Devilfish DVD out in time for holidays

Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott hosted a television show this year called How to Become a Poker Millionaire, which featured him training four losing poker players for more than a month to try to turn them into winning players.

The players went through testing and coaching by Ulliott, and they practiced what they learned by playing online poker. The participants then had to play against each other and were eliminated one per episode of the show.

The winner of the show received a seat in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

The Devilfish's teachings have now been captured on DVD and were released this week for poker fans.

The DVD includes all the episodes of the TV show plus an extra hour of footage. That footage includes tips from top pros such as Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth.

Also included in the DVD are Ulliott's poker rules, including:

• Playing the right starting cards
• Calculating odds
• Playing the right online opponents
• Dealing with tilt
• When to be aggressive
• When to fold
• Bankroll management

Ulliott certainly has the credentials to dish out poker advice. In the course of his poker career he's accumulated more than $5 million in tournament winnings. He also has one WSOP bracelet win as well as a World Poker Tour win on his poker resume.

The DVD went up for sale Dec. 1 and can be found at Zavvi, HMV, Amazon and Woolworths.

"With Christmas just around the corner, this is the perfect stocking filler for players of all levels," Ulliott said. "Pop it on when your 'nan and crazy uncle have been at the sherry and prepare to have fun. But remember ... a Devilfish DVD is not just for Christmas!"

Open bar through all of Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on Dec. 17

There are free drinks, and then there are free drinks. Las Vegas is known as the free drink capitol of the world, but usually you need to be gambling or at least be good at flirting to get the free drinks. Then there are happy hours, where a bar offers free drinks between certain hours. Now on Dec. 17 between 7 and 9 p.m., there's Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, which will go completely open bar. Yep, all the bars within the casino will be handing out free drinks to celebrate the holiday season. This includes the Center Bar, AGO, Wasted Space, the bar in Pink Taco, and even the bar in the Poker Lounge. And no gambling necessary.

Star Trek: The Experience moves to Neonopolis

If you're a fan of Star Trek, you'll be boldly going to downtown Las Vegas.

Coming early next year is the popular Star Trek attraction that was bumped from its Las Vegas Hilton digs after 11 years and has found a new home at Neonopolis.

Star Trek: The Experience will surely bring in a new stream of revenue to the aging Fremont mall, and already a list of high-profile establishments have taken an interest... which will be announced Dec. 12.

One place that won't be along for the ride is Jillian's. The restaurant/arcade/concert venue was popular among teens, with long lines outside making it seem Neonopolis was the place to be. Neonopolis developer Rahit Joshi said it was closed (pushed out?) in favor of a new restaurant... which will also be announced Dec. 12.

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquaio for half-price

We thought it strange that the presumably sold-out fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquaio could not only still have tickets available, but those tickets are half-price.

Maybe the economy is curtailing boxing fans from shelling out $1,500 per ticket (the coveted blue tickets, which are also still available).

The fight takes place Saturday, Dec. 6 at 3:30 p.m. (with main event at 6 p.m.) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Tickets can be purchased at Goldstar:

Blue section: $750 + $50 fee (regularly $1,500)
Pink section: $500 + $50 fee (regularly $1,000)
Green section: $375 + $35 fee (regularly $750)
Orange section: $250 + $25 fee (regularly $500)

Note that tickets will not be available at the box office but through Nevada Tickets, 5030 Paradise Road #B108. So you'd make your purchase, then head to Nevada Tickets on Saturday beginning at noon.

Incidentally, tickets are still available ringside for $20,000. Those aren't discounted.

Nevada Tickets is also selling tickets to a closed-circuit live telecast of the fight, with prices ranging from $95 to $149.

Tropicana Las Vegas close poker room

The Tropicana poker room will close in a week. A quick decision that not even the 19 poker employees were aware of, staff was informed late last week about the Nov. 30 closure. Unlike Excalibur or Paris Las Vegas who had the corporate backings of MGM Mirage and Harrah's respectively, the Tropicana poker employees will be laid off and not transferred elsewhere.

New Silverton Poker Room

The new poker room, however, is operational and located in the new section of the casino next to the 1500-car garage a la Wynn Las Vegas. Nice not to have to trek through the casino to get to the poker room. It's right around the corner from the old poker room, which in turn was next to the buffet. The old poker room has been turned into a high-limit salon. We headed over when we heard an announcement for seats available in the 6 p.m. tournament (at 6:10), yet when we stopped by there was no floor manager to be seen. The desk was left empty for 5 minutes before we headed out... and then we heard another announcement that there were seats available in the tournament. We won't go into too much detail because kinks are still being worked out, but at first glance it's bigger than its first incarnation with about the same number of tables. Let's hope they fixed the problem of the AC blowing full-blast. Their current promotion has buy-ins of $100 receiving $20 between noon and 2 p.m. until Dec. 31. We suspect you have to play at least two hours to qualify, but as there was no one to speak to, we couldn't get the lowdown.

