Man Shot During High-Stakes Poker Game

San Antonio, Texas -- Police are looking for three thieves who broke up a high-stakes poker game with gunfire overnight.

The game was going on at a home in the 9000 block of Laguna Rio, on the far west side.
Police say the masked men broke through the back door and fired several shots. They forced ten players up against a wall.
According to police, each player had put down $300 at the beginning of the game, so the gunmen stole the entire $3,000 amount. They also shot one player twice in the chest.
"According to the witnesses, he got in the way when they were trying to get money out of the file cabinet, where they hold the money during the game," said Sgt. David Berrigan of SAPD.
The gunmen ran off after the shooting. The man who was shot is now recovering in the hospital.

Winning tactics for heads-up poker

Online play has revived no-limit Texas hold'em heads-up poker, a game that has become especially popular among today's young players. Even I've become caught up in this trend.

The correct strategy in heads-up poker is based on identifying and acting upon your opponent's strengths and weaknesses. There are also specific bet-sizing and positional play considerations that will make you more successful in this challenging format.

Get aggressive on the button

In poker, position is power. When you've got position, play more hands and apply more pressure before the flop.

There's a misconception that you should always raise three times the big blind. Well, that's not the case in heads-up play. A raise of that size can actually encourage your opponent to play more conservatively. It may, in fact, force him to fold his marginal hand. That's bad because you want him to play more pots after the flop - not fewer - when you're in charge.

Consider this example.

In heads-up play with 10/20 blinds, you've got 1,500 chips in front of you and make a huge raise to 500. Your opponent will only call if he's got a premium hand. More likely, though, if he does have the goods, he'll move all-in. That would be a disaster for you unless you've got a monster hand yourself.

A minimum raise may seem weak, but in heads-up play, it's actually a decent option when you've got position.

Tighten up out of position

If you merely make the minimum raise on the button while your opponent elects to raise three times the blind when it's his button, it might seem he has the advantage because he's playing bigger pots in position. You can offset that perceived advantage, however, by only playing premium hands out of position, and laying down all others.

Yes, it's true your opponent will often pick up the blinds before the flop. But on the other hand, he'll get fewer opportunities to play big pots when he's in position.

If your opponent chooses to make minimum-sized raises, you'll probably end up playing a few more hands since the price being laid is less significant.

Play marginal hands cautiously

A heads-up match features plenty of back-and-forth jabbing. Jab all you want but don't throw a wild knockout punch that could leave you open to a crippling counter-punch. You don't want to be all-in on the flop unless you've got a monster hand or a monster draw.

Play marginal hands cautiously after the flop by checking or making small bets no larger than 50-65 per cent of the pot. If you're raised, lean toward folding unless you sense a bluff and have a hand that is strong enough to call with.

Don't bluff too much

The biggest mistake in heads-up play is players attempt too many pointless bluffs in hopeless situations. Bluffing is most effective when done sporadically; bluff too often and you'll blow your credibility.

It's far more effective to try to trap your opponent into making the first big mistake, especially if you're a better player than he is. Induce bluffs

This can be a deadly weapon when playing out of position against an aggressive opponent.

Try checking your strong hand all the way down when facing an aggressive player who's capable of bluffing a hand to the river. The reasoning is simple. If he has nothing and you bet, he'll fold. If he has nothing and you check, he may bluff. If he also has a strong hand, well, he'll do the betting for you.

Once your opponent figures out you're using this ploy, you'll have him tamed. He'll likely play less aggressively in future hands.

Winning small pots leads to the big bets

Much of the poker seen on television involves big stacks and big bets. Those hands, of course, are only a small percentage of the thousands of pots played in a tournament.

What isn't seen as often are the hands where players joust over smaller pots to help build their stacks into the big ones viewed at the final table. The top players aren't waiting for aces or kings. They are using lesser hands to get chips by sizing up opponents and reading the texture of the board, as displayed in this hand by pro Erik Seidel.

