New Rakeback Deals!

The season of giving is upon us, and there are a few new rakeback deals that I'd like to mention. First, let me explain that rakeback is a poker "comp" of sorts, available to online poker players. With the nifty computer tracking that comes with online poker software, sites are able to get a real value of how much rake each player is contributing to the pots. Rake back then, is the player earning some of the casino's take, right back to their own wallets. There are some players who earn more in rakeback each month than they do in earnings from their winning play. Fact is, a break even player offline can make a profit online via rakeback, not having to toke the dealer and of a good poker bonus. I digress. Here's a list of recent rakeback additions and some coming soon as well.

The first and most important, IMO is our new Pacific Poker Rakeback program. It is set to launch officially on December 1, 2007. It will be 25% flat rakeback, no matter how much you generate in rake, so it's a good program even for small limit guys. Bonuses are deducted. If you like casino games, you'll be happy to know that any losses in casino play will be rebated 25% as well. This program is ran by Pacific once the player has signed on through our link. Pacific will pay the player once per month. As of now the only drawback is inability to track your rake totals. Hopefully they'll add that ability soon.

We've had lots of players over the years ask if there was a rakeback deal at Pacific Poker, and we're very happy to be able to make this announcement!

Next on the list is Cake Poker Rakeback. This one has been around for several months, but many players had serious problems with buggy software at Cake and a lack of player population. Both of those appear to be addressed. I've messed around with the software a decent amount, and it seems to function pretty well now. The biggest improvement has been player population though. During prime time hours, there will be several thousand players on. If they would add 7 card stud, I'd be on this room in a heartbeat. They've got some unique promotions with the "cake" theme, and it's worth checking out.

The rakeback program at Cake Poker is 33% back to the player, paid by Cake Poker directly to the players' accounts by the 5th of the consecutive month. November rake is paid by December 5th, for example. Players are eligible for bonuses and reloads too, and they are deducted from gross rake. Rakeback tracking is available right in your Cake Poker account.

Finally, we've launched a Carbon Poker Rakeback program in the past month or so. Carbon is the old Poker.Com site. It's got a solid population, is open to USA players, and the rakeback is 30%. Just like the other two I've mentioned so far, rakeback earned at Carbon Poker is paid directly to the player accounts. It's a good promo on a good network. The only "con" in my mind is that players can't get bonuses if they get rakeback.

A couple of "coming soon" rooms are PokerNordica and Action Poker. PokerNordica is on the same network as Carbon Poker, so if you already have a Poker.Com or Carbon Poker account, you can get rakeback through Poker Nordica. Action Poker is a small room, but the fact is, fish can be found in just about any room, no matter how small.

Stay tuned! We're always looking for rakeback deals, promotions, contests etc., that make online poker a profitable experience for PSORG members.

Online Poker Legality

It's been well over a year since Frist and company snuck the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) through Congress on the back of the Port Security Bill. Here are a few interesting articles that show recent gains and proven effectiveness of the Poker Player Alliance lobbying for our cause.

Congressional Hearing on November 14, 2007, featuring Annie Duke's testimony, among others. Our side really slammed the "do gooders" across the aisle. Here's a link to the PPA's page of resources on it, including lots of YouTube videos: Congressional Hearing Nov 14, 2007.

Here's an article picked up by google news noting that Congressional leaders are finally starting to get the picture as to what exactly happened last year, and the potential dangers we face from sanctions brought on by breaking WTO agreements.

Finally, when Harrahs and MGM head hanchos start making predictions about legal online poker in the USA, you know things are looking up. That article can be found here: Review Journal

Here's hoping legalized online poker in the USA results in poker boom part II.

Still playing at Absolute

As most everyone knows from chat and discussions on our forum, I'm on a forced hiatus until I get a decent Internet connection here in the sticks. I'm able to get on and answer emails, but since a phone call kicks me offline, I just really hate to sit at a real money poker table.

I wanted to weigh in real quick on the situation that developed at Absolute Poker over the past couple of months. Here are a few random thoughts...

First, why is everyone so surprised that an industrious individual was able to crack a poker site's security and cheat their way to tens of thousands of dollars? Where there are big stacks of cash, you'll have people trying to get their hands on it, plain and simple. We live in a society that chugs down coke and popcorn while cheering on the smart/sexy cast of Oceans 11 / 12 and soon to be 13. Then we're horrified when someone breaks into our home and takes the family silver.