All In Signs On as WSOP Sponsor

All In Energy drink has inked a multi-year sponsorship agreement with the World Series of Poker®. For those that don't know, the principals of the drink company are WSOP 10 bracelet winner Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, Clonie Gowen, Scotty Nguyen, and Layne Flack plus dozens of other poker pros. All In energy drinkers can get an invite to the ALL IN Invitational Tournament held at the Rio® All Suites & Hotel during the WSOP. Your on-line purchases of All In energy drink and purified water will be tabulated and the top 1,000 plus players will be seated in the $100,000 guaranteed freeroll. For more information go to www.allinenergy.com

Post-Flop Betting Introduction

Post-flop betting is all about controlling the tempo, keeping yourself in the position of power - that is, having your opponents deferring to you to make their decisions for them. Via your bets you can do several things.
You can use bets and raises to gather information about your opponents. One of the biggest mistakes a person can make is to check/call. I see player after player doing it and it is a fundamental error. Why is it wrong? Well because it is your bet or raise that defines your opponents hand. If you just check and call, then you really have no idea what your foe has. He could be on a draw. She could have middle pair. He could have the nuts. She could be on a stone cold bluff. Unless you bet, you just don't know. Betting and raising also has the additional benefit of letting you win the pot by causing your opponent to fold.
When you check and call, you not only eliminate that, but you also build up the size of the pot and make it correct for him/her to bet you out of the pot by applying pressure to you on the next street. There is also one additional benefit to betting/raising (especially when you have position) - if you are called, you will generally be checked to on the next street and if you yourself are drawing, you will be able to take a free card (or if you have a strong but not great hand, you can check and call a bet on the river, while you would not have been able to call a check raise on the turn).
Try it sometime. Say you flop middle pair out of the Big Blind against one player who limped in Middle Position. Bet it out. If you check, you know he's going to bet. What do you do then? Fold, call or raise? If you bet out, he'll either fold because the flop missed him (more times than not), call because he is drawing (either to two overcards he holds in his hand or a flush/straight draw) or raise because she believes she has the best hand. If you just check and call then you have no idea whether she has top pair or not. She could be holding nothing better than a pair of 2's but because you are checking and calling, you're eventually going to fold to her bets because of the uncertainty you have created (and generally speaking it would be correct for your foe to continue betting unless she knew you were the type of player who was a calling station).
You can put your opponent on a hand based upon their action/reaction to your bets and raises. Have you ever wondered how the pros can put someone on a hand? It certainly isn't because they are psychic. It's because they've seen something in the way a person is playing and/or betting or have seen the situation come up a hundred times before. That is where the experience you garner playing at Pokerstars or Full Tilt Poker in those low buy in tournaments is invaluable. The thousands of hands you play give you valuable information as to what type of hands a person might have or be playing.
To figure this out, you need to pay careful attention to how each player at the table plays. Do they bet strong with only strong hands, or mix it up? Do they bet weak when strong and strong when weak? What hands do they just call with? What hands do they raise with?
Watch and in time, you'll pick up on what they are doing. Are they just checking and calling when there is two of one suit on the flop? Probably a flush draw - make them pay for it.
Are they just checking and calling when there is two connected cards on the flop? Probably a straight draw - make them pay for it.
Did they bet small and call your raise with no potential draws on the board? Probably top pair bad kicker - make them pay for it.
Did they call your raise pre-flop and then check on the flop after you checked and then raise you on the turn? Probably slow playing something hoping to get more money from you.
Did they make an oversized bet into the pot? Probably a hand that doesn't want to get called and is trying to buy the pot.
Or how about that small but not oversized raise of your raise pre-flop? Probably wants a call because they have a big hand.
What about that oversized raise of your raise pre-flop? Well depending on the person, it's usually a hand like JJ/AK that feels like they have the best hand but doesn't really want to see a flop.
Betting will also allow you to build favorable pots for yourself that allow you to get paid off for your strong hands and can assist you in setting up future plays and moves. In the next part, I'll give you all an assignment to help you understand some post-flop betting concepts.

WPT Confirms Removal of January Borgata Stop

The World Poker Tour has confirmed that the Borgata Poker Open, originally scheduled for late January of 2009, is no longer part of the WPT's Season Seven schedule. Reports of the Borgata event being removed from the WPT schedule began to surface more than two weeks ago, but the Borgata stop remained on the WPT schedule of events until being recently being removed and confirmed by the WPT.
Also confirmed is that the Borgata will run a replacement event during the 2009 Borgata Winter Poker Open, with that series' schedule still being finalized. While guarantees and dates are still being finalized, the latest schedule calls for a $3,000+200, four-day event beginning on Jan. 25, 2009, with a probable $500,000 guarantee.

Clonie Gowen Suing Full Tilt Poker For $40M.

