During the WSOP, I played the $2-$5blinds pot limit holdem side game–it was great! It produced great action…it allowed the game to played in a way where the skills of betting, reading other players and position really mattered. I also played 4 satellite tourneys that were no limit, and of course, the same skills could be applied there also…so my question is, how can both pot limit and no limit holdem be popularized and encouraged to be spread in casinos in Atlantic city and/or Foxwoods?…especially at those cheap $2-$5 blinds….i know that pot limit failed in AC, but I’m not sure why….
Answer 1:
Tunica, MS and Kinder, LA, are areas places I have played where pot limits games are very popular. But here in the Phoenix area, there are no pot limit games. I don’t know this as fact, but I believe some of the casinos are afraid that a game like that will cause too many players to go broke and therefore cut down on their ongoing rake.
Answer 2:
There is much less chance of a poor player winning at NL or PL, and too many of the “backbone” recreational players that card rooms rely on would bust out too quickly.
Answer 3:
Card rooms worry that in pot-limit (1) weak players never win, and they will get frustrated and quit playing, (2) a wealthy “donator” will get cleaned out all at once, and the high- limit games that depend on him will dry up, or (3) having gigantic pots turn on one card will lead to allegations of cheating when someone spikes a lucky card (high-limit is different since the pots are more equal; you don’t have a few huge hands out of a long session of small pots). I don’t buy a lot of these justifications as long as pot-limit is done right: (1) experienced dealers only, (2) mid-limit and high-limit games continue to be spread, just offer pot-limit for variety, (3) proper buy-ins and reasonable rake/time charge. If the total fish never win in pot-limit, they’ll just go back to limit. Pot-limit would still be profitable for an expert playing against mediocre players. Also, a pot-limit game would draw in players if it was the only one in the area.
I have been playing on paradise poker for about a month and I can’t win. Viewing the quality of play, I just would not expect to get pummelled like I do. I can do with out the obvious sarcastic comments you might want to post. But does anyone have any reasons why this might be. A few of my concerns are
1. I have seen more monster hands (quads and up) in one month on line than I have in 10 years in the casinos.
2. I can’t count how many times I have had the stone cold nuts on 4th street and have gotten beat.
3. The COMPUPROP. What if the casino has a player programed in the game to win a certain amount per hour. That on top of the rake would certainly make the game almost unbeatable for anyone.
Answer 1:
I tried playing on-line and quit after experiencing some of the things you describe. Also, I know six people who also experienced these same things. Whether this is coincidence or not, I don’t know. Anyway, I quit playing and so did these other people. That is the easiest way to avoid the aggravation of playing on-line.
Answer 2:
It is my experience that the 3/6 and up tables on Paradise are much tighter and have more good players than can be found in a similar live casino game. This doesn’t mean the games can’t be beat. There are still bad players on line, you just have to be more aware of which ones they are by their play rather than other means that may be visually apparent in a live game.
Answer 3:
I played at Paradise once for about 2 hours and never came back. This was not because I thought the game was bad, fixed etc. I just didn’t want to set up another credit card transaction. I plan to try it again. Speaking for other online poker rooms, I have won a substantial amount since playing and plan on winning more.
My recommendation:
If you are a good to very good player, quit playing all together, anywhere and everywhere. We don’t need any more good players. If you bad, don’t give up, keep on trying, especially at my table. Seriously though, don’t be scared, you probably have a lot more to learn than you realize. That’s what I found out when I started playing online. With each day that passes, I learn more and realize how little I know. I know that I will ALWAYS have room for improvement. Poker is more complex than I would have ever imagined when I first began. To be highly successful you have got to be multi-talented. But that’s the challenge and therein lies the fun. I don’t believe I or anyone ever arrives at this game, so I will probably play tilt the day I die.
I’ve returned to the Indian poker room. Why? They’ve started this new “mini tournament” system. It works like this: HE: 40 hands, 500 units to start, blinds start at 25-50 and go to 50-100. Buy in $54.00 re-buy $15.00 (1000 units). Winner gets $240.00, second $100 etc. to 4th place. STUD: 25 hands, 5 to 25 ante, 500 units, 33 buy 10 rebuy (1000), winner gets 120, then 60 etc. Surprisingly, I’ve won the only two mini-tourneys I’ve played in. I can’t tell if I’m playing good tourney poker, or not. So…does this format offer a reasonable expectation of profit in the long term…or is it a crap shoot?
