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Will Online Poker Be Legal Soon? Maybe at State Level
Lately I've been waiting for some good news on the online poker front but there hasn't been too much. My Full Tilt money is still hopefully tied up although the wheels do seem to be grinding slowly. If you played on Full Tilt, what are you thinking about all this?
Then there's the issue of legalization. If I had to guess, I think someone will soon put forth a bill to allow states to regulate the online game (Harry Reid ended up declining to do so last month during Congress's lame duck session) but even if that happens, it won't be the same type of poker with the limited player pool.
Don't get me wrong, good players would be able to win and there likely would be a big influx of soft money due to the newfound legality, but I'm still not too optimistic the games will be great. I hope it happens and I'm proved wrong!
In my opinion, budgets will only get tighter as we move forward in 2013 and I think it will be difficult to ignore the taxes that could be collected if online poker is legalized. We will all have to stay tuned.
Then there's the issue of legalization. If I had to guess, I think someone will soon put forth a bill to allow states to regulate the online game (Harry Reid ended up declining to do so last month during Congress's lame duck session) but even if that happens, it won't be the same type of poker with the limited player pool.
Don't get me wrong, good players would be able to win and there likely would be a big influx of soft money due to the newfound legality, but I'm still not too optimistic the games will be great. I hope it happens and I'm proved wrong!
In my opinion, budgets will only get tighter as we move forward in 2013 and I think it will be difficult to ignore the taxes that could be collected if online poker is legalized. We will all have to stay tuned.
Book Review: The Beginner's Guide to Poker
The Beginner’s
Guide to Poker by Golden
Riviera Casino delivers just what you’d expect and more: a thorough but
interesting introduction to the game of poker, including its history, rules,
variations as well as key strategies you’ll need to know before hitting the
tables. It’s perfect for poker newbies, although there still is plenty to learn
for players who already have some familiarity.
Before getting into the book’s content proper, I feel I must
give some mention to its physical qualities. In today’s immediate publishing
environment, it’s easy to quickly dash off an e-book without anything special
in the graphics department. This one, on the other hand, is a joy to look at.
Attractive layout and images, good use of color, and sidebars filled with
quotes, interesting facts, and additional visuals all make the reading
experience more enjoyable.
But never judge a book by its cover, they say; nor its
pretty layout. And the content of The Beginner’s
Guide to Poker delivers as well. After a brief introduction to the game of
poker and its mathematical, strategic and emotional nature, it jumps right into
its origins.
Despite being an experienced poker player myself, I
nevertheless learned a few things from this section. I especially enjoyed the
point that there are a couple of different versions of poker’s history and
historians are not in complete accordance as to what went down. The history
lesson quickly launches into the present day, explaining how the development of
poker strategy books in the 70s and 80s, online casinos in the 90s, and
televised tournaments in the 2000s have all revolutionized the game.
The author describes the poker boom as a journey from a game
to a sport, and shows how the industry got to today’s staggering size. But in
addition to telling tales of multi-million dollar prizes, the book focuses on
business realities. Directly following the history is a section explaining how
online poker rooms make a profit, which is key for all players to understand.
The book then shifts from historical context to actionable
advice with an in-depth exploration of the actual gameplay of poker. This
section is perfect for new players, as it starts from the very beginning,
including betting structures and procedures. Due to the many different
variations of poker, though, it quickly becomes necessary to explain the
complexity and different rules. The author here comes up with an effective
solution: presenting first the main categories of games and then the popular
variations for each category. With dozens of different games, including Q-Ball,
Spit in the Ocean, Crazy Pineapple and Chowaha, poker novices will certainly
not run out of new variations to call during dealer’s choice anytime soon. The
section also includes a popular but often ignored variation: video poker.
The next section is one of the most important for a poker
beginner: the hand rankings. From one pair all the way up to a straight flush,
each hand value is clearly explained and supplemented by a helpful
illustration.
After this, the book gets into additional betting rules and
some key poker concepts such as the game of bluffing and common tells. One
thing to remember when reading this part is that any one of these ideas
requires a book of its own (if not more) to fully describe it.
