September 02 2012

Did you miss any of the top poker news stories this week? Well you’ve come to the right place to get caught up. We’re covering the Republican Party calling for a ban on Internet gambling in the U.S., Howard Lederer requesting a status conference with the federal court, and more.

Poker Legislation

GOP Against Online Poker

During Tuesday’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., the GOP approved an official platform that contains a plank calling for a ban on online poker. The 54-page document opened with a warning that the “American Dream” of equal opportunity is at risk, and goes on to state its opposition toward Internet gambling.

“Millions of Americans suffer from problem or pathological gambling that can destroy families,” the platform reads. “We support the prohibition of gambling over the Internet and call for reversal of the Justice Department’s decision distorting the formerly accepted meaning of the Wire Act that could open the door to Internet betting.”

Last December, the Department of Justice changed its position on the Wire Act of 1961, finding that the Wire Act only applies only to sports betting. The decision was considered a huge victory for poker, but it could be for naught if the GOP reclaims the White House from the Democrats later this year.

“As we all know, the DOJ decision the plank calls for reversing is the very one that determined that the scope of the Wire Act does not include poker,” Rich Muny, Poker Player’s Alliance vice president of player relations, said Wednesday. “Also, as we all know, our opponents are including poker in ‘gambling’ activities they seek to ban. Some have even taken to calling the activity ‘poker gambling.’”

GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has gone on record saying he strongly opposes online gambling because of the “social costs and people’s addictive gambling habits.” Ironically, though, you may recall Romney proposing a $10,000 bet against Rick Perry during the GOP debate late last year.

For more on the GOP platform and what it means for poker, check out Matthew Kredell’s article here at PokerNews.com.

Lederer’s Last Stand?

The ongoing saga involving Full Tilt Poker’s executives continued this week as Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Rafe Furst requested a status conference with the federal court to discuss last week’s federal ruling that poker is a game of skill.

Lederer’s attorneys argue that, in light of the case of United States v. DiCristina, many of the charges against him do not have legal basis. His attorneys have requested a conference status to discuss the potential impact of the case in which Judge Jack B. Weinstein ruled that poker does not constitute illegal gambling and, thus, does not fall under the Illegal Gambling Business Act.

“How the government approaches a potential amended complaint, and how the defendants approach moving for its dismissal, are both matters which can be more efficiently handled if the parties have an opportunity to make the Court aware of their plans and views in light of DiCristina,” an attorney for Lederer wrote to Judge Leonard B. Sand.

The government responded Thursday by saying that it disagrees with the verdict of the DiCristina case and that it doesn’t believe a status conference between Lederer and the court is necessary at this time.

The letter sent by Lederer’s lawyers to Judge Sand came two weeks before the government can decide to amend the civil complaints against Lederer, Ferguson and Furst. The deadline is Sept. 10, 2012.

For more, read the story here at PokerNews.com.

Illinois Rejects Gambling … For Now

An Illinois bill that would have expanded gambling in the state was vetoed by Gov. Pat Quinn on Tuesday. The measure would have increased the number of casinos in Illinois from 10 to 15, including a first casino in Chicago.

Quinn said the bill lacked sufficient regulatory oversight and urged legislators to work with him to improve its defects.

“Illinois should never settle for a gaming bill that includes loopholes for mobsters,” Quinn said in a statement announcing his decision.

Quinn has been a supporter of gambling and bringing more casinos into the state but is a strong proponent of strict ethical standards. He argued Tuesday that, under the language of the bill, the Illinois Gaming Board wouldn’t have the same regulatory authority over Chicago’s city-owned casino that it holds over other casinos in the state.

“It’s one thing if you had to make some technical changes here and there,” Quinn said Tuesday. “This bill just falls way short of what the people of Illinois need when it comes to ethics in government.”

Reuters has more.

Poker Players

Trickett Endorses ISPT

High-stakes poker pro Sam Trickett is the newest ambassador for the International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT) ahead of its inaugural tournament at Wembley Stadium in London next May.

