If you thought those "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" ads were over the line, you'll love this.
One of New Mexico's biggest American Indian-run casinos has pulled a controversial TV ad that promoted gambling as a financial solution to people who are short on cash or deeply in debt.
The Isleta Casino Resort commercial ran earlier this month featuring a young woman who suggested that the answer to unpaid bills piling up from holiday-season shopping sprees could be found at the casino, which operates just south of Albuquerque.
I learned how to play poker on a US Navy submarine among the fishes. “Learned” is relative though, and I’m not an ocean fish, I’m a river fish. A-rag? Suited or not, I raise it. 3-4o? Raise pre-flop baby! My favorite draw is a gutshot straight I make on the river. I re-raise with 2’s, hoping I can make trips. All reds? ALL IN!!! I go all-in with A-Q so frequently that my 1000 hand limit on Pokertracker shows me I have a negative expected value for AQ bigger than the national deficit. I had fish sticks for dinner.
For his stellar fishy efforts, Chris wins a free license to Poker Tracker (a $55 value). Thanks again to the generous folks at Poker Tracker for making the giveaway possible.
Runner up honors go to "Marlin McFlounder", whose entry was hilarious but egregiously over the 100-word limit:
Micro-limit Fishy
You know me, I am the guy with a $50 bankroll online trolling around the high roller tables of .1/.2 NL. I come to the table and lay my impressive stack of chips totaling a whopping $2. I play for 6 hours straight and feel like Phil Ivey when I leave the table with an even more impressive stack of chips topping $4.32. I go to work next day bragging about how I bluffed a guy out of a $1.31 pot with 7 2 off suit.
When I get on a huge rush I may take $5.50 of my "ring game" winnings and play a Sit and Go tournament. This is of course is akin to playing in the "Big One" for me. All it takes is one magical win and I have increased my bankroll by 50% !!!
I read all the books, watch all the shows and scoff at all my friends who only play in freerolls. I know they must look up to me in awe, as I gamble with "real" money online just like that Chris Moneymaker did.
So do I need a program like Pokertracker to help me with my online game ? Hmmmm, I am the Doyle Brunson of the .1/.2 games, but I "guess" a program like this could help me increase my bankroll.
All in,
Marlin McFlounder
Thanks again to everyone who entered the giveaway, and better luck next time.
There's a good article from the LV Sun about Harrah's preparing for the re-opening of Binion's Horseshoe next week.
We are replacing about 5,000 yards of carpet in corridors and in hotel suites. We've removed about 400 slots from floor to open walkways. We've done a lot of cleaning.
If you're on the market for a set of chips, there's a used casino Chipco 500-chip set on eBay that's currently at $0.50 per chip. Link
The final bid on previous sets of the same chips on eBay have ranged from $280 to $332.
Chipco chips are my favorite type of chip for poker. Their texture, and especially the noise they make in a pot is the best. They are used in a lot of Atlantic City and regional cardrooms, not so much in Vegas (where Paulson is much more prevalent). The primary drawback of Chipco chips is that the ink tends to wear off, especially around the edges of the chip. For me, that's not a big enough drawback to make them undesirable; in fact I like the look of a well-worn Chipco. The other drawback is that, being a ceramic-like material, they do chip a little more than Paulson chips but still not very much.
There's also this set of 1000 chipco chips, but they're at $500 without the reserve being met, and have a very cheesy color selection and logo (including "home games" written around the outside). The final bid on a previous set of the same chips went for $662.
There are less than two days left to get your entries in for the great PokerTracker giveaway! Get 'em in and try to cash in on a free license to the most valuable piece of software any online hold'em player can own.
There's a brand new poker magazine on the scene, "ALL IN" magazine. Time will tell if it can last and compete with CardPlayer. Link (via Guinness and Poker)
If you live in San Francisco, James McManus, author of Positively Fifth Street will be speaking at the Park Branch Library tomorrow (March 25, 2004) at 7pm. Link
Andy Glazer has written some of the best poker articles out there over the past few years, and his latest is no exception. I love stories about misread hands, and his is a doozy.
Without even looking at the river card, which had been dealt off a bit to the side, I reached for my first two hole cards, and I announced as I was flipping them face up, "flush going in," meaning that I had a flush at least and I'd see about the low when I looked at the river card.
