The Poker Mag

This years WSOP has lived up to it’s billing again this year with plenty of first class action and some stories to tell for everyone who was involved. For those that wish to see the pros do well, they again did not disappoint, with Phil Ivey picking up 2 bracelets, and jeff Lisandro manging a haul of three.

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All the events except one have now been completed, as have three days of the final event at the time of writing this. The main event is upon us once more, and has seen it’s fair share of well known faces eliminated thus far. Day 1 had to be split into different groups in order to have enough space to cope with the several thousand poker participants, and there is a danger that in years to come there may be a cap on entrance numbers due to the interest in the main event.

The first day saw Allen Cunningham, Freddy Deeb, Doyle Brunson, Ivan Demidov and many other well known faces eliminated from WSOP, but there were still many other top pros who made it through to day 2 which was played in 2 stages. The first of these groups for day 2 saw some big names turn up, only to exit the tournament over the course of the day. Gus Hansen, Phil Laak, Mike Matusow, and Barry Greenstein all didn’t make it, and there were more big name casualties in the second group of day 2, as Scotty Nguyen and Howard Lederer made their exit.

Day three saw the field all grouped together as names such as Phil Hellmuth steadily increased their stack. It was Bertrand grospellier however, a Pokerstars pro, who ploughed past the 1 million chips mark to take the chip lead at the end of day 3. 789 of the initial 6,494 players remain as we approach day 4, and pros such as J.C Tran, Phil Hellmuth and Grospellier will be hoping to continue their great poker run thus far.

Every year, the 50k HORSE event attracts a field which is very pro heavy, and so you will always find some great poker being played during this event. The beauty of this World Series of Poker event is that it encompasses several different disciplines of poker, and so you really have to be an all round talented poker player to be able to excel.

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Each player will have games which are favoured over others, but when you consider the talent that is involved in such an event, you cannot simply fold up every hand through your weaker games if you want to win. Interesting starting hands will invariably drag players into playing pots in their weaker games eventually, and so as World Series of Poker events go, this one really does test the all round skill of the poker player to it’s fullest.

The fact that the buy in is a very large $50,000 adds a special something to this World Series of Poker event too and ensures a very healthy prize pool. Famous names such as Eli Elezra, Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu and Johnny Chan had all fallen by the end of the second day, and Gus Hansen took the chip lead in the tournament. Day 3 saw last years champion, Scotty Nguyen eliminated amongst others, as Vitaly Lunkin took over the chip lead by the end of the day.

Erik Seidel and Huck Seed were the most notable names to make the final table, finishing 8th and 5th respectively. It was the lesser known man David Bach who eventually triumphed after a 7 hour heads up battle, to lift the Chip Reese memorial trophy and over $1.2 million prize money.

Winning at the WSOP is no easy task, and even the best of players could go several years without winning win.

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Each World Series event holds it’s own challenges, as some will be low buy in events with vast fields of players, and some will have compact fields. The smaller field tournaments are usually in a slightly less popular discipline of the game, and attract the pros who know how to play every poker variant well. Many players have already completed the extremely difficult challenge of winning a bracelet this year, but there are still two of the most exciting events to be played at the time of writing this.

The $50k HORSE event is truly something special, as the very large buy in and mixed nature of the event, attracts small fields made up almost entirely of pros. This year the poker event has just got underway, with 95 players hoping to emulate Scotty Nguyens victory last year.

For many of these seasoned pros, what they win in side games or side bets will be more in monetary terms than they receive in poker tournament winnings this year, but for most players that isn’t the real point of being there. Of course players have to earn a living, but the most important aspect for many players, is how many titles and bracelets they win. This is what writes you into poker history, not the amount of cash you win in a side game. Young players tend to lean more towards making money at cash games I think, but there seems to be a trend of players hitting a certain age and beginning to understand just how important history is.

It is always great to see our heroes of the game being successful at the WSOP, with this year as well as last year, providing lots of these moments.

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With all the coverage these wins seem to get, it would be easy to forget the unknown guys who achieve near impossible feats, and should be mentioned, and commended on their achievements. This year has seen two such poker players who I feel deserve a special mention. The first of these is Brock Parker. Much has been made of Phil Iveys two bracelets this year, and rightly so, as it is an incredibly difficult task to even win one, but Brock Parker has matched this.

