates and enjoy the next few months of
playing online because the future doesn’t look too bright.
Paul “Dr. Pauly” McGuire is a writer, poker player, and avid
traveler from New York City. He’s the author of the Tao of
Poker blog which can be found at taopoker.blogspot.com.
Feel free to contact him at [email protected].
34
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
pockets—nada. “No, nothing, Hobby.”
Hobby conveyed the
information and closed up
the phone. “Since there’s
nothing left on the water
they can deal with, they
didn’t seem too interested;
they said they’d send someone to the marina tomorrow
to get a statement.”
Hobby rode to the hospital with Mr. X in the
ambulance. I drove my car
so we’d have wheels to get
back home. After I got there
it took me another half hour
to find a place to park and
locate Hobby.
“What’s happening,” I
asked.
“They bandaged his head
and took him to a special
unit. Here comes the doctor
now.”
“Your friend is in a coma,
evidently from the blow to
his head. His vital signs are
otherwise okay. He could
come around soon, or not.
No way to tell.”
“Can we keep in touch,
doctor?” Hobby asked.
“You related?” the doctor
replied.
“No, but we brought him
in from his sinking boat. I
told the admissions lady that
I’d be responsible for him.”
“Well, good luck,” the
doctor said as he left.
As we drove back to
Marina del Rey I said, “It
might be costly to be responsible for the skipper.”
“I wanted to be sure he
got good treatment. I’ll take
my chances.”
“You’re a prince,” I said
sincerely, “but now, what
about the tournament at
Commerce?”
“Man, I forgot all about
it. I guess we still have time,
but the poker doesn’t seem
POKER
ON
TV
so important now. I’m thinking about what might have
happened and what we can
do about.”
“I’m with you, Hobby.
We’ll scrub poker for now.
So, what can we do?”
“I’ll take Lazybuns out
there tomorrow. If it’s not
too deep we might be able to
make a dive.”
“Can you find the place?”
“Yeah. Mike said he got
the coordinates. We can get
within 25 feet of where it
went down.”
At five a.m. I was barely
functioning, but Mike and
Hobby were all business
as we set out to sea. We
reached the site in about a
half hour, thanks to GPS.
After the anchor was
dropped, Hobby came down
from the bridge. “Do you
want to make the dive with
me, Joe.”
“Maybe, how deep is it?”
“About 120 feet. We’ve
done that before.”
“That’s about as deep
as I’ve ever been. Are you
going to use a special Nitrox
mix?”
“I don’t think so, just air.
If we stay down only about
ten minutes, we’ll be okay.”
We were well weighted
and descended quickly. I
was looking at the depth
meter—it registered about
100 feet—when Hobby
tugged on my sleeve and
pointed. We were almost on
top of the sunken vessel. We
swam to its bow and saw a
gaping hole you could drive
a car into. No wonder the
craft suddenly sank. Hobby
signaled that he was going
inside. I decided to make a
closer inspection of the bow.
With the underwater camera
I began to taking pictures. I
shot what looked like a pipe
imbedded into the less damaged fiberglass hull above
the gaping wound. I gave it a
tug and it came loose. I went
looking for Hobby after I
noticed we had already been
on the bottom for ten minutes. He popped out from the
cabin area with something
in his hand and motioned for
us to go up. I was ready and
anxious to get out of there.
Back aboard Lazybuns
Hobby said, “What are you
doing with that piece of pipe,
Joe?”
“It was imbedded in the
hull. It may have come from
whatever collided with the
boat. What have you got?”
“Ship’s Log. We’ll soon
know all about it, but first,
let’s get the gear off.”
In the comfort of the
salon, as Mike piloted
Lazybuns back to the marina, we studied the log. The
boat was out of Melbourne,
Australia, captained by the
owner, Jack Hayes. He was
making a solo crossing,
apparently to satisfy a wager.
“So, Hobby, the skipper’s
an Aussie. Let’s hope he
comes out of his coma.”
“I’ll try the hospital now
and see how he’s doing.”
Hobby was saying, “He
was brought in yesterday,
unconscious. We believe his
name is Jack Hayes, from
Australia.” Hobby looked at
me and said they were transferring the call. “Yes, yes,
Jack Hayes. That’s great.
Tell him we’ll come by to
see him this morning. How
about that, Joe, he came
to and told them his name.
We’ve got to tell him what
happened.”
“Well, we don’t know
much other than his boat is
lying on the bottom with a
huge hole in its bow. But
there may be something else;
this pipe has some Chinese
characters on it.”
“That’s weird, Joe.”
“This whole thing is
weird,” I agreed.
(to be continued).
Write to author David Valley
at: [email protected]
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35
Senator Bill Frist (R.TN), doesn’t want to be
President - he wants to be
Dictator.
Time—Does It Exist?
FRESH YOUNG FACE OF Poker
By Jennifer Matiran
Thomas Edison wrote: “Hang in there.
Many of life’s failures are people who did
not realize how close they were to success when they
gave up.” Michael Jordan said: “I have missed more
than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300
games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take
the game winning shot…and missed. I have failed over
and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed.”
Mozart wrote his first symphony at age 7. Shane Gould
won an Olympic medal at age 12. At age 14 Leann Rimes
topped the Country music charts. At age 17, Joan of Arc led
an army in defense of Europe. At age 57, Ray Kroc founded
McDonald’s. At 71, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel.
At age 80, George Burns won his first Oscar. At 104 Cal
Evans wrote his first book on the American West.
Einstein proved that there is no such thing as time. I
don’t understand the scientific way in which it was proven,
but it was indeed proven scientifically. I understood it in a
different way: Two different men sit next to a beautiful
woman for an hour. The hour for the first man seems
to go by in a heartbeat, minutes. The hour for the
second man seems to go by in an hour or even longer.
Why is that? Well the second gentleman was the beautiful
woman’s brother. Do you get it? Time is a perception that
is unique to every individual.
Time has ruined my game lately. I go to the table with a
time limit: “I got to be out of here by 5, to make the softball
game.” In recent weeks, every time I go to play the game
we all know and love, there’s been a time limit for some reason or other. And that, my friends, is why many people lose.
Poker is a waiting game, if one cannot wait long enough for
the opportunity to win, they will inevitably lose.
It’s the same in life; time limits can ruin an individual.
“I’m going to be a millionaire by forty, or I’m going to be
married with children by thirty or I’m going to finish school
by this time or I’m going to lose 20 lbs by this time or I’m
going to be out of debt by this time or I’m going to write
a book by this time or I’m going to have my own business
by the time or I’m going to buy a house by this time or I’m
going to make my dreams come true by this time or I’m
going to meet the man or woman of my dreams by this
time, by this time, by this time, by this time.” What happens when one does not reach where they had imagined by
that time? Disillusionment. That was the worst thing that
has ever happened to me; thank goodness that I see it all
differently now.
I’m here to let you know that it’s okay to have time
frames on what you want to be or accomplish in life, BUT
when things don’t work out the way you’ve planned, the
game is not over. No, no, it means the game has just begun.
And you’ll win the game, if you don’t subscribe to the
notion of being defeated. Keep going. Learn how to control negative inner dialogue. There are people who have
dedicated their whole lives to this subject and other
areas who will help you grow. They’ve written books;
read the books, listen to the CD’s!! Work on yourself and
understand that everything may not happen the way you’ve
planned but that’s okay. It’s okay if it doesn’t happen the
way you’ve planned, you know why? Because it’s going to
happen better than you have planned…just believe…
Until next time, “May you have everything that you’ve
ever wanted, better that you’ve imagined it.” I’m going
running now, not to look better but to feel good…
Changing the world one sentence at a time, Jennifer
Matiran believes the pen is, and always will be, mightier
than the sword. She hopes to emerge into the tournament circuit of Poker. Contact her with questions, comments or interesting material at [email protected].
Ms. Matiran has just completed her latest screenplay, her
other passion (besides Poker!).
36
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
lative priority, even though
almost no one else in
Congress, or America, cares
much about the issue.
they are still not guilty of a
crime.
This law is supposedly
designed to stop money
The New Anti-Internet
Gaming Law
POKer AND
THE LAW
By I. NELSON ROSE
Frist, the majority leader
of the U.S. Senate, used
his position of power to
ram through the Unlawful
Internet Gambling
Enforcement Act of 2006.
He didn’t even give the
members of Congress a
chance to read the bill.
They were told about it late
Friday night, mere minutes
before they recessed to
campaign for reelection.
Frist cynically attached his
pet anti-Internet gaming bill
to a completely unrelated
bill dealing with port security, so no one would dare
vote against it. No matter
how you feel about Internet
gaming, this is not the way
laws should be made in this
country.
The only good thing to
come out of this fiasco is
we now know what type of
hypocrite Bill Frist is. Frist
is one of the most active
advocates of American
values. Well, one American
value is that people get to
know what they are voting
for. Even giving him the
benefit of the doubt, that he
really cared about Internet
gambling, he appointed
himself the decider of how
America should handle the
issue.
But, in fact, Frist never
showed any interest in
Internet gaming until he
decided to run for President.
Having run political campaigns, I can tell you he
first conducted polls and
focus groups and hired
campaign consultants.
They told him that he could
score a few points with his
right-wing religious base by
coming out against online
gambling.
So Frist threw the idea
of outlawing Internet gaming into a speech in Iowa,
where the first presidential
caucuses will be held in
2008. The post-speech polls
and focus group must have
been positive, because he
next announced it as a legis-
The bill immediately
spooked the entire industry. Giants like PartyPoker
announced that they would
no longer take bets from the
U.S. Frist actually managed
to cause as much economic
damage as an Islamist terrorist attack: billions of dollars were wiped out overnight, when online stocks
fell more than 50%.
This was probably an
overreaction, since the new
law will not actually do
much. The only new crime
created is accepting funds
for unlawful Internet gambling, defined as violating
some other federal, state
or tribal law. It doesn’t
make operators much more
guilty than they already
were. For example, David
Carruthers, Chief Executive
of BetOnSports, was
arrested changing planes
in Dallas, and served with
a 27-page long indictment.
Now the indictment would
be 28 pages. On the other
hand, Internet poker operators have claimed that they
are not violating any federal
or state law. If that is true,
transfers. Bizarrely, banks
and payment processors
cannot be charged with
this new crime. The federal regulators have 270
days to come up with new
regulations for these money
transferors. But the biggest players, Neteller and
FirePay, will take the position that they are not subject
to U.S. regulations, since
they are not U.S. financial
institutions. The only danger is that banks will be told
they can’t send money to
these payment processors.
Prosecutors can get injunctions to prevent Internet
Service Providers from
hosting gambling sites and
affiliates, but these already
are, or will be, on foreign
servers.
Can anything be done
about this new law?
Unfortunately, no. Using
its police powers, Congress
can do just about anything
to any form of gambling. It
just would have been nice if
they had read the bill before
they voted.
Professor I Nelson Rose is recognized as one of the world’s
leading experts on gambling
law. His latest books, Gaming
Law: Cases and Materials
and Internet Gaming Law, are
available through his website,
www.gamblingandthelaw.com.
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results follow.