There was only one problem. You know how you hear about those people who spontaneously combust, or who get abducted by aliens? Well, something similar must have happened to my 5c-6c, because when I flipped the two cards up, they were the 2h-6h. That's right. Not two black clubs. Two red hearts, and one of them the wrong rank, even.
I'd have paid $500 for a videotape of what my face must have looked like when I turned those cards over.
Signor Ferrari has posted an excellent poker-player-oriented review of Rounders, which makes some great points on things about the movie that have always bothered me, including Mike McDermott's love life and his over-inflated opinion of his chances at the WSOP:
Will Mike get cracked in Vegas? Again, let's examine the evidence. First, Mike decides he "belongs" because he bluffed Johnny Chan out of a hand at a $300/600 table and then ran away with his winnings. Well whoop de damn doo!
The scene where Mike is talking about beating Johnny Chan always bothered me too. Heck, I've been in two heads-up pots with Scotty Nguyen, and one with TJ Cloutier, and won all three of them. That must make me three times more qualified than Mike McDermott to make it big! But I'd lose my life savings in about six months if I moved to Vegas to become a pro poker player :)
I compiled this interesting statistic recently, comparing 2003 PGA winners to 2003 World Series of Poker winners.
The 2003 PGA tour consisted of 48 events. Only 8 players were repeat winners across those events, and there were a total of 31 unique winners. Of those winners, 5 of the 31 were previous winners of the PGA championship event.
The 2003 WSOP consisted of 35 events. 10 players were repeat winners across those events, and there were a total of 25 unique winners. Of those winners, 6 of the 25 were previous winners of the WSOP championship event.
I'd like to do some more research into past years and other events, but the parallels are pretty interesting. Some more statistical analysis could lay down at least a statistical basis for arguing to a court or legislature that tournament poker is a game of skill.
If you have a blog that doesn't have an RSS feed (or don't know what an RSS feed is), I strongly recommend you check out the Feedster Builder and use it to create an RSS feed for you.
Why should you do this? Well, first of all, there are several hundred readers out there who are now using Syndirella for reading poker blogs, as described in my poker newsreader guide. If you have an RSS feed, they will get your site automatically when using my poker feed list, instead of having to set it up manually. So you'll get more readers. An RSS feed is also much more reliable than the web feeds I set up for poker blogs, and less likely to break if you change your site layout, for instance.
By using a Feedster RSS feed, you'll also automatically make it into Feedster's search engine which is widely used and only indexes RSS feeds, and you'll also get your site updates automatically posted to weblogs.com which is used by many blogging search and aggregation tools.
Finally, if this matters to you, it will make my life slightly easier since I won't have to update your site's web feed settings whenever you change your site!
If you do set up an RSS feed, please e-mail me its URL so I can add your feed to my list of poker feeds.
Paul Phillips has posted his reactions to the World Poker Tour Bellagio episode (which features him).
Some anonymous asshole said this: "I know for sure that there must have been some sort of a deal behind the scenes with Dewey. Who goes all in six time straight the last of which is with 9T offsuit?" People like that should be severely beaten with rubber hoses. No, there was no deal, and Dewey played extremely well heads-up. Poker must be the only game where you can play perfectly and then see people falsely accuse you of doing something because they think you've played so BADLY.
I really enjoy reading Felicia Lee's poker accounts, but I got a whole new respect for her when I read this in a recent post:
Some people have confronted me about the "mistake" of speaking up when I get out of paying a blind. They say it's not taking unfair advantage or angleshooting. Maybe some people can let the dealer move the button twice, or another player to move the button, then the dealer, and not say a thing, but I just can't. I don't think it's fair. It's hard enough to win a tourney, let alone if one is unfairly put into the blind a hand too soon.
This is a common occurrence in tournaments, especially smaller cardroom weekly tournaments. It happened to me at the Orleans last weekend and I, too, spoke up even though the players in the blinds hadn't noticed. It's really refreshing to hear a true poker pro talking like that though -- as implied by her post, a lot of grinder-types would treat missing a blind during a tournament as a "freebie" and not care that other players are unfairly disadvantaged as a result.
Also, if you happen to run a poker site, Felicia has organized a weekly online tournament on Sunday nights! Check it out, and e-mail her if you'd like to play.
Former Kid in the Hall Dave Foley will be replacing Kevin Pollak in the second season of "Celebrity Poker Showdown". Link
I'm indifferent about this one... I like Dave Foley, but don't think he'll bring anything especially good to the Celebrity Poker Showdown set. If I had the ability to change the show, I'd make the celebrities play for their own money and make them get no-limit hold'em lessons before the episode.