He picked up his first poker bracelet in Event 14, the $2,500, Six handed, Limit Holdem. He fought his way through a starting field of 367 players to win $223,688 eliminating crowd favourite Daniel Negreanu, in 2nd place, in the process. His second win came in Event 19, the $2,500 buy in, six handed, No Limit Holdem event. He beat 1068 players to take down his second bracelet of the year and complete a stunning achievement.

The second poker player who deserves a special mention is Thang Luu. In 2007 he managed 2nd place in Event 3, which was an excellent effort by anyones standards. But in 2008, he came back and won the same tournament, Event 3, the $1,500 Omaha hi/lo, beating hundreds of players in the process.

If that isn’t impressive enough, in this years WSOP, we had a huge Omaha starting field of 918 players in Event 3. After three days of play, the man who emerges victorious, is none other than Thang Luu.  Incredibly, he has beaten hundreds of opponents to complete top 2 finishes, including two bracelets, in the same event three years running.

In recent years, changes to U.S laws have meant that many poker sites are no longer accepting U.S players. With the recent change in administration, many have hoped that these laws making it difficult for people to deposit onto online gaming sites, will be changed. This has not been this case so far, but of course it is still early days.

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Despite these existing laws about gambling online, there is no complete and unequivocal ban as such, and so there are still sites online that do accept U.S players. There are several big name sites, so you will have plenty of choice in terms of which sites you play on.

I am not sure of the exact legalities of the laws in place, but it seems some sites will accept players who are from the U.S as long as they are not based in Washington or Missouri. The following are a few poker rooms that to my knowledge, accept all U.S players.

Carbon Poker accept U.S players, and offer a very reasonable 100% deposit bonus to new players. Also accepting players from the states is Pokerstars, one of the best recognised names in the online poker industry. With the biggest player traffic flow around, and some outstanding promotions and bonuses, this is certainly one of the best sites out there accepting U.S players. Ultimate Bet and Bodog are two other easily recognisable names still accepting U.S players, and so as you can see, there is still thankfully a fair amount of choice there for these poker players.

Arranging a poker home game is quite easy, provided you have some like minded friends who enjoy to play poker.

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I would ensure that all poker players who decide to attend are friends, rather than peope you may have only met once or twice. The reason being, that you know your friends will not become troublesome if they start losing, but others might.
Generally speaking, home games should be an enjoyable evening, and so music, food, and drinks are of course optional additions. If you are playing for relatively large amounts of money then perhaps players might want to concentrate very carefully on their cards though, so it depends entirely on the nature of the game.

You need some equipment to play poker at a home game of course, with a deck of cards being the essential item. With a deck of cards and some cash, you can play a basic game of cards anywhere. Tables and chairs are always helpful in a home game too, and you should count up the number of players you are expecting and first ensure you have the space and seating for them.

If you are deciding to make the home game a tournament, you will also need a set of poker chips. High quality chips are always nice, but a simply set will do the same job, as long as there are enough chips in the set to give each person a decent starting stack. As long as everybody enjoys themselves at a home game, that is the main aim, regardless of who wins the money.

This poker hand was another early one which found me making a strong hand but ending up splitting the pot. I had been dealt (Qh,10d) and as is generally my custom early on when the blinds are small, I decided to try and see a cheap flop. The flop came down (8s,9d,Kd) after two other players had called preflop, and we all checked.

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I was obviously delighted to see the perfect card for me come off on the turn (Jd). I say the perfect card, but it also afforded interesting opportunity and danger. I had picked up an inside draw to the Straight Flush, but if any diamond other than the Queen happened to fall on the river, I might find myself in trouble. I decided to raise quite strongly, and the player to my left immediately called. Two of us saw the river, which was a (Js). This really wasn’t the card I wanted at all, because of my slight worries about my opponent holding a Flush, now were compounded by the possible Full House.

I knew these poker hands weren’t the most probable hand my opponent was holding due to the fact that his range of calling hands on the turn were quite varied. I made the same bet again, hoping I wouldn’t be faced with a large reraise, and thankfully I wasn’t, as my opponent flat called. He showed the same hand of (Q,10) with no diamond, but I was happy enough to split it due to the potential dangers of the board. You might wonder why I would bet the river if I was concerned about the board cards, but I felt strongly that if I showed weakness on the river, my poker opponent would try and steal the pot.