9. Quan Le . . . . . . . . . . . $1,440
9. Scott Brayer . . . . . . . $1,275
3. Benjamin Chung . . . $3,180
Anaheim, CA, USA
Tucson, AZ, USA
Los Angeles, CA, USA
EVENT 16
10/11/06
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EVENT 14
10/9/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
EVENT 13
10/8/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
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PLAYERS 146
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1. Alan Myerson . . . . . $29,200
BUY-IN $500 + $50
PLAYERS 53
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3. Larry Vance . . . . . . . $6,935
Torrance, CA, USA
West Covina, CA, USA
$72,500
5. Gene Savetson . . . . . . $1,590
Valley Glen, CA, USA
6. Kenna James AKA . . . . . . . .
“Cowboy” . . . . . . . . . $1,325
Downey, CA, USA
7. Sang Pham . . . . . . . . $1,060
Fountain Valley, CA, USA
8. Jerry Sears . . . . . . . . . .$795
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EVENT 12
10/7/06
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BIG POKER OKTOBER
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PLAYERS 146
REBUYS 96
4. Travis Green . . . . . . . $1,855
Sherman Oaks, CA, USA
2. Itatsu Suzuki . . . . . . $13,870
Peter Zou
1. Peter Zou . . . . . . . . . $29,000
El Monte, CA, USA
BUY-IN $300 + $40
Glendale, CA, USA
6. Stephen Burgo . . . . . $2,550
Arcadia, CA, USA
7. Tung Pham . . . . . . . . $1,825
Garden Grove, CA, USA
8. Steve Gee . . . . . . . . . . $1,460
Sacremento, CA, USA
Roland Weedon
1. Roland Weedon . . . $10,600
Villa Park, CA, USA
2. Huy Lam . . . . . . . . . . $6,095
Rosemead, CA, USA
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Frank Earnest
1. Frank Earnest . . . . . $32,400
Chino Hills, CA, USA
2. Paramjit Gill . . . . . . $18,630
Diamond Bar, CA, USA
3. Gregory Gayheart . . $9,720
Castaic, CA, USA
4. Jon Dull . . . . . . . . . . . $5,670
Fresno, CA, USA
5. Sang Pham . . . . . . . . $4,455
6. Viet Tran . . . . . . . . . . $3,645
ON, Canada
7. Raed Aburkartomy . $2,835
Anaheim, CA, USA
8. Kevin Brunton . . . . . $2,025
Guam, CA, USA
9. Kevin Fox . . . . . . . . . $1,620
Phoenix, AZ, USA
EVENT 15
10/10/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
REBUY 1
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PLAYERS 98
REBUYS 46
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Jorge Pineda
1. Jorge Pineda . . . . . . $28,800
Chatsworth, CA, USA
2. Steven Ayoub . . . . . $16,560
Castaic, CA, USA
3. Itatsu Suzuki . . . . . . . $8,640
Cypress, CA, USA
4. Mike Macchia . . . . . . $5,040
San Gabriel, CA, USA
5. Ric Green . . . . . . . . . $3,960
Albuquerque, NM, USA
6. Mike Hudzinski . . . . $3,240
Nuevo, CA, USA
7. Mitchell Martin . . . . $2,520
Hollywood, FL, USA
8. Kenna James
AKA “Cowboy” . . . . $1,800
Downey, CA, USA
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
37
Using Pot Odds Preflop
SENIORS SCENE
By George “The engineer” EPSTEIN
Most WINNING poker players rely on the card
odds and pot odds to decide whether to fold,
call or raise. Let’s consider the use of pot odds during the
preflop betting round. . .
According to Michael Wiesenberg’s Official Dictionary of
Poker, pot odds is “the ratio of the size of the pot compared
to the size of the bet a player must call to continue in the
hand.” To illustrate, Wiesenberg gives an example: “The pot
contains $20, and you must call a $4 bet; this gives you pot
odds of 5-to-1.” For every dollar you invest at this point,
you could “earn” $5 if you win the pot -- a BIG if. . .
What you really want is a good return on your investment.
That’s why the pot odds have practical significance only
when compared to the card odds: the odds against making
the hand you need to win the pot. If the pot odds are higher
than the card odds, your bet (calling) is a favorable “investment.”
Times when pot odds are very significant
Suppose you are in the big blind with a small pair and the
player to your left has raised preflop. Your initial inclination
is to fold when it is your turn to declare. But six other players call the raise; your bet will close off the betting. Now
you are getting high pot odds; with seven opponents staying
to see the flop, your pot odds are 15-to-1. The card odds
against catching a set on the flop are much less (approximately 7.5-to-1). That makes the call a wise investment
– assuming a set would win the pot.
Times when pot odds have no significance.
Preflop, with only two cards in the hole, you often don’t
have any idea of your card odds. Suppose you start with
Q-J suited. There are lots of possibilities – flush, straight,
two-high pair, trips. . . Who knows where it might lead?
That’s the point: until the flop hits the board, you have no
idea where you are headed. You know only that your hole
cards have all sorts of possibilities. Under these conditions, pot odds are almost useless. Since your Q-J is a
drawing hand, you really want to be sure there are plenty of
opponents staying in, so that if you make a big hand – the
winning hand, you will get a big payoff at the end. Here
the pot odds have little significance. Ideally, you’d like to
get in with the minimum investment – preferably no raises.
Position makes a big difference. In this case, a set of standards for starting hands is essential; my Hold’em Algorithm
makes that decision much easier.
Less obvious is when you hold small connectors, say 6-5
unsuited. Again, you have no idea of your card odds, so the
pot odds have little significance in deciding whether or not
to stay to see the flop. Sure, you could calculate (or estimate) the pot odds, but why bother. . . In this case it’s the
implied pot odds that matter – how much money is likely to
be in the pot at the end. Don’t try to compute that either!
Just observe how many opponents are staying to see the
flop: If three or more are in, then the implied pot odds are
likely to be favorable. The more, the better. You are hoping
the flop hits your hand to give it a good chance of becoming
the winner. In this case, an unraised pot is to your advantage so you can see the flop without a big investment. Best
is if you are the big blind and don’t need to call a raise. If
you are in the small blind, three or more opponents are
in, and it costs just half of a small bet to call, it’s worth a
“shot” at the flop.
So, readers, what’s YOUR opinion?
There have been a number
of opinions about the recent
legislation that was passed
by Congress on online
gambling issues. How this
effects you and me is very
confusing, to say the least.
What it has done, though,
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
and there are higher levels
of membership available
as well. I am excited to
see that poker players have
finally found a common
cause worth fighting for and
have set aside their personal
differences and aspirations
It Is Time to Join
The Poker Players
Alliance (PPA)!
NEVER PLAY Poker with
a man CALLed “DOC”
By Scott Aigner, M.D.
is make the Poker Players
Alliance the front-runner in
getting poker players finally
to unite.
Michael Bolcerek is the
president of the PPA and,
based on his credentials, it is
my personal opinion that we
have finally found the person capable of leading poker
players toward our common
goal of being able to play
this great game. He has been
President, COO, and CFO
of a number of corporations
including Oracle, NeXT
Computer INC., Nokia
Display Products, Mongo
Music, and Liquid Audio.
He is a graduate of Brown
University with a BA in
Economics. I recently saw
Mike on national television,
ence necessary to fight
for our rights to play poker
regardless of where we play
the game.
The Board of Directors
includes Linda Johnson,
who is the Chairwoman of
the Board, Greg Dinken,
and Jan Fisher. Recent
members include Chris
Ferguson, Greg Raymer,
Howard Lederer, Allyn
Jaffrey Shulman, and
myself. Daniel Negreanu
has also recommended that
everyone join the PPA on
his blog. The number of
members is growing very
quickly, and the cost to
become a full lifetime member is only $20.00. You can
contribute more if you like
within the poker world.. I
hope that you too will join
the PPA @ http://www.
PokerPlayersAlliance.org.
This is the shortest column I have ever written
for Poker Player, but it is
the most important one. I
hope you will at least go
to the site and review the
material. There is no obligation to join, but it is my
hope that everyone does
(including non-U.S. citizens). For an interpretation
of the law I recommend
you view I. Nelson Rose’s
recent article @ http://www.
PokerPlayerNewspaper.com.
Dr Aigner is a board
certified Urologist. He has
multiple final table finishes in major tournaments including a WPO
bracelet in 2001. You can
contact him at http://www.
PokerStrategyForum.com
POWERFUL ADVERTISING REACH—USE IT!
poker player
George “The Engineer” Epstein is the author of The
Greatest Book of Poker for Winners! and Hold’em or
Fold’em? – An Algorithm for Making the Key Decision
(T/C Press, PO Box 36006, Los Angeles, CA 90036) He
teaches poker courses and the Poker Lab at the Claude
Pepper Sr. Citizen Center under the auspices of the City
of Los Angeles Dept. of Recreation and Parks. George can
be reached by e-mail: [email protected].
38
where he revealed excellent communication skills,
appeared extremely intelligent, and revealed extensive knowledge of the facts
about poker-related issues.
He has the leadership qualities I admire and the experi-
WSOP Tunica
one-man wrecking crew
in the sixth event of the
WSOP Circuit tour at Grand
Casino Tunica. He started
off by eliminating the last
three players in day-one
action. But that was just a
warm-up. At the final table
the next day, he knocked
out the first four players in
a single round and went on
to dispose of four more as
he stormed to a stunningly
decisive win in $1,000 nolimit hold’em. The victory
brought him $100,727 along
with a championship gold
ring.
‘The cards made me
tonight,’ Gordon said, and
his amazing run was indeed
fueled by sets, flushes and
then pocket kings on the
final hand. Gordon has two
other $100,000-plus cashins. He collected $111,800
for winning the Mandalay
Bay Poker Championship,
and $124,800 for finishing
second to Dan Harrington
in a $2,500 no-limit event at
the 1995 World Series.
Second place Terry
Quinn, who goes by the
nickname ‘Venom,’ is 55
and from Powell, Ohio. He
is a real estate developer
who owns 30 subways and
a part-time player. His best
prior cash was for $7,700 in
a Reno event. Tonight he got
$51,992 for second place.
The highlight of his poker
career? Playing heads-up
against Dan Harrington.
(Cont’d from page 23)
WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT
EVENT #5
9/28/06
POT LIMIT OMAHA
REBUY UNLIMITED
BUY-IN $500 + $50
PLAYERS 52
REBUYS 114
PRIZE
POOL
$80,510
1. Robert Willis . . . . . . . .$28,983
Granada, MS, USA
2. Charles Butler . . . . . . .$16,102
Collierville, TN, USA
3. Tony Svensom
AKA “Tekk” . . . . . . . . . $8,856
Houston, TX, USA
4. Thomas Mixon . . . . . . . $6,441
Seminary, MS, USA
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Jeffrey Roberson . . . . . $5,636
Matt Overstreet . . . . . . $4,831
Jordan Brian . . . . . . . . . $4,026
Norman Collingsworth $3,220
Michael Lucas . . . . . . . . $2,415
IGCE Europe Announces
November Meeting in Dublin
The International Gaming
Conference & Expo (IGCE
Europe will take place
November 5-7 at the historic Fitzpatrick Castle in
Dublin, Ireland, and will
feature the most extensive program of speakers
ever assembled within the
industry of online sports
and casino/poker/skill
games wagering.
The program will comprehensively address the
matters facing the industry,
including online gambling, poker, bingo, skill
games, affiliate marketing
and relationships, sports
content, horse racing,
land-based competition,
gaming platforms, technology, international legal and
regulatory issues, marketing/brand awareness, payment solutions, Asian and
European markets - appeal
of soccer, cricket, rugby
and other sports, the public
desire for mahjong/backgammon/casino games/virtual horse racing, money
laundering accusations,
U.S. politics and mobile
applications..
IGCE Europe will also
feature a one-day precursor European spotlight,
featuring regulators and
leaders from key European
jurisdictions including
Germany, Luxembourg,
Italy, Brussels, Finland,
Gibraltar and Sweden.
Additional information
on the conference is available by emailing info@
igconference.com, contacting Wayne Nixon at
wjoseph@igconference.
com or Cynthia Pagano
at [email protected] or by calling 1215/441-5887.
WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT
EVENT #6
9/29/06
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
BUY-IN $1,000 + $60
PLAYERS 335
PRIZE
POOL
$324,950
John Gordon
1. John Gordon . . . . . . .$100,727
Largo, FL, USA
2. Terry Quinn . . . . . . . .$51,992
Powell, OH, USA
3. Craig Thames . . . . . . .$25,996
Collins, MS, USA
4. Brian Gibson . . . . . . . .$22,747
Woodway, TX, USA
5. Ernest Shepherd . . . . .$19,497
6. Nicholas Willie
AKA “Nick” . . . . . . . .$16,248
7. Ricardo Rodriguez . . .$12,998
8. Shea McGuire . . . . . . . . $9,749
9. Douglas Bruce . . . . . . . . $6,499
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
39
Perks and Picks
Pick of the month: Check out the new Green Valley Ranch!
Station Casinos in Las Vegas recently opened a $110 million
expansion at Green Valley Ranch, the property’s
third major expansion since opening in December
The Bargain Bin
By H. Scot Krause
2001. A 50/50 joint venture between Station
Casinos, Inc. and GCR Gaming, a company owned
by the Greenspun family, Green Valley Ranch carries the distinction of being the first boutique luxury resort built off the Las
Vegas Strip.
Poker players will enjoy the amenities of the new poker room.