With blinds at $50-$100 in the World Poker Tour's $15,000-buy-in Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Las Vegas' Bellagio in 2006, Seidel drew ace-9 offsuit and limped in from early position. Six other players limped as well, which is often the case in the first couple of levels in a tournament where players start with twice as many chips as their buy-in.

The flop came 2-9-7, two clubs, putting a flush draw on the board.

"With two clubs in the flop, I wasn't too excited about it," Seidel said.

After the big blind checked, Seidel bet $300 to find out how good his top pair/top kicker was. Two players called, one behind Seidel, one in front of him.

"I thought I had the best hand," Seidel said. "I just thought it was a very dangerous flop for somebody to be slow-playing.

"The first guy was the one I was concerned about slow-playing. The other guy had position on me, and I thought he would  be crazy not to raise with a better hand than mine."

The turn came the 2 of diamonds, making trips, a flush and a full house possible - all hands better than Seidel's pair of 9s.

When the first player checked, Seidel bet $1,250, about three-quarters of the pot, a strong play that could allow him to take down the pot right there or force an opponent to define the strength of his hand by calling or raising.

"I wasn't so worried about the second guy because I thought if he had a better hand than mine, he would've re-raised on the flop," Seidel said, holding to his read. "The first guy was the only concern, but I thought it was likely I had the best hand."

Apparently, he did, as both players folded.

Man's losing poker hand wins $116,700

WEST PALM BEACH — When Charles Infantolino drew a losing hand in a game of seven-card stud Sunday, he won a record poker jackpot at the Palm Beach Kennel Club.

Infantolino's losing hand of four queens won him $116,700 in an upside-down payout called the "bad beat."

The jackpot is claimed when a player draws an almost unbeatable hand, then loses to an even better one.

Everyone at the table wins in a bad beat, but the runner-up is the luckiest. The "loser" wins half the jackpot, the "winner" takes a quarter and the other players divide the rest.

Nobody had been able to claim the bad beat jackpot at the kennel club in almost two months, and the jackpot swelled to $233,400.

Managers at the kennel club believe that is the highest ever in a poker room at Florida's regulated dog and horse tracks.

Many players had been hoping to win for weeks. Infantolino, 64, said he knew they had the jackpot when a woman at his table, Tasha Johnson, laid out her hand - the ace, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of spades.

"I said to myself, 'I got the four queens. She's got the straight flush. We've got the bad beat.''"

All the players at the table yelled, then jumped out of their seats, card room manager Jonathon Miller said.

Security quickly surrounded the table, and more than 300 players in the room applauded.

Footage of the cards from overhead cameras confirmed the win, Miller said.

Johnson, 29, of Riviera Beach won $58,350. She has played poker for six years, she said, but had never won more than $500.

She called her mom, who was speechless.

She is thinking about putting a down payment on a house. But first, she said, "me and the girls are going to go out."

Poker Players Alliance spent over 900,000 on lobbying efforts in 2007

Online poker lobbying group the Poker Player’s Alliance spent over $900,000 on lobbying activities in 2007, according to disclosure forms released earlier this month by the US Senate. The PPA counts nearly 800,000 poker players among its member ranks. Where did the money go? According to a breakdown provided by OpenSecrets, the funds were spread across five Washington lobbying firms, including Patton Boggs LLP and Ogilvy Government Relations. View the OpenSecrets report here.

World Poker Tour Hires Magician

The pro poker player known as "the Magician" has been hired to work some magic for the World Poker Tour. Antonio Esfandiari, who was a pro magician before he became a pro poker player, was hired once before by the WPT to perform magic with cards and coins, and has been hired once more to perform a different kind of magic. Esfandiari will be the official spokesman for the "WPT Poker-Made Millionaire" segment of the company, representing the 84 players who have earned a million dollars or more on the World Poker Tour, which routinely pays out at least a million dollars to winners of their various events.

Poker After Dark: Cowboys theme?