Although it's regularly lauded by most serious online players, I think many people who play online are unaware of PokerTracker.
Not being a very serious online player myself, I only decided to try it out a few weeks ago, but I can honestly say if you intend to be a profitable online poker player, you would be completely insane not to use PokerTracker.
What is it? Well first of all you absolutely must go to the website and download an evaluation for yourself to see it in action. It's difficult to comprehend how packed with features, and all the bells and whistles you could ever imagine in a poker-play analysis package it is, without running it yourself. The free evaluation is fully functional and allows you to load up to 1,000 hands.
PokerTracker capitalizes on one of the greatest things about playing poker online -- you can load hand histories for every single hand you've played, and analyze them on a game-by-game basis.
Major online poker sites will e-mail you your hand histories, usually 100 at a time. While you're playing, you need to request these from the site so you can get all your hand histories. PokerTracker even makes this easier, by featuring an auto-request feature that will ping the site every X minutes while you play and request the hands for you. This makes keeping track of hands MUCH easier.
When I first read the PokerTracker site, it was so humbly written and matter-of-fact that I didn't really comprehend all the features the software offered. Here are what I think are the most important features:
Meticulously, ridiculously detailed stats on every aspect of play of not only you, but every opponent you've ever faced -- hands played, % of time called a single bet or raise before the flop, % of times raised pre-flop, % of times won at showdown, % of times tried to steal the blinds, % of times folded to an apparent steal attempt, BB won per 100 hands, rake paid, etc. No stat left unturned.
Data sliced by just about every dimension you can think of -- by stakes, by hand, by position, by final hand, by session, by month, by date, by site, etc.
Ability to create a "table diagram" with the current players you're playing against (assuming you have past data on them) which displays their "vital stats" -- VERY useful when playing on a single table. This is an amazing feature, which I don't think all PT users use. It's actually pretty easy to fold TT before the flop when you're facing a raise against an opponent who has ONLY ever raised pre-flop in the last 2,000 hands with AA and KK.
Ability to print, and export to excel, just about every screen in the app.
Ability to "flag" certain players with icons (I use the "fish" and "rock" icon gratuitously).
New: ability to export specific player stats directly into player notes in your poker client! You don't need to even set up the player table in PT, you can view stats directly in the PP client. A HUGE feature.
my dream table
The guy who maintains PP is very responsive to e-mails, and is constantly improving the product (there have been 5 updates already, just since the beginning of the year).
I'm not an online grinder, but PokerTracker has already shown me a massive hole in my game -- I'm way too aggressive with blind-stealing when I'm one off the button. Other than the small and big blinds, it's the only position I've lost money from, almost exclusively from going heads-up with one of the blinds when I've tried to steal and they've had a legitimate hand. Thank you PokerTracker.
After you import 1,000 hands, the registration fee for PokerTracker is $55.00. If you balk at this price, you're kidding yourself. If you are serious about playing profitable online poker, there's no better software out there to analyze your play. You'll make $55.00 in incremental bets earned if you discover even one small shortcoming in your play. I found that just my intention to import hands into PokerTracker caused me to play better -- I knew I'd be looking at my play later, and that made me a lot more conscious of how I was playing.
If this review sounds gushing and over-the-top, that's because it is. As someone in the software industry, I did not expect to find such a gem of a piece of software out there for online poker players. Everything about PokerTracker screams of being written by someone who understands poker, understands online poker, and understands what it takes to be a profitable player. It's a very well-written, meticulously detailed piece of software that every serious, or even semi-serious, online player needs in their arsenal. If you're not using PokerTracker, you either don't care about making money playing poker online, or you haven't tried it out yet.
I've also found that PokerTracker has made me a better live game player. There's absolutely no way to break down live game stats the way that Poker Tracker breaks down online stats, but by understanding my stats in online play, I've been able to take what I learned there and apply it to live play. As a result, I've become a better live limit player.
the great pokertracker giveaway
For those of you who want something for free, this is your chance to get it! I'm giving away one free license of PokerTracker, courtesy of the PokerTracker folks -- a $55.00 value!
Here's what you have to do:
write a short paragraph, no longer than 100 words, on why you're the biggest fish (worst player) who has ever graced an online poker room. Be creative, be funny, and keep it under 100 words. E-mail it to me. The deadline is Friday, March 26, 2004, at 5pm central time. The single entry which I deem to be the funniest will win one free license to PokerTracker.