Included in the third phase expansion is a three-level, 1,200-space
parking garage, a new state-of-the-art 170-seat race & sports
book, which boasts a 96-foot video wall powered by 18 projectors;
a new 22-table 24-hour non-smoking poker room; more slot and
video poker machines; two more restaurants, Tides Oyster Bar
and Turf Grill located next to the new race & sports book, and an
additional 14,000 square feet of meeting and convention space.
Opening by Spring 2007 will be additional casino space featuring more slot/video poker machines and a 500-seat lounge and
entertainment venue. Green Valley Ranch is one of four masterplanned expansions occurring at Station Casinos-owned properties. Other expansion projects currently underway are at Fiesta
Henderson, Santa Fe Station and Red Rock Casino, Resort and
Spa, all scheduled to be completed in late 2006/mid-2007.
“The city of Henderson is growing at an exciting rate,” said
Scott Kreeger, Senior Vice President of Operations for Green
Valley Ranch and Red Rock Casino. “This expansion is a demanddriven result of that growth. Green Valley Ranch is already a
favorite among locals, known for its value, service and convenience,” added Kreeger. “It’s also an appealing destination for
tourists who want a luxury resort experience off the Las Vegas
Strip.”
The new Tides Oyster Bar celebrates the spirit of New Orleans
with pan roasts, gumbos and an extensive raw oyster bar, and
the Turf Grill serves up classic blue-plate specials and comfort
foods. These two new restaurants join eight other full-service dining options, including Il Fornaio, Sushi + Sake, the Feast Around
The World Buffet, and Hank’s Fine Steaks & Martinis, one of only
two steakhouses in Las Vegas to achieve AAA’s prestigious Four
Diamond status.
The casino features a comprehensive and state-of-the-art
gaming selection, including more than 2,700 slot/video poker
machines, 55 table games including blackjack, craps, roulette
and mini-baccarat, and a private high-limit salon. Guests at
Green Valley Ranch are eligible for a free membership in Station
Casinos’ Boarding Pass Guest Rewards Program, voted “Best
Players Club” seven years in a row by the Las Vegas ReviewJournal. Members receive discounts on dining, entertainment and
hotel rooms, as well as our Jumbo branded products including
Jumbo Jackpot, a random progressive slot jackpot which starts
at $100,000 and must hit by $150,000 that awards every member
playing at a participating casino $50 in free slot play, and the
new Jumbo Race, a random daily progressive jackpot which starts
at $250 and must hit by $1,000.
The 490 guest rooms and suites combine old-world style with
modern amenities like in-room martini bars and high speed internet access, and offer stunning views of the Las Vegas Strip, the
pool area or the spa. There are over 80 luxury suites in 10 styles
that range in size from 700 square feet to 4,000 square feet.
For more information about Green Valley Ranch Resort, Spa
and Casino, visit www.greenvalleyranchresort.com.
That’s it for this week!
Card Room Roundup
Riviera
Hotel & Casino
2901 Las Vegas Blvd., South, Las Vegas, NV 89109
Toll Free: 1.800.634.3420
Local: 702.734.5110
The Riviera Resort located
on the fabled Las Vegas
Strip has been welcoming guest to enjoy all the
fun and excitement of
the world’s entertainment
capitol. The hotel celebrated
fifty years of service last
year. Nevada’s first casino/
hotel that went beyond the
standards of the day and
offered guest top flight
accommodations, big name
entertainment and world
class restaurants.
One of the favorite hangouts of the boys in the original Rat Pack is testament
to the level of service provided by the Riviera. Frank
Sinatra would often delight
guest by strolling through
the casino after playing
to a packed showroom.
Frank, often accompanied
by Dean, Sammy and Peter
would even take a turn dealing blackjack to a table of
speechless players. A very
young “me” once watched
Sammy Davis Jr, Dean
Martin and Frank Sinatra
play high stakes craps late
into the night at the Riviera
casino. The resort is the finest example from this nostalgic, golden era in Las Vegas
history, retaining enough of
the old character to allow
guests to experience the very
spirit of those great days.
The exceptional service
and attention to the com-
H. Scot Krause is a freelance writer, gaming industry
analyst and researcher, originally from Cleveland, Ohio.
While raising his four year-old son, Zachary, Scot reports,
researches, and writes about casino games, events, attractions and promotions. He is a twelve-year resident of Las
Vegas. Questions or comments are welcomed. Card room
managers are also invited to send your specials
and promotions to: [email protected]
40
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
forts and wants of Riviera
guest continues today. The
property has been undergoing a multi-million dollar
renovation that is bringing
the more than 2,000 oversize
guest rooms and suites up
to the standards of the latest
mega-resorts. Considered to
be one of the top values for
your entertainment dollar in
Las Vegas visitors can’t go
wrong booking their next
vacation at the property.
Enjoy the traditions and
services that built Vegas into
the entertainment capitol of
the world.
Dining has always been
a top priority at the resort
and the tradition continues
today with some of the same
restaurants. Enjoy the flavorful dishes of Tuscan at
Ristorante Italiano. Sample
some of the best steaks,
fresh seafood, chops and
prime rib in Las Vegas at
Kristopher’s Steak House.
Hearty appetites will like
the World’s Fare Buffet, an
old style breakfast, lunch,
dinner buffet that features
everything from omelets
made to order to five different themed stations plus a
carving station. Champagne
Brunch served on Saturday
and Sunday. Kady’s Coffee
Shop (named after a former
owner’s daughter), is a 24
hour restaurant offering
a full menu. The Mardi
Inside the Riviera poker room
www.rivierahotel.com
Gras Food Court has a full
complement of recognizable fast food outlets-KFC,
Pizza Hut, Quiznos Subs, La
Salsa Mexican Cantina, Jade
Dragon and Cheesesteaks
Etc. There’s even a 50’s
style diner, Hound Doggies.
Menus for most of the restaurants can be found on the
Riviera’s website.
Always known for live
entertainment the Riviera
continues to provide guest
will some of the longest
running stage shows in Las
Vegas history. The Riviera’s
“Splash” show closed at
the end of September after
a 21 year run and 7 Best
Las Vegas Show of the Year
awards. Crazy Girls, La
Cage and the Comedy Club
continue to thrill the show
going crowd. SynCity Night
Club is the Riviera’s entry
into the resurgence of the
chic nightclub scene. Le
Bistros rounds out the selections and will be joined soon
by Headliners.
The large full service
casino offers hundreds of
modern slots including all of
your favorites, popular table
games, keno, and a modern
Race and Sports Book featuring walls of big screen
displays filled with live
sporting events from around
the world. There’s always
plenty of action in the casino
at the Riviera. Located in
Pechanga Poker
NOVEMBER FEST TOURNAMENTS
FRIDAY, NOV 3rd
6:30PM
$20,000 Guarantee No-Limit Hold’em
$100 + $20 Buy-in + $5 SC • No Re-buy
SATURDAY, NOV 4th
4:00PM
$130 + $20 Buy-in + $5 SC • No Re-buy\
NOVEMBER TOURNAMENT SERIES
the main casino is the poker
room and that’s where we
are headed.
I’ve played poker in the
Riviera poker room was
many years and have fond
memories of hitting two bad
beat jackpots in one week
a number of years ago. I
spent a pleasant, relaxing
afternoon visiting poker
room shift supervisor Allan
Solnik. I had an opportunity to sample the friendly
atmosphere of the room and
watch the staff in action. The
Riviera poker room manager is J.C. Targon, a poker
industry veteran with years
of experience in Las Vegas
poker rooms.
The poker room has 7
tables offering poker players
Limit Hold’em with $2-$4
and $4-$8 blinds. No-limit
is spread with $1-$2 blinds
and a $40-$200 buy-in
structure. Tournaments are
offered daily as follows. A
10:00 AM No-limit Hold’em
tournament with a $44 buyin and an optional $3 add
on has just been added to
the schedule and goes ever
day. Sunday through Friday
at 1 PM and 8 PM a $55
buy-in No-limit Hold’em
tournament is offered with
seating limited to fifty players. Tournament registration begins one hour before
the start time and must be
done in person, no call ins.
Players receive $1,500 in
tournament chips and play
Allan Solnik is a Riviera
Poker Room Shift Supervisor
fifteen minute rounds. The
top three finishers split the
prize pool with 50% going
to the winner, 30% to second place and the remaining
20% for third. The Riviera
poker room recently held a
special event tournament and
awarded the winner with a
seat in the 2007 WSOP main
event. Additional WSOP
seats will be offered through
special added tournaments.
Complete details are available by calling the poker
room direct at 702.794.9620.
A High hand promotion
runs continuously and lucky
players receiving listed
high hands can take home
up to $500 in bonus cash.
Players currently receive
$3.00 snack bar comps and
soon will qualify for comps
awarded on hourly play.
The room is working out
the details of the coming
comp policy that will use the
Riviera’s player card system
to track play time and accumulation of comp credits.
Details will be available in
the near future so be sure
to sign up for your frequent
player’s card. Poker players
can qualify for a great casino
room rate on accommodations. Check with poker
room staff for details and
availability. Easy self parking in the garage makes the
trip into the Riviera’s poker
room quick and effortless.
Valet parking is even closer,
just follow the signs.
Plan your next visit to Las
Vegas and include a stay
at the Riviera. Experience
the personal touch from the
resorts friendly staff. Relax
by the pool, get rejuvenated
at the spa, enjoy the live
entertainment and play poker
in one of the friendliest
rooms in Nevada. Be sure
to check out the Riviera’s
website for the Internet specials.
—Joe Smith, Sr.
THURSDAY, NOV 2nd
6:30PM
$40 + $10 Buy-in
SUNDAY, NOV 5th
4:00PM
$75 + $15 Buy-in
THURSDAY, NOV 9th
6:30PM
Ladies Only No-Limit Hold’em
$85 + $15 Buy-in
1st Place: $1,000 Buy-in seat
2007 World Series Ladies Only Event
SATURDAY, NOV 11th
4:00PM
$20 + $5 Buy-in
THURSDAY, NOV 23rd
6:30PM
$40 + $10 Buy-in
FRIDAY, NOV 24th
6:30PM
$75 + $15 Buy-in
SATURDAY, NOV 25th
4:00PM
2007 Big Showdown Series Tournament
$200 + $25 Buy-in
1st Place: $10,000 Buy-in seat to the
2007 World Series, Guaranteed
SUNDAY, NOV 26th
4:00PM
$75 + $15 Buy-in
FOR 4PM
FREE ENTRY NOV 11TH
T,
EN
M
A
N
UR
TO
RY ID
WITH MILITA
DAILY TOURNAMENTS
DAILY DOUBLE JACKPOTS • Mon. thru Fri. 2-5PM • 1:30-3AM • 4-5AM • 6-9AM
MONDAY
10AM
5:30PM
6:30PM
9:00PM to Midnight
TUESDAY
10AM
6:30PM
WEDNESDAY
10AM
6:30PM
3PM to 2AM
9PM to Midnight
THURSDAY
10AM
9PM to Midnight
5PM
FRIDAY
10AM
6PM to 8PM
No-Limit Hold’em Tournament
$2,000 Guarantee
$20 + $5 Buy-in
Monday Night Football – Total $5,000 in cash drawings
$1,000 per quarter (4 winners @ $250 each) &
$1,000 (5 winners @ $200 each) one hour after
the end of the game
Omaha Tournament
$3,000 Guarantee
$35 + $5 Buy-in
Stud Double, Omaha Double and Hold’em Double Jackpot
$35 + $5 Buy-in
$20 + $5 Buy-in
$4,000 Guarantee
$2,000 Guarantee
$20 + $5 Buy-in
$20 + $5 Buy-in
$300 Cash drawings at the top of every hour
Double Jackpot
$2,000 Guarantee
$2,000 Guarantee
$20 + $5 Buy-in
Triple Hold’em Jackpot Thursdays
Stud and Omaha Doubled
Sit N Go’s Thursdays
$2,000 Guarantee
$20 + $5 Buy-in
$40,000 Hold’em Jackpot Fridays (All Hold’em Games)
Stud and Omaha Doubled
$2,000 Guarantee
SATURDAY
10AM
$20 + $5 Buy-in
Free entry for TOC Players
$4,000 Guarantee
SUNDAY
10AM
No-Limit Hold’em Tournament*
$20 + $5 Buy-in
*10 hours live play weekly = free entry
Sunday Football – Total $5,000 in Cash Drawings
$1,000 per quarter (4 winners @ $250 each) &
$1,000 (5 winners @ $200 each) one hour after
the end of the game
$40 + $10 Buy-in
Double Jackpot Sundays
$2,000 Guarantee
1:15PM
4PM
1PM to 3PM & 6PM to 1AM
$5,000 Guarantee
All Weekday AM/PM Tournaments have an Entry Fee. No tournament re-buys unless specified
otherwise. All Jackpot promotions reset and doubled until end of promotion time. Tournament
Series replaces Daily Tournaments on dates shown. Hotel Poker Rate is subject to availability
Monday thru Thursday and no discounts on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Please see a Poker Room
Floorperson for promotion details. Management reserves the right to cancel or modify promotions
without notice. Must be 21 or older to enter Casino. SMOKE FREE POKER ROOM
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
41
PART 84,
The Flush
Today let’s discuss my favorite hand, the
flush, or more specifically the nut flush.