This goes way on back to Robin Hood. We're always happy when the thieves are targeting "the man", until we happen to be "the man" or at least we're somewhat involved with "the man".

My point is this. Don't get your panties in a wad over a couple of industry insiders using their unique positions and knowledge to make a few grand. Our culture is in love with this stuff! Cheats, thieves, ne'er-do-wells will always be with us. It just really sucks when it's your stuff that is the target.

Second thought is this. Absolute Poker's sin was not getting abused by a shifty employee. That can happen to anyone. The "rogue employee uses his position to cheat" situation isn't new by any stretch. In my opinion, Absolute's transgression was the really really bad way it was handled in the public's eye. Poker players aren't stupid...well, winning poker players anyway, and you can bet a large portion of the 2+2 posters who sniffed this out are winning players. Continuing to deny, deny, deny when everyone knows you're lying, just makes the problem worse. 'Fess up, fix the problem, compensate those affected, move on. Let's hope not only AP learned this lesson, but every other online poker site that watched it unfold.

Finally, I have never seen so many righteous .01/.02 players having conniption fits. If they all take their rake totals elsewhere, it might put a real pinch on AP's board of directors, as they consider whether or not to order extra cheese on their pizza at the next meeting. Actually the reverse might be true since most of the nickel dimers cost Absolute money, with all of the generous reload bonuses and rakeback.

I'm not trying to disrespect the low limit guys. I'm a low limit guy! It's just that I was so amazed by the players who raised the most cane. You had the guys ticked off who were affected and had a legitimate beef (high limit players and high dollar tourney players). Then you had this midget army of penny ante guys and gals grabbing ropes, pitch forks and torches. What the hey? I wonder if it was just their frustrations at the "cash out curse" and "rigged flops" finally finding a voice?

I got an email towards the end of October from a guy who was mass emailing poker portals requesting that we join together in bringing down Absolute Poker since we now have evidence that they rig games. Are you serious?

Humans are stupid.

FTOPS with no 7 card stud event?

Unless they've added it since my alert email from Full Tilt Poker, I did not see a 7 card stud event. There was a 7cs hi/lo event, but not standard 7 card stud. So lame. I'd have driven to a local Internet hot spot and played it, most likely.

Just makes no sense. I know they're not the most popular in the world, but the 7cs event at Poker Stars WCOOP ended up with double the guaranteed prize pool, and I know Full Tilt has a very solid player base in the 7cs rooms.

Just doesn't make sense to me. Loss of money for FTP. If you spread the ring game, include it in FTOPS!

Movers = Gold

Another life update. We've been in the new house for a little over a week now. We paid a moving crew to get us over here. All we had to do was box up the belongings. They loaded and unloaded everything, and even set our beds back up. Great service! The new house has an upstairs and we had some heavy arse furniture going up and I really wasn't enjoying the idea of hauling that up there with the aid of family members, especially since family members don't agree to pay for a wall if they take it out with a bed rail.

We're on day 9 out of 90 or so without cable internet and no T.V. I miss not being able to watch some football or poker shows. I hear the WSOP HORSE event is pretty darn interesting this year. Seems they barely even covered it last year.

I suppose I could always load up Madden on my playstation and run a demo game or two to get my football fix. Ya just never know how nice modern conveniences are until you are without them.

New Updates on PSORG

We've been busy as bees on the poker forum lately. Here's a partial list of some of the recent updates.

We've added some skill games, including a Spades Rules and Tips section, and a Rummy Strategy section. If anyone reading knows good rummy or spades strategy, I'd be happy to pay you to write an article or three for us. We're also considering adding a Mahjong section. Any game that is skill, like poker, we'd love to add it.

We also added a texas holdem poker download section with the most commonly downloaded online poker software listed.

We kicked off a contest drawing, and anyone who is interested can win a free copy of Poker Tracker. Just look over the contest page by hitting that poker tracker link, and email me to signup.

Finally, we've added a couple of new rakeback programs. The first one is Cake Poker Rakeback. Cake is growing fast, and has some of the juiciest NLHE games around right now, not to mention some pretty nifty promotions. We also launched our Carbon Poker Rakeback program. Carbon is on the old Poker.Com network, and is the very first chance for players to earn Merge Gaming Rakeback. Even if you already have a Carbon account, we can still get you rakeback on this network. Just email me, poker [dot] strategy [at] gmail [dot] com.