Semi-legal stuff: by entering this contest you are giving me full rights over the submitted entry, including explicit permission to post your entry on this website. With each entry, include your real name and e-mail address, as well as any alias you want me to use if I decide to post your entry. Any entry I post will only have the alias you give me as a credit; I will not post your real name or e-mail address anywhere online but I do need it in order for you to receive the license if you win.
There's a great little story over at legal underground about working as a lawyer who sneaks off to casinos during the day:
One day, the partners announced the firm was expanding. Some of my best buddies and I were moved to the southwest quarter of the 30th floor. In a major administrative oversight, the corner office was given to a senior associate instead of a partner.
This meant there was no one around who cared enough to keep an eye on us. It was the first good thing that happened to us.
And the second? Riverboat gambling came to town.
If I worked in a city with cardrooms - sometimes I'm glad I don't, but mostly I wish I did - my problem wouldn't be sneaking off during the day; it would be waking up and getting into work on time after an all-night poker bender.
Adult Poker Tour: Where webmasters, photographers, pornstars, and others in the adult industry can network with peers while playing poker for fun or real money. Compete in free industry-only poker tournaments and win real prizes such as website content and advertising. Don't forget to register.
I've been asked for advice several times in the last couple weeks about purchasing a home poker chip set. Here's my take on the subject.
I recommend going all-out and getting heavy custom clay composite chips from a place like pokerchips.com -- they'll run $0.35-$1.00 per chip, but they really will last a lifetime and you'll be thankful for the high quality of the chips. You'll want "american style clay chips" -- they're not technically clay, but a composite material (which may contain some clay). That's what clay chip really means since chips are no longer made entirely of clay. They stack extremely well, and are similar to the "old style" hat-and-cane chips used in cardrooms. I have a set and love them. I recommend customizing them with something like your initials, it personalizes your game and makes the chips more secure (not usually an issue but I think it's important). I also really like chipco ceramic chips, which are very common in American cardrooms; they run about $0.70 per chip and have a really modern, nice feel and noise to them. Their main disadvantage is that the ink tends to wear off around the edges over time, but I find that worn look actually quite appealing.
I recommend to people who aren't ready to drop several hundred on a set that you buy the absolute cheapest chips you can find until you've saved enough for a proper custom expensive chip set. You can get super-cheap bicycle plastic chips in most supermarkets. Also when you do buy a custom set, get at least 500 chips, that way you'll have enough to play any game you want, even a 20-30 person tournament.
If you really want a cheap set, at 5stardeals you can get 300 decent quality, stackable chips plus a case for $40.
The other thing to bear in mind is the denomination breakdown; most people don't think about using standard casino colors but it really helps keep consistent, esp for players who have played in casinos or other games that use standard denominations. The breakdown I recommend, which will allow you to play any stakes you ever desire, is white / red / green / black / purple. Those are primary colors -- for secondary color for edge spots (I think a single edge spot is a must), I like (corresponding to above) blue / white / black / red / black. For quantity, go with the max quantity you can spend, I think 500 or 600 is ideal. For distribution, do NOT get equal quantities. You want something like 5/5/3/2/1 white/red/green/black/purple. So something like 150/150/100/75/25 for 500, or 125/125/75/50/25 for 400. Standard casino denominations, in case you don't know, are white $1, red $5, green $25, black $100, purple $500. For my low stakes games I use greens as $0.25, if you're doing a really low stakes game the whites can act as $0.10 and the reds as $0.05 or $0.50 etc.
I strongly recommend AGAINST getting chips with denominations printed on them, for a couple reasons. First, you'll likely outgrow the lowest denomination chip over the years, and then you'll have to do something cheesy like have a chip marked $0.25 that you're using as a $25 chip. Second, you get a lot more flexibility and can assign out the chips to different denominations based on the stakes and the structure of the game; if you're playing a tournament, for instance, your players will generally start with much more in tournament chips than they would in a cash game. So I recommend getting chips with just a simple design or monogram, but no values printed on them.
As far as tournament advice on starting chip amounts, I think the most important item is keeping a good multiple between the starting blinds and chip stack sizes. An initial chip stack of 40-100 times the big blind I think is ideal, on the higher end of that if you're playing a limit tournament, and/or if you are doubling the blinds with every level. I prefer levels to be at least 20 minutes even for a small tournament. I strongly recommend Tex's TEARS system for any size tournament, it provides good advice and has some excellent spreadsheets on calculating blind levels and payouts.