San Francisco
improving performance
By TOM “TIME” LEONARD
Aside from just being a visually appealing hand, especially in hearts, it is a
hand which will prevail over more hands than to which
it will succumb. What I really like about flushes is the
journey to the river when attempting to complete one.
After all, even if you start with two suited cards you
only flop a flush about once every 119 opportunities.
However, when you start with two suited cards hitting a flop which contains two more of the same suit
is only 8 to 1 against and when that happens you’re
normally in until the river, especially if you have a
suited hand containing an Ace to draw to the nut flush.
With your four flush you are less than 2 to 1 against
(precisely 1.86-1) to complete your flush in the next
two cards. If your draw also contains an open ended
straight draw as well, you would have 15 outs (9 cards
of the same suit plus 6 cards to the straight) and actually be favored to complete your hand by the river.
What both of these situations mean is that with
three or more opponents you should get as much
money in the pot as you can. Your bet odds of 3,4 or
more to 1 exceed the odds against completing your
hand so you have a positive expectation on every
dollar going into the pot. One major caveat of caution when drawing to a flush, even the nut flush, is
if the board pairs or makes a straight flush possible
you must proceed with a degree of trepidation. Even
so, there are a couple of interesting opportunities to
manipulate opponents when a flush draw is evident
by a three or four suited board. If you hold only one
of the suit in play but it happens to be the Ace there
are two ways to potentially win the pot. If the fourth
suited card falls without a pair on board you possess
the nut flush. If the fourth suited card doesn’t fall you
can still represent the nut flush because you know no
one else can have it. I have seen many a small flush
mucked, face up, in disgust to the confident betting/
raising of a lone Ace four flush bluff.
An interesting phenomenon occurs when four cards
of the same suit appear on the board and everyone
checks. Even when you don’t have a card of the correct suit a bet with position in hopes of stealing the
pot is definitely in order. Surprisingly with two opponents and a four suited board there is a 49% chance
that neither of them has a flush. Against three opponents there is a 23% chance that none of them has
the fifth card of the suit in play. That says there is
definitely enough money in the pot to attempt a bluff.
Remember, the board looks extremely scary to anyone
not holding a flush. Always think about bluffing into a
four suited board.
Our goal for this time together is to embrace the
flush and flush draw for the value it deserves. When
on a nut flush draw bet and raise to build the pot when
you have three or more opponents as the bet odds are
more than the odds against making your hand. Also,
be aware of the situations outlined above to make
occasional “moves” at the pot. There is nothing more
satisfying than winning a pot with nothing more than a
busted flush draw, especially if it’s in hearts!
See you next “TIME”.
No stranger to the green felt, Tom “Time” Leonard has played
poker for more than 30 years and has been a serious student of
the game and writer on the subject since 1994. He has regularly
played the cardrooms of Atlantic City, Las Vegas and California.
His experience as a sales and marketing professional have
helped him hone his skills at “selling” a hand and “buying” a
pot. Tom can be contacted at: [email protected].
42
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
The City Built by
Gamblers
By Byron Liggett
The first citizens of the
Bay Area were Native
Americans. A peaceful people, they were especially
social. They liked to party,
enjoyed athletic competition and loved to gamble.
The Spanish established
a presidio (military post)
on the peninsula in 1776.
Otherwise, the first dwelling erected in Yerba Buena
(“good herb”) was built
by the harbor master in
1835. It consisted of four
redwood posts covered by
an old ship sail. Ten years
later, the community had
only grown to a dozen
wood buildings and fifty
residents.
With victory in the war
with Mexico in 1846, the
United States gained Texas,
the New Mexico Territory,
and California. The village
of Yerba Buena, population 200, was renamed San
Francisco in 1847.
A year later, gold
was discovered on the
American River, near
Coloma CA. When the
news spread to the East,
San Francisco suddenly
became the gateway to
gold. Within a few months,
4,000 men were washing
$50,000 a day from the
banks of the river.
Risk-takers, gold hunters
and gamblers from around
the world came to the City
by the Bay at the rate of a
thousand a week! The wide
range of nationalities, religions, classes, and cultures
all shared one common
purpose – to find their fortune. It is from these early
Gold Rush days that San
Francisco traces its character of liberal tolerance and
acceptance.
According to historian
Herbert Asbury, “No other
American community has
ever experienced the carnival of gambling as reined
in the California city during the fabulous days of
Forty-Niners.” A doctor
at the time observed that
gambling was “the life and
soul of the place.”
By 1850, San Francisco
boasted a population of
25,000 and more than
1,000 gambling houses.
Monte, Faro, Roulette and
Twenty-one dominated the
action.
The El Dorado was the
first famous gambling hall
in the City. It opened in
1848 on what is now the
site of the Hall of Justice.
The walls were hung with
raunchy nude paintings
and an orchestra played
continuously. Tables filled
with patrons were covered
with gold dust, nuggets and
coins. Behind each table
was a dealer dressed in traditional black and white.
Portsmouth Square
was the gambling center
of town. Competition
between “hell holes” for
customers was fierce. One
proprietor nailed up a sign
that declared, “Five free
drinks… if you find any
pretty waiter gals wearing
underwear.”
Although most wagers
were small, 50-cents to
$5, gold miners in town
for supplies and recreation
sometimes bet large. At the
Bella Union a miner staked
an 85-pound sack of gold
dust worth $16,000 and
won.
The largest bet ever
recorded on a Faro game in
San Francisco was $60,000
at the El Dorado by the
owner of several gambling
houses. He lost, bringing
his total losses for the day
to $200,000!
For the first few years,
gambling houses in San
Francisco only hired men
dealers and croupiers. But,
in 1850 a beautiful French
woman, appeared behind a
roulette table in the Bella
Union. She created such a
sensation and attracted so
much business that other
gambling houses soon followed the lead.
Writer Mark Twain lived
for a time in San Francisco
after he abandoned gold
hunting. It was here that he
rewrote a tale heard in the
mining camps. Called “The
Celebrated Jumping Frog
of Calaveras County”, it
told of how a $40 bet in a
frog jumping contest was
won because one frog was
filled with lead shot. The
tale brought Twain national
recognition.
By 1854, the gold fields
were largely exhausted and
San Francisco sank into
depression until discovery
of the Comstock silver lode
in western Nevada in 1860.
Richer and longer-lived
than the Gold Rush, this
second boom firmly established San Francisco as a
major American port city.
The most notorious
gambling section of San
Francisco after the Civil
War was called the Barbary
Coast, named after the
coast of North Africa
infamous for its pirates. It
featured gambling halls,
brothels and Chinese
opium dens until it came
under political reform in
1914.
Poker was largely
unknown in San Francisco
during the Gold Rush era.
It didn’t become really
popular until 1870 and then
it dominated action in the
City until the 1890s.
The biggest games took
place among the richest men in the West and
included four Nevada
Senators, all of whom
had gotten rich in mining.
Historian Asbury says they
played for higher stakes
“than any group of Poker
addicts in the history of
the game – with them a
$50,000 pot was commonplace… a $100,000 was
not unusual.”
The seeds of another
revolution in gaming history were germinated in
San Francisco. In 1895,
the first mechanical slot
machine, the Liberty Bell,
was invented by a local
mechanic, Charles Fey.
He eventually moved his
operation to Reno.
The city built by gamblers was destroyed by
the earthquake and fire of
1906. San Francisco would
rebuild, but it would never
again be the gambling
capital of America.
e-mail: [email protected]
Big Poker
Oktober
Metaphysical
Poker & Life
Santa Monica, CA, USA
3. Bagia Kahlil . . . . . . . $6,890
Van Nuys, CA, USA
4. Andre Maloof . . . . . . $4,350
Burbank, CA, USA
5. Masoud Pourhabib . . $3,265
Marina Del Ray, CA, USA
6. Agop “”Jack””
Boghossian . . . . . . . . $2,540
7. Hao Lo . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,815
Hawthorne, CA, USA
8. David Iannohi . . . . . . $1,450
9. Man Phung . . . . . . . . $1,270
Rosemead, CA, USA
EVENT 11
10/6/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
BUY-IN $500 + $50
PLAYERS 145
PRIZE
POOL
$72,500
John Zou
1. John Zou . . . . . . . . . $29,000
El Monte, CA, USA
2. Peter Chou . . . . . . . $13,775
3. Badia Khalil . . . . . . . $6,890
Van Nuys, CA, USA
4. Andre Maloof . . . . . . $4,350
Burbank, CA, USA
5. Masoud Pourhabib . . $3,265
Marina Del Ray, CA, USA
6. Agop Bogossiad . . . . $2,540
Burbank, CA, USA
7. Hao Lo . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,815
Hawthorne, CA, USA
8. David Iannohi . . . . . . $1,450
9. Man Phung . . . . . . . . $1,270
Rosemead, CA, USA
EVENT 10
10/5/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
BOUNTY
BUY-IN $325 + $40
PLAYERS 170
PRIZE
POOL
$59,700
Mike Coulson
1. Mike Coulson . . . . . $23,880
Huntington Beach, CA, USA
2. An “The Boss” Tran $11,340
New York, NY, USA
3. Ian Winteebothan . . . $5,670
Newport Beach, CA, USA
4. Sirous Baghchehsaraie . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3,580
Long Beach, CA, USA
5. Carlson Lee . . . . . . . . $2,685
6.
7.
8.
9.
Ben Foster . . . . . . . . . $2,090
Peter Han . . . . . . . . . $1,495
Greg Lee . . . . . . . . . . $1,195
Jose Tavares . . . . . . . $1,045
Tournament
Poker: A Raise
Will Tell You a Lot
Charlie Shoten
2. Peter Chou . . . . . . . $13,775
A
raise is the
best way to tell
the strength of
your opponent’s hand.
It will catch most players off guard in the exact
moment they are confronted with one. This
means that you must
always concentrate on
anyone who is raised at
your table. To survive
in any tournament you
must accurately judge the
strength of the hands you
are playing against.
It takes a second or
more for most to disguise
their response to being
raised. You only have a
fraction of a second to
pick up their response.
Make a mental note of
their immediate reaction
so that you can recognize
it in some future hand.
Focusing on players
who are raised at the
exact moment of the raise
will allow your observations and your feelings
to give you the clues you
need so you will know the
relative strength of their
hand. The amount you
raise is crucial. A small
raise can give you some
clues but may mislead
you or not give you the
crucial ones you need. A
larger one is more likely
to tell you for sure where
you stand. Fierce concentration is necessary. The
clues you need to consider only appear for an
instant. If in that instant
you are distracted, they
are lost to you forever.
An informed idea of
the relative strength of
the other players’ hands
at your table is essential
information during any
poker tournament. All
hands in poker are relative. The better your hand
is objectively, the worse
it is if it is not the best
hand. You are more vulnerable and have the most
to lose when you have a
very strong hand. That
is why the big starting
hands like AA, KK, QQ
or AK are the most dangerous to play. They are
the hardest to get away
from after the flop. You
must protect your hand
before the flop. Raise
enough to force players
with little pairs and suited
connectors to lay those
hands down unless you
are low chipped and need
a call.
The ability to get away
from a strong hand separates the better players
from the rest of the field.
Be proactive in digging
out the information that
will tell you if your hand
is best. Every action you
take should have the specific purpose of giving
you critical information
while disguising your
own hand. In no-limit
hold’em your poker life is
in danger each and every
hand you play. You need
all the relevant information you can dig up to
protect every chip. The
player who has the most
accurate information and
uses it the most effectively is the most confident
and dominant player at
the table. That is who you
want to be.
There are many different strategies that players
use and different situations that arise during
any tournament. I have
identified six major strategies that the best players
use in previous articles.