Oh, and a finally to the finally. I wrote a long article on 7 card stud HU heads up strategy. I earn a solid win rate using this strategy in games through $5/$10.

That's about it. Comments and ideas are always welcome!

Life Update

We're officially home owners. Woohoo. :)

This week has been a ton of work, cleaning and then painting every square foot of the place. It looks great though, and I'm lucky enough to have family and friends that are willing to lend a helping hand.

We move officially on Oct. 15th, and still have some packing to do. Updates here will probably be sporadic, as I haven't even had time to play poker, much less talk about it.

The only thing I don't like about this new house is that we'll have to wait 30-90 days for cable internet and TV. Comcast noted that the end of the wire was 500+ feet away, so they're going to have to go through the process of renting the poles on which to run the cable line.

I'm able to connect through my phone, and actually get a pretty darn good connection through it, relatively speaking, at about 200 KbPS. A bit pricey, but I've never had a phone that was more versatile than the Pocket PC 8525.

Anywhoooo. 200 Kb per second is plenty fast enough to play poker. Good thing I don't watch much T.V. though. Leslie will be going through Oprah withdrawals I bet...

To all the Absolute Poker 7cs players, good luck at the tables. The 4th street percentage should jump a bit with me not there. :)

Spectacular 565th out of 696.

Yay. I had one of those creepy "not gonna be a good day" feelings when our final walkthrough for our house that we close on tomorrow ran over by 30 minutes and put me late for the start of WCOOP #15. Unlike Phil Hellmuth, I like to see every single hand if possible.

Upon sitting in about 30 hands into the tournament, I see that I have Gemany's top female pro, Katja Thater to my left. Hot dang.

Started decently well, hitting a flush and trips to build from ~2900 where the stack was when I arrived up to around $3300 at the early low limits. From there it went all down hill. I can't blame starting hands for sure. I got dealt AA, KK, QQ a great deal, but to save you the annoying bad beat stories, I'll just say that completing with KK, and getting raised by A5Q rainbow maniac, you expect to win some chips over time. Time just ran out too quick.

It was a wonderful table though. Two donks (TIJO and HlwdMike) were donating chips to everyone else but me. Just one of those days where the table tards bleed you dry with hands like the aforementioned A5Q rainbow vs. KK, and then donate those chips to players like Katja.

I'm looking forward to the next WCOOP. Satelliting in was pretty easy, and honestly, the table I was playing was easier than most 1/2 tables at AP. It's one of those where you expect to double or triple your money if you stay all day. Just can't do that in a tournament.... those pesky starting chip stack and limit increases, etc.

Time for a nap.

Should you ever fold AA preflop?

I'm not off my rocker. I'm just considering the idea of folding in a +EV situation, when the edge isn't huge in a tournament. In a recent article written for us by Learn Texas Holdem, they give an example of a time when folding might be a tactically solid play.

In the example, you have 4 left in a large tournament field where #3 pays significantly better than the #4 finisher. Your are short stack with 10k. The two ahead of you have 11k and 12k respectively and the chip leader has 20k. They all 3 go all in ahead of you, and you look down at AA.

In a cash game, this is an obvious push. But AA against 3 hands that show decent strength is probably only about a 55% favorite to win the hand. If you fold, there are several good results you can look forward to. The big stack wins, knocking both the two smaller stacks out, putting you to #2 and a huge jump in payout. The 12k stack winning bumps you to #3 at worst, and the 20k stack is now short stack with 8k. Finally, the worst result is the 11k player winning, but even then, the 12k stack is down to 2k and the large stack is at 9k. Here again, you've moved to #2 in chip position with a very very short stacked player in 4th.

So do you fold the AA? If you call and win, you'll have a massive chip lead of 40k, with two tiny stacks (1k and 2k), and the previous tall stack will be cut in half (10k). If you call and lose your virtual coin flip you're out with 4th place money.

What to do, what to do. My opinion is, you'd need to check out the difference between 2nd and 1st place money. If it was a huge skew towards the person who wins it all, then calling with AA is obviously the best decision. On the other hand, if #1, #2 and #3 all have pretty even payouts, with 4th getting little, then folding might be the best choice.

Really a tough question, and I suppose depends more on personality.