Apparently running out of good ideas, this week's Poker After Dark on NBC is getting all Brokeback with a Cowboys theme with all six poker players supposedly fond of donning a cowboy hat at the poker table.

The six "gun slingers" are Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Doyle Brunson, Hoyt Corkins, Gabe Kaplan and Chau Giang, who ironically never wears a cowboy hat.

Rumors are a "Lefties Week" and "Straight Male Hairdressers Week" are both in the works.

In related news, not all guys walking around Vegas wearing a Stetson, heavy-starched shirt and Wranglers when the rodeo is in town appreciate it when you say: "Loved ya in Brokeback Mountain, cowboy." Some actually may punch you in the face.

Poker After Dark website here. Shoot them an email and suggest a "poker players who screwed/got screwed by Brandi Hawbaker" week. Or month.

Shannon Elizabeth Might Get Famous Again

Poker playing actress Shannon Elizabeth, who hasn't been in the mainstream media spotlight since our current/first wives were 8 years younger than they are now . . . and they weren't current/first wives then . . . just really hot chicks who didn't do our laundry yet, has been announced as one of the celebrities set to appear on the show "Dancing With The Stars," which is supposedly a huge hit although we've never seen it. Apparently stars of various stature do ballroom style dancing, yes ballroom dancing, and compete for the adoration of dance judges and viewers. And it's on a major network. Seriously, we're not making this up. We wish we were.

Shannon Elizabeth won't be the only poker player on the new season of Dancing With the Stars as comedian/magician Penn Jillette, who we've tossed cards with before and actually didn't annoy us as much as we thought he would, is also scheduled to appear. Others competing include comedian Adam Carolla, football great Jason Taylor, Scientologist Pricilla Presley, Oscar winning actress Marlee Matlin, Steve "I love the 80s" Guttenberg, Cristian De La Fuente (Who?), Marissa Jaret Winokur (What?), Kristi Yamaguchi (figure skater right?), tennis player Monica Seles, and Mario, who apparently is so famous he doesn't need a last name.

By the way, who is Mario?

Looking at the list of celebrities Shannon is clearly the hot chick on the show, this season's Stacey Kiebler or Kelly Monaco if you will, which can only mean that really hot photo spreads of Shannon in her next-to-nothings will soon follow in Stuff, Maxim and/or FHM, which is good because she, and more importantly, we desperately need some new really hot photos of Shannon. While her old photos were nice, really hot photo spreads have made considerable advances over the past 8 years. It's something the Bush administration can be proud of.

Jennifer "Jennicide" Leigh Bears All in May 2008 Playboy

 
Back during the 2007 WSOP last summer, we learned that Jennifer "Jennicide" Leigh posed nude for an upcoming issue of Playboy Magazine, just as host of The TOKE Denise Pernula did this past October.
About a year later, Jennicide's Playboy issue is finally slated to hit the stands (May 2008).
Word on the street is that Leigh, who stripped down to her bare naked-ness for the shoot, thinks she may be on the cover. Good for her if so. And if not, good for us all either way.

Annie Duke & Phil Hellmuth On TV - "Best Damn Poker Show"

UltimateBet.net today announced that its much talked about reality poker series, Best Damn Poker Show, will begin airing on Monday, February 11th at 9pm, 11pm and 12:30am local time on Fox Sports Net. The ultimate poker reality series follows 18 poker players on two teams led by world poker champions Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke as they battle it out over seven weeks. More than just money is at stake in this televised battle. Egos are on the line as the two poker pros try to prove who’s the better poker professor.
Despite the endless heads-up Texas Hold’em battles between Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke at UltimateBet.net’s online poker tables, it’s unlikely that the age-old debate regarding which pro is the better poker player will ever be settled. Best Damn Poker Show aims to discover who can better teach the game and mold ordinary poker players into champions.
Online poker players at UltimateBet.net fought for a spot in the L.A. audition process by creating and submitting an audition video that demonstrated why they deserved to be on the innovative poker reality series. The online poker site also invited Texas Hold’em fans to take part in a series of qualifiers where spots in the televised audition process were up for grabs.
Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke each handpicked nine players from a field of 36 to join their team. The 18 selected players were shipped to the luxurious Pechanga Resort and Casino in California to be a part of the seven-week series.
Best Damn Poker Show also features celebrities from the entertainment and poker worlds including Scott Ian from Anthrax, Sully Erna from Godsmack, and actors Jennifer Tilley, Patrick Warburton and Miguel Nunez. UltimateBet.net’s very own P0ker H0 and Shawn Rice manage Team Hellmuth and Team Duke respectively on the series.
Online poker players looking for their own shot at poker superstardom don’t have to wait long. The audition process for season 2 of the Best Damn Poker Show begins soon at UltimateBet.net.