1. Play your cards, 2.
Play the player, 3. Play
the board, 4. Play position, 5. Play the money,
and 6. Bluff. Distractions
(debris) in your mind are
your major obstacle to
accessing critical poker
information. Your mind
needs to be clear of all
distractions during a
poker tournament. You
must be actively clearing it. A clear mind will
allow you to see more
opportunities to increase
your chip position as well
as alert you to potential
ambushes that can cost
you dearly.
Know the risk and
potential gain when you
first choose to enter any
pot. Who enters the pot,
who and how much is
raised, their position relative to yours, the amount
of chips in play, as well
as the total chips in the
pot all need to be considered, as well as the size
of the blinds, the number of hands before their
next increase, the initial
amount of chips in the
pot, the stage of the tournament, the prize pool,
and the body language of
all participants.
On the flop more critical information is available for forming your
strategies. If you are
concentrating, all of your
poker playing experience is instantly available
through your instincts
(feelings). Your first clue
must come from your
instincts because we have
walked this road before.
Situations in the past
that are most similar to
the current one will be
brought up through your
unconscious mind and a
good or a bad feeling will
be associated with it. Pay
attention to that feeling
and let it help guide your
decision.
Every action you take
must have a definite
purpose. To increase the
chips in the pot, to judge
the strength of another’s
hand, to save a bet on the
turn, to represent strength
with a weak hand or to
show weakness when you
have a strong one. If you
want a call, you must bet
the precise amount that
will induce a call. If you
do not want a call you
must bet enough to make
sure you do not give the
other players good pot
odds to call. At all times
you must disguise your
actions, be a good actor,
and never let anyone
be comfortable playing
against you or be able to
put you on a hand.
Decide when to risk
your chips. Tournament
poker is a game of situations. You must wait
for the best situation to
arise, not a good situation, but the best situation. Is your bet small
enough to get away from
the hand, is the potential
gain worth the amount of
chips risked, will a better opportunity be likely
to arise, will the amount
of chips in relation to all
the chips you have make
you pot committed? If so,
always consider going
all in unless you want a
caller. Are you getting the
right pot odds every time
you invest your chips?
These are some of the
A B C’s of tournament
poker. I hope one of these
considerations contributes
to your game, or at least
reinforces your use of
them.
Reach Charlie—
For Speaking
Engagements &
Live Play Internet
Tournament Coaching
702 270-4877
[email protected]
www.nolimitlife.net
NO-LIMIT
NO-LIMIT
LIFE
LIFE
♥♣ ♦ ♠
DA N G E R O US
C O N T E N TS :
MAY CAUSE A RADIANT
CONTAGIOUS SMILE,
A JOYOUS MINDSET,
PROFITABLE
POKER AND A
WINNING LIFE!
♥♣ ♦ ♠
C
CH
HA
AR
R LL II E
E SS H
HO
O TT E
EN
N
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
LEARN THE ART OF POKER FROM
ONE OF THE WORLD’S TOP-RANKED PROS
Read “No-Limit Life”:
(Best Book Award:
USA Book News 2005)
Category: Psychology/
Mental Health
43
Poker Time Management
THE EIKS’ VIEW
BY Mike Eikenberry
Money management is an important topic for
poker players, but little is said as to time management. Sure, pros often say that one of the major benefits of playing
poker for a living is the freedom to do what they want when they
want to do it. But just because you do not have to live by a time
clock, does not mean that a more productive use of your time is not
desirable. In fact, it could help you be a better pro and a happier
human being.
Harvey Mackay, President of Mackay Envelope Co. and a nationally recognized business columnist, writes a weekly syndicated column entitled, “Outswimming The Sharks.” For many years his advice
has been useful to me as a small businessman.
Last Sunday his topic was time management, and it struck me
that his advice would also often be good for poker pros and semipros. So today I will relay his suggestions with some editing and
elaboration.
In the 1920s, the President of Bethlehem Steel called in a
time management consultant to observe him and give advice.
Subsequently the consultant told him, “Every evening write down
the six [2-5 for poker players] most important things, in order of
importance, that must get done the next day. Use the plan for six
months and send me a check for what you think it is worth.” Six
months later the consultant received a check for $25,000 (over
$300,000 today). Time is a scarce, valuable resource and deserves
to be managed accordingly.
Some tips to save time and achieve an advantage over competitors:
1.
Always have a tape recorder by your side — even on your
nightstand when you’re asleep (you’re still thinking!).
Use your cell phone, on speaker, in your car while driving.
Phone ahead to get your name on waiting lists and avoid wasting time going into casinos where there are no games available.
Use valets to park when available. The time gained is usually
worth the tip you give.
Turn your car into a poker university. Listen to MP3s, CDs, or
tapes that teach you something while driving. (Driving 10,000
miles per year, with an average life span, means you will spend
2-1/2 years of your life in a car). Do the same when running or
working out.
Take a speed-reading course.
Always carry something useful to read.
Reprioritize your list half way through each day.
Avoid people who waste your time.
Always get the name of the person to whom you are talking.
People pay attention when they know you are taking notes.
Know the decision-makers and treat them well. Waste little
time with people who cannot offer you anything personally or
professionally
Always ask people who want your time or money to make their
requests in two sentences, then, decide if you want or need to
hear more.
If possible and appropriate, schedule meetings on the phone
or online conferencing instead of physical meetings. Always
be prompt.
If a face-to-face meeting is necessary, avoid having meetings
in your own home. Go to other people’s homes or offices (or a
casino) for meetings because you can leave a lot quicker from
their place than you can get them to leave yours.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
X
X
X
X
Poker Player
Try the above for 6 months and feel free to send me what you think
it is worth.
Mike’s Moral# 1: Don’t just mark time. Use time to maximize profits and make your mark.
FUN “TIME” TRIVIA: A weekly home poker game is
played on an immense outdoor patio with excellent lighting. One
week the electricity in the entire town goes out for ten hours at 11
o’clock. With no other source of artificial light, an overcast sky with
no visible moon or stars, the players manage to see and finish the
game on time. Give two possible explanations (answers next issue).
Each issue’s crossword puzzle
honors a poker celebrity and
will be about that person’s
life. Today’s puzzle honors poker pro
Phil Ivey. Crossword by Myles Mellor.
ACROSS
1. Nickname for 15 across
from his early career (3
words)
23. Promotions
5. Expression of surprise
24. See 15 across
6. Put in chips to equal the
amount bet so far (3 words)
27. Kill Bill star
44
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
7. Poker player, Elezra
30. Roman 4
8. Stop play
31. Get knocked out
9. 15 across’s former occupation
33. Diamond measurement
11. Tree
12. Draw
35. Profit
13. Initials of one of the
full-tilt poker team
37. Add up
15. Adds to the expense
account
38. Time period
16. Fall
39. All __
17. Unwanted poker emotion
10. Another over 6 million
dollar poker winner, Daniel
14. Advice
15. He has career tournament winnings over 6 million dollars- goes with 24
across
41. Direction
19. Nickel symbol
42. Santa ___
25. ____ Van Patten
43. 15 across comes from
New _____
16. If the ___ fits....
17. ___ wallet
18. Without finishing (2
words)
32. Cry for help
21. Annie Duke to Howard
Lederer
22. Make a mistake
1
2
29. Automatic cash provider
1. Good chance for a
straight (3 words)
20. Expression of disgust
when losing?
26. ___lyn Ng
28. ____ Seif
DOWN
2. What all poker players
feel (2 words)
34. Consumed
3. Actress West
36. It is, for short
4. Level
40. Direction
3
4
5
6
7
8
10
11
9
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
27
33
28
29
34
42
25
26
30
35
38
Mike Eikenberry got his undergraduate and law degrees
from the University of Virginia, where he played varsity
tennis and basketball. Founder of one of the leading
national tennis camps, Mike is an avid amateur who has
played both tournaments and live games for over 25
years. He can be reached at [email protected]
Word
31
36
39
32
37
40
41
43
The correct solution to the puzzle will be found only at:
www.pokerplayernewspaper.com. It will be posted on the cover date.
BIKE: Bigger, Better Poker Oktober
EVENT 8
10/4/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
SENIORS
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
BUY-IN $300 + $40
PLAYERS 52
PRIZE
POOL
$15,940
2. Shawn Chang . . . . . . $7,980
Everett, WA, USA
7. Jorge Pineda . . . . . . . $1,495
3. Edward Cunanan . . . $3,990
Chatsworth, CA, USA
Houston, TX, USA
8. Don Doan . . . . . . . . . $1,195
4. Haroutioun Bedrossian . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2,395
Temple City, CA
Sun Valley, CA, USA
Villa Park, CA, USA
6. Edwin Jacinto . . . . . . $1,595
7. Yevgeniy Shvetsov . . $1,190
Valley Glen, CA, USA
8. Abbas Javahert . . . . . $1,000
9. Keith Kadena . . . . . . . .$800
EVENT 6
10/2/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
Anaheim, CA, USA
2. Rick Collins . . . . . . . . $3,590
Vista, CA, USA
Alhambra, CA, USA
5. Roland Weedon . . . . $1,990
Lynwood, CA, USA
Kirk Conrad
1. Kirk Conrad . . . . . . . $6,215
9. Shan Jing . . . . . . . . . . $1,045
EVENT 4
10/1/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
LADIES - HOLD’EM
QUEEN OF CLUBS
BUY-IN $100 + $25
PLAYERS 227
PRIZE
POOL
$22,850
EVENT 3
9/30/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
XTRA SPORTS
$53,000
1. Daniel Dahan . . . . . $18,935
2. Badia Khalil . . . . . . . $9,340
Van Nuys, CA, USA
3. Stewart Phillips . . . . $4,545
Newport Beach, CA, USA
Monterey Park, CA, USA
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
BOUNTY
BUY-IN $225 + $30
PLAYERS 348
PRIZE
POOL
$69,600
Menlo Park, CA, USA
BUY-IN $300 + $40
PLAYERS 199
PRIZE
POOL
7. Andre Maloof . . . . . . $1,260
Burbank, CA, USA
$59,700
8. Julie Chant . . . . . . . . $1,010
$39,900
EVENT 1
9/28/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
6. Benjamin Morris . . . $1,765
Greg Smith . . . . . . . . $1,090
Phil Lauro . . . . . . . . . . .$860
Joe Manalo . . . . . . . . . .$700
John Paccione . . . . . . . .$545
Guy Magar . . . . . . . . . .$390
Edward Cunanan . . . . .$340
1. Khai Nquyen . . . . . . $15,960
9. Joseph Terzain . . . . . $1,355
El Monte, CA, USA
BUY-IN $300 + $40
PLAYERS 133
PRIZE
POOL
4. Matthew Kursar . . . . $3,030
9. Lori Conn . . . . . . . . . . . . .$0
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
SHOOTOUT
Torrance, CA, USA
7. Shannon Fadal . . . . . $1,935
Vista, CA, USA
EVENT 7
10/3/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
El Monte, CA, USA
6. David Zarrin . . . . . . . $2,710
8. John Hoang . . . . . . . . $1,550
BUY-IN $200 + $30
PLAYERS 265
PRIZE
POOL
3. Jim Kentro . . . . . . . . $1,870
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
5. Khanh Hua . . . . . . . . $3,485
5. Bao Dao . . . . . . . . . . . $2,270
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
Chau Do
1. Chau Do . . . . . . . . . . $8,510
Burbank, CA, USA
2. Laura Tinari . . . . . . . $4,200
Van Nuys, CA, USA
3. Katrina Lim . . . . . . . $2,045
Orange, CA, USA
Krikor Kalajian
1. Krikor Kalajian . . . $23,880
4. Collette Hausey . . . . . $1,360
N Hollywood, CA, USA
5. Angie Dubu . . . . . . . . $1,020
2. Kevin Goodling . . . . $11,340
San Juan Capistrano, CA, USA
Anaheim, CA, USA
EVENT 2
9/29/06
BICYCLE CASINO
BIG POKER OKTOBER
NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
—M.A.D.D.