Trickett, who is the U.K.’s all-time money leader with more than $16.4 million in live tournament winnings, joins Michael Mizrachi as an endorser of the Europe-based poker tour. The two men are considered among the best in the game today and will certainly add credibility to a tour that has been highly debated since it launched last fall.

Trickett announced his partnership with the ISPT via Twitter on Tuesday.

The first ISPT event is scheduled to kick off on May 31, 2013. Organizers are expecting the tournament to begin with 30,000 players in the stands of Wembley Stadium playing an online tournament from their seat. From there, the top 3,000 players will advance to the live tournament, which will be played right on the Wembley Stadium field. The event has a “20,000,000 guaranteed prize pool and will be broadcast on television via six channels.

“As a poker player, I have to be associated with such an enormous event,” Trickett told Poker Channel Europe on Tuesday. “Being part of this tournament means being part of the history of poker.”

Read more at UK.PokerNews.com.

Isildur1: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Why is Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom such a formidable opponent at high-stakes cash games? According to fellow nosebleed player Phil Galfond, it’s because Blom plays for the love of the game and genuinely doesn’t care about money.

In his latest blog, the always-insightful Galfond examines The Man, The Myth, The Legend known as “Isildur1.” Galfond says he’s played more hands against Blom than any other player of the length of his career, and he got to know the cagey Swede pretty well during the World Series of Poker this past summer.

Over the past three years, Galfond has examined Blom’s strengths and weaknesses as a player. But it wasn’t until he actually meant Blom that he really understood what makes him one of the game’s greats.

“Viktor’s passion for the game is his biggest strength as a player,” Galfond writes. “He told me that he likes to play most with whoever he thinks is the best in the world. I guess if you’re going to challenge yourself, you might as well REALLY challenge yourself.

“When you start thinking about the money involved, it inhibits your ability to play your best. People who approach poker purely as a job, for the financial reasons, will have a very hard time becoming the best of the best (though they may make plenty of money). To actually be great, you need to love the game. You need to have fun playing. Viktor has these covered and then some.”

We highly recommend you check out Galfond’s full blog at PhilGalfond.com.

Kyllönen’s Hefty Downpayment

One of online poker’s biggest winners of 2012 is spending some of his hard-earned profits on a trip into space.

Following in the footsteps of billionaire entrepreneur and poker enthusiast Guy Laliberté, Finnish poker pro Jens “Jeans89” Kyllönen recently told CardPlayer Europe that he has paid “160,000 to reserve a seat aboard Virgin Galactic’s space flight. Kyllönen says he’ll probably make the trip in 2014 after the testing stage is complete.

Kyllönen will spend three or four days training for the flight at SpacePort America before the two-hour flight aboard Sir Richard Brandon’s space vessel.

“I’ve always been fascinated with space and now that I have the opportunity to be within the first people going I just felt like I had to do it,” Kyllönen said.

As of last week, Kyllönen was up $1,628,538 playing high-stakes cash games at PokerStars this year. He was also one of 48 players to post the $1 million buy-in for the Big One for One Drop at the World Series of Poker this past summer. Kyllönen was the third player eliminated after losing a key hand to French businessman Frederic Banjout.

Hopefully, his pricey trip to space provides a more rewarding experience.

CardPlayer Europe has more.

“Stop Being Nits”

Daniel Negreanu has certainly had issues with the powers that be at TwoPlusTwo.com. A few months after receiving a one-day ban from the site for “spamming,” Negreanu has taken a shot at the forum again, this time involving a deleted thread regarding a charity benefitting the 22Q Foundation.

For a long time, TwoPlusTwo has had a policy to not support charities. Reasons for that haven’t been made public, but the site has had issues with scammers taking advantage of fake charities in the past. This particular charity is being supported by several poker players who will be participating in a 50-hour poker podcast show beginning on Sept. 3 to raise money for children who suffer from 22Q.11 deletion syndrome.

