Do We Still Tip?

Online poker has a new trick; live poker dealers. A new gaming deal between the Caribbean Gaming and Casino group and the Tradewinds Broadcasting Corporation will use live online dealing during poker games on the Internet. The idea is to use streaming video to broadcast a real person dealing a poker game, and the players utilizing virtual representations of their cards to play. The game would still be considered online poker, but with a twist. Online poker rooms using live dealers are counting on the novelty to draw in new players.

Poker Game And The Drug Dealer

A man charged with contributing to the overdose death of a college student allegedly used a poker game he ran as a way to connect with customers. James McDaniel has been accused of selling cocaine and meth to college students who came to play at his poker game, according to the testimony of four young men who were students at Southern Methodist University, where many of McDaniel’s alleged customers came from. The woman who died of an overdose of drugs was freshman a at Southern Methodist University, Meaghan Bosch.

Something To Think About

When playing poker, be it online or live, it is easy to not give it your all. Online, you could be playing multiple tables and not be able to give your full attention to any one game, or you could be distracted by any number of things, such as the world wide web, television, or even your un-potty trained toddler running around naked. Live, you get could engrossed in conversation (yeah, imagine that), get too into cocktail waiter… people watching, or be thinking about what route to take home. And even if you are concentrating on the game, very often it is all too easy to just focus on your cards and then tune out once you fold.

But as we all know, skilled poker players are concerned with much more than just their own cards and chips. The best players are able to get into the minds of their opponents. Not in a psyche-out way, but in an “I know what you’re thinking” sort of way. Of course this is easier said than done. If you are willing to make the effort, here are two techniques you can use to improve your “mind reading” skills.

Play Blind

I don’t mean that you should play the blinds, I mean that you should play without looking at your cards. While that may sound ludicrous, hear me out. By not looking at your hole cards, you naturally have to see other parts of the game in order to succeed. And what other parts of the game are out there? Why, the other players, chip stacks, the community cards, and the dealer button, to name a few.

If you don’t know what cards you have, you will be forced to work on your opponent reading skills. What did that pre-flop raise just mean from the guy in Seat 3? What is Seat 6 telling me when she checks the turn? What cards does the guy next to my left showdown after he has been betting the pot throughout the hand? If you can start figuring out the betting patterns (and when playing live, possibly physical tells) of your opponents, you can figure out when they are weak and make bets that will win you the pot, regardless of what pocket cards you have.

Position plays a large role, too. Most people play differently in early position than they do in late position, so be aware of where the button is and use position to your advantage, whether it means being aggressive yourself or just getting the heck out of a hand.

Internet poker phenom and WSOP Europe champ, Annette Obrestad, actually won a $4, 180-person sit-and-go back in 2007, while only looking at her cards once. In an interview with Card Player magazine, she said she did it to show “just how important it is to play position and to pay attention to the players at the table.”

Now, it’s not going to be easy to make money playing blind, but it can be a fun and enlightening exercise. I recommend moving down in stakes when you try it, knowing there is a good chance that you will lose.

What do you do? What do you do?

Yes, I just used a quote from the movie Speed. You’ll get it in a moment.

Over the years, I have found, just as I am sure everyone has, that there are hands that I fold, only to find out that the remaining players were weak. Had I realized it before I folded, I could have won the pot with a well-timed bet. And that started me playing a little game within the poker game.

When I am not in a hand, I try to observe the proceedings carefully, noting everything that a poker player should: board texture, player position, bet sizing, stack sizes, and the like. I then try to figure out how I could have won the hand without it going to showdown. I focus on it not going to showdown because anyone can win when they actually have the best hand. What I want to determine is whether or not I could have won without the best hand, had I not folded.

What if I would have bet three-quarters of the pot on the flop? Knowing how my opponents play and what cards they had (or I think they had), would that have accomplished my goal? Could I have checked and then popped them on the turn? Would I have needed to push? What could I have done to win that hand? Now, when playing this little game in your head, you won’t come up with an answer every time. If someone has a full house and you would have had Jack-high, you were not going to beat them, no matter what. But those hands that lack a “winning answer” can also give you insight into your opponents and can prove just as valuable as those where you actually do have a solution.

By focusing on parts of the game other than yourself when at the poker table, you can open up new doors that you never realized were there. To be sickeningly cheesy and reference another Keanu Reeves movie, it is sort of like when Neo finally sees the Matrix and truly starts to realize his power. No, you won’t be able to jump into an opponent and blow him up from the inside, but deeper aspects of the game will begin to come into focus for you. With practice, these “mind reading” skills will become more natural and you will be free to concentrate on yet more intricate aspects of the game.