BUY-IN $200 + $30
PLAYERS 171
PRIZE
POOL
Shavarsh Pirijanian
1. Shavarsh Pirijanian $26,090
Glendale, CA, USA
2. Greg Caul . . . . . . . . $12,875
Studio City, CA, USA
3. Romeo Pueblo . . . . . . $6,265
Covina, CA, USA
$77,400
1. Kevin Goodling . . . . $30,960
6. Kathy Bourquin . . . . . .$790
3. Mark Halfon . . . . . . . $5,670
Carlsbad, CA, USA
2. Gaetano Lo Grande $14,705
Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
7. Heather Ankeny . . . . . .$565
4. Carlson Lee . . . . . . . . $3,580
W Hollywood, CA, USA
Dana Point, CA, USA
8. Michelle Hafke . . . . . . .$450
3. Barry Bergida . . . . . . $7,355
4. Steve Borgo . . . . . . . . $4,175
5. Steven Ayoub . . . . . . $3,130
Castaic, CA, USA
6. Dieu Duyen . . . . . . . . $2,435
7. Dan Netzer . . . . . . . . $1,740
8. Ted Simonson . . . . . . $1,390
5. Itatsu Suzuki . . . . . . . $2,685
Tustin, CA, USA
USA
Cypress, CA, USA
9. Dee Dee Cole . . . . . . . . .$340
4. Vier Tran . . . . . . . . . . $4,645
9. A Van Nguyen . . . . . . $1,045
6. Michael Wong . . . . . . $2,090
Mission Viego, CA, USA
ON, Canada
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
Toronto, ON, Canada
45
WIN $100 in my
Quotation Contest
BacK in the saddle Again
Book reviews
Lessons from the
Pro Poker Tour
By OKLAHOMA JOHNNY HALE
I have been to the hospital for a little rest and relaxation... In my Navy
days during WW II we used to call this R & R. The vacation from the
poker rooms has given me some time to read and re-read some of my
favorite books, and crack a few new ones that I have been looking forward to finding the time to read.
I have been reading:
# A Speeches that Changed the World
# B Johnny Moss: Champion of Champions
# C Will Rogers’ book
# D Wacky Laws, Weird Decisions & Strange Statutes
# E Vince Burgio, Pizza, Pasta & Poker
# F My book---“The Gentleman Gambler”
# G None of the above &/or a few other poker books.
Here is a contest for you: in this column I am going to put quotations
from one of the above--#A through # G. You are then to match them
up—the books with the quotations. The reader who emails me the correct answers and scores the highest number of points will win $100.00.
Here are the quotations (From one of the above):
#1 “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
#2 “We moved a lot while I was young—just about every time the
rent came due.”
#3 “We had some of the Rounders from Gardena come up—they
played on the square, but they did not last very long.”
#4 “Neither man nor beast is safe—when the legislature is in session.”
#5 “Work and gambling don’t mix.”
#6 “In just two weeks I pulled down half a million dollars playing
against the world’s best poker players.”
#7 “A date that will live in infamy.”
#8 “The bank was lucky to be smart enough to loan me money to
gamble with.”
#9 “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration established the Office of Aircraft Operations (OAO) to improve aircraft
management.”
#10 “All I know is what I read in the newspapers.”
#11 “The first words my daddy taught me was—I raise the pot”
#12 “ If I tell you it is going to rain, better get an umbrella–because
if I have to I will squeeze a cloud.”
#13 “Poker players are a strange bunch—they will play on the roof in
the rain—or in a crooked game.”
#14 “That poker player is hotter than a depot stove”.
#15 “ Freedom is indivisible: when one man is enslaved, all (men) are
not free.”
#16 “Always be good to the cook.”
#17 “If you are going to a cemetery in Muncie, Indiana, you must
leave your fishing pole at home.”
#18 “ The cheaters are taking the money from the game before I can
win it.”
#19 “ I never saw a man I did not like.”
#20 “A day without poker is like a day without sunshine.”
Each correct answer is worth five points. The contest ends at 8PM EST
on the second Tuesday after this column is printed in Poker Player. In
case of ties, prize will be divided equally. I will be the only judge of
this contest—and my decision will be final!
Now here is a bonus question that I will use only as a tie-breaker:
# 21 “Never in the history of mankind--have so many owed so much
to so few!”
Now here is a free one—I said this in my book, “The Gentleman
Gambler”:
#22 “Money is not heavy to carry.” So here you would put, “#22 ( F
).” Yes, that’s all there is to it: just the #, then the letter.
Until next time, remember to Stay Lucky!
Editor’s Notes: You may contact OK-J at his e-mail
[email protected], or play poker LIVE, ONLINE
with Johnny, Carol and Sarah at www.OK-J.com.
Johnny’s book, “The Gentleman Gambler,” is in its
third printing. Contact Johnny for your copy.
46
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
by David Apostolico
Lyle Stuart, 2006
ISBN: 0-8184-0702-6
155 pp, $14.95
David Apostolico has
written a flurry of poker
books over the last year
or so. Because of his
new-found stature in the
poker world, Apostolico
was invited to participate
in the Professional Poker
Tour, a series of no-limit
hold’em tournaments
filled with some of the
best and best-known
poker players in the
world. This is an excellent chance for a journeyman poker player to
observe and learn from
some of the best.
“Lessons from the
Pro Poker Tour” is a collection of lessons he
learned while observing
and playing in no-limit
hold’em tournaments
with some of the biggest names in poker.
Each lesson is drawn
from a real hand that the
author describes for the
reader. Consequently, we
are invited to learn by
example, sometimes along
with the author, who is
actively educating himself. Apostolico is tireless
in his attempts to glean
any sort of edge from
the situations he faces,
an admirable trait in any
poker player.
Perhaps predictably,
the execution doesn’t
matche the promising
premise. The big problem
is that, as an improving
poker player himself,
Apostolico, I believe,
misfires in his analysis of
many of the poker situations he examines. With
some of them I think his
recommendations are
overly results-oriented,
but with others I believe
he simply misunderstands
the situation. This is a
problem in a poker book
whose aim is to educate
the reader on tournament
strategy.
Here is one example of
Apostolico recommending a play that I believe
is demonstrably incorrect.
In this hand, it’s folded
to our hero with Ad 5d in
the small blind. He raises,
the big blind calls. The
flop comes 9d 5h 2d. Our
hero bets, the big blind
makes a pot-sized raise,
our hero folds, and the
big blind shows his top
pair. Apostolico says, “...
I do not think I played
that hand incorrectly ...
.” However, unless the
big blind has an ace for
a kicker or a better hand
than one pair, Apostolico
may have been behind,
but he folded a hand
where he was actually a
money favorite.
It isn’t that I believe
Apostolico gets everything wrong. I think many
of his lessons are on the
money. But I have to say
that even when I think
d
he’s correct
he doesn’t
demonstrate
a great deal of
insight. Beginning players
might find some worthwhile advice here, but
I’m afraid that they’ll
have to wade through
some other suggestions that will hurt more
than help their game.
Advanced players are
more likely to be able to
discern the difference,
but the good advice
will almost certainly be
familiar to them.
This is too bad,
because “Lessons from
the Pro Poker Tour” is a
fine idea, it just suffers
from its execution. This
is even more unfortunate
since this is the best
written of the three books
Apostolico has produced
so far. It’s conversational
and direct and is an easy,
pleasant read. I’d like to
be able to recommend this
book, but, unfortunately,
I can’t. There are too
many books on the market
written by expert poker
players. I believe these
books will do more to
help improve most players’ poker acumen than
Apostolico’s latest effort.
—Nick Christenson
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Not long ago, the poker festivals
taking place across Europe were
few and far between. But after
a few years of dramatic growth,
Mob have also been present, but
the UK’s original enfant terrible
of poker, Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliot
has been noticeably absent.
Live poker in Europe
BY Jonathan Raab
the European poker calendar
is crowded. There are festivals
taking place almost every weekend in the UK, and new poker
venues are springing up rapidly
across the continent. Several
events are being televised and
due to sponsorship, many of
them feature added prize money.
When it comes to tournament
poker, the European Poker Tour
(EPT), sponsored by Pokerstars,
is the main attraction on offer
on this side of the Atlantic. The
very first EPT event, back in
2004, had a €1,000 buy-in and
229 runners. Now in its third
season, the entry has now risen
to €5,000 and the fields are over
twice the size.
There are still relatively few
Americans taking part at the
EPT, but several big-name players have begun to show an interest. Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen,
Kenna James, Barry Greenstein
and Phil Ivey have already
shown their faces during recent
events in Barcelona and London.
Joe Hachem, Humberto Brenes,
Marcel Luske and the Hendon
It was yet another
Scandinavian EPT victory at
the Barcelona season opener, as
Norwegian Bjorn-Erik Glenne
took the €691,000 first prize.
Phil Ivey finished as runner
up and although he picked
up €371,000 for doing so, is
rumoured to have given so
much of it back on Spanish golf
courses, that he only just broke
even for the week. Phil had been
playing for up to $25,000 a hole
with two well known European
pro poker players.
The EPT then made history
during the second event of the
season as Vicky Coren won her
hometown event in London to
become the tour’s first female
winner taking home £500,000.
This tour’s next stop is in Baden,
Austria.
The success of the EPT has
inspired many other organisations to launch their own tours
and, as a result, European poker
players are spoilt for choice
when it comes to which events
to attend. Several tours are now
in operation, appealing to players
from all ends of the spectrum.
Earlier this year the
Showdown Tour launched,
but has been poorly attended,
perhaps due to overselling itself
with an ambitious €5,000 buyin for its events. The European
Poker Masters Tour has also
just recently launched and is
holding a number of televised
tournaments, with more modest
€3,000 entries. Gus Hansen won
the first of these in London last
month and the tour makes further stops in Vienna, Dublin and
Paris before the end of the year.
Domestic Tours in Spain
and the UK have also recently
launched. Online bookmaker
Paddy Power is sponsoring a
UK tour aiming at lower-staking
players; by only running tournaments with £100 buy-ins during
its first year. A new tour for
2007 is also soon to be unveiled
by Grosvenor Casinos in the
UK. The Grosvenor Poker Tour
(GPT), sponsored by online
bookmaker Blue Square, will
feature ten £1,000 buy-in events
at ten different locations and all
will be televised. The GPT will
be capped off with a £3,000
Grand Final at the end of 2007
at the UK’s best known poker
venue, the Grosvenor Victoria
Casino in London, better known
simply as ‘The Vic’.
The Amateur Poker
Association and Tour (APAT)
has also just launched, aiming
at providing recreational players with events they can play
without having to worry about
too many sharks being there
to pick them off. With lots of
new players and many Internet
players venturing into live card
rooms for the first time, the
number of casual players is
swelling and this tour specifically provides something for
them. The future for live poker
in Europe looks rosy.
Jonathan Raab is a poker
consultant and tournament
reporter. He works for online
poker site Blue Square as their
representative at live poker
events in the UK and Europe.
Email: [email protected]
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
47
Entertainment
Listings
Entertainment RePORT
By LEN BUTCHER
Well, maybe you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to get laughs standing in front
of a crowd, showing a stolen street
sign which reads: “Butts Road,” claiming, “This
must be where the assholes live.”
However, if you had brick-red hair and used a
prop like that, you’d be known around the world as
Carrot Top
Carrot Top, one of the most successful comedians
today. The very funny entertainer takes the stage nightly at the
Luxor Resort and Casino—a show you don’t want to miss.
Born Scott Thompson (1967) in Cocoa Beach, Florida, he’s the
son of a rocket scientist, Larry Thompson, who trained astronauts for the Gemini and Apollo programs. Carrot Top credits his
father for passing along the jocular genes. In a recent interview
he said, “My dad is very funny, with a dry sense of humor. I’d
remember his jokes and tell them to my friends. I was always the
class clown, but I never got in trouble. I wanted to make people
laugh, not be a troublemaker.”
And he wasn’t. Carrot Top earned a degree in marketing,
graduating from what he deems, “The Harvard of Florida” (Florida
Atlantic University in Boca Raton). But comedy was always his
first love and while he worked hard to perfect his act, Carrot Top
worked as a courier for a bank. But after his first full year as a
comic, using the name Carrot Top because, “it was the only thing
people used to call me that you can say on TV,” he says laughing.
“I quit out of frustration attempting to break into clubs. My car
was finally repossessed, and I took jobs delivering bread, cleaning
office buildings, and even shucking oysters. A year later I ran into
a club owner who said, ‘What do you mean you’re not doing comedy?’ He offered me his club’s New Years Eve gig.” That was in 1987.
“I’d forgotten just how much fun this is and that I could do it.”