Steer way clear of the "clay" 11.5 gram dice and suit design chips that most sites hawk as the best chip they sell. They are simply plastic with a metal slug, and are very slippery, make a loud metallic clink, and just don't feel good. This page shows what I'm talking about.
I'm out to Vegas this weekend for yet another few days of shenanigan-filled poker playing and drunken antics. I find my trips to Vegas fall into three categories: trips with the lady, trips with family/coworkers, and trips with fellow compulsive check-raisers. This trip is the latter, which means at just about any hour you'll find me wandering the hallowed halls of the Bellagio, chain-drinking at a blackjack, pai gow, or $1-2 NL/$15-30/$30-60 hold'em table, wearing a ridiculous green poker visor and t-shirt with a witty poker saying such as "you have no outs" and trash-talking the elderly after I scoop massive pots from them holding such premium hands as 96 offsuit and T3 suited. And perhaps doing my best Ashley Revell impersonation.
I'm also going to try my hand in the Friday night Bellagio tournament, and perhaps one or two of the low-roller tournaments around Vegas. Some sort of trip report to follow, which I'll post over at Up For Poker.
Poker blogger tournament bustout notwithstanding, I've been playing some very decent poker lately, so I'm liking my chances at the tables this weekend. Especially at the $1-2 NL tables, which as one dealer told me over a couple Singapore Slings with Mezcal on the side, is "an ocean of flopping WPT-spawned fish who play any ace like they've got two, play deuces like they're kings, draw to all runner-runner possibilities for over-pot bets, check down the river in last position when they flopped quads, and don't stop playing until all cards in their wallet are maxed out." Oh wait, that was a dream. I hope it comes true.
Coming next week: the first ever loveandcasinowar.com giveaway sweepstakes! Stay tuned...
For those of you with lazy fingers, bad memory, or an aversion to casino war, this site is now also available via pokerblog.com.
Actually, it's been aliased for a while, but after seeing my referrer logs and how many people are getting here just by typing it into their browsers, I realized that probably some people will find it more convenient than typing loveandcasinowar.com.
There's a lengthy, over-romanticized, yet interesting article at SFGate.com about the life of an anonymous ex-poker player. Read it if you like reading stories about poker players that don't really contain any poker content.
Poker became a way for Doc to act out his fantasies of recklessness -- the kind he couldn't indulge in on the weekdays. One of his strategies was that he'd convince his fellow players he was crazy. He'd act erratically early in the game to befuddle them. He'd do two things at once, like reading a book while he was playing. Or he'd play without looking at his cards.
This is me, playing in the poker blogger tournament, my regular no-limit hold'em game, and brushing up on Super System :)
Tournament report (40 mins into it): I got JJ, JJ, QQ, and A5 with flopped 2 pair... all losers. Then I played 99 and went all-in with a board of 568 rainbow, got called by Mr Decker with pocket J's and doubled up when I spiked a 7. Then a little bit ago I went all-in with KK against Rick Blaine holding something like KT and Waboman (don't know who that is?) holding something like AT hearts, who made his flush and took it down. Ouch.
Moral of the story: triple-tasking is NOT recommended... not only did I bust out and not glean anything new from Doyle Brunson, I've managed to piss off half my regulars :)
Update: Congrats to Otis for winning it all, and extra-special congrats to Anisotropy for winning a 7-2 "the hammer" t-shirt, courtesy of me, for being the first player to win with 72o.
Don't forget, the WPT season 2 continues tonight at 9 ET on the Travel Channel with the Foxwoods million dollar event. Link
I've seen Mohamed Ibrahim play twice before. The first time was at my table at the WSOP Limit Hold'em event in 2002. He's a fun player to watch, but he had a rough time at that tournament. I also saw him playing heads-up with Barry Greenstein at the Bellagio, something like $100-200 hold'em.
I'll be on triple poker duty tonight -- playing in my regular Wednesday night no-limit game, playing the Poker Blogger Tournament online, and watching the WPT. Maybe I'll get a second poker client fired up and play some $33 SNG's just to really get my poker brain overclocked :)
Richard Brodie has posted a very entertaining account of his entry into the Bay 101 World Poker Tour Event.