Shortly after a thread about the benefit was created at TwoPlusTwo, it was shut down. Once Negreanu found out, he posted his thoughts in a thread at Full Contact Poker.

“Have a heart. It’s for charity. Stop being such nits,” Negreanu wrote. “I get along fine with David Sklansky and feel like he really isn’t too involved with all this crap, but Mason Malmuth and that kook moderator are greasy, slimy, nerdy, nutcases and they make me sick.”

The “kook” Negreanu is referring to is the same TwoPlusTwo moderator that banned him in March when Daniel was trying to post his Weekly Rant in the News, Views and Gossip forum. Negreanu was warned about spamming because the video included an ad for iSeriesLive, and he was subsequently banned when he tried to post the video a second time.

The Examiner has more.

Online Poker

PartyPoker’s Transformation

On Friday, online betting firm Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment PLC reported a significant decline in poker revenue during the first half of 2012. The company’s primary poker offering, PartyPoker, has struggled to keep pace with industry leader PokerStars of late, dropping 43 percent in real-money cash game traffic since this time last year, according to PokerScout.com.

Nevertheless, Bwin.Party co-CEOs Norbert Teufelberger and Jim Ryan say they are determined to make PartyPoker the world’s favorite poker room all over again.

“Poker is a key area of focus and we are determined to return it to growth through execution of a detailed plan that includes pooling our poker liquidity as well as repositioning our flagship PartyPoker brand,” the co-CEOs said in a joint statement. “We expect both initiatives to have a positive impact on our performance, along with our recently launched FastForward Poker product.”

As part of its resurgence plan, Bwin.Party plans to relaunch PartyPoker with new software early next year. Said the company in a press release, “Having last relaunched PartyPoker in 2009, we have been working on the next generation version that will be rolled out during the first quarter of 2013. Comprising many new features and a new look and feel, our objective is to once again make PartyPoker the world’s favorite poker room and return poker to growth.”

Bwin.Party is also preparing for a launch in the U.S., where it has partnered with MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming in an “anticipatory” move for legalized online gambling in Nevada. Bwin.Party is expected to be one of the key players in the U.S. market, but its share of the market could slide if PokerStars returns, as expected.

The full press release can be found at BwinParty.com.

PokerStars WCOOP Radio

With the return of the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) this weekend, PokerStars has announced the revival of the popular PokerStars Radio for a second year. The daily broadcast will bring poker fans live coverage of the series from Sept. 2 through 25.

PokerStars Radio will accompany the action on the felts each night at 20:00 BST (15:00 EST). The interactive show will also include quizzes, competitions, interviews, live phone-in discussions, Twitter posts and exclusive online tournaments for listeners, with more than $25,000 up for grabs.

“We saw last year with the WCOOP radio show that poker players and fans love the format and really connect with the live interactive elements,” said WCOOP radio host Joe Stapleton. “It provides a way for the growing poker community worldwide to share in the excitement of the most important festival in online poker.”

Stapleton will be joined by co-hosts Nick Wealthall and Matt Broughton, and they’ll be visited on the air by members of Team PokerStars Pro and Team PokerStars Online, as well as past and present WCOOP winners.

The 2012 PokerStars WCOOP will award more than $30 million across 65 tournaments this month. For the full schedule of events and satellite information, visit PokerStars.com.

Follow PokerNews on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to post one!

A poker player must learn to deal with many kinds of frustration. At this point in my career, I find it easy to shake off bad beats. My job is to get my money in good. Whatever happens afterward is beyond my control. The element of luck is what makes the game so exciting and what gives amateur players a fighting chance against much more skilled opponents, so I’ve got no reason to get upset about it.

A somewhat more complicated case is when I make an extremely strong hand when someone else holds something even better. In last month’s article, I recounted a hand from Day 1 where I made a high flush but lost to a full house. Perhaps I could have cut my losses a bit more than I did, but I was guaranteed to lose something. Again, it’s just part of the game.