Answer 1:
It’s a crap shoot…..but it’s still an accomplishment if you keep winning consistently. A couple of questions though, are there unlimited rebuys? Do you have to be fewer than 500 units to get a rebuy? How many rebuys have you been averaging? How many players usually play? Also, if I understand correctly, there only 40 hands in the entire tournament (HE)? If so, you are not getting a real test of how you might play shorthanded and/or heads up. That’s where you get a real test of your ability to win tournaments. Of course, some players would rather make a deal rather than play short handed or heads up. These kinds of tournaments are probably fun and if I lived in Florida, with the lack of poker, I might play these also. But I don’t think they do much to prepare you for bigger tournaments.
Answer 2:
Tournaments are one table
HE is 40 hands 10 players
7Stud is 24 hands 8 players
Omaha8 is 45 hands 9 players
HE is $54
7Stud is $33
Omaha 8 is $105
The buy-in gets you 500 units the rebuy (1 only) gets you 1000 units. All the original money goes back to the players. The rebuy is the house rake. There is also a progressive royal flush jackpot which starts at $2500 for a diamond and is $1199 for the other suits. The diamond averages around $10,000 and is hit on an average of once every 3 days.
Answer 3:
Overall, the play is poor, but it is a bit of a crapshoot with just 45 hands. With decent play, the chance of finishing in the money is very good, trouble is you still lose money if you finish 3rd or 4th. ($100 buy-in, $30 re-buy, $5 jackpot fee, $5 toke is customary if 3rd or 4th). Have seen the jackpot as high as $35,000, for diamond royal (all other suits are $1199) I wonder at what point that is positive EV for Omaha. 50% win rate sounds a little out of reach to me. There are *some* good players there. I don’t doubt that a good player could grind out a small profit, even with the 30% juice (which could be avoided on occasion with no re-buy).
I recently heard all of the poker clubs in Vancouver Canada are non-smoking! I have to have some of this. Can anybody fill me in on the particulars (10-20 and above). I will also need a place to stay. Where? How much? Does the Lumberman’s still have a game? Hotel? What is the current exchange rate and should I exchange my money in Canada or here before I leave? Can you even exchange it here?
Answer 1:
Yes, all non-smoking. What types of particulars were you looking for? There is 10-20 at the Holiday Inn on Broadway and Heather which is a pretty passive game, sometimes tight, sometimes loose. The Lumberman’s Social Club (you know, if I were to start an underground card room, I’d call it something a little less obvious than “social club”; like doesn’t that translate directly to “front”?) was raided and shut down by the police. There are plenty of legal places to play, no need to visit the illegal ones. IIRC, one dead president buys $1.47 Canadian on the market right now (a little less in reality, since you have to buy it off the bank and they have to make money off you). It’s best to exchange all the money you’ll be spending on food, shopping, accommodations etc. before you come over the
border. The money you play cards with you can keep in American because the casinos are happy to give you a decent rate exchanging cash for chips.
Answer 2:
Connecticut poker rooms (Foxwoods and Mohegan sun casino) have both recently converted to 100% nonsmoking. Both have enormous poker rooms and its not uncommon to have 10-15 games in the $10-20,15-30,20-40 range taking place at 3:00 AM on a Tuesday….I’ve played pretty frequently in Atlantic city and Vegas but have to admit the Connecticut poker rooms are unrivaled.
Answer 3:
These days the cheapest and simplest way to obtain foreign currency abroad is to just use your ATM card there. The exchange rates are normally better than at the foreign banks and certainly better than at banks in the US, hotel desks, airport windows, etc Visa, MC, and AMEX used to be real good but now tend to tack on 2 or 3% as of about a year ago. The basic exchange rates appear daily in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere.