Check out the full Tactics vs. EV in Tournament Endgames.

Lagging my way to WCOOP #15

I earned a $320 seat in the WCOOP #15 at Poker Stars. It's the 7 card stud event with $100,000 guaranteed. By way of explanation, WCOOP = World Championship of Online Poker. It's put on by Poker Stars and is considered to be "the" online world series of poker, basically. The only other major online tournament event is Full Tilt's FTOPS.

I won my way in through a $48 satellite. About 10 minutes in, I lost my cable connection and had to play the rest of the way on a dial up connection. Laggy as everything and I'm sure the other players were none too happy! My nick is coachkf at Poker Stars, and is currently preregistered in WCOOP #15. Woohoo!

It was easier to qualify than I thought. I've never attempted to qualify for any of these events. Heck, I've only played a handful of 7 card stud tourneys for that matter. I stick to cash games generally.

I played two $27.50 turbo satellites and just missed a seat on each, but landing high enough to get my buyin back on both. I struck out in a $9 turbo stage one satellite to the $48 satellite. I decided to go ahead and cough up the $48, and definitely glad that I did. Only 40 players entered, and 5 seats were awarded. When #6 busted out, I was #3 in chips, I think.

So total spent to earn the seat came to $57. Not bad for a $320 seat. This WCOOP #15 is shaping up to be a lengthy affair. The starting stacks will be doubled to 3000, and antes/limits increase every 30 minutes. In the satellite we started with 1500 and increased every 15 minutes. The turbos were a sick 1500 starting stack and increases every 5 minutes!

Finally, the hand that really put me into this event was really a bit lucky. I was dealt TTT, and it was folded to me with 2 players behind me so I just called. Player to my left completed with a king doorcard, and again, I just smooth called. Heads up going to 4th street. He catches another king to show a pair, and possible KKK. I groaned, but this guy was super aggressive and I had fully expected the completed bet, even if he had deuce, seven, king rainbow to start. At any rate, I raised him on 4th to see his reaction and he just calls. Not really much info there. Could be slow playing trips or might have just KK and garbage.

5th street I catch another ten for quads. We cap 5th, 6th and 7th. His trip kings are pretty obvious now. Long and short is, I got all my chips in, and when the hand was over he had ~20 left and was out the next hand. I had ~3000 and the chip lead. I stayed in the top 5 from that point forward with more good cards and good breaks.

Here's hoping WCOOP #15 event will be as kind!

Quote of the Week

Maybe the month, and possibly the year. Just depends on how long it takes me to see another paragraph that just nails a great thought.

We had a new member on our poker forum start a thread about tilting, and he made this observation after discussing a session that he lost $325 in just a couple of hours, tilting it away. In his own words:

The more poker I play, the more I begin to understand that what makes a poker player able to succeed and win in the long run is not understanding odds (though it helps,) having great luck (because it always ends,) or even being able to read hands (I wish I was better at that,) but having self control and discipline.

I guess the only thing he left out that players "over focus" on is bluffing. You ask a newbie what makes a successful poker player and they'll say something like "math geek" or "iron balls. He can shove it all in with 72o and take down the pot without flinching" or "uncanny reading ability. It's easy to play when you can see through the other guys cards"....

Hogwash. Those things do tend to separate the superstars from the rest of us, but what makes an every day, grind it out, winning player is self control and discipline. If a player can't master those two qualities, he'll never win over the long haul.

All of the poker strategy and bankroll management theory in the world won't help you if you don't have the discipline to apply it at the table, and the self control to stay on even keel when things don't go your way, (or at least enough sense to know when you've lost your self control and pack it up for the night).

I guess we're lucky that most players don't really listen to "discipline" and "self control" advice. They just keep donating to Dylan's Diaper Fund. :)

Learn Texas Holdem

We recently had some articles written for us on our poker strategy and mastering holdem domains. These articles were written by Learn Texas Holdem. Good quality stuff.

The first article is titled False Tells. Many players confuse the "acting" tell as a false tell, and this article not only straightens out the misconception, but throws in some good examples of what a false tell actually is.

They wrote another article for us labeled Handling Large Sit n Go's. The multi table SNG's have become more and more popular, especially at sites like Poker Stars. This article just provides a few tips and thoughts to keep in mind next time you sit down to one. :)

We'll be having LTH write another article or two for us in the future, and review them here.