I still struggle with being “card dead”, especially in live poker, where the pace of play is so much slower than online. The early days of the WSOP main event actually give players a lot of room to wait out a cold run of cards, but psychologically it can be very frustrating to fold hand after hand.

Boredom can lead to big mistakes, so I understand why some players more or less shut down part of their brains by listening to music, watching moves on in IPad, or even smoking marijuana during breaks. I prefer to cultivate the mental discipline to push through the boredom, because there’s actually an awful lot to pay attention to even when you aren’t in a hand. Your opponents’ betting patterns, physical and verbal tics, and general demeanor can provide valuable information if you’re paying enough attention to take it all in.

The frustrations with which I still struggle the most are my own mistakes. When I play a hand badly, I feel responsible for the misfortune that befalls me. Of course in some sense I am, but I also wonder, aren’t mistakes, like bad beats, an inevitable part of the game? Who can play high-level poker perfectly for days and days on end? I aspire to accept that mistakes happen just like every other kind of bad luck and are in some sense beyond my control. I’d like to accept them with the same equanimity that I now shrug off bad beats and continue to play my best going forwards.

The trick is to maintain the drive to get better, to avoid repeating the same mistakes, without blaming yourself for those that have already happened. If you get mired in reprimanding yourself for a prior mistake while you’re still in the tournament, you only increase the chances that you’ll make another mistake soon.

I believe this last sort of frustration played a role in my departure from the 2012 WSOP Main Event on Day 2.

Table 1

I was happy enough with my starting table. As usual, I found the seating assignments in advance and researched my opponents. Only three seemed to be professionals. Two of those had extremely short stacks, and the third, a young Hungarian, was seated to my immediate right, where I could keep my thumb on him.

Sure enough, the first three hours went well. I didn’t win any big pots, but having begun play with more than twice the average stack, I didn’t need to. I quietly accumulated another 10,000 chips without any tough decisions or big confrontations.

I did play one hand very strangely and ended up showing it down, which probably influenced my table image. I raised A4s in first position, and only the button called. He was a young live pro from Chicago, and the sense I got was that he was a good level two thinker. In other words, I expected his play to rely heavily on what he thought I had, but I didn’t think he would give me credit for making a tricky play based on what I knew I was representing to him.

The flop came QJJ rainbow, giving me nothing but a backdoor flush draw. I checked, he made a small bet, and I called. Although there was a chance Ace-high was good, I wasn’t intending to show it down. I thought my opponent might well have a medium pocket pair, and that if I check-called the flop and then bet the river, he’d give me credit for a Q or a better pair than his.

The turn was a 4, a very small improvement that didn’t change my plan. We both checked the turn. So far, so good.

A second Q on the river changed everything. Now that I could beat a medium pair, I checked planning to call a bet. He checked behind, and I had to show my unconventional flop call to claim the pot.

On the last hand before our table broke, I had a minor confrontation with the other big stack. The Hungarian and I had mostly stayed out of each others’ way, him not opening too many pots and me “rewarding” him for that by not putting too much pressure on him when he did raise. It’s important to note that this isn’t collusion, – we never made an explicit agreement – merely mutual self-interest. There were easier spots at the table that could be attacked with less risk, so we both found it beneficial to avoid playing a big pot with each other.

With the floor man hovering over us with an armful of chip racks, the Hungarian min-raised to 1,200 from the button. I, sitting in the SB, looked down at AJ. It was simply too good not to raise. I made it 4,200, the BB folded, and the button called.

I bet 4,800 on a 442 flop, more or less for value. Although I would’ve been glad to see him fold, I actually thought he would float often enough that I could profitably bet and then either bet again or check and call a bet unimproved on the turn, depending on what came. He called.

The turn was the 7, and we both checked. I didn’t see much point in betting the T river, so I checked again. Now the Hungarian bet 10K, which was about one-third of the pot. Believe it or not, I was tempted to call. I really wasn’t sure how wide he would value bet, and although I expected his bluff to come on the turn, he may have been tricky enough to check air on the turn planning to bluff the river if I checked again. I didn’t know enough about him to say, but I was getting awfully good odds and my spidey sense was tingling.

