I Don't Know Why This is Taking So Long....

Read the following, from the Casino City Times, and then come back here, and post your thoughts. Personally, most of the major online casinos have already figured out a workaround, so, it's only a matter of time before the UIGEA goes away entirely....

clipped from www.casinocitytimes.com Players state case for lifting poker ban 26 October 2007 by Tony Batt WASHINGTON -- Poker is good for you. That's what Internet poker players are telling members of Congress this week as they lobby to exempt poker from an online gambling ban. "Really, poker is just much closer to chess than it is to the other standard casino games," said Andrew Woods, a student at Harvard Law School who has played poker to help pay for his education. Poker develops cognitive, mathematical and psychological skills which help students become successful in life, said Woods, who founded the Bruin Casino Gaming Society when he attended the University of California, Los Angeles and has helped establish the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society at Harvard. Charles Nesson, a law professor at Harvard, said he would like to teach poker to children. "I think poker has tremendous educational utility for kids," Nesson said. "I think it's a great family game." Nesson said he thinks the Internet gambling ban is vulnerable.

Why I Love This Game...

Played almost perfect poker for four hours yesterday, and then made two bad decisions on the same hand, and busted out in 36th place, or, two tables away from the money. It's always amazed me that these things can happen. The need to constantly focus on what you're doing, as well as what is going on around you, is never more apparent than at the late stages of a tournament.

I can justify my bad decisions with simply this, after being chip leader at one table, I was moved to a table where after being card dead for three orbits, as well as being short stacked by this time with the blinds about to go up, I limped in with AJo. First mistake. The second one came when I called the all in of the player two to my right, who ended up with AQ. And I did not improve :(

Ok, so, what have we learned? Limping is for the weak, that's why they call it limping. Being short stacked at this point I had two moves: All in or Fold. And clearly, AJo is not a good starting hand, at least, not this time.

Cheating at Absolute Poker

I'm probably coming late to the party commenting about this. However, if I don't mention it, I would be remiss in my post as poker scribe. I was patient and waited for the story to break at Casino Times, before I did. Now it has. There are several rumors as to who the pro is, and since I'm not one to speculate on the truth of those, I'll simply comment on what I believe to be true.

Cheating took place. The situation was rectified by Absolute. The responsible party has been identified. Does this kill online poker? To this, I answer a resounding NO!!!!

Despite what some would have you believe, Online Poker is here to stay. The UIGEA and naysayers notwithstanding. I believe that either the Frank bill will pass, regulating Online Poker in the US, or, the UIGEA will be repealed, or both. Sites that panicked when the UIGEA was passed, are now finding ways to allow US players to play, including Doyle's Room.

Phil Hellmuth Jr is a...

Not that lesson!!! This one:

clipped from www.theglobeandmail.com Behavioural analysis helps catch spies, poker tells PAT MILTON October 22, 2007 at 11:22 AM EDT NEW YORK — As an FBI spy catcher, Joseph Navarro used to identify traitors through their subtle behavioural tics – even something as simple as a squint could be a giveaway. These days, Mr. Navarro brings his investigator's eye to the poker table, where a bite of the lip or tilt of the head can signal a straight flush or a stone bluff. Navarro shares his decoding techniques with players eager for an edge in the world of professional poker. “Poker players lie all the time,” he said. “They pretend they are strong when they are weak or weak when they are strong. The truth is they can all be read. You can have a poker face, but I've yet to see someone with a poker body.” In the poker world, the giveaways are called “tells” – gestures that signal a player's confidence or discomfort. Mr. Navarro's first career made him uniquely qualified for his current job as an instructor at the World Series of Poker Academy.

The Flawed Premise...

On a recent edition of "The Nuts," during the 2007 WSOP Main Event broadcast, Lon McEachern stated that no matter what you do, eventually, you're going to go on "Tilt."

Wrong!!!

In poker, tilt is defined as a state of mind where logical thinking goes out the window, and you start playing irrationally, eventually donking off all your chips, and eliminating yourself from contention. A lesser state is referred to as steaming. I guess when you lose to a bad beat, your blood starts to boil. Well, not literally.

I've heard that bad beats are a part of the game, and there's really no good way to avoid them, as if you play long enough and hard enough, you'll eventually take a few.

But it should be easy to avoid tilt. Simply don't let the bad beats, inferior plays, or inferior players, get to you. I'm sure everyone's seen video of Phil Hellmuth Jr. melting down after someone sucks out on him. As, it happens so very often. His style of play creates these situations, and yet, he continues to go along as if nothing's wrong.

You think he'd learn....