I was playing 7-handed in a 3-6 holdem game last night. It was a ramming-jamming kind of game until a couple of action players left, and another suddenly tightened up. I have 99 in the BB, two limpers, SB folds and I check. Flop comes 899. I check for the slow play, and in the back of my mind, I think about the bad beat jackpot. First player checks, second player bets, I call, first player folds. Turn is a T (pretty sure no flush possible). The read I have on the other player is that he has no hand, and is trying to buy the pot. My strategy is to check and call the turn and then check raise the river (and then he would fold and I wouldn’t have to show my monster). I figure if I bet out, he would fold, or if I check-raise the turn, he would fold. Check, bet, call. River is a J. Great, a scare card. Board is now 899TJ. I am hoping he has made a straight and check. He turns over KT. (No!). I turn over my 9s and the whole table looks at me like I am and idiot and don’t realize quad 9s is a good hand. My question: Am I an idiot? Knowing the cards now, I think the best way to play would have been to check raise the turn, and he might have called, guessing he was beat, but hoping to catch a T on the river. In general, how do you play a hand where you flop a monster and are first to act?
Answer 1:
Never check a monster on the river heads-up, IMHO. If a scare card comes, it will probably scare him away from betting. If not, your bet may confuse him enough to call. If he has been betting into the hand all the way, he will most likely at least call.
Answer 2:
I would try to bet and make it look like a bluff. You know bluff a bluff. Use deception if you can. Like a reverse tell or similar. How best can you get the most money into your stack? Know your opponent how will he / she react to an apparent bluff. How good a player are you in your opponents eyes? I had a guy the other day tell me what a shitty player i was for drawing out on him. I guess he thought I could see his hand, that his buryied set of kings had me beat coming out. Never mind about that, what I’m getting at is the fact that, I knew he thought I was a crummy player .So now I could use that against him. It got me a few calls and loose bets out of him, and increased my stack 50% with his help. (What didn’t help is getting drawn out on at the river, 10:1 by the drunk with a buried A’s full house a few hands later) [Jacks full on 6th was my hand, he bought an over paired board at 6th and I'm showing a pair of jacks so I started ramming it after he checks]. The question is how best I can go about obtaining my goal. And remember if all else fails BET!!! esp.w/ a monster (Hmmm if I could only have caught the case ???)
Answer 3:
I played with a loud-mouth a few weeks ago who gave a lesson after every hand. At one point, he flops quads, checks every round, nobody else bets (I am last to act and am known to bet a lot, but not when I have nothing and there are six players). He then treats us to a lesson as to how this is “the only possible way to play the hand”. Ok, back to your question. You are a partial idiot. You did very well in thinking about the hand. You did not think enough. You play was not so good, even in foresight. How to play when you flop quads is very dependent on the number of opponents, the character of the game (loose, tight, tough, soft) and the texture of the flop. Lopping quad aces after you have raised before flop and the flop comes AA6 is not the same as when you have checked the BB and the flop comes 899. First, why not bet? Is everyone going to put you on quads and fold? No, they will put you on an 8, as straight draw, a small pair, two over cards, or something else. (There is this though that the easiest way to get money into a pot is to put it there yourself). If you bet here, many people with over cards will call; many people with a gut show will cal (like 75, for example, might give you a call for a small bet). For the same reason, you should give more action on the turn. If you bet out, you might even get (bluff) raised by the guy with the KT who now has an open end draw. You will certainly get called. And you cannot check the river. If a brick comes, you might try to get a final bluff out of someone on momentum, but when a scary card hits, you need to bet to make sure your opponent is not scared into checking a mediocre (calling) hand. BarryT’s rule is never turn over the nuts for free. If you have 100% macadamias, bet! Don’t forget, a check-raise wins zero or two bets, while a bet wins one or three. The major mistake you made (and this is one of the most frequent mistake in poker) is looking at your hand and knowing what you have. You need to look at your hand, sure, but you also need to be thinking abut what the opponents think you have instead of what you know you have.
I understand there are legal poker clubs in New York city. Are they worth playing at? By that is there rake reasonable and are they run on a professional level like the clubs in California and the Midwest riverboats? Is there any reason not to play at one? I’m going to be in New York in June and would appreciate any advice anyone can give me. I’m a 10-20 to 20-40 Texas Hold’em players.
Answer 1:
The Diamond Club on West 20th St. is a great place to play. Very professional. The problem for you is that you must be known by someone before you are allowed in the building. The 10-20 HE game has a time charge of $5 per 30 min. The 4-8 game has a charge of $3 per 30 min. The other club is the Mayfair Club, another private club; you must know someone to get in. I have never played there.