Then again, some of his floats could have paired the Ten or even the 7. I reminded myself of one of my rules for the early levels of the WSOP: err or the side of conserving chips. I folded and went to meet my new tablemates.

Table 2

My second table proved similar to the first. The non-professionals were perhaps a bit more skilled, and the pros had more chips, but the player of greatest concern – a young Frenchman – was again sitting to my right. Unfortunately we played together for less than an hour before this table, too, was broken up. I did nothing of significance and left with about as many chips as I brought.

Table 3

My third and final table was not so welcoming as the first two. There were a few soft-looking spots, but also a very capable young Russian on my immediate left and a kid in his early 20′s raising often and playing well a few seats to my right.

The real threat arrived a few minutes after me: a young northern European with a mountain of chips. He lived up to the stereotypes and was soon caught raising 62s under the gun. He wasn’t a true maniac, though. Despite some unconventional plays, he had a good feel for what he could get away with and when people simply weren’t in the mood to fold to him. In short, he was exactly what I did not want on my left.

In some ways, he did make it easier for me to stay disciplined about not playing any of the string of bad hands I was dealt. The only problem was that I never felt comfortable at the table. At my first table, although I never won any big pots, I felt like the potential was there. I knew who the weaker players were and I knew what kinds of situations I was looking for. I also believed that no one was likely to give me a tough decision, so I felt comfortable just waiting it out.

At this table, though, I didn’t have that same assurance that chips would come if I waited. On Day 2, that’s actually not the end of the world. I could afford to go into a bubble, waiting only for the best of spots, and perhaps get blinded down a bit, ultimately finishing the day with a very playable stack even if I never won a big pot. Arguably, this is what I should have done.

Instead, I decided to pick a mark and try to take some chips off of him. My chosen victim was a Hispanic man in his early 30s who was sitting two seats to my right and seemed a little intimidated and amateurish.

I guessed that this was probably his first main event, my biggest hint being the way he sized his raises. At the 400/800/100 level, when most people were raising anywhere from 1,600 to 2,000, I observed him open to 2,500. Overly large raises often indicate a somewhat unsophisticated understanding of poker. Rather than fighting for pots and looking to win as much as possible with both value bets and bluffs, these players believe in waiting for good cards and then doing everything they can to increase their odds of winning the pot, even if that means losing out on the opportunity to win more chips.

I later saw this same player raise to 2,000. Knowing that there were some circumstances where he would raise to 2,500, I guessed that he had what he considered a weak hand with which he did not want to commit too many chips. The player to my right called the raise, and I re-raised to 8,000 with whatever cards I held. They both folded, and I succeeded in my biggest bluff of the day, which isn’t saying much given how tight I’d been.

A similar spot arose shortly thereafter. This time the first player to act limped in for 800. My mark raised to 2,000 again, which with an extra 800 chips in the pot I interpreted to be even weaker than before. I raised to 6,000 with A7o, the first player folded, and my guy quickly called. Not what I was hoping for, but in all likelihood I’d still have opportunities to push him out after the flop.

The flop came KQ7, he checked, and I bet 7,500. Although I had a pair, this bet more or less turned my hand into a bluff, because if he called it, my pair would probably be no good. My 7s were simply too vulnerable to check, though.

My opponent quickly grabbed four orange chips, worth 20,000 altogether, and threw them into the pot.
For whatever reason, my gut told me that he was bluffing.

There are professionals who call themselves “feel players”, meaning that they don’t necessarily think explicitly in terms of odds, probabilities, and ranges. Rather, years of experience have given them a highly developed intuition for what will work, even if they can’t always articulate exactly why.

Some people will tell you, especially if they’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, that you should always listen to your first instinct. I don’t believe that. There are a lot of reasons, frustration chief among them, why your gut might mislead you. And if your opponent bets 2,000 into a pot of 8,000, your gut might tell you you’re beat, but is it really so finely tuned to know that you are beat more than 80% of the time?