Five was Moneymaker and sitting next to me in seat six was the beautiful Evelyn Ng, like my wife Shortstack from Toronto only taller. Evelyn had appeared in the Ladies Night episode of World Poker Tour. I complimented her on the nice segment they had done of her and former boyfriend and mentor Daniel Negreanu in the swimming pool. Although it was cold in the tournament area she wore a clinging cutoff tee leaving her slender midriff devilishly exposed in a blatant attempt to put her opponents on tilt. I was prepared and had a counter-strategy, which was not to look at her except under very special circumstances, like if it wasn't my turn to act or something.
He also talks about an incident where a player flipped over her hand (illegal in tournaments), and subsequently made a winning call although she was given a 10-minute penalty. I hope that tournament directors get more strict about notifying players of the no-show rule, and enforce it by killing shown hands; I have to agree with Matusow that a 10-minute penalty does not seem enough. If players think they get away with showing their hand in a crucial situation to determine whether to call or not, and only get a 10-minute penalty, it doesn't seem likely the rule will be diligently followed. Although personally I think showing cards should be allowed, if it's not allowed the rule should be strictly enforced.
Carlos Mortensen is a fun player to watch... I'm sitting here re-watching the WPT hand from the Borgata where he pre-flop raised 72o in middle position and stole the blinds. And then the hand a few minutes later where David Oppenheim raises Carlos pre-flop with 72o, and Carlos re-raises him out of the pot. If there's one thing that's awesome about TV poker it's watching the hands that world-class players steal-raise with, especially when that hand is the hammer :)
But Assistant District Attorney John Grace said that when it comes to gambling, the Texas Supreme Court says points are the same as money. And because each player's odds of winning differ with each deal of the cards, poker is gambling, he said.
The explanation given there is a little unclear, but I've always been clear from the word of the law that any sort of gambling in a public place, where players risk an entry fee, is illegal. Conceptually I think there can be strong parallels drawn between a poker tournament and a bridge, or pinball, or videogame tournament, but in practice poker is poker and arguing that poker is not gambling is not a winning proposition.
See my Texas poker legality FAQ for the full details on Texas poker laws. Poker tournaments in bars and restaurants are legal only if players do not have to pay to enter or risk money in any other way (which makes it no longer gambling).
Coincidentally entitled "Canadian Poker Player". I wonder if they feature articles on how to play three pair and skip-straights after the flop -- I hear both are very good hands in Canada. Link (via Alberta Gaming Research Institute Library Weblog)
The latest issue of CardPlayer magazine went online today. In it, Lee Jones (of "Winning Low Limit Hold'Em" fame) writes a column about playing AQo to a raise in mid-limit ($10-20 to $30-60) hold'em. Link
He essentially makes two points. First, he says that AQo may often be a favorite over the raising hand, even if the raiser is in early position, but consult your player notes. The second position, one which he spends more time on, is this:
The reraise/call decision depends on one crucial thing: What is the rest of the table going to do if you three-bet? If they're going to clear out of the way and let you play the pot heads up against the raiser, go for it.
It's an important point, but after reading his column I took that away as the main message of the column.
For me, in a typical casino live $15-30 game, the easy determination is whether to raise or call. The harder part - and I think by far the more important determination in playing AQo to a raise - is deciding whether to play or fold. Jones makes this point, but I think really understates it.
In the typical mid-limit games I play in Vegas, there'll usually be around 2-5 tight-aggressive players who I will fold AQo to a raise every time, 2-5 loose-aggressive players who I will re-raise in the hope of isolating and beating them outright, and 2-5 loose-weak players who I will re-raise and bet or raise the flop almost every time regardless of what it is.
The advice I'd add to Jones is: when in doubt fold! If I just sat down at a $15-30 table, and get AQo in mid position and it's raised to me, unless I have an "instafeel" for the opponent, I'll fold every time.
Playing AQo to a raise in a live game is one of those circumstances where I think you must have a lot of data on your opponent to play correctly. And so if you don't, or you're really not convinced you likely have the opponent beat already, folding is a very solid option.
As for playing AQo to a raise online, that's a very different case. In a typical loose low-limit ($1-2 to $3-6) online game, I pretty much call any bet or single raise, fold to any three-bet or above, and raise in middle or late position only if I'm the first to enter the pot. I generally don't raise in early position because I've found that I either am in a tighter game where I'll only likely get called or re-raised by hands that have me beat, or I'm in a looser game where my raise won't really thin the field. As with almost all online games I play, I will play for the best hand, not to outplay opponents after the flop except in rare cases.
