This is going to be short and sweet, not had time at all to post a new blog here. Schedule has been hectic.

This week I haven’t been playing much poker but I’m still learning a ton of new stuff. People on Two plus Two have actually started to listen to me now and I have been talking to a lot of players on IM discussing different theories and styles of play. This has been helping my game a lot, have not really had time to think about much else. Maybe I will play some in the next few weeks and see if I am still a steaming donk at the table or if I can actually win monies while I play. Probably not…

On a side not off poker, I have been working on a lot of content for radio and been trying to find ways to explain things that listeners previously haven’t known about I plan to educate a lot of people this way even though I have a cheek to educate anyone on anything. Woke up this morning itching like hell and realised I had a huge, very attractive large full body rash. The women have been falling at my feet all day…Sarcasm is always good! Been to the doctors about it and apparently it is an allergy.

Anyway, I have just finished work and am going to go home for a nice sleep and go to college tomorrow. Fun Times.

D

I couldn

About two weeks ago, I sent all of my poker playing friends an email saying that they should think about pulling their money out of online casinos and poker rooms since new goverment regulations might cause problems with future withdraws. I explained the basics of the legistlation and said that it might or might not affect them, but to be safe they shouldn’t keep more than what they would normally bring to a table. If they bust out they can deposit more.

Today I got a call from my buddy T-Mace who is an excellent player who likes the $.50 / $1 omaha and Hold’em tables at Jetset poker. He told me that last week he tried to withdraw the $1,100.00 in his account and received a message that withdraws were not being accepted at that time. He and his brother tried emailing support but never received any replys. Today T-Mace’s brother was playing a cash game on jetset when he received a popup message from jetset announcing that the site would be closing in 5 min. They also added something to the effect that they appreciated everyone’s support over the past several years. 5 min later E-Mace (T-Mace’s brother) was kicked off the site, with no way of getting his money back.

I tried 5 min ago to load the Jetset poker software and received a message that said the servers were down. If you go to their website www.jetsetpoker.com you will see the following text.

Dear Valued JetSetPoker Customer:

We deeply regret to convey that we shall be discontinuing service at JetSetPoker (the “Site”) effective Midnight EST on Friday, October 13, 2006.

Initially, and as per our previous statement, we were cautiously optimistic in maintaining operations for our membership after the passage of the “SAFE Port Act HR 4954″ on September 30, 2006 by the U.S. Senate. We nonetheless initially believed it to be practicable.

However, given the developments during the preceding week, including but not limited to, the unfavorable view of payment processors and financial institutions regarding online gambling and the extensive advice of our legal counsel, we have been instructed to cease activities and comply with this prohibitionist legislation.

We were fortunate to have a first-rate membership and it was our pleasure to provide a destination site where members were able to enjoy their favorite card games and tournaments with the surety that we were to buttress the integrity of the forum. In this inclement environment however we believe our ability to do so may become impaired nor do we anticipate this matter to improve in the near future.

We once again thank you for your patronage of JetSetPoker and deeply regret these unfortunate circumstances that have materially and adversely impacted both the Site and the industry.

Best regards,
JetSetPoker Management Team

It’s possible that Jetset is working on a way of returning all of the money that was in players bankrolls at a later time. Ufortunatly, I have a hard time believing that. Still, Jetset is not the norm for pokersites and it might be refreshing to take a look at how Fulltilt is handling the changing landscape of this industry. IF you log onto their poker platform you will be greated with the following message.

Dear Tilter,

Full Tilt Poker is here to stay!
As an online poker player, you have probably heard about the new legislation passed by the U.S. Congress earlier this week that attempts to prevent you from being able to transfer money to online gaming sites.

While this new law has prompted some sites to announce plans to abandon the U.S. market in coming days, we assure you that Full Tilt Poker will continue to provide all of its players - both inside and outside of the United States - with a full complement of real money ring games and tournaments for their enjoyment.

After consultation with numerous legal experts in this field, we want to make you aware of the following:

* Legal
The new U.S. legislation does not in any way attempt to criminalize the act of you playing online poker. By playing online at Full Tilt Poker, you are not breaking any U.S. Federal laws.

* Full Access
The passage of the new Internet Gaming law will not have any impact on your day-to-day experience at Full Tilt Poker. We will provide all of our players, everywhere in the world, with full access to all of our games and tournaments.

* Easy Deposits and Withdrawals
We will continue to provide our players with all of the safe, secure and convenient methods for transferring money to and from the site. In fact, in recent discussions with our payment processors, we have been assured that this new law will have no immediate impact on their day-to-day business. And as always, any monies that you have on deposit with Full Tilt Poker remain completely safe and secure.