When it comes to growing as a poker player, I believe we're only limited by ourselves. Keep studying, reading and playing and just about anyone of decent intelligence can make a nice income from online poker.

PSORG Heads Up Competition

We had a blast today, playing the PSORG Heads Up event. Out of the 10 or 12 active folks in mIRC chat, 8 had the time to devote to it, so we had 3 rounds of single elimination matches before crowning a champ. During the event, I had a moment to self reflect, and a few thoughts popped into my head.

First, I lack a killer instinct when playing with friends. It gets worse. Not only do I lack a killer instict, I'd almost rather them win. I was paired up with Drogo71 for round 1, and even though we'd agreed to do best 2 out of 3, when he won the first one I told him congrats, no need for a 2nd (he went on to win the whole event). Finally, I found that when involved in social poker events, I actually have more fun watching the games from the rail and taking part in the friendly banter that goes on. Good thing these are low buy in. I suspect I'm a total fish in "social events".

I've known about this weakness for some time, and it's one of the main reasons I don't engage in chat much, unless someone speaks to me first at the standard ring game table. Once I "make friends", I find it harder to play aggressively towards that player. I should make a distinction between "respect" and "friends". There are players like CChristyCC and ElToasto at Absolute who I respect and we do chat a bit, but I still play aggressively when we're in a hand together. It's totally different with members of our forum though, especially when playing Hold'em, which is not exactly a game I stay sharp on anyway.

Having players cuss at me is much better for my bankroll. Thankfully this happens pretty frequently, especially heads up!

Enough publishing my weaknesses. Time to get back to taking the hater's chips.

Out in the sticks...

We're back from the aforementioned vacation. The picture from the deck of the cabin (picture is in the previous post below) is legit. That's the cabin we stayed at. I should've known to get that view you'll need a 4wd.

We videotaped the drive from the main road to the cabin, just because we were so amazed. We rarely even had a cell phone signal. We had running water and electricity though, and my parents had their doubts by the time we finally pulled up next to the cabin. To make a long story short, the last mile or so was a steep grade gravel/dirt road, and the two times we actually met someone coming the other way, we had to get out and decide which of us was to back up, since there were only a few spots that two vehicles could pass.

We had a blast though. A racoon got in our trash outside every night, and we finally caught him in the act on the last night, got pictures and everything. The little sucker was pretty tame. I suspect we're not the only inhabitants to have tossed him turkey sandwiches. :)

Regarding poker: I never hit that 2k mark, so after pulling out $1000 from the bankroll to help with the trip, I'm at ~840. Time to start working it back up for the next vacation I suppose.

$1870. $130 more to go...

We leave tomorrow at noon, and making the 2k mark is seriously in doubt. I'm pretty happy with $1870 though. To go from ~ 400 in June to anywhere close to 2k with just playing 1/2, 2/4 and 3/6, 7 card stud, for 10-12 hours a week (according to Poker Tracker), aint shabby.

$8 per fun filled hour. Weeeee. I enjoy poker so much more when I'm playing for small goals as opposed to needing another $150 for the electric bill. I think Fall semester 2003 woulda been a lot better on my grades and my marriage if I'd just delivered pizza instead of playing poker for the bills.

Ah well...hindsight.

Let's go eat some funnel cake. For those of you who have never had it, it's basically a big flat donut, sprinkled with powdered sugar and drizzled with caramel, fruit toppings....whatever your heart desires. Good stuff. Especially when relaxing on the deck of our cabin.

Vacation coming up and a freebie for you!

We're going to Gatlinburg again. Enjoyed ourselves when we went for our anniversary, and decided to take my parents. More funnel cakes - yum! I've been playing a good bit of poker to help with some spending money for the trip and worked it up from about $400 to a tad over $1600 the past 2 months. Looking to get to $2000 by the end of August when we go. That'll let me withdraw $1k, and still have plenty for playing $3/$6 stud at Absolute.

Oh, and the freebie. If you like your chances, go register to win a free copy of Poker Tracker. It's on us!

Hellmuth Crash Video -- Mad driving skillz!

Did he lose control or was he just staring at himself in the mirror?

(Seriously, glad to see him walk away just fine!)

