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.