Readers should consider the section on signs to look for
when your opponent is bluffing, for example, as a mere introduction to the
world of poker psychology, not hard and fast rules to memorize and follow in
every game. Snapping off a bluff solely on the basis of a physical tell may be
a romantic and exciting conception of great poker play, but it doesn’t always happen
that way in real life. These types of tells are also completely dependent on
context, including the poker variation, the stakes of the game, the caliber of
the opponents, and more. What may be the best play in $1/$2 Texas Hold’em does
not hold true for $5/$10, and it’s in a completely different world than stud or
draw poker. Beginning poker players in low stakes games would be much better
served to start to learn how to observe their opponents’ betting patters and
categorize them into tight/loose and passive/aggressive players rather than try
to pick up on gestures. Nevertheless, the section is compelling and goes over
most of the popular poker tells.
Since the vast majority of poker shown on TV and played in
tournaments is Texas Hold’em, it’s likely that some beginners would want to
launch right into that variety and start learning winning strategies. That
really isn’t the point of this book, which gives equal weight to all the main
poker types and goes over techniques that work in any poker game. Those who are
interested in learning about the exciting history of this great game and how to
get started playing it, The
Beginner’s Guide to Poker is the perfect book.
Playing Poker on Sportsbook.com: Notes
Post-Black Friday, US players are naturally looking for places where they can still play poker. Sportsbook.com, on the Merge network along with PlayersOnly, is a top rated sportsbook that has made significant improvements to their poker software after upgrading to PlayAces software.
They offer a wide variety of different cash games, MTTs and SnGs and while the player pool naturally can't touch the former levels of Full Tilt Poker before its shutdown, there have been many active games every time I've checked. Unfortunately, as I just learned after doing a little research, Sportsbook.com has pulled out of the US market earlier this year, so no new US players can sign up for a real money account. This was a decision by the company that owns these Merge network properties as well as Superbook on the Cake network.
So if you already had an account on Sportsbook.com before May 1 of this year, you can continue to play. If you didn't, however, you're unfortunately out of luck.
The site is enjoying an influx of new players as former FTPers bounce flock to sites that are still available. So if you have an old Sportsbook.com account sitting there collecting dust, you might want to resurrect it. It's not perfect, but it does offer some quality poker.
They offer a wide variety of different cash games, MTTs and SnGs and while the player pool naturally can't touch the former levels of Full Tilt Poker before its shutdown, there have been many active games every time I've checked. Unfortunately, as I just learned after doing a little research, Sportsbook.com has pulled out of the US market earlier this year, so no new US players can sign up for a real money account. This was a decision by the company that owns these Merge network properties as well as Superbook on the Cake network.
So if you already had an account on Sportsbook.com before May 1 of this year, you can continue to play. If you didn't, however, you're unfortunately out of luck.
The site is enjoying an influx of new players as former FTPers bounce flock to sites that are still available. So if you have an old Sportsbook.com account sitting there collecting dust, you might want to resurrect it. It's not perfect, but it does offer some quality poker.
Effects of Black Friday on the 2011 WSOP
Ever since Chris Moneymaker's win in the 2003, the WSOP fields have been growing at incredible rates: the 2010 main event featured over 7,300 players and the total prize pool for the series was nearly $200,000,000.
Many of these entrants win their spots via online satellites, many of which are run by Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Of course, these mega-sites have been shut down by recent US Department Of Justice indictments, announced on a day which has come to be known as Black Friday.
How is the 2011 WSOP being affected? So far at least, it seems to still be going just about as strong as would have been expected without the big shutdowns. The 2011 WSOP began on May 31st, and there are 58 events scheduled, one more than last year. Many of the online players are cut off from their bankrolls as Full Tilt especially is struggling to find the funds to pay them. Live satellites at the WSOP will most likely become even more hotly contested than ever before.
Other interesting areas to watch will be the number of players in the lower-stakes and major events, the sponsored products worn by players as well as the way the media covers the event in such an uncertain climate.
Many of these entrants win their spots via online satellites, many of which are run by Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Of course, these mega-sites have been shut down by recent US Department Of Justice indictments, announced on a day which has come to be known as Black Friday.