Poker Stars Adds New Security Features, Not Really New You Just Did Not Know About

PokerStars announced two new security features today that will drastically increase the protection players can enjoy on their online accounts: PIN numbers and RSA Security Tokens.

The PIN numbers are relatively straightforward: if you choose to have a PIN associated with your account, you will now have to enter your PIN, in addition to your user name and password. The PIN isn’t typed in; instead, you enter it on an on-screen keypad that changes positions each time you log in, a measure designed to thwart keyloggers.

You can request a PIN for your account by logging into PokerStars and editing the ‘Login Security Settings’ under the ‘Account’ menu.

RSA Security Tokens are a bit more complex - it’s an actual piece of hardware that generates a code you’ll need to access your PokerStars account. That means, functionally, that without the actual piece of hardware, no one can access your PokerStars account.

RSA Tokens have been available from Stars for awhile now and can be purchased from the Stars FPP store.

Hellmuth Announces Book Publishing Company

Amid a busy day that included being selected to proclaim “Shuffle up and deal!” at the first event of the 2009 World Series of Poker, Phil Hellmuth, Jr. met the poker press on Wednesday to announce the very first publication of his new book publishing company, Phil’s House Publishing, Stephen John and Marvin Karlins’ Deal Me In.

The new book compiles the “heartbreaking and inspiring stories” of 20 of the world’s greatest poker players. Over the past year, authors John and Karlins conducted interviews with the featured pros, inviting them to talk about their poker careers and thereby chronicle the various struggles and successes they experienced on the way to joining poker’s elite.

Hellmuth described the process by which he and his colleagues at Phil’s House Publishing went about recruiting pros to participate in the project. “I knew that once I had Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Ivey, then everybody else would want to be in the book,” said Hellmuth. Aside from participating in the interviews, each player was directly involved in the revising of his or her chapter, and also signed releases for the use of their stories and the over 150 photographs that illustrate the text.

“These chapters are just so wildly diverse,” said Hellmuth. “Phil Ivey’s story, where he has so much discipline, and control, and money management -- you just don’t expect that looking at the Ivey of today.... Doyle Brunson talking about people getting shot [at his table].... [And] Layne Flack’s [emotional] story made me cry.”

However, the players’ stories share some common ground, too. “Every story talks about money management,” said Hellmuth, a subject which he believes often doesn’t get adequate attention in most poker strategy books. “To me, that’s some valuable stuff, because you’re learning how the great ones managed their money on the way up.”

Hellmuth admitted that there were some significant omissions from those selected, and mentioned several of the players (including Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen and Ted Forrest) who are listed in the prefatory disclaimer that opens the book. Some of those left out may possibly be included in a later, expanded edition of the book, Hellmuth explained, although he believes the book as it stands certainly includes the top ten living players, and perhaps 17 or 18 of the top 20.

The book is currently available only at Hellmuth’s website, PokerBrat.com, where it will be exclusively sold until September when it may then be distributed via other outlets. Most of the 20,000 copies that make up the book’s initial printing will begin shipping on June 22.

Deal Me In represents the culmination of an arduous, two-and-a-half year process which began with the founding of Phil’s House Publishing, of which Hellmuth is the primary owner and Phil Ivey an investor. The company’s initial plan was to publish a Sudoku strategy text, but that project ultimately fell through. Next was the idea to publish Hellmuth’s autobiography, Poker Brat, although that has been postponed until May 2010 in order to time that book’s publication more closely with a planned feature film about Hellmuth of the same title.

Hellmuth credited Bob Soderstrom, Chief Operating Officer of Phil’s House Publishing, for having initially conceived the idea for a book that would tell the story of poker’s 20 greatest players. The idea was a good one, but presented significant challenges when it came to organizing the interviews, writing the chapters, and incorporating the players’ suggested revisions. “It was almost like doing twenty different books,” explained Shannon Reiter, President of Phil’s House Publishing. However, the group was able to meet those challenges and thus succeed in achieving their goal of publishing Deal Me In in time to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Hellmuth’s WSOP Main Event victory in 1989. (Photo shows the ceremony featuring Hellmuth with Jack Binion, following Hellmuth's historic win.)

Ever the entrepreneur, Hellmuth appears to relish the challenge of learning about and hopefully succeeding in the publishing world. “It was very interesting for me as a businessman to look at all of these different revenue models -- that’s the fun stuff, for me,” said Hellmuth. He acknowledged that there exist few options for publishers today, particularly with regard to methods of distribution. “Look, we’re gambling,” he said, referring to the decision to forgo at present other distribution models and sell the book via his own website.