Hellmuth wins his 11th

Hellmuth brought his "A" game to World Series of Poker event #15 (and probably a little extra whine -- sorry, couldn't resist!). The poker brat, as he is known, is for the moment, the all time leader in WSOP gold bracelets. Phil outlasted a field of 2628 to take down the $1500 buyin event which paid him a fat $637,254 for his efforts.

Scanning down the list of entries, I really didn't see many names I recognized, but winning any WSOP bracelet is a great accomplishment these days with thousands of entries.

Here's hoping either Chan or Brunson gets his 11th this year. Phil has never had the "lead" in this race, to my knowledge, so we can only imagine the extent to which his head will expand during the coming 12 months, if nobody ties him up in this WSOP.

Hellmuth catches a lot of flack, and some are even dismissive of his wins because he plays so many events. The guy has won in excess of $5 million at the World Series of Poker, and that can't be knocked.

He's great for T.V., and I suspect ESPN will cover the final table of this event here in a month or so. Put him, Matusow and "Sheiky" at the same table, and I'd sell tickets for a spot on the rail. He's entertaining to watch. Just like McEnroe.

Yahoo! Poker

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but this has gotta be another coup for online poker. We seem to be on a roll lately. Have you heard about this? Yahoo has launched real money poker. They have had a play money poker game for the many thousands of Yahoo! members who play the various free games, but this is a huge step to go from freebie games for fun to plunking real money down on the tables.

Yahoo! Poker will be marketed to the millions of Yahoo members around the world, I'm sure and with their already famous brand, there will already be a degree of trust and confidence. A general public that might have considered online gaming to be mainly the realm of shady operators, will see it thrust directly into the light.

There is nothing shady about Yahoo, and in fact there was really nothing shady about your online poker industry these past few years. Just businesses looking to make a buck in the entertainment field.

Yahoo real money poker is not open to USA members yet. It should only be a matter of time though. We Yanks love freedom, and the ability to play poker at our desk in our underwear is a right that should not be infringed upon!

Barrel of Laughs

Not poker related, but always good to have a brief chuckle to ease the pain of a bad beat here and there. My wife sends me jokes and such she gets in her email, and here is a list I thought I'd pass on. Funny stuff.

Amazingly Simple Home Remedies

1. If you are choking on an ice cube, simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat. Presto! The blockage will instantly remove itself.

2. Avoid cutting yourself slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold while you chop.

3. Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink.

4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.

5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives -- then you will be afraid to cough.

7. You only need two tools in life: WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.

I found #5 and #6 to be pretty good chuckles. #7...well, what's so funny about that? Gospel truth. ;]

Roller Coastin'

As many of the folks know who frequent our poker forums, I don't have near as much time to play anymore with poker site projects and a baby nearing his 1 year birthday. It tends to make for short sessions at the poker tables, and more of a "roller coaster". Poker is all about long term results, and it's hard to get "long term" when you get just a few hours a week to play!

At any rate, after clearing out a large portion of my bankroll to support Leslie's spending habits in Gatlinburg (and mine of course), I've managed to donk away another $175 or so a few nights ago. I've since made back about $100 of it with a couple of small decent sessions.

I'm starting to like the 6 handed sit n go's at Absolute Poker. Top two pay, so only 4 ppl to beat to cash, whereas with 9 person SNG's you have to see 6 people out the door to cash, and 3rd place in a 9 hander isn't as good a payoff as 2nd in a 6 hander.

Anyway... I've played two this week. Won one, and finished 2nd in the other. I should really concentrate a bit more on NLHE sng's. I used to do pretty well with them, but with limited time, have tended to just play stud.

I'd really really really like to get into MTT's. I've got enough points at most of these sites to get free entries for a good number of large guarantees. Maybe I'll post a fat win here in a month or two. Stay tuned. ;]

Judgement Day for the Wireless Leechers

I'm guilty! Good thing I don't live in Michigan, eh? According to a Fox News story, some poor gent minding his own business and accessing the internet on a coffee shops Wi-Fi during his lunch break, faced felony charge for his crimes.

The coffee shop owner didn't care. They provide the connection free to attract customers there. Seems Barney Fife (Police Chief Andrew Milanowski) got the call that there might be someone stalking a barber shop owner in the same strip. Grabbing his bullet and gun, "Barn" discovered Sam Peterson II of Cedar Springs, MI., answering emails *gasp* in his car, outside the coffee shop.

Lord knows that these young folks who use these here internet tubes, especially nefarious access from a parked car, have gotta be up to no good. (How do they do these things anyway? No wires? Gotta be illegal!)

