I'm heading out for a roadtrip to CA to ring in the New Year and watch the Horns smack around Michigan in the Rosebowl. I should be back around the 2nd. I'll be staying out on the streets (oh the beauty of a college roadtrip) so there won't be any posts until I get back. Enjoy the rest of 2004 and happy new year!

Everybody cares about hockey in Canada, including PokerRoom.com. From the Canadian Newswire:

In an effort to find a solution to salvage the 2004/2005 NHL hockey season PokerRoom.com, one of the world's largest online poker gaming sites, has today delivered registered letters to NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman's New York office and NHL Players' Association (NHLPA) executive director Bob Goodenow's Toronto office, inviting them to settle the longstanding labour dispute like men - in a game of winner-take-all poker on PokerRoom.com.

In the spirit of their respective bargaining positions, the two-stage online tournament will feature a game of limit Texas Hold'em poker with a cap of four raises, followed by a heads-up, one-on-one game of no-limit Texas Hold'em. The first player to capture all his opponent's chips wins the challenge and the season is saved. Game on!

Interesting solution, but I think it would be better if it were a live game broadcast on TV. Imagine how many viewers would tune in. I am sure a deal could be worked out that would bring in enough money to cover the financial disagreements between the league and the players association.

Unfortuantly though, its more likely that the tournament won't happen and we hockey fans will be forced to continue going without. But wait ... there is another alternative from PokerRoom.

If no solution is reached and the lockout continues, we can fill the void in our Saturday nights with the next best thing: "PokerRoom Night in Canada online tournaments". I'm not from Canada, nor have I been there, but from what I hear, it very well may be the next best thing to do (especially after the Raptors traded VC). At any rate, the winner of each tournament, played every Saturday from now until Feb. 19th, will recieve a seat in the "PokerRoom Night in Canada Play-off Final on the 26th of Feb". According to the article, the "final tournament will be hosted as a single table, winner-takes-all-tournament, where the lucky player wins an all-expense paid trip to Sweden to see popular NHL stars actually play a game of hockey."

I must admit, I am amazed at what the marketing teams of the online poker rooms can come up with sometimes ...

After playing Omaha and Hold'em for the last six months, I felt the urge to try something new today. I looked at the different tabs in the lobby of Ultimate Bet and picked the one I thought I would least likely play on any other day: Triple Draw Ace to Five.

I don't know what it is, but I absolutely loathe any game with the word draw in the name. Maybe its because I like my money, I don't know. Today though, I felt like losing a little. I had had a couple of "good" nights the last few days, I figured I could afford to have a little fun.

So, without looking at the rules, I loaded up a Triple Draw cash game and sat down to donate my money to the other players. Blinds were $.50 and $1, I bought in for $40.

The first hand, I am dealt a boat, kings over sevens, right off the bat. I about jump out of my seat. Hot diggity damn, a boat on the first hand I am dealt. I stood pat every draw and rose every round of betting. However, even a sailor would have been embarassed at the amount of profanity that streamed from my mouth when the pot was pushed to another player.

This is why you should read the rules of a game before you start playing. Apparently, Triple Draw is a low hand game ... wish I would have known that before I started raising. Even without the rules though, you would have thought that the "Ace to Five" in the name of the game would have given me a clue, but no ... I really am that dumb. I'm the kind of guy everyone invites to their poker game, loose with my money, very little common sense and I very rarely get lucky .... lets not get into that last one.

It took me a little while to realize what had happened and why, but when I did I felt like the idiot that all of my opponents thought I was. However, it turned out to work to my advantage.

I quickly caught on to the game and given my stupidity early on, the other players at the table called almost every one of my bets/raises. Soon I had gotten back what I had lost the first hand plus a whole lot more. However, a lot of the pots I took came not from my brilliant play but from some unbelievablely great cards that I got. I couldn't even count how many times I picked up the wheel (the nuts).

Despite the positive turn of events, I came out with a couple hard learned poker lessons for the day.

Lesson #1: READ THE RULES BEFORE YOU START PLAYING!!!
Lesson #2: Beginners luck does exist.
Lesson #3: I can get lucky every now and then.
Lesson #4: Draw games are less fun than a river beat that puts you out on the bubble, even when you are winning at them.

With that said, it was nice to do something different for a while, but I think I will hit the Omaha and Hold 'em tables tomorrow. They're more my bag.

