Regarding Poker

The 2007 World Blogger Championship of Online Poker drew over 1,300 players from all over the world. I myself was in this tournament, which was held yesterday on PokerStars. I didn’t fair very well (a trend of late); after getting nothing but garbage hands for almost 90 minutes I was finally dealt something decent; QQ. I pushed in my remaining chips of 6K and was instantly called by someone holding AA, which ended my run.

This tournament was for bloggers only; to qualify you had to have a blog and it had to be at least two months old. I didn’t see anywhere in the rules if these blogs had to be poker related