Furthermore, we firmly believe that online poker is not encompassed by this new legislation. In any event, we will continue to lobby for an express carve-out for online poker and for your right to play a truly American game from the privacy of your own home and computer.

We are excited about the future here at Full Tilt Poker and in the coming weeks and months, we plan to roll out many new features designed to enhance your online poker experience.

We appreciate your loyalty to our site and, in turn, want you to know that we will remain loyal to our valued players in the United States and throughout the world.

We look forward to seeing you at the table.

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker

How long this might last is hard to tell. If it turns out that the new legistlation has no teeth and is ultimately not applied to poker websites, then FullTilt will probably develop a strangle hold on the market by virtue of the fact that it was one of the few sites that remained open. If the Legistlation does have teeth, well then I’m sorry to say that we may not see anymore hilarious Black and White TV commercials featureing today’s top poker pros.

Best of luck
Mike

When I read that the new James Bond movie “Casino Royale” would have a climatic poker scene, I have to admit that I winced. I love poker. I love to play it, I love to read about it, I love to watch it on TV, and I even love it in the movies. Well for the most part I love it in the movies and on TV.

I think that when you have poker in a movie or on TV it can’t be forced. The poker action has to either support the story or it has to be the story. It has to flow. Poker in media can’t look like something that was added just to draw in a certain audience and boost ratings. An episode of “The Shield” showing the strike team playing a game of poker as they joke around and remember good memories would be a good use of poker. You wouldn’t see any of the cards and the main focus would be on the characters camaraderie. An episode of Fear factor where the final stunt included winning a Sit N Go Hold’em tournament would be an example where poker is forced into the story.

From what I’ve read about the upcoming 007 movie it sounds more like the poker action is going to flow naturally with the story line, much as it does in Rounders or the Cincinnati Kid. (I believe that lady fingers was a mechanic and was in cahoots with “The Man” and stacked the deck on that last hand.) To decide for yourself you can watch the trailer at the link below.

http://www.filmwad.com/out.phtml?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmovies.aol.com%2Fcasino-royale-james-bond%2Fexclusive-video-features

This link also has interviews with the actors and director who talk about the filming of the poker scenes. I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that the new James Bond is the most bad ass looking Bond so far. I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I’m afraid that the new guy won’t pull off the debonair aspect of Bond as well as his predecessors.

Even if the movie sucks at least there’s always Bond girls.

I spend a lot of time surfing the net looking for unique or odd new stories that I can write about on one of my goofball websites. During these searches I often find what could be concidered real news, and am forced to pass over it because it doesn’t fit in with the theme of my website. Today I stumbled upon an article that is somewhat newsworthy, especially to those who have ties to online gambling. Granted, Online Gambling is a very general term that might or might not apply to poker depending on your point of view.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-online8sep08,1,2052648.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Above is the link to the full article but here are a couple of exerpts that are the most noteworthy in my opinon.

“In an action that roiled the fast-growing world of online gambling, a top executive of a British Internet company was arrested on American soil late Wednesday night on charges connected with taking wagers from gamblers in the United States… It was the second arrest in two months of a foreign Internet gaming executive in the U.S.”

“Although it is not illegal under U.S. law for Americans to make online bets, federal prosecutors maintain that it is illegal for online operators to solicit or accept them, even when their operations are not in the U.S… Experts in gambling law said the arrests underscored an intensified government attack on Internet gambling at a time when the customer base was expanding rapidly worldwide and the technology to mask the source and destination of wagers was improving.”

“Experts

Someone out there must think I’m a compulsive gambler. Why else would I get about 3 or 4 magazines a month dedicated to sports gambling. These “magazines” are basically just a series of advertisments for off shore online casinos. The most recent mailing I received is called “INSIDERS betting digest”. It says it is the 2006 Pro and College edition and has a USD price of $7.95. Obviously I didn’t pay for this and I doubt anyone else ever has either.

The front cover featured picture of T.O (Terrel Owens) and had a headline about him finding a home in the Big D. Being a niners fan and living a couple hours away from Philly means I’ve had my fill of T.O over the past 7 or so years. I did see one story that I thought was interesting; “Winning your fist online no limit Texas Hold’em Poker Trounament”. Granted I’ve won several online tournaments in the past but I thought I could still pick up some tips from this article.

Now I have no claim to being a great tournament strategy theorist, but I did have to take issue with some of the tips provided in this article.