He certainly could. He remains the only person ever named both
Entertainer of the Year and Comedian of the Year (1993) by the
National Association of Campus Activities. In 1994, he took home
the American Comedy Award for Best Male Stand-Up.
Each year the comic stars for an astonishing 15 weeks in Las
Vegas, headlines another 100-plus concerts across the country,
and makes dozens of television appearances. Not bad for a selfdeprecating comic who attributes his achievement to “I just try
to be silly.” He appears Sunday through Friday, except Tuesdays,
at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 7 and 9 p.m.
If you’re in the Atlantic City area November 3-4, you don’t
want to miss singer Michael Bolton, who will be appearing at the
Taj Mahal Hotel/Casino. The guy whose powerful voice serenaded
us in Time Love and Tenderness shows us that this can be a way
of life. Bolton has withstood the test of time not only within his
profession but his personal life as well, having dated Desperate
Housewives’ actress Nicollette Sheridan between 1993 and 1995.
This year they reunited and are now planning to get married.
His recording achievements include selling 53 million albums,
including eight that made the Top 10 and nine number one
singles.
Unbeknownst to many, the New Haven Connecticut native
(born Michael Bolotin in 1953) received his first record label
contract at the age of 15. Though he is best known for his soft
ballads, Bolton got his first national exposure in the late 70s with
a hard rock band called Blackjack. The band once toured with
heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne.
Most of Bolton’s recordings are original material, however, and
he’s also written songs for such artists as Barbra Streisand, KISS,
Kenny Rogers, Kenny G, Peabo Bryson and Patti Labelle.
Besides being prolific in the music world, he also has a big
heart. He established the Michael Bolton Foundation in 1993 (now
the Michael Bolton Charities, Inc) to assist women and children
at risk from the effects of poverty and emotional, physical, and
sexual abuse. The foundation has provided over $3.7 million in
funding to local and national charities.
Len Butcher, a 25-year resident of Las Vegas, is an
online columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal
and a former Managing Editor of the Las Vegas Sun
and of Gaming Today. Reach him at [email protected]
48
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
Poker Player Advertisers are shown in RED along with their ad’s page number
To list your event, contact Len Butcher, Entertainment Editor at [email protected]
ARIZONA
Casino Arizona (19)
CALIFORNIA
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Harry James Orchestra
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Live Bands
Ballroom Dance Party
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CONNECTICUT
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Gold Strike Casino (Tunica) Gabby Johnson
NEW JERSEY
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Binion’s Gambling Hall (30) Live Music in Keno Bar
Boulder Station Hotel & Casino (10) Michael Franks
Celine Dion
Caesar’s Palace
Edgar Winter
Cannery Hotel & Casino
Thunder From Down Under
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Anthony Cools, Uncensored Hypnotist
Fitzgerald’s Hotel & Casino (47) Larry G. Jones
George Wallace
Flamingo Las Vegas
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Gold Coast (46)
Forever Plaid
Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino
Green Valley Ranch
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Harrah’s Hotel & Casino
Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino (15)
Gordie Brown
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Rita Rudner
Legends In Concert
Donna Summer
Menopause, the Musical
Carrot Top
Las Vegas Hilton
Luxor Resort & Casino (52)
Mandalay Bay Resort &
Casino
MGM Grand Hotel & Casino
(7)
Mamma Mia
Aerosmith & Motley Crue
KA.
Impressionist Danny Gans
The Mirage Hotel & Casino (11) Brad Garrett
The Beatles LOVE
Monte Carlo Resort & Casino
Magician Lance Burton
Vanessa Williams
Earl Turner
Gabe Kaplan’s Laugh Trax
Playboy Comedy Club
The Comedy Zone
ZowieBowie
Crazy Girls
La Cage
Riviera Hotel & Casino (14)
Splash
Neil Diamond Tribute
The Scintas
The Amazing Jonathan
Sahara Hotel & Casino
The Platters, Coasters and
Drifters
Sam’s Town Hotel & Casino (47) Randy Anderson
Psychic Gary Spivey
Santa Fe Station (10)
Asleep at the Wheel
Silverton Hotel & Casino
Rick Thomas
Stardust Hotel & Casino
Bite
Stratosphere Hotel &
American Superstars
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Viva Las Vegas
Psychic Marlene Lombardi
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Love Shack
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Mystere
Treasure Island
Extreme Magic starring
Dirk Arthur
Tropicana Casino & Resort
Folies Bergere
Phantom of the Opera
Blue Man Group
Venetian Hotel & Casino
Gordie Brown
Le Reve
Wynn Las Vegas
LAKE TAHOE
Debbie Loves Dallas
Harrah’s/Harvey’s Lake Tahoe
LAUGHLIN
Riverboat Ramblers Strolling
Colorado Belle Hotel Casino Dixieland Jazz Band
Smothers Brothers
Riverside Hotel Casino
RENO
The Palmores
Atlantis Casino Resort
Smokey Joe’s Cafe
Eldorado Hotel Casino
An Evening with Bill Maher
Grand Sierra Hotel & Casino
Rock My Ride
Harrah’s Reno
Peppermill Hotel & Casino (39) Blue Man Group
Silver Legacy Hotel & Casino k.d. lang
OKLAHOMA
Lefty Po
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OREGON
Wildhorse Resort & Casino (13) Charlie Daniels Band
The Orleans Hotel & Casino
Palace Station Hotel &
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Palms Casino & Resort (14)
Plaza Hotel & Casino
Red Rock Hotel & Casino
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8:30 p.m. Feat. 3 top comedians weekly.
Joker’s Comedy Club, Karaoke Thursdays 8 p.m.
Sunday-Wednesday, 9 p.m.
Fridays & Saturdays, 9 p.m.
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Fridays 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.
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Nov 11, 8 p.m.
Nov 1, 8 p.m.
Live Jazz, Tues. 8 p.m.
Nov 5, 8 p.m.
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Nov 4, 9 p.m.
Sept 29, 7:30 p.m.
Thru Oct 28, 8 p.m.
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Nov 3-4, 9 p.m.
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Nov 4, 8 p.m.
Nov 2, 8 p.m.
May 28, 8 p.m.
Ongoing, Wednesday through Monday, 7 & 10 p.m.
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Nov 11, 8 p.m.
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Tues through Sat, 10 p.m.
Thursdays through Tuesdays, 8 p.m.
Tue thru Sun (dark Mon), 7:30 p.m.,
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Fri thru Tue, 7:30 p.m.
Nov 25, 9 p.m.
Sept 22, 8 p.m.
Ongoing, 8 p.m. (dark Saturdays)
Mondays through Saturdays, 7 & 10 p.m.
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8 p.m. nightly Sat thru Thu
Sun thru Fri, 8 p.m. & Sat, 7 & 9 p.m.
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Fri thru Tue, 7:30& 10:30 p.m.
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Nov 3-4, 10:30 p.m
Thursdays thru Mondays, 7:30 & 10:30 p.m.
Tuesdays thru Saturdays, 7pm; Tuesdays &
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Nov 3-4, 8 p.m.
Thu thru Sun, 8 p.m.
Tuesdays thru Saturdays, 7 p.m.
Saturdays, 8 & 10:30 p.m.
9 p.m. Tuesdays thru Sundays.
Nightly, 8 p.m.
Wed thru Mon, 9:30 p.m.
Wed thru Mon, 7:30 p.m.
Tue thru Sun, 9:30 p.m
Sun thru Thu, 7 p.m.
Tue-Sat, 7 p.m.
Fri-Wed, 10 p.m.
8 p.m. nightly
Oct 26-Nov 5, 8 p.m.
Nov 4, 7 p.m.
Aug 11, 8 p.m.
Ongoing, Thu thru Tue 2 & 4 p.m.
Ongoing, 10:30 p.m.
Ongoing, 6:30 & 8:30 p.m.
Ongoing, 2 & 4 p.m.
Oct 26, 7 p.m.
Fri & Sat, 9 p.m.
Ongoing, Wednesdays thru Saturdays 7:30 p.m.
Sat-Thu, 2 & 4 p.m.
Ongoing, 7:30 p.m. & 10 p.m.
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Ongoing, 7:30 p.m. (dark Wed & Thu)
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Nov 2-4, 10 p.m.
Fridays & Saturdays, 8 p.m.
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Ongoing, 8 p.m.
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Sept 29, 10 p.m.
Nov 2, 8 p.m.
Nov 10-11, 8 p.m.
Nov 1, 8 p.m.
Dec 7, 7 p.m.
Player Profile: Danny Robison
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25
lose? We worked too hard
for our bankroll!”
“No, no. You want to
make sure you start out losing . . . until you start
playing for the really big
money.”
Robison laughs, thinking
about the way it went. “We
listened to him, but Chip and
me, we couldn’t do it. We
just couldn’t NOT try to win.
So we won every day. We
won, won, won.”
But that suddenly changed
as each of the four established what they could shoot
and they figured out who
was going to have to spot
what within their little foursome. “It was too much,”
Robison says now , thinking
about the advice that he had
ignored. “It turned out that
Doyle, for the money, was
a better player than me. The
man did not ever choke.
When he needed a six-foot
putt he made it.”
Robison could see after a
few months of this that they
were in danger of losing on
the golf course the bankroll
they had worked so hard to
build at the poker tables. So
they backed off.
In the meantime,
Robison’s drug habit and
daily search for the big party
were wearing him down
and eventually destroyed
their partnership. Reese
moved out of the house they
had been sharing and took
over the Dunes poker room
as Robison found himself
on the slippery slope to
nowhere.
“I was a drug addict, a
bad one. I finally hit the
absolute bottom and no one
would stake me any more.”
Things were desperate.
Reese would not give him
any more money until he
was clean but did make an
offer that Robison decided to
accept. Reese would finance
his friend’s trip to a drug
program that also had a tiein with a fat farm, something
Reese thought would do
him some good because had
had been putting on weight.
Other forces were also
at work on the central personalities in Robison’s life.
Brunson and Reese had
become fast friends. They
had lots to talk about, as
Robison would eventually
discover.
The unexpected death
of Brunson’s daughter had
shaken the big man badly,
and he was mystified, even
a bit angry, as Robison
remembers, by the fact that
his wife found refuge in her
religious faith and the Bible.
How could she feel that
way, talk that way? Brunson
decided to take time away
from gambling to spend time
studying the Bible. Robison
says Brunson liked what he
found and discovered a comfort that had been lacking.
“Doyle became born
again, accepting Jesus Christ
as his personal savior.”
Brunson subsequently persuaded Reese to take the
same Big Step. But Robison
wasn’t about to walk down
the same road . . . not
yet. “I don’t need to be
saved,” he protested. “I just
want to be clean.”
So they head off to the
combination fat farm and
drug program. To keep
things interesting, they invited a couple of deep-pocketed
gambling acquaintances to
join them. If rumors were
to be believed, according to
Robison, one was a professional killer, the other was a
drug dealer, the two of them
flashing money they were
willing to risk on golf and
assorted gambling possibilities.
The foursome scheduled a round of golf for
sixty thousand – Reese and
Robison against the drug
dealer and hit man, or whoever they were. They’re
about half way through the
round when Robison hits
a tee shot that misses the
fairway and comes to rest at
the foot of a tree. He looks
around and sees that the
other half of the foursome
have walked out of sight
over a slight rise to where
their balls were.
“The two of them had
been staying pretty much
together the whole morning,” Robison says. He tells
Chip that what he thinks
he will do is kick his ball
back out on to the fairway.
There’s no one to see it.
“Chip, I can par this hole.”
Reese gets a look on his
face that suggests there’s
a big tug of war going on
in his head. Robison looks
at him, asking what . . .
what? Reese finally says, as
though he is having trouble
forming the words, “Danny,
I can’t let you cheat.”
Robison looks at his
friend incredulously.
“WHAAAAAT? You can’t
what? Everybody cheats at
golf.”
“I can’t let you cheat,”
saying it again.
Reese wouldn’t budge and
by the end of the round the
Reese-Robison team had lost
$60,000 that Reese took out
of his pocket and paid without protest. Robison couldn’t
get the incident out of his
mind. What had happened to
his friend?
A week later he was at a
Bible study group at Doyle’s
house, thinking about the
changes in Doyle and Reese,
willing to consider the possibility that perhaps even he
could put on a new attitude.
And he did, repeating himself on countless occasions.
“I got led to Jesus. Some
force gave me the power
to turn that (cocaine)
down as badly as my body
wanted it.”