Former Miss Nevada Katie Rees arrested

Late in 2006, former Miss Nevada Katie Rees was fired from her sash for appearing in photos of undress and unfit for a beauty contestant. As with any of these photos, they quickly spread on the Internet.

The photos are a little to racy for a family blog, but we can give you the above photo (courtesy of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department), which is Rees' mugshot from yesterday.

Yep, seems she again made the news when she was pulled over in the middle of the night for speeding, found that she had a suspended license and a car with suspended plates, was driving an uninsured vehicle, and if that wasn't enough, resisted arrest by allegedly kicking and elbowing the officers. She was immediately placed under arrest and held at the Clark County Detention Center.

Oh okay, here are the photos off TMZ that got Rees dethroned.

Heidi Fleiss Hollywood Madam Arrested

Nye County Sheriff's Office photo

Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss, was arrested last night in Pahrump. She was suspected of DUI, possession of narcotics without a prescription, and being under the influence of a controlled substance. A male passenger was also booked for being under the influence of a controlled substance and possession of marijuana. Heidi Fleiss and her companion were booked into the Nye County jail.

The fallout from this latest turn of events might well be the end of Fleiss' efforts to establish a stud farm in Pahrump that would provide sex for hire for women. Pahrump is located 80 miles from Las Vegas in Nye County where prostitution is legal.

Roseanne Barr to perform nightly at Sahara

The Amazing Johnathan has long been disgruntled at his Sahara landlords.
The comedian-magician has left his residence amid accusations that the former owners of the casino hid cameras in dressing rooms. Johnathan is also upset at Sahara's practices of comping more than their standard 20 tickets per show.
Johnathan is rumored to be negotiating another location for his show, perhaps at Krave (Planet Hollywood).
Meanwhile, Roseanne Barr will take over the Sahara stage beginning March 1 for an open run.
Barr was last seen in Las Vegas performing an extended run at New York New York.

Shawn Sheikhan no longer scheduled to play LAPD poker tournament

 

Shahram ‘Sheiky’ Sheikhan won’t be appearing as planned at an upcoming LAPD charity poker event, according to a story published today by PokerHelper.com. Sheikhan, whose possible deportation from the US due to past charges of sexual misconduct made news a few months ago, has been been the subject of renewed media attention recently due to his appearance on Poker After Dark.

Sheikhan’s invitation by the LAPD to play in the event brought criticism from some corners. That criticism apparently resulted in either the LAPD retracting the invite or Sheikhan declining.

Excerpt from the PokerHelper story:

Shockingly, Sheikhan was announced by the Sheriff’s Department earlier this year as an invited celebrity guest to the February 24 second annual Memorial Poker Classic, run by the Sheriff’s Department’s Transit Services Bureau, at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California, to raise monies for the families of law enforcement officers and firefighters who perished in the line of duty.

PokerHelper.com first broke the story that the perverted, poker-playing ex-con would be a guest at the law enforcement organization’s charity affair.

After other media, including a website that tracks sex criminals, picked up the story, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department last week defended Sheikhan and reiterated that he would be attending the charity poker event.