Whether you play live poker or online poker, table talk can be a big part of the game. It is often said, that you shouldn’t talk when your opponent has a big decision in case you give away the strength or weakness of your hand. I think this is true in most cases, but talking to your opponent can also have a positive effect too. I remember one hand recently where we had (8,8,4,4) on the board on the turn. I had raised preflop with (A,9) and been called by a fairly inexperienced player. I had a big chiplead over him and he had been thinking for quite some time before calling my raise on the flop.

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When the turn came down, I was strongly feeling that he had a fairly strong Ace that he was struggling to put down. My thoughts were that the pot would be split, but I did not want to see a Jack or Queen on the river that could give me a problem, and wanted to pick up the pot there and then.I knew he was thinking about calling me down with his Ace high, and probably trying to convince himself he might even be leading.

I decided I had nothing to lose by trying to sway his decision, and so I said "Only one of us knows how much it’s going to cost you on the river to see if your Ace high is good". At this point, I feel that if I am right and he does have Ace high, he will be very unnerved by the fact that I know the hand he is holding, also though, I was emphasising the main problem he faced in his situation. If I am wrong and he has something better than Ace high, he will probably call (which he might well have been about to anyway) and I will have a hint that my Ace might not be good. I choose carefully which players I talk to when they have a marginal decision, but players who are not overly experienced are usually the best bet.

My opponent later admitted he had (A,Q) in this hand, and these few choice words persuaded him to fold.

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How to play an Omaha hand in online poker: In this instance, we find ourselves dealt (2d,2c,Ac,Jd) in an Omaha tournament. Let us say we are fairly short stacked, and see a small raise, and a reasonable reraise in front of us. In this case I would be thinking there is probably a big pair out there somewhere, but this is no reason to discard the hand immediately.

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So much can change on the flop in Omaha, and with a double suited hand, I would call. We would much rather hit a club Flush than a diamond one of course as this might not be the best Flush out there, but I still feel we can take our chances if we make a Flush with diamonds.

If a (2) falls on the flop we are probably in good shape too, with a high card or two on the flop we may be beaten by a bigger set, but again, when short stacked, I think you have to take a chance sometimes.
If three players then see a flop of (2s,Kd,Qd) and one of the first players to act raises enough to put you all in, this would be a difficult decision to make. Such a raise would often warrant serious concern about a bigger set, and it still does, but in this instance I think we have to call, as there is a hidden aspect of those two big cards that improves our chances. It does mean we should be concerned about a bigger set, but it also means if we now make a diamond Flush, it is the second nut flush. In order for our opponent to be raising into us here with a bigger Flush draw, I would say there is a fair chance they would have diamonds with the back up of a pair such as (xd,x,Ad,A). In that scenario we are in front anyway with a set of twos, and we always have the extra point of interest in hitting a (10) for a broadway Straight. In a shortstacked scenario with a fair pot having been built already, I think this is the type of hand we can take a shot with.

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When you start out playing poker, it would perhaps be unwise to play for real money. You may feel that luck will decide whether you win any money or not, but there is much more to it than that.

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In the long run, more experienced players are much more likely to win the money than you are, although you may get lucky on the night. If you are happy to gamble on that occurence then that’s fine, but there are avenues available that allow you to learn the game without risking a lot of capital. the most obvious of these are the play money tables in online poker rooms. These involve players gambling with fake money, and provide an easy way for beginners to grasp the basics of the game.

Despite the advantages of being able to learn the game in this way, you should be aware that if you play for reasonable amounts of money, there will be key differences in the way people play. For this reason, I would gradually move from play money, onto micro stakes, then reasonable sized stakes, to give yourself a chance to adapt to real money play.

The simple fact is, when people play for fake money, they throw it into the pot without a care. This all but eliminates any opportunity to bluff, and leads to multi way pots very often. As you progress through the stakes, you should find that players become much more careful and conservative with their money. In this environment you can begin to understand the skill of the game much better, and bluffing can be used to a greater effect.

Most online poker rooms have a poker school, and as I mentioned, the play money tables are good for gaining a basic understanding of poker. Always be prepared for the change in play as you progress to real money games though.