One of the nice things about blogging is that you don

Now that I have completed the training process for my new job, I decided to take a couple days off to relax. How does a guy like me relax? By gambling of course. Since I live in central Pennsylvania my only real option is to drive 3 hours to

A couple days ago I talked about a key hand from my last home game in which I overplayed pocket Kings and lost over 90% of my stack. That hand signaled the end of my time in the first tournament of the night. The second tournament started around 11:30 and featured all the same players and blind structure as the last one. We each started with 8000 in chips and my stack is up to 8325 after winning the first hand.

My buddy Rocco is 2nd to act and he doubles the blind. Everyone folds around to T-Mace in the small blind who calls. I’m in the big blind and it cost me 50 more to see the flop. I look at my hole cards and see 22. I call knowing that if I don’t hit a set I will be able to make an easy lay down. I like playing small pocket pairs early in a tournament but only if it doesn’t cost me much and only if my opponents has a decent chip stack. The flop comes down 4c 2c 10h. This is a great flop for me. There is three hundred in the pot and the small blind has checked to me. This is good flop for me for a couple reasons.

1. I caught the set
2. There is no Ace or King to scare off any pocket pairs like JJ or QQ which Rocco may have.
3. The only straight draws would come from someone holding a combination of A,3,5 or 6 (except A6). All of which are gut shot draws except the 35.

Rocco only doubled the blind which could mean one of two things for him. He has a very strong hand or a very mediocre hand. Rocco is very good a changing gears so it’s hard to tell if he is playing vey tight or very loose at this point. Mace on the other hand was in the small blind and he will often play any two cards from the blinds if it doesn’t cost him much. It’s possible he could have something like 35 at this point. I put out a probe bet of 150 to get a feel for where the other players are at. I’m hoping for either a raise or only one caller. The last thing I want is for Rocco to call thinking his preflop hand is still good and then mace to call with a straight or flush draw since at that point it will cost him 150 to go after a pot with 600 in it. In truth I should have bet closer to 250 since that would potentially give mace worst pot odds if he is drawing to a straight or flush.

Rocco raised to 600 making it 600 to mace and an additional 450 to me. Mace folds and now I need to figure out what I’m going to do. At this point my read on Rocco makes me think that he has a high pocket pair. If he has 10 10 then I’m smoked but I’m thinking more like QQ or KK. He could have Ax for a flush or straight draw, but he usually doesn’t bet into draws. He could have something like J10 or 9 10 and have hit the 10. He stays away from those hands when he is playing tight but he is capable of playing those hands when he is playing loose. The thing that is throwing me off is the doubling of the big blind preflop.

After some thought I put him on a high pocket pair like QQ, KK, AA. I decide to call thinking that if he doesn’t have the flush draw and that I want to string him along and not scare him away yet. I call and the next card is the King of diamonds. I’m kind of worried about this hand, but only because I thought he might have KK preflop. Still I can’t always worry about someone having the nuts against me. I want to put more money in the pot because I think I still have the best hand. I check, knowing that Rocco will bet. He bets 1200 and I think for a moment and raise it to 3000. Rocco thinks for a moment and then goes all in. At this point I’m lost. I really am not sure what he has. Some of the hands that cycle through my mind are KK, 10 10, AA, A10, AK suited clubs. Some of them fit the betting pattern but some don’t.

Rocco’s ability to switch gears and play different styles is what makes this hand hard to analyze. It would be a lot easier to figure out if I was playing against one of the other players who doesn’t change it up all that much. I’m just about 50/50 on whether or not I should call but one thing tips me on the side of calling. When facing a player who indicates through betting that their hand is strong, Rocco at times will push with a hand that other players would only call with. Rocco also saw me over play a high pocket pair in the last tournament which may make him think that something like top pair top kicker, or two pair is good even though I’m betting like the board has hit me hard.

I call the all in which leaves me with only 350 chips if I loose. Rocco turns over K 10 of clubs giving him two pair and a flush draw. I’m in the lead but my percentages aren’t as good as I like. There are 9 clubs that can win it for Rocco plus there are two kings and two 10s that would also give him the winning hand. That gives him a 29.55% chance of winning. T-Mace openly is rooting for a club, and sure enough nine of clubs comes on the river.

When I look back on the hand I can understand why Rocco played the hand the way he did. He was mixing it up and caught what at the time looked like a great flop. He then got even stronger on the turn. It looked like he had the best hand and may have had me drawing very slim. I’m happy with my call although I can’t pretend that I did it with anything close to a strong read.

On a posistive side note, I won a heads up Horse tournament and a heads up 7-card stud tournament playing against some of the other early round losers that night.