Vegas Poker 24-7 to be purchased by Absolute Poker

  Several Vegas Poker 24-7 affiliates were notified this week that the company has reached an agreement to merge with Absolute Poker. By the terms of the agreement, Absolute Poker will be taking over ownership of Vegas Poker 24-7. The company apparently plans to make a formal announcement to players in a few days.

No concrete reason was given for the transfer of ownership to Absolute Poker. Since its inception, Vegas Poker 24-7 has been a part of the Absolute Poker network.

Players will apparently have the option to keep their current account or to transfer their funds to an existing Absolute account.

WSOP Coverage with Bluff Media

The upcoming 2008 World Series of Poker will have live coverage via Bluff Media and Bluff Magazine, according to a recent press release. The series, which is the longest running and most popular pro level poker series of its kind in the world, begins at the end of May and will run for about six weeks. Every year the eyes of the poker world are on Las Vegas to see how the WSOP will do in terms of payouts, how many players will sign up to play, and who will emerge the winners. Bluff Media will provide live coverage of the WSOP from the Rio Hotel and Casino.

Devilfish Poker to Go Public

 

The online poker company that runs DevilfishPoker will soon be a publicly floated firm, according to a recent press release. The company, Devilfish Gaming, is joining the small club of online poker rooms that are publicly traded, a practice that has been on the wan ever since the UIGEA was passed in the United States. The company is named after one of the most well known poker players, especially in the UK, David "Devilfish" Ulliott. The site is growing with over six thousand registered users with an average of 700 real money games running at one time.

WSOP Circuit in the Big Easy in May

 

The Big Easy will see the World Series of Poker Circuit hit their Harrah’s casino for the fourth year this May, as poker fans and poker pros descend on Harrah’s New Orleans for a chance at big money prizes and a seat to the 2008 World Series of Poker. This will be the last stop on the Circuit tour, a popular outreach of the WSOP that brings that brand to casinos around the country. There will be 15 events culminating in the $5k No Limit Holdem championship event. Satellites starting in April will let players at Harrah’s New Orleans have a shot at winning a free ticket to the event.

Polish Open Coming in March

The next leg of the European Poker Tour will take place in Poland, an appropriate place for a poker tournament called the Polish Open. This will take place in March and will be a five day No Limit Texas Holdem tournament with a $8,600 buy in, which is 21,000 zlotys in local currency. The top prize may reach eight million zlotys, which is more than three million US dollars. The event will cap at 400 players, which means those poker fans looking to win a seat in an online qualifier should try now before the seats sell out.

"Ghost Hunters" open auditions next week

 

Got a haunted kitchen?

Sci-Fi Channel's "Ghost Hunters" wants to hear about it and all other hauntings.

Open auditions for the Great American Ghost Hunt take place Feb. 15 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Feb. 16 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. (With an additional unscheduled date of Feb. 17.)

Both will be at the Las Vegas Town Square, the new shopping area off the Strip a couple miles south of Mandalay Bay. Could the Town Square be built on old Indian burial grounds? We suspect more than a couple bodies were buried in that space, Indian or not.

If the former plumbers choose your haunted location, it'll be featured on a live show this Halloween. You'll also join the team at the Stanley Hotel for dinner and a ghost-hyunt.

For more information, visit this link.

Las Vegas Sports Books Lose Millions on the Super Bowl

Nevada casinos reported a total loss of $2.6 million on the Super Bowl because of the upset win from the New York Giants over the New England Patriots.

According to an ESPN article, Giants winning outright costs sports books record $2.6M, an influx of tourists in town for the Super Bowl apparently bet heavily on the underdog NY Giants.

Overall, the upset might be great news for Giants fans, but the outcome cost the casinos. The betting line had dropped to -12. In addition, a lot of money was wagered on a two-way parlay with betting on the Under at 54 (for the final score) and the Giants getting +12. The sports books had to payout 2.5 to 1 on those wagers. And don't forget all those money line payouts for the Giants at +475.

The press release says that 174 sports books in Nevada collected over $92 million in Super Bowl wagers. That was the third highest amount. The record was set in 2006 with $94.5 million.