Needless to say, this situation has been nipped in the bud. Faced with felony charges, Peterson opted for a $400 fine and community service.

Let's just take a moment to honor Police Chief Andrew Milanowski and the Kent County Prosecutors Office for their dedication to protecting and serving.

Back to the tables...

Vacation

Spent the past week in Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg, TN. It was nice to get away for awhile. I actually left my laptop here at the house, so my only connection to the "job" and poker was my cell phone.

One of the few downsides to being self employed is you could work all day, every day, stopping only to relieve the necessary things such as hunger and bowels, and actually enjoy it. It's almost as addictive as Ultima Online was back in our PvP glory days on the Atlantic Shard. At least as my life slips away with this, it's showing a profit. So needless to say, a vacation was in order according to my wife.

She was right.

It'll be wonderful if poker pays my bills for the rest of my life, I eventually own more classic cars than Leno, and get to rebuild the Freeman farm. I'll have a lot of regrets though, if I don't enjoy the trip. My kid is already spending his inheritance on diapers and Yo Baby. I better get my cut while I've got the chance!

Poker is fun. Blowing the earnings on Funnel Cakes and Helicopter rides is even "funner"...

Another Acorn!

Please, no one else read this and join me at PitBullPoker. I've now played 5 of these little guarantees, winning two and finishing 3rd in another. Awesome ROI. Seems except for the prop players running around, just about everyone on this site flat out stanks....yes, stank is worse than stink!

In other news, we're heading to Gatlinburg in the morning. I promised to leave my laptop at the house so as not to do any work or poker for a week. When are some of these poker rooms going to get a mobile phone client? I already know of a few gambling sites that let you piss away your phone bill on slots and roulette. Why not let some degenerates help pay my phone bill by donating some chips in mobile phone poker?

I digress. Here's hoping the withdrawal symptoms aren't too bad.

A Blind Hog Finds an Acorn...

I'm sure many of you have heard the old phrase "a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then". Maybe not. Could be just something you hear down in the South. Well, whether you've heard it or not, I wanted to just blog a bit about a nifty little poker acorn I found a couple of weeks ago.

PitBullPoker. It's a flash poker room, which means no download. The software isn't the smoothest in the world and the room is tiny, but therein lies the acorn! I help start their 7 card stud tables there and was browsing around looking for action in other games and lo' and behold, came upon a $300 guarantee for a measley $10 buyin. With just a few minutes till start time, there were only 3 people registered! That meant that if noone else registered, the #3 guy would win $60 for his $11 buyin, just for sitting down. Of course I sat and so did a few others. It ended up being 12 total sitting, and I won the thing for a $150 payout on my $10 buyin.

I looked further and found a $500 guarantee for $22 buyin. Same thing on that tourney, with start time very close less than 10 players registered. Sweet :) -- These are rebuys, but generally you only have a couple of rebuyers. In essence, you're getting into a $30+3 SNG for a $11 buyin or a $50+$5 SNG for $22. That's a good deal.

Once the site grows, it won't be near as good a deal, but for now, I may be spending a good bit of time there. ;]

I expect this room will grow at a decent pace as they do have some good bonuses going, including a no deposit bonus and an instant bonus where you get your bonus chips immediately without having to play hands to release them into your real money account.

Conclusion. The big sites are great, but there are lots of little gems out there to be found in these smaller poker rooms. Just gotta look around.

Epassporte

Busy busy times these days! Neteller dropping out of the USA market just about put a big hurting on my beans and taters money. Thankfully, MadMat from over at PSORG bailed me out by taking my transfers to his UK neteller, depositing to Stars and then transferring to me there. So post- neteller, let me give my experiences with other e-wallets in the hopes that someone looking for deposit/withdraw methods, can use it.

Epassporte was my first new ewallet. Customer service was massively slow, as can be expected with thousands of people flooding out of Neteller and looking for a new service. I found that depositing to a poker room was a cinch. I created my Epassporte account, funded it with my bank issued Visa Debit card and then deposited to Absolute. The entire process took me 15 minutes? The trick though is getting your account setup to withdraw. This is a concern for winning poker players yes? :)

It took me a bit less than two weeks to get my bank account connected to Epassporte, and to get my physical visa card (called the Electron Card). This card cost $35, but it's very well worth it. I'm able to withdraw $600 per day from most any ATM, so getting my money from the poker sites is relatively easy, though I suppose I am putting in a lot of face time on the local bank's security camera. All in all, I'm very satisfied with Epassporte thus far. Their strongest point is the fact that they are accepted for deposit/withdrawals at every poker site I play (Absolute, UB, Full Tilt, Poker Stars and even PitBull Poker).