Answer 2:
The Diamond Club, while not quite as tony, is by far the better club, if only because there are dealers. However, the last poster is right in that, strictly speaking, these houses are not exactly legal. I have always enjoyed DC immensely.
Answer 3:
Poker is legal in New York State. New York City card clubs are not illegal. Even though they had problems, I’ve been to fully legal nightclubs and they got harassed more. In NYC the police bother “sin” businesses. The police know about the card clubs, why don’t they shut them down, like crack houses or brothels? Because poker is legal in New York state, stupid!
How far should you ride your stack down in a limit tournament? At the last two tables in my local tournament everyone clings to their chips for dear life. The entire last table is paid. When I am down to 2 or three blinds I start to look for a gamblers hand, figuring that doubling up 1 lousy chip will do me no good if I wait. Should I just let the blinds force me out?
Answer 1:
IMHO you need to increase your stack or get eliminated as soon as possible. You need to shoot for the final three spots to get the money – especially when your opposition is being conservative.
Answer 2:
Some of the better tournament players take advantage of this situation, and play very aggressively at that point, accumulating
mounds of chips. Jack Fox comes to mind. Marie Gabert is another. I would rather play against almost anybody else at this point in the tournament.
Answer 3:
While aggressive play is often correct against overly tight players in the late stages of tournaments, focusing excessively on winning will cost you EV. When you risk chips in a close to even money situation late in the tournament, the chips you are risking are worth more than the chips you stand to gain. So putting your stack in constant jeopardy in marginal situations will win you more tournaments, but will lower your EV overall as confrontations resulting in elimination benefit players other than the ones involved. Just playing to “make the money” is the other extreme and is also wrong. Getting blinded off to ensure yourself some profit is similar to people who insure blackjacks to guarantee themselves a profit. When you have highly profitable situations, those do call for risking your stack, and when facing weak-tight opponents who just want to finish ninth, aggressive play is often called for despite the tournament situation.
In the May 26th Card Player Magazine Bob Ciaffone wrote a column where he detailed his play at the WPO $1,000 Pot Limit Omaha Tournament. Before I begin, let me say that “Coach” Ciaffone has the utmost respect from me as a player, teacher and especially as a poker author. His “Improve Your Poker” is in my top three best poker books of all-time. He says that in one hand during the tournament it was down to him and one other player (Bill Moseley). They went all-in but “Before we showed our cards, I asked Bill if he would like to deal twice, and he agreed. Dealing twice means that the pot is divided into two halves. The dealer burns and turns the last card, but for only half of the pot. Then the card is set aside, and the dealer burns and turns again, dictating who wins the other half of the pot. In this manner the luck is divided into two separate cards instead of one card determining everything. This reduces the big swings in Omaha Pot Limit by a significant amount.” This procedure may be appropriate in a ring game when a hand is down to just two players at the river. However, I have serious concerns about its use in a tournament where other players are definitely affected by a procedure that REDUCES the probability of one player being eliminated. Am I confused or out of order???
Answer 1:
If Bob and the other player were the last two left at the final table, I don’t see a problem. Otherwise I agree that it probably shouldn’t be
allowed, for the reasons you mentioned, and also because it will low
down the game if everybody starts asking for double deals whenever two hands go to the river, which happens with some regularity in P/L Omaha. Besides, I think if you can’t live with getting snapped off in Omaha, you should play a different game.
Answer 2:
I certainly don’t think you’re out of order. Imagine that there are 11 players left and the top 10 players are paid, and two all in players
tried to work a deal like this. The tournament staff would have to bring in riot gear if they let it happen. Why should these rules
change just because we’re at the final table? They shouldn’t. However, since both players did agree, I have trouble with you calling this an ‘ethics’ problem. It seems more like a rules problem to me.
Answer 3:
I just re-read the article, and I believe he was talking about live play, although it isn’t absolutely clear from his writing. He talks about the tournaments, and live action, then tournaments again, then live play, etc. I can’t imagine this being allowed in a tournament. It is, however, very common in big bet poker to deal twice, or have insurance. You might just e-mail him for a clarification. His e-mail address, at the bottom of the article, is listed as coach…@concentric.net. Knowing Bob’s reputation, as well as the professionalism of the people running the tournament, I’d be shocked if this actually happened in tournament play down there.
