General Poker Articles
I found free MONEY…and the KID IS BACK
I feel like a sadistic madman that I have an incredible story to tell. First, for all that followed the boomer, life is grand. I have a gorgeous 5 month old that took me off the poker felt, and a darling 2 year old who I adore. Both great reasons to withdraw from my passion. That and Money. I took a new gig and thank heaven and crushing it - making more money in 6 months than I have in any year - going very well.
John McCain and legalized gambling
Well US election season is upon us and while gambling isn’t the most pressing issue - I can think of a few more important ones - it’s finally surfaced in the campaign coverage.
I ran across an interesting series of articles on John McCain’s ties to the Native casino industry. I’m no McCain supporter, far from it, but I thought I’d post these if people were interested in his history with the gaming business.
Apparently he’s a gambler himself, though not a poker player - he prefers the craps tables.
Hello again
I haven’t written in a few weeks because I have been on an epic journey. My husband and I are moving from Chicago to San Diego (let me know if you know of any good games there, especially PLO). We took a two week road trip accross the country to California and then left from there for a five week trip to Malaysia and India. I am writing this from Amritsar, India where the Sikhs have a beautiful temple. We are keeping a blog of our trip at sandmtrip.wordpress.com, if any of you are interested in checking it out. It doesn’t have anything to do with poker, but it has been a fun way to document our adventures.
I’m good at Omaha? (not really)
For a month, I’m playing only heads-up poker for cash games. I was getting really burned out on 6-max poker, and faced with the alternative of trying full-ring or heads-up, I opted for the latter. Heads-up really is a wonderful game, the swings are manic but the continuous decision-making keeps the boredom at bay and allows you to focus. I often felt that I quickly settled into a rut with 6-max, and started opening more tables and playing even more mechanically. I can’t play more than 3 tables simultaneously with heads-up, and although my FPP rate is far lower my winrate is higher than it’s ever been. HU is really about making adjustments, much more than full-ring or 6-max. I think people who say HU is 90% metagame are overstating it but “playing the player” certainly has a much bigger role.
Friend or Foe
While I was in Vegas for almost all of June, I met the nicest lady. She was a Persian woman who lives in Germany, and she and I quickly became friendly. She didn’t speak much English, so I helped her book a flight to see her family in the US. She invited my husband and me to stay with her if we ever visited Germany. I am not fortunate enough to have a big group of people that I travel with. When I travel around playing cards, relationships like the one I had with this woman become very important. They are the people I call when I’m tired of eating alone, need a ride to the airport or advice on my play, and they’re the people I’ll sweat for a long final table.
Interest
As most people know, banks make their money by investing customers’ money. They use fancy calculations to decide how little money they can keep on hand for people that come in wanting to withdrawal. The rest is then invested at a higher interest rate than they pay their customers.
Negative EV Hours
I listen to all of Bart Hanson’s Cash Plays podcasts on pokerroad (most are pretty good - check out the Samoleous interview if you haven’t), and one of the shows had him discussing the idea of negative EV hours with a psychologist.
The basic gist of the idea was that a lot of poker players focus on logging hours no matter the circumstances, when oftentimes playing when you’re in a bad mood or when there are no good games going is giving you diminishing returns to the point where you would actually make more money by just not playing.
Learning What Works for Me
I decided that I am better suited for limit games, in particular playing HORSE seems to be my best bet; it has taken me a while to come to the conclusion that limit poker is not a four letter word. I will continue to play NLHE SNG’s and tourney’s I enjoy the kill or be killed aspect of the competition, but cash games not so much.
1994 Main Event Champion Russ Hamilton a Cheat?
Well, that’s the allegation in 2+2. Big news, the superuser account on Ultimate Bet is highly suspected of being 1994 Main Event champion Russ Hamilton, along with some other co-conspirators. Russ has been known to angle shoot before (gaining weight for the 1994 silver bonus during the ME, hosting a fake $100k televised UB tournament), and it appears that his reputation is at serious stake right now. Here are some cliff notes posted in 2+2: (the thread is like 100+ pages long)
—-excerpted from 2+2—–
Away from the Bosom of Hold ‘Em
Like most online cash game players, 99 percent of my time is devoted to Hold ‘Em. I stopped playing limit hold ‘em last year, and I now pretty much exclusively play $0.50/1 and $1/2 NL cash. It’s a nice situation: there are many many games to choose from, usually with at least one fish per table. Still, it can wear thin like every routine.