How is the 2011 WSOP being affected? So far at least, it seems to still be going just about as strong as would have been expected without the big shutdowns. The 2011 WSOP began on May 31st, and there are 58 events scheduled, one more than last year. Many of the online players are cut off from their bankrolls as Full Tilt especially is struggling to find the funds to pay them. Live satellites at the WSOP will most likely become even more hotly contested than ever before.
Other interesting areas to watch will be the number of players in the lower-stakes and major events, the sponsored products worn by players as well as the way the media covers the event in such an uncertain climate.
Home Game Report
I haven't had many opportunities to sit down for a home poker game recently, so when my roommate and a few friends were getting a game together yesterday, I gladly joined in. Little did I know, the game would end up teaching me an interesting lesson.
I’ve always thought about what it would be like to play ring games without thinking at all about the money. That is, if my only goal is to amass as many chips as I can, instead of focusing on winning twenty of fifty dollars, I figure I would make much better and rational decisions.
Turns out, this is exactly what happened to me in this game. When I joined in, the guy who brought the chips handed me my stack and said how much it was worth in total, but then told me the chips themselves would be worth 1, 2 and 5. Although this seemed rather odd to me, I guess those guys usually play this way and wait until the game is over to calculate who is up and who is down.
After a few rounds, I had no idea if I was up or down, and decided to just focus on playing good poker.
I’ve found that I sometimes get much more conservative when I have a small win going, and if I have a big stack, I tend to play looser and make more aggressive moves. Now of course, I don't do this consciously, but nevertheless, it happens.
Yesterday, however, I wasn't thinking about wins, losses or any dollar signs; just trying to get as many chips as I could. And I was able to make much better long-term decisions, instead of being affected by results-oriented thinking for the session.
When the game was over, I was happy to see that this philosophy worked out. I thought I was only up by a few dollars, but when I cashed out, I was happy to see I had almost doubled my buy-in.
I’ve always thought about what it would be like to play ring games without thinking at all about the money. That is, if my only goal is to amass as many chips as I can, instead of focusing on winning twenty of fifty dollars, I figure I would make much better and rational decisions.
Turns out, this is exactly what happened to me in this game. When I joined in, the guy who brought the chips handed me my stack and said how much it was worth in total, but then told me the chips themselves would be worth 1, 2 and 5. Although this seemed rather odd to me, I guess those guys usually play this way and wait until the game is over to calculate who is up and who is down.
After a few rounds, I had no idea if I was up or down, and decided to just focus on playing good poker.
I’ve found that I sometimes get much more conservative when I have a small win going, and if I have a big stack, I tend to play looser and make more aggressive moves. Now of course, I don't do this consciously, but nevertheless, it happens.
Yesterday, however, I wasn't thinking about wins, losses or any dollar signs; just trying to get as many chips as I could. And I was able to make much better long-term decisions, instead of being affected by results-oriented thinking for the session.
When the game was over, I was happy to see that this philosophy worked out. I thought I was only up by a few dollars, but when I cashed out, I was happy to see I had almost doubled my buy-in.
Mixing in a lot of MTTs Lately
I've been grinding a lot of .25/.50 limit these days, and doing pretty well aside from the occasional day when I get absolutely crushed. (Funny game, it is...)
To balance that out I like to play about as different of a Holdem game as I can find, and I really enjoy big No Limit MTTs. The thrill of the tournament format really gets me and I've had a few big final table cashes this year. I haven't won a large-field tourney yet though, so that's my next goal
Anyway, I'm doing the $200K Double Deuce at Full Tilt this afternoon, and it starts in about 30 minutes. There are about 5,500 players registered right now, and first place is 31K. How nice would that be?
Update: Hendon mob pro Dave Colclough and Scott Fischman are in the field so far. Hope I draw one of them at my table!
To balance that out I like to play about as different of a Holdem game as I can find, and I really enjoy big No Limit MTTs. The thrill of the tournament format really gets me and I've had a few big final table cashes this year. I haven't won a large-field tourney yet though, so that's my next goal
Anyway, I'm doing the $200K Double Deuce at Full Tilt this afternoon, and it starts in about 30 minutes. There are about 5,500 players registered right now, and first place is 31K. How nice would that be?
Update: Hendon mob pro Dave Colclough and Scott Fischman are in the field so far. Hope I draw one of them at my table!
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