I couldn’t find anything about it either on the web or searching RGP on deja.com. I have an idea that I recently saw an ad for a new online card room, possibly called the Highland Card Room/Club, endorsed by Doyle Brunson. Is this a figment of my imagination? If not, what’s the URL?
Answer 1:
The Highlands Club is a poker room on the net. The double spread ad was in the last issue of Poker Digest. And, yes, it is being endorsed by Doyle Brunson. The web address is highlandsclub.net. You can call 1-800-341-2098 for free software.
Answer 2:
No it isn’t. It is a notice of what will (may?) be a poker room on the net next month. Brunson makes the same error in his endorsement and it’s not just grammar – “it’s got all the action you want” is just a
puff of promise. The idea that “100 years’ experience” (combined from who knows how many members of the “management team”) running poker games is of any use in the design/maintenance of an online enterprise is absurd. The only things that matter are the software and the safety of the games and one’s money. A trend to using celebrity pokers to promote these enterprises is amusing because Paradise with no famed host dominates the “industry” simply because of its far superior software and interface and apparently an adequate handling of players’ accounts – not to mention very fast response from actual human support personnel. It is at least suspicious to claim that a non-functioning site has “action” before it opens.
Answer 3:
For your information, I’ve known the operators of the Highlands club for 30 years and I know they will try to do a good job, though probably not as good as an expert as yourself. Why don’t you open an online room and then we could have perfection.
Can anyone tell me if Draw is played anywhere in the world regularly apart from here in Australia? You pro’s in the U.S. ought to be pushing for its reintroduction – a good player will make a much better hourly rate with a much smaller standard deviation! (At least in half-pot or full pot games).
Answer 1:
When Hold ‘Em was (finally) allowed in California card rooms the disappearance of Draw games (hi or low, limit or no limit) was inevitable. Although you may be finding better “hourly rate” here you play, in the games I knew there was just so little chance of the mullets successfully swimming upstream that the dead money dried up and the games became quarry festivals with virtually zero chance of beating the rake let alone making any “hourly rate”. At least that’s been my interpretation of the events. The house didn’t kill the games, the players did. Any game in which cards are in view has a higher luck factor and that’s what brings ‘em in. Draw games are just too dull when there’s no fish to hook.
Answer 2:
Stay tuned for an announcement (in the next couple of days) of a 5-10 draw game to be spread in a Las Vegas casino. No details yet, but I will post all the information when it’s a certainty.
Answer 3:
You say, “The house didn’t kill the [draw poker] games, the players did.” I see it quite the opposite. I believe draw poker is the very best game for attracting new players. Either it or seven-card stud is the most common home game. (I’m pretty sure of this because I had one of the world’s-largest public relations agencies do that research when I was a spokesperson for Canadian Mist and we were doing charity poker tournaments.) And draw is very popular even in casinos in any parts of the world. Draw poker is fast-paced, easily understood by non-poker loyalists, requires a short learning curve to play adequately, and can be suspenseful (all elements that appeal to broad segments of potential customers). I know the true story of draw’s demise. I was there. Casinos deliberately tried to bury draw and lowball — less profitable games — by discouraging low limits. They often introduced burdensome rakes to these two-betting-round games, rather than sticking with small seat rentals that were traditional. And casinos stopped promoting draw games. Their prop (shill) resources were often inadequately used for draw games. Beyond that, they spread the word “draw is dead” so loudly that all the “smart” poker players thought they were ill-informed if they didn’t spread the word, too. And that’s what really happened to draw poker in casinos, especially in California where it formerly reigned as the only legal type of poker (until I personally joined the crusade to legalize hold ‘em). So, you’re probably thinking I’m just bitter because I’m the so-called best draw player in the world and I’ve got no game. Good point. To be fair, draw would have lost much of its following when the newer games were introduced in California. But it would have hung on as one of many popular poker forms, given fair treatment. Draw poker is perhaps the truest, easiest to televise and understand, most traditional form of poker. You see it everywhere from Old West movies to TV situation comedies. The fact that it isn’t even an event in the World Series of Poker or any other major poker tournaments is a crime beyond the boundaries where crime turns into something more sinister.