However, while profiting from the sale of Deal Me In is certainly a goal of Hellmuth’s, he has other purposes in mind, too. “Will I make money from it? I hope so,” said Hellmuth. “But we’ve really contributed something beautiful to poker history here. We’ve written an amazing book and it really is inspirational.”

Penthouse to turn into Crazy Horse III

The Penthouse Gentlemen's Club (which used to be called Sin) off south Strip is no more (the licensing agreement ran out), but will now soon change to The Playground.

Or will it?

If Vegas Alliance (who will run The Playground) has any say, they would like to rename the strip club to Crazy Horse III, after Crazy Horse Too, the lawsuit-embroiled club up a few miles north that's been closed for about 3 years thanks to racketeer Rick Rizzolo.

But with the name comes responsibility, or rather hefty legal cases that their lawyers would prefer first be settled before being associated (if by name only) with the notorious gentlemen's club.

The Playground (or whatever new name is picked) will comprise a strip joint, a nightclub, a music venue, and even a place for a poker tournament.

Think of it like CityCenter for adult nightlife.

M Resort lays off 100 people

With the constant streaming crowd we've seen at the new M Resort (a few miles south of Las Vegas Blvd., off St. Rose), we're a bit puzzled that they made news recently about laying off 100 people.

Any layoffs from Las Vegas casinos is newsworthy in this economy, but with M -- and any new property -- additional people are always hired to facilitate the large crowds around a grand opening.

The $1 billion M just opened in March.

With other casino conglomerates such as Harrah's or MGM Mirage or Station Casinos, workers are borrowed from sister properties, along with many temps, with the expectation of being moved or laid off after crowds settled down.

We don't know the entire story with M, but we suspect the layoffs are independent of the economy and are natural after 2 1/2 months of being in business.

The 100 people amounts to 5 percent of the 2,000 employees it takes to run the 92,000-sq.-ft. property.

New WSOP rule

Among the new things coming along with the 40th anniversary of the World Series of Poker comes a new rule about good behavior that some are calling the Poker Brat Rule. The nickname comes from the nickname of a famous poker player, Phil Hellmuth, who earned his name though temper tantrums and bad behavior, despite being the top ranked poker player in the world. Last year he called a player an idiot and worse after the player got lucky in a hand against Hellmuth, who was only given a warning. This year the rules about conduct are more clearly defined.

Poker Game Leads to Shooting

Saturday night two men engaged in an argument during a poker game took things too far and one of them was fatally shot in the process. The men were playing poker at a home in north Harris County when the argument began. One of the men pulled out a gun and fired a number of shots at the other, who was later found lying on the sidewalk outside the home. The man was pronounced dead upon arrival when take to the hospital. The shooter has been taken into custody and will face murder charges.

Jack Link Sponsor Of World Series of Poker

World Series of Poker viewers will have a tasty temptation as the presenting sponsor of the series turns out to be Jack Link’s Beef Jerky. Jack Links is the market share leader, topping the world of the $3 billion dried meat snack industry, like the World Series of Poker tops the poker world. The WSOP, owned by Harrah’s Entertainment, will begin play on May 27, and will air on ESPN and ESPN2 later in the summer. The announcement that Jack Link’s Beef Jerky is to be the presenting sponsor was made on Sunday, May 17.

Poker reality Show: 2 months, $2 million

In news that certainly would have seemed a little odd to anyone playing online poker even a few years ago, cable network G4 released details today of their upcoming series ‘2 months, $2 million’, a reality show featuring familiar online high stakes poker names such as Krantz, Whitelime, flawless_victory, and ansky.

The show, which is slated for 10 half hour episode, will launch on G4 in August. The basic gist: cameras record the day-to-day lives of the four as they go about their high stakes online poker business. Or, as the press release somewhat awkwardly puts it:

“These guys are not pursuing the usual goal of landing a 9-5 job, instead they are seeking the thrill of “the flop” and trading in the daily grind for the online grind. When they do step away from the web, it’s about experiencing all that Vegas has to offer from exclusive parties to beautiful women. ”

Ahh, the thrill of “the flop.”

Whitelime had this to say about the show in a thread on 2+2: “The thing to understand about the title is the goal isn’t necessarily to be super accurate or factual or even super cool when it comes to approval from the poker community. It’s pretty much assumed that a high % of 2p2 will watch the show. They are trying to appeal to random people who have never played poker in their lives. I had similar thoughts about the title when I first heard it but I’ve come around to like it. Some marketing geniuses who are a lot smarter than all of us when it comes to making titles came up with it so let’s have some faith.”

All in all, it could make for some interesting viewing (although likely no footage shot while Krantz & co are under the influence of, um, brownies) and light poker entertaining post-WSOP.