Now there is only the
poker and that’s enough for
Robison.
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49
4/19/06 10:09:09 AM
Junking In
KILLER Poker
By John Vorhaus
If you have an adventurous spirit, you
can look for profitable opportunities in no-limit hold’em
by taking cheap flops with speculative holdings and hitting the sort of (granted, infrequent) monster flops that
create big action and let you take some unsuspecting
slackjaw off his stack. Make no mistake, these junk
calls can be hazardous to your health, but if you’re in
the right kind of game, one with lots of callers and few
raisers, they can be profitably played. In such games, if
a couple of people limp into the pot from early position
they often start a limp stampede, a limpede if you like:
a cascade of callers yielding correct odds for a wide
variety of hands such as unpaired picture cards, small
suited connectors and pairs of any size.
Warning: Only join the limpede if you’re confident
that the blinds won’t make a play for the pot with a
big sweeping raise. Most often, the blinds will just call,
too, though, because the sheer number of pot participants discourages frisky raises. Nevertheless, some
players love to raise into big fields of limpers, and you
should know if you’ve got one of these guys in the
blind before you decide to junk in.
Once you’ve junked in, you’re looking for one thing
and one thing only: the perfect flop. Not an okay flop.
Not a draw. You want the nuts. And not just the nuts
but the nuts disguised so well that your unwary foes
will hand you their stacks and never know what hit
them. True, this occurrence is rare, but it does happen,
and it’s the only thing you should be looking for with
your junk calls.
Suppose you join a limpede with 5a-6a. If the flop
were to come 4-3-2 rainbow, you’d get action from
A-4, certainly A-5, overpairs, maybe even naked overcards. You’d slightly fear involvement from someone
holding a set, for he’d be drawing to seven outs, plus
runner-runner, but you can’t worry about that, for your
goal is to bet big and get paid off by someone drawing slim or dead with a good hand because he can’t
conceive that you’d be in there with 5-6. Of course he
can’t conceive it. That’s why you’re there in the first
place!
As you walk this perilous road, be sure you don’t
confuse flopping perfect with flopping dangerously
almost perfect. Suppose you junk in with 5a-6a and
the flop comes 9a-8a-7s. Yes, you’ve flopped a
straight, but it’s the idiot end, vulnerable to T-J holdings, and also to naked tens or jacks that can improve.
And yes, you’re drawing to a flush, but if there’s
another flush draw out there, it’s almost certainly
better than yours. As in the previous example, you’ll
have to worry about sets drawing to full houses, but
now that’s just one of the many threats you face. The
only card off the deck you can really love is the 7a
for a straight flush -- and God forbid someone has
the Ja-Ta. Having achieved the rarity of flopping a
made hand, you’ll nevertheless have to fold if you face
significant heat. That’s not a trick many players can
master.
Let us acknowledge, then, that junking in is a dangerous game. There’s tremendous reward when it
works, but if you don’t know how to run scared when
you miss or only half hit, or hit in an iffy situation,
you’re better off sticking to standard, tight-aggressive
play. But if you have a taste for adventure, try junking
in from time to time. It’s fun, plus good for your image,
and every now and then you can turn junk into gold.
2006-2007 WORLDWIDE
POKER TOURNAMENTS
NOW! Get Tournament Listings at our website: www.pokerplayernewspaper.com
>Denotes Advertiser; Poker Association Events also denoted: t=World Poker Tour,
s=World Series of Poker and e=European Poker Tour.
To list your 3-day events contact: A.R. Dyck, Managing Editor, at: [email protected]
DATE
EVENT
>Oct 14-26
Fall Poker Classic
Canterbury Park (AdPg 50), Shakopee, MN
Oct 18-22
Heartland Poker Tour Event
Grand Casino Mille Lacs, Onamia, MN
>Oct 18-29
Nat’l Championship of Poker Hollywood Park Casino (AdPg 7), L.A., CA
>Oct 19-22
The Bay 101 Open
Bay 101 (AdPg 26), San Jose, CA
Oct 19-22
October Poker Weekend
Turning Stone Resort Casino, Verona, NY
Oct 19-29
IP Hotel & Casino Poker Classic IP Hotel & Casino, Biloxi, MS
Oct 19-Nov 2
WSOP Tournament Circuit Event sCaesars Indiana, Elizabeth, IN
>Oct. 21-29 Heartland Poker Tour Event Majestic Star Casino, Gary, IN
Oct 22-24
Canadian Open
tFallsview Casino Resort, Niagara Falls, Canada
Oct 25-29
North American Poker Ch’ship Niagarafallsview Casino Resort, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
Oct 27-29
Monster Mash
Newcastle Gaming Center, Newcastle, OK
Oct 27-29
EPT Dublin
eRegency Hotel, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Oct 28-Nov 16 Foxwoods World Poker Finals
tFoxwoods Resort Casino, Mashantucket, CT
>Oct 30-Nov 12 Cherokee Poker Classic
Cherokee Casino Resort (AdPg 6), Tulsa, OK
Nov 3-19
Holiday Bonus
Commerce Casino, Commerce, CA
Nov 4-18
St. Maarten Fall Poker Showdown Casino Royal, Maho Beach, St. Maarten
Nov 6-12
7th Annual Gold Rush Tourn.
Lucky Chances Casino, Colma, CA
Nov 7-12
Harvest Poker Classic
Casino Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
>Nov. 8-18
Fall Poker Roundup
Wildhorse Casino (AdPg 13), Pendleton, OR
Nov 9-12
Welsh Poker Festival
Grosvenor Casino, Cardiff, Wales
>Nov 10-19
Peppermill Fall Tournament
Peppermill Hotel Casino (AdPg 39), Reno, NV
Nov 12-16
World Poker Finals
Foxwoods Resort Casino, Mashantucket, CT Nov
20-26
B.C. Poker Championship
River Rock Casino Resort, Richmond, B.C., Canada
Nov 22-26
Heartland Poker Tour Event
Royal River Casino, Flandreau, SD
>Nov 23-Dec 10 Turkey Shoot/Ho-Ho Hold’em Bicycle Casino (AdPg 3), Bell Gardens, CA
Dec 1-19
5 Diamond World Poker Classic tBellagio, Las Vegas, NV
Dec 4-10
Christmas Cracker
Grosvenor Casino, Luton, U.K.
>Dec. 5-14
St. Maarten Open
Sonesta Maho Beach Resort & Casino, St. Maarten, N’lands Antilles
Dec 14-19
Bellagio 5 Diamond World Poker Classic Bellagio, Las Vegas, NV
>Dec 20-23 Heavyweight Championship of Poker Sam’s Town (AdPg 47), Las Vegas, NV
Jan 4-25
Jack Binion World Poker Open tHorseshoe Casino Hotel / Gold Strike Casino Resort, Tunica, MS
>Jan 5-10
PokerStars.com Caribbean Adventure tParadise Island, Bahamas (AdPg 56)
Jan 5-14
Poker Derby
Hollywood Park Casino (AdPg 7), L.A., CA
Jan 6-19
Crown Australian Poker Ch’ship (“Aussie Millions”) Crown Casino, Melbourne, Australia
Jan 17-22
Scandinavian Open
eCasino Copenhagen (Radisson SAS Scandinavian Hotel), Denmark
Jan 21-25
World Poker Open
tGold Strike Casino, Tunica, MS
Jan 26-30
Borgata Poker Classic
tThe Borgata, Atlantic City, NJ
Jan 29-Feb 21
LA Poker Classic
tCommerce Casino, Commerce, CA
Feb 8-11
French Open
eDeauville Casino, Deauville, France
>Feb 19-Mar 2 Bay 101 Shooting Stars
tBay 101 (AdPg 26), San Jose, CA
Feb 22-24
WPT Invitational
Feb 24-Mar 1
L.A. Poker Classic
Commerce Casino, L.A., CA
Mar 3-5
Celebrity Invitational
Mar 7-11
Grand Final
eMonte Carlo Bay Resort, Monte Carlo
Mar 7-18
Spring Poker Festival
Concord Card Casino, Vienna, Austria
>Mar 12-16
Bay 101 Shooting Stars
Bay 101 (AdPg 26), San Jose, CA
Mar 21-Apr 4
Foxwoods Poker Classic
tFoxwoods Resort Casino, Mashantucket, CT
Mar 25-28
World Poker Challenge
tReno Hilton, Reno, NV
Mar 28-Apr 1
EPT Grand Final
eMonte Carlo Bay Resort, Monte Carlo
Apr 3-27
5-Star World Poker Classic
tBellagio, Las Vegas, NV
Apr 21-27
WPT World Championship
tBellagio, Las Vegas, NV
>May 10-21
Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge III Cherokee Casino Resort (AdPg 6), Tulsa, OK
[John Vorhaus is the author of Poker Night and
the Killer Poker book series, and news
ambassador for UltimateBet.com.]
50
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
LOCATION
Coming
Soon!
Meeting All Your Travel Needs...
PokerPlayerNewspaperTravel.com
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~ MANSION AMBASSADOR: ERICA SCHOENBERG ~
welcome to the game
MANSION offers some of the most exciting competitions to
challenge you and take your game to the next level. Par ticipate
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take advantage of frequent added value tournaments. Visit us for
complete details and join the thousands of poker players who have
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100% deposit bonus
up to $1000
enter “pokerplayerusa” referr al
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© Copyright 2006. MANSION is an internationally registered trademark. All rights reserved.
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
51
BEATING
YOUR
OPPONENTS
IS GOOD.
DOING IT WITH A BONUS IS EVEN BETTER.
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Thursday (10 am to 3 pm)
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1st $800 2nd $500 3rd $250 4th $150 5th thru last place $50
Plus 2 $150 drawings-Average Split $90
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5th thru last place split $1,750-Total $3,500
Bonus Poker
Cash paid for 4 of a kind, straight and royal flushes
Win $20, $50 or $100
Check the poker room for
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52
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
GAME ON.
TO LEARN, CHAT AND PLAY WITH THE PROS, GO WHERE THEY LIVE.
100% SIGN-UP BONUS UP TO $600*.
54
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
*See Web site for details. Enjoy the free games, and before playing in the real-money games, please check with your local jurisdiction regarding the legality of Internet poker. ©2006 Full Tilt Poker. All rights reserved.
O C TO B E R 3 0, 2 0 0 6
55
PokerStars Says Thank You!
PokerStars would like to thank the 27,399 players who competed in this year’s
World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). You have officially set a new
record for the world’s largest online poker tournament.
In addition to being the largest online tournament ever, the $18,674,300 prize pool
makes the 2006 WCOOP the 3rd largest poker event of the year, only the World
Series of Poker and World Poker Tour Championship awarded more prize money.
Congratulations to the new World Champions of Online Poker:
CHAMPION
EVENT
ENTRIES
PRIZE POOL
WINNER'S SHARE*
Nabokov
Razz
1,297
$259,400
$58,365
Rambo5
No-Limit Hold 'em
4,495
$2,247,500
$320,865
thegiant
Pot-Limit Omaha (rebuys)
773
$678,300
$151,260
spawng
No-Limit Hold 'em Match Play
2,048
$409,600
$58,248
kwob20
Limit Omaha High/Low
953
$476,500
$103,162
austinlewis
No-Limit Hold 'em (rebuys)
2,081
$1,184,200
$199,509
yaaaflow
Limit Hold 'em
1,872
$374,400
$60,419
F.Briatore
HORSE
1,798
$359,600
$79,112
uncforte
Pot-Limit Hold 'em
1,095
$547,500
$105,329
strassa2
No-Limit Hold 'em
2,458
$2,458,000
$442,440
nikstar
Seven Card Stud
657
$197,100
$39,548
Mr. Shhhhhhh
Pot-Limit Omaha8
1,303
$390,900
$56,080
dnKid
Pot-Limit Hold 'em
1,741
$522,300
$87,560
kwob20
Seven Card Stud High/Low
581
$290,500
$68,267
Trabelsi
Pot-Limit Omaha
867
$433,500
$93,852
stelladora
HORSE
175
$875,000
$223,125
laurentia
Limit Hold 'em
695
$695,000
$145,200
area23JC
No-Limit Hold 'em
2,510
$6,275,000
$670,194
*Winner's share reflects final table deals, if any
HOM E O F T H E L A R G E ST T O U R N A M E N T S O N L I N E

“RENT” “RENT”

Transcription

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