In response to a post on Love And Casino War, there is now a formal group whose "primary organizational goal is the legalization of the game of poker in the state of Texas." The group's name is ... surprise ... Texans for Poker. It was just formed a couple days ago so there isn't much information on the site yet, but there is a site up and running: www.texansforpoker.com. Go, take a look, become inspired, and sign-up to help.

Score for people with initiative!

Its this kind of beat that makes me wonder about how much of poker really is luck. The hand in question (player names removed for privacy reasons):

Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 21/Dec/04 06:23:54

seat 0 with $280.50.
lanbaren is at seat 1 with $413.
seat 2 with $258.50.
seat 3 with $772.50.
seat 5 with $252.
seat 6 with $150.50.
seat 7 with $200.
seat 8 with $367.50.
seat 9 with $162.
The button is at seat 1.

seat 2 posts the small blind of $1.
seat 3 posts the big blind of $2.

seat 0: -- --
lanbaren: Qc Qs
seat 2: -- --
seat 3: -- --
seat 5: -- --
seat 8: -- --
seat 9: -- --

Pre-flop: seat 5 folds. seat 6 calls. seat 8 folds. seat 9 folds. seat 0 calls. lanbaren raises to $25. seat 2 calls. seat 3 calls. seat 6 calls. seat 0 calls.

Flop (board: 9s 2s 2d):

seat 2 checks. seat 3 checks. seat 6 checks.
seat 0 checks. lanbaren bets $50. seat 2 folds.
seat 3 folds. seat 6 calls. seat 0 calls.

Turn (board: 9s 2s 2d Ad):

seat 6 checks. seat 0 bets $20. lanbaren calls.
seat 6 folds.

River (board: 9s 2s 2d Ad 6h):

seat 0 bets $20. lanbaren calls.

Showdown:

seat 0 shows 9h 2h.
seat 0 has 9h 2h 9s 2s 2d: full house, deuces full of nines.
lanbaren mucks cards.
(lanbaren has Qc Qs.)

I never even thought about the nine two. I still can't believe the guy called pre-flop with the nine two, but then again they were "soooted!".

I put the guy on pocket tens or jacks, possibly ace king or queen. However, the AK/AQ scenario went out the window with the small bet on the turn. The guy had been betting top pair heavy, no matter what the circumstances, whenever the board had paired and called/checked mid pocket pair when there was a significant raise pre-flop (general raise preflop was $4-$8).

Moreover, the four callers pre-flop and then the subsequent two folds on the flop led me to believe that at least one of the aces had been folded out. And if anyone had had kings, I felt I would have been re-raised pre-flop or on the flop. I was pretty confident in my read on Seat 0.

The remaining question mark was seat 6. I was pretty confident after his call pre-flop and flop that he had a middle pocket pair. His call on the flop made me relatively confident that he hadn't tripped up on nines. If he had tripped up, his previous play indicated that he would have check-raised me.

His fold on the turn confirmed my mid pocket read. If he had AK or AQ, I am sure he would have at least called, more likely re-raised seat 0, when the ace hit. I don't think he would have called with KQ/KJ pre-flop nor called the bet on the flop with KQ/KJ. The only remaining hands that would make any sense would then be mid pockets.

At any rate, seat 6 folded out and I was left playing against seat 0. The small bets on the turn and the river set off more red flags than you would find at a Moscow May Day Parade circa the 1950s, but the price was right to justify a crying call. I didn't think the guy had the ace, but something just didn't feel right. In retrospect, I should have folded and saved myself the $40, but thats poker. Should have, could have, would have, but I just didn't do it.

That hand was pretty much the turning point for the night. I had been playing pretty well all the way up until that point, up a significant amount for the night, but that beat put me slightly on tilt. I dropped about $30 more before I just closed out the program. On the plus side, for a short period of time I got a little taste of what its like to be Phil Hellmuth. On second thought, that may not be a plus to feel like him in these type situations and besides, Phil porbably would have folded.

Markus Krypeos', a research attorney for the TDCAA, article in the Texas Prosecutor's November/December edition lays out a case against FREE public poker games in Texas.

It’s no surprise that the popularity of poker on TV has led to a growth of home games and local tournaments. Bars and restaurants are even advertising weekly poker tournaments. Unfortunately, these public tournaments are illegal.

...[snip]...