Personally, I believe in taking intuition as a starting point and then submitting it to some back-of-the-envelope analysis. Although everything it tells you is in theory quantifiable, it isn’t always practical to perform such analysis in real time.

So when my gut told me he was bluffing, I ought to have asked questions like, “Is it better to call or re-raise? If you call, how will you proceed on a blank turn? On a club? If you re-raise, what’s the best non-bluff hand you can expect him to fold? Is there any risk of him re-bluffing you if you re-raise?”

I ought to have asked those questions, but instead I simply ruled out his strongest possible hands. If he had KK or QQ pre-flop, he would have made a larger re-raise, and there were only two 7s left in the deck, so he was quite unlikely to have a set. Thus, I concluded, I could re-raise and represent a set myself.

The problem – well, one of the problems – with this analysis is that even if he doesn’t have a set, he isn’t guaranteed to fold. KQ for top two pair is a very possible holding for him that he wouldn’t fold. He might also re-re-raise all-in with some sort of big draw such as AJ or AT.

Anyway, I reraised to 36,000, he very quickly moved all-in, and I had to fold. Quick as that, I’d lost more than half my stack and now had only 31,000, barely what I’d had at the start of Day 1 before playing poker for 16 hours. I felt pretty stupid.

As I said before, I’d ideally accept any loss, even one of my own creation, as simply a thing that’s happened and move on from there. In reality, though, it’s nearly impossible to resist the temptation for immediate analysis. Now I started asking all those questions I should have asked before pulling the trigger on the bluff. Part of me wanted to forget about it and move on, but another part insisted on playing it over and over again in my head to try to determine whether it was actually a good spot to bluff, not that it mattered now.

Perhaps because I grew up in the age of video games, I feel like I ought to just be able to hit the “undo” button when something like this happens. Can one moment’s indiscretion really have cost me so many chips in this tournament that I’d waited all year to play? It didn’t seem right. I wanted to go back and load a previously saved game from the time when I had an above average stack.

This is understandable but dangerous thinking. The desire to undo the past and win back chips very quickly can only result in reckless gambling. Try as I might to silence the doubts in my head, they weren’t going away. At this point I probably should have turned to my crutch, the IPod I keep with me for situations like these when I need to distract myself. It’s best if you can keep your full attention on the table, but when your mind is wandering anyway, better to listen to music than self-criticism.

Perhaps 20 minutes later, six players folded and it was on me holding KTo on the button. I raised to 2,000.

The small blind folded, and then the big blind, the semi-maniacal northern European, re-raised to 5,200. It was easy to say, “That guy’s crazy, he could have anything, just go all-in and hope for the best.” I still don’t think it’s the worst play in the world. But the difference between a good loose-aggressive player and a true maniac is that the good player knows how to use his image to his advantage. He probably expects me to be steaming from my recent loss and eager to try to win a pot, and he knows that I think of him as extremely aggressive. Given those facts, I actually have my doubts about how often he’d re-raise here without a hand good enough to call a shove.

At the time, though, the part of my brain that wanted to get back to where I was before silenced the part that was trying to sound an alarm. I moved all-in for 29,000, and my opponent quickly called with AQ.

He was ahead, though not a massive favorite. The thing is that when you’re in that frustrated, just-want-to-get-back-to-even mentality, you care less about the downside of losing – in your mind you’re already a loser – and more about the possible upside. If I’d won this pot, I’d have nearly as many chips as I did before that expensive bluff.

I did not win the pot, though, which meant that the World Series of Poker was over for me. I couldn’t tell you what place I got, because it doesn’t matter. When there’s no cash prize to be paid out, the tournament officials don’t keep track of such things. There were no tax forms to fill out, and no one to congratulate me for a job well done. The only acknowledgments of my departure were a “good game,” from the guy stacking what had been my chips and the dealer’s cry of, “Seat open! Table 42!”