Pro's : Good ATM system if you pay $35 for the card. Widely accepted method by poker rooms.

Con's: Daily withdrawal from Epass to bank is $300. What the heck? Annoying if you need to get home a good bit fast. This can be overcome of course, if you have the ATM card. I can get $900 home per day now, between the card and the direct deposit to my bank.

War on the Bonus Whores?

The Absolute Poker gravy train slowed down last month with new bonus terms, and will come to a complete halt Feb 1st if they go through with bonuses deducted from rakeback and a tighter contributed rakeback method. Too bad there aren't any other real gravy trains out there for US players. (Rooms that combine a good population, good bonus, fat rakeback with no deductions).

There does seem to be an effort on the part of the online poker rooms to slow down the bonus whoring movement. Makes sense. There was a time when every poker room for the most part had “party poker“ bonuses. The idea wasn't to make money off the player while they cleared bonus, but to draw them there with the bonus and make money later after the bonus was cleared. However, with the immense popularity of bonus whoring, you had players who just cleared bonuses, moved on, and only visited again when there was another bonus. The poker rooms were not making a dime off these players.

If a player is giving a net monthly loss to the casino (clearing more bonus than they generate in rake), why would the casino care if that player leaves? In the brick and mortar world, if a player is continuously making money off a casino, they get blacklisted and booted out of Vegas.

I've seen so many players venting their anger, pulling up stakes to move to another poker room, emailing Absolute to let them know they've just lost a customer, etc etc., when a closer analogy would be finally kicking that freeloading relative off your couch.

I'm not trying to be condescending to the bonus whoring population. We've even got a How To: Bonus Whoring formula on PSORG. I'm just trying my best to put all of this into perspective. I think bonus whores should expect the following in 2007:

1. Tougher bonus clearing terms across the board that allows the poker room to make money even as the bonus whore is clearing bonuses.
2. If bonus whoring is what keeps your bankroll afloat, expect to go broke.
3. Players who were satisfied with bonus and rakeback income at micro levels, to a point that they did not desire to move up and get better, will find that if they want poker to continue to be a nice side income, they'll need to take a shot at $2/$4, $3/$6, $4/$8 and on up.

I think #3 is good for players whose original intent was to become good at poker, not to become good at clearing bonuses. In fact, I've come to a firm conclusion over the past year and a half that bonus whoring has seriously retarded the development of potentially excellent poker players.

An old saying that I just made up says once you're happy with where you are, there's no need to keep looking at the roadmap. Time to break out those dusty roadmaps (poker books, critical thinking skills) and start charting a course for bigger returns.

New Year Resolutions

Here we go again. Another clean slate, with a full year to screw it up! -- Well, how do you view the new year?

I was looking at our poker strategy forum, and was interested to read some of the New Year's Poker Resolutions that some of our members have came up with. From the lofty goals of trying to make 20k+ this year as a part time player to just becoming profitable, seems like poker players have lots of improvement on their minds.

For myself, I've got a resolution and a prayer for 2007. My resolution is simple enough... actually get good at 7 card stud 8/b. That's 7 card stud hi/lo, by the way. I've been a profitable 7 card stud player for several years now (how time flies!)... I've turned a profit at limit holdem, sit n gos, and the like, but 7 card stud being my favorite game, and currently being quite ignorant at hi lo variations, I believe it's time to enlarge my coasts.

The prayer? That the US government and banks will not rip us a new pooper this year.

Something else before I close. When you're looking forward to 2007, take a moment to look back at 2006. Resolutions won't get far if we don't look back on and correct mistakes.

2006 was awesome, marking the birth of Dylan, our first child. It was a bad year in terms of my "job" though, with the collective poker world's lack of concern or action, and the eventual passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Only time will tell if it's going to have any real effect.

I like eating, buying diapers (not really changing them though), and all the other stuff that money allows us to do. Online Poker's been doing that for me since Dec. 2004, and here's to keeping a good thing going!