Two blocks from the TDCAA office, a sign hangs from a restaurant balcony: “Free Texas Hold ’Em Tournament Every Saturday.” This has become an alltoo- common attempt to circumvent the law. These poker clubs, which use local restaurants and bars to hold their tournaments,
eliminate the entry fee and allow the public to play for free. They
then award the winners points. Over several months, players can use their points to redeem valuable rewards and prizes. Some establishments even award vacations.

So why are these poker clubs illegal? ....

His argument is that although no money is exchanged at the table nor is an entry fee paid, "players usually play for some economic benefit; even though this benefit may be deferred to a later time, and the benefit is won or lost during the game."

The economic benefit that he is talking about are the prizes, such as vacations or entries into poker satellites, awarded for winning tournaments or cashing in points earned for winning tournaments. The argument then is that since there is an economic gain, even if it is free to enter, you are risking something of monetary value and therefore you are making a "bet" in the legal sense of the word every time a hand is played.

The reason why this makes free public poker illegal, or so Krypeos claims, is that under Texas law, for the game to be legal it must take place in the private sphere. Public poker rooms are, by definition, not private.

As of now there is no ruling as to the legality of free public poker, but Krypeos is seeking an opinion from the Texas Attorney General on tournaments which use a points-based or similar system to give out prizes.

How effective he will be in his tirade against free games, I honeslty don't know. Texas penal code is very specific about what it means to place a bet ("Bet" means an agreement to win or lose something of value solely or partially by chance.) and I don't think Krypeos use of the term fits that definition. I think it would be hard to lose something that you did not have to begin with.

However, given the statewide crack down on poker recently, it wouldn't be completely out of the blue to see an opinion supporting Krypeos' argument. Until then though, I am going to enjoy my nights at the bar with the guys having a good time and earning "future benefits".

I have never been a big fan of online quizes. I don't care what South Park character I most closely represent, I know what my IQ is, I already found my perfect match (my girlfriend), and I don't need any quiz to tell me I am a jack ass, enough people already tell me that. However, I ran across an online quiz published by BBC Science & Nature called Spot The Fake Smile.

The quiz is "based on research by Professor Paul Ekman, a psychologist at the University of California" and asks you to, what else, spot which smiles are fake. It is composed of 20 questions, each question has a short video clip showing a person to smile and then asks you to determine if the smile was genuine or not.

Now I'm no Hellmuth, but I ended up getting 19 out of the 20 correct. Still, if I was sitting at the table, that one mis-read would have been the big pot of the night with my luck and I would have gotten taken for a ride. Then again, most times you mis-read a person the pot ends up being pretty big, or bigger than it should have been, and you always get taken for a ride so I guess there is nothing special there.

At any rate, the quiz is based on Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen's Facial Action Coding System (FACS) which is used for measuring and describing facial behaviors. The goal behind the categorization of facial movements is to try to "get a read" on a person by what their face is saying. Granted the study was not specifically intended for poker, but neither was statistics, that doesn't mean it can't play a large, positive role in your game. If you are looking for more information on FACS, you can find some more information here but the real jewl there is the sample of the FACS Manual. I don't know if the entire thing is worth the money they are asking for it, but it sounds pretty interesting or at least like something Mike Caro would read.

Another one bites the dust.

Out of the Bryan-College Station newspaper The Eagle:

Four people were arrested and 18 citations were issued Monday night after law enforcement officials busted what they described as a “high-stakes” gambling operation in Bryan.

...[snip snip]...

What made this large operation illegal is that the house was taking a cut, officers said.

Upon entering the building officers saw a casino setup, with about 10 kidney-shaped tables and a waitress serving food and alcoholic drinks, Dickson said.

About 25 people were in the facility at about 8:30 p.m. Monday, and 18 of them were issued a citation for gambling. The Class C misdemeanor is punishable by a fine of up to $500, Dickson said.

Police arrested 28-year-old Shawn Michael Lauderdale, who authorities believe was in charge of the operation, and two accused dealers, 30-year-old Jose Guadalupe Galvan Jr. of Bryan and 48-year-old Harold Ray Eaton of Houston. Each is charged with promotion of gambling, intentionally or knowingly operating a gambling place and possession of gambling paraphernalia — all Class A misdemeanors punishable by a fine of up to $4,000 and a year in jail.

...[snip snip]...

More than $20,000 in cash was seized from the home and office building...

The article goes on to discuss how the bust was a product of a three month investigation that was inspired by some of the recent poker robberies in Austin and Waco.

Read the full article here.