I say all this because I think that a lot of readers will read Jones' column and take away, "raise if I can isolate" when that should be a WAY secondary consideration to whether to even play the hand. If you're opponent has an even money or better chance of holding TT/JJ/QQ/KK/AA/AQ/AK when he/she raises, you're in for a world of pain whether you isolate or not.
Coincidentally, Paul over at Paulsburbon doubled up on AQo today:
Played ace-queen flop came q-6-2. The small blind bet out. This guy is a bluffer so it could be a feeler bet or a complete bluff. I raise all in. Well he calls with queen ten. Luckily for me no ten falls and I take the pot. This is why I love that game.
While I'm at it, if you're a Windows user and are still reading this site through a web browser, you really should at least give newsreaders a try (see this post for instructions). So far about 30 readers have taken up my instructions and are using the Syndirella newsreader for their daily news reading. Hope that is making things easier for all of you! As Ash points out:
This will probably cut down on my time repeatedly checking sites for updates dramatically. It will, however, increase the time I spend reading poker blogs - as there are about 50 that I didn't know about.
Using a newsreader will definitely make your blog reading WAY more efficient, but will also cause you to read a lot more blogs than you do today. Seems like a great tradeoff to me!
Season 2 of the World Poker Tour starts tonight at 9PM E/P on the Travel Channel! The Borgata Poker Open is the first event covered, which has 2001 champ and entertaining player Carlos Mortensen in a commanding chip lead going into the final six. Link
The world of poker blogging is exploding, and with it, it's almost impossible to keep up with the flood of poker news and views that are being published in the various poker blogs around.
To keep up to date with the poker blogs out there, you have a couple options. You can read one of the "major" poker bloggers who posts links to good entries -- Guinness and Poker is probably the best for this. You can follow Suited Trash, which is endeavoring to keep tabs on which blogs have new content, but isn't always updated.
Or, you can use a newsreader and have instant access to every poker (and other) blog out there without having to click through fifty web pages every day just to check for updates.
I've realized that not many people who read poker blogs actually even know what a newsreader is. A newsreader is a simple application that automatically downloads "newsfeeds" from sources you select (in this case poker blogs), and displays the text from those sites in a single window, organized by entry.
Syndirella
This is a screenshot of Syndirella, the newsreader I recommend for Windows users who want to follow poker blogs. Click for an enlarged view.
Newsreaders allow you to read lots of sites on a daily basis without having to check a ton of websites for new content. They display the posts of the sites in text format without having a different format for every site. At least for me, this makes them much easier and faster to read.
I've tried to put together a "starter kit" for people who want to be able to keep up with poker blogs through a newsreader.
How to get set up with a newsreader
These instructions are for Windows users to get set up with the Syndirella newsreader and subscribe to all the poker blog feeds I'm aware of. The list of current active poker feeds can be found here:Link
To install the Syndirella newsreader, and get started with 50+ poker feeds, follow these instructions. If you don't have Windows, or don't want to install a local newsreader, try Bloglines, a free web-based reader -- you won't be able to configure all the web feeds listed below, but you will be able to configure all the RSS feeds. (Thanks, Mikko!)
1. Download the latest "Microsoft .NET Framework" from the Windows Update site. This is a big download (20 MB), so it may take some time. You may also already have it on your computer.
2. Download and install Syndirella from this link.
3. Open Syndirella. Click "File" > "Import Feed List From" > "OCS..."
4. Type "http://loveandcasinowar.com/synd/pokerfeeds.ocs" and click "Import"
5. Click "Select All" and then click "Import"
You now have a collection of poker blog feeds, congratulations! But you're not done yet. You've only added blogs with "real" RSS feeds. Unfortunately, many good poker blogs do not have a real news feed. However, Syndirella has a great feature that allows these sites to be parsed as if they had a real news feed. I've set up these "web feeds" for the poker blogs I know of. To set these up, you'll need to:
6. Right-click on this link and click "Save As..." and save the file to your local hard drive somewhere.
7. Unzip the contents of this zip file onto your local hard drive.
8. In Syndirella, click "Subscriptions" > "Add Web Feed...". Now click "Import..."
9. Find the place you unzipped the web feeds zip file, and select the first web feed (andybloch.xml) and click "Open".
10. Now click "Add".
11. Repeat steps 8-10 for all the web feeds you unzipped.
You now have a complete list of poker blog feeds! At the top of your feed list in Syndirella you should see a "Welcome" feed. This has some starting tips on how to use Syndirella.