Clonie Gowen, the now-defunct and former member of Team Full Tilt Poker, announced this past week that she is bringing forth a $40,00,000 lawsuit against FTP for breach of a contract. The lawsuit states the Gowen is owed her fair share of a 1% ownership stake that was apparently promised to her over a phone conversation with Full Tilt executives.  However, this not-so-apparent “oral” agreement was never signed into a legal contract, which unfortunately for her might prove troublesome when it comes to actually proving a contract breach (note the keyword: contract). The supposed oral contract took place in 2004 with several FTP executives, however, despite not having any legal backing put on paper Clonie still went on and promoted the Full Tilt brand on tournament circuit around the world.  The promotional ads she did for the company definitely increased fanfare not just among online poker players, but also women poker players.  She was 1 of only 2 faces on Team Full Tilt Poker who were women - the other of course being cash game legend Jennifer Harman - and she did an excellent job of making people aware of the online mega site, even though she was doing it for zero compensation. In 2007, Howard Lederer supposedly offered Clonie Gowen a distribution check of $250,000.  For what ever reason or another, Gowen denied the check!  Other poker media outlets who have been covering the story still don’t have an explanation behind that, nor has Clonie herself commented on it as well.  In either case, she still went on and continued to wear FTP gear around every event she played - despite denying a supposed payment from the company and still not being paid a single cent since 2004! After Full Tilt let go of Clonie Gowen on November 11th, 2008, she went and filed the suit just a few days later in a Las Vegas courtroom.  The suit itself will most likely be settled out of court, mainly because Full Tilt Poker most likely doesn’t want the financial information of their company to be a matter of public record, nor do they need any more reason to be under the close microscope of the U.S. government.

High Stakes Poker back for Season Five

 

GSN announced today that High Stakes Poker will, in fact, be returning for a fifth season. The popular cash-game format live poker show has been a mainstay of poker player’s schedules for several years now, with some classic moments and characters that have become part of the cultural fabric of the game.

Production for the series will start in late December and will once again be filmed at the Golden Nugget. The format of the game is likely to stay pretty close to past seasons, according to Kevin Belinkoff, Vice President of Programming for GSN: “It’s still High Stakes Poker, it will still be no-limit hold’em. We always look to change the game up, look for different things we can do with the game, different players, but at the end of the day, it will still be the same cash game that everyone knows. We kind of let the players do their own thing, so if they come up with other things, then we just let them have their way with it.”

No word yet on the cast for season five. The minimum buyin for the game is reported to be $200,000.

Phil Hellmuth opens “Poker Brat” clothing line

Poker pro Phill Hellmuth is attempting to diversify yet again, this time starting up a line of clothing bearing his nickname, “Poker Brat.”

The clothing line, which right now consists of just T-shirts and hats, is available online at pokerbrat.com. There, you can get a lot of the standard Phil Hellmuth gear with the “PH” logo. But Hellmuth is also trying to cash in on the artistic T-shirt trend, with designs like “Poker Tree” and “Poker Outline” motifs.

Here’s what Hellmuth had to say about his newest endeavor:

“I love the people who designed these shirts,” commented Hellmuth. “We’ve worked with artists in Las Vegas, Missouri, and West Hollywood, and I told them to design whatever their hearts desired and, man, did they create some great poker designs!”

Most of the shirts retail for about $30.

Left out of the apparel descriptions: Whether Hellmuth will berate you if you play poker with him while wearing his clothes.

60 Minutes airs story on online poker scandal

 

Many in the world of poker fretted about the “60 Minutes” story on online poker and the Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet scandal before it aired this Sunday.

While the story put together by the CBS television news program did not paint a rosy picture of online poker, it was largely a factual investigation into the superuser scandal. It was not the “hatchet job” that many feared would air that could have been a damaging blow for online poker.

Mostly, the story portrays online poker as an unregulated industry where cheating is possible and has occurred — namely in the AP/UB scandal — but stops short of saying online poker as a whole is entirely crooked and filled with cheaters.

You can watch the whole “60 Minutes” piece here.

There is also a piece written by a Washington Post reporter who helped with the investigation here.

The story gives a primer and brief history of online poker — from Chris Moneymaker’s World Series of Poker main event victory, the industry boom, and how easy it is, in general, to play poke online. From there, interviewer Steve Kroft talks to some of the people involved in the uncovering of the superuser scandal, and details many of the sordid details.

The story never goes much into the world of online poker beyond AP/UB and the one scandal.

Russian Poker Tour

PokerStars is branching out in its worldwide live poker tournaments yet again, this time launching the Russian Poker Tour. Poker in Russia has grown quickly in recent years on the heels of the success of Alex Kravchenko — the first Russian to ever win a World Series of Poker bracelet, in 2007 — and 2008 main event runner-up Ivan Demidov. The Russian Poker begins on January 25 in St. Petersburg before traveling to Moscow in February.