Later
Mike

About two years ago, my friends and I started to gather together every Friday night for some friendly tournament poker. Over the past two years the skill and intensity featured at these games has risen dramatically even though the stakes have stayed very low. We became so obsessed with the weekly game that we built a 10 person felt table and set up a website to track the results. While we do keep track of how much everyone wins and everyone looses, the real prize is bragging rights.

Tonight we held two 7 person tournaments with a $20 buy in. Most of the players in this game play for much higher stakes online or at casinos but like I said before; we’re playing for bragging rights. Each player started with 8000 chips and blinds at 25/50 and doubling every 20 min. There was one hand for me in each game that I’d like to break down for analysis.

Tournament #1 50/100 blinds, 7 players remaining. I have 8500 chips and am sixth to act. Earlier I had shown pocket Kings, pocket Aces, and J7 after taking the blinds with a 4x BB bet. My buddy “six” is under the gun and raises to 400. Everyone folds to me and I look down to see pocket Kings. I think about smooth calling but see little value in the play. I raise to 800 and Six calls. I am now ruling out QQ, AA, or KK from Six’s list of possible hands. He might have AK, KQ, or any pocket pair from JJ on down to 55 or 66. That’s a wide range of hands and I am leaning more toward the AK, JJ, 10 10 range since he raise from early position. His 4xBB bet vs a 2.5 or 3XBB makes me think that he doesn’t want to see a flop with this hand.

The Flop brings 5 2 6 rainbow. This is a fairly good flop for me against most of the hands I put six on. If six has a high pocket pair like JJ, 1010, 99, or even 88 and 77. He might think his over pair is best. If six has AK then I’ll only get more action out of him if he decides to bluff, and if he has a small pocket pair then I might be up against a set. I have two options, check or raise. If I raise then I might scare out some of the over pairs and the AK. If I raise and Six has a set then he will probably re raise me, or maybe slow play the hand. I felt the better play was to check and encourage a bet. I was hoping that my check would make six think that I had AK and missed. I check and six bets 1200.

That worked just like I wanted. Still I’m kind of worried about the six on the board. Six loves to play pocket 66 since his nickname is “Six”. Still, I can’t deviate from my plan just because of a silly nickname. So what is my goal now. If I had a dominate hand like a set i’d just call hoping to get more money in on 4th and 5th street, but with just a pair I decide that I want to take the pot down right now. I raise to 4200.

Six goes all in almost immediately. It costs me 2500 more to call his all in and there is 12500 in the pot. So should I call? Well what are the hands he could have that would make his move make sense? I already ruled out AA, KK, QQ based off of the pre flop play, but maybe six was trying to be cagey with one of those hands in hopes of getting me to over play a medium pocket pair. Still I rank that pretty low. What about the medium pairs like JJ, 10 10, 99? I think it’s important to analyze my betting as viewed by six. Six raises I re raise. I call. I check raise him on the flop. If I’m six and I see that series why would I go all in? If I was six, I would have to put my opponent on a high pocket pair like AA, KK, or QQ. For me to push all in I need to have those hands beat. So what’s left? The low pocket pairs, 88 on down. Three of those hands beat me, the 22, 55, and 66. So would he play any of those three hands the way he played this hand. Heck yeah.

Small pocket pair in early position you raise 4xBB hoping no one calls, or if someone does maybe you’ll get lucky and hit a set. Someone raises (only doubles the pot) and you think they have a big hand. IF you call and hit a set you might be able to double up through that person if he can’t get away from his hand. The flop brings a set with no high cards. The opponent checks and you bet to build the pot. The opponent re raises with what he feels is a strong hand. You go all in for not much more, knowing that the pot will offer great odds to your opponent.

I looked at six and said, you have to have pocket sixes, or maybe fives. The odd thing about this home games is that laying down the best hand hurts so much more than it does when playing against strangers. If I folded I’d only have 3000 or so left, plus if I lay down the best hand it would kill me. I also think, is there any shame in over playing KK or AA with a flop like that? It’s amazing how much your pride can influence your decisions. I make the call and six flips up 55. The turn and river fail to bring a king and I’m down to 500 chips.

Even though I was able to build my stack up to 3000 I didn’t last long once the blinds hit 400/800. Looking back on the hand I can think of a couple things I did wrong aside from making the all in call. Analyzing this hand should help me with later plays which brings me to the second hand of the second game. Well actually the second hand will come in tomorrows blog update. It’s three in the morning and I’m tired from finishing a couple of prop bets.

Later
Mike