The second feed in your list should be the "Poker Feed News" feed. This feed is what I use to keep you updated on new and changed poker blog feeds, so I recommend you keep it in your Syndirella list to keep up to date on poker blogs.
I hope that you find this helpful. Newsreaders really are the best way to keep up with a larger number of blogs and news sites than you'd ever be able to through a web browser.
South Africa is considering a sweeping ban on internet gambing:
Advertisements for internet gambling sites as well as supplying support services to these sites will also be illegal, Reinhardt Buys, a legal adviser for an internet gambling business, said.
He said it could take four to seven years to put legislation in place to regulate the industry. Many people would lose their jobs in the meanwhile and government would give up a source of tax revenue.
One good thing that could come out of this would be an eventual model for regulation and legalization of online gambling, by a nation which is not itself a center of online gambling. Although I doubt South Africa is going to be the nation that others follow for such legislation.
Welcome to the all new Bloglines, the best resource for local blogs, news, and events.
Bloglines Reader
Bloglines is the fastest way to find and track your favorite websites and blogs in real-time.
Easily customize your dashboard with multiple view options, drag and drop organization, and
exclusive widgets. Get the latest news on all your interests and trending topics exactly the
way you want it, with the new Bloglines Reader!
Bloglines isn't going anywhere! We're happy to announce that MerchantCircle is going to keep Bloglines up and running. As part of the transition, we ask our users to migrate their existing accounts to the new system.
The city that never sleeps has plenty to talk about! From Times Square to Broadway shows and every fashion designer in between, you can get into an Empire State of Mind with the best of The Big Apple blogs: The Lo-Down, Gothamist, and Time Out New York.
Celebrities and surfers aren't the only hot topics in Southern California's iconic city of Los Angeles. In tabloid town people are always talkin'! Get informed with top LA blogs L.A. Unleashed, 24 Frames, and Chatter.
The Windy City isn't just home to Wrigleyville, and a mile of miraculous shopping. In between bites of world famous deep-dish you can now digest the details of all that's happening in Chi-Town with these top Chicago blogs: Globetrotting, Cityscapes, Change of Subject
It's more than just home to baseball's World Champion San Francisco Giants, this friendly city is packed with artists, events, foodies, eclectics neighborhoods and some killer blogs! Get the insider scoop from top blogs SF Gate, SFList, and EaterSF!
From the Space Needle to the music scene to the world famous Pike Place Fish Market, Seattle's got it goin' on. Keep up with top blogs like Seattle Daily Photo, Seattle Subsonic, Seattlest.
Welcome to the all new Bloglines, the best resource for local blogs, news, and events.
Bloglines Reader
Bloglines is the fastest way to find and track your favorite websites and blogs in real-time.
Easily customize your dashboard with multiple view options, drag and drop organization, and
exclusive widgets. Get the latest news on all your interests and trending topics exactly the
way you want it, with the new Bloglines Reader!
Bloglines isn't going anywhere! We're happy to announce that MerchantCircle is going to keep Bloglines up and running. As part of the transition, we ask our users to migrate their existing accounts to the new system.
The city that never sleeps has plenty to talk about! From Times Square to Broadway shows and every fashion designer in between, you can get into an Empire State of Mind with the best of The Big Apple blogs: The Lo-Down, Gothamist, and Time Out New York.
Celebrities and surfers aren't the only hot topics in Southern California's iconic city of Los Angeles. In tabloid town people are always talkin'! Get informed with top LA blogs L.A. Unleashed, 24 Frames, and Chatter.
The Windy City isn't just home to Wrigleyville, and a mile of miraculous shopping. In between bites of world famous deep-dish you can now digest the details of all that's happening in Chi-Town with these top Chicago blogs: Globetrotting, Cityscapes, Change of Subject
It's more than just home to baseball's World Champion San Francisco Giants, this friendly city is packed with artists, events, foodies, eclectics neighborhoods and some killer blogs! Get the insider scoop from top blogs SF Gate, SFList, and EaterSF!
From the Space Needle to the music scene to the world famous Pike Place Fish Market, Seattle's got it goin' on. Keep up with top blogs like Seattle Daily Photo, Seattle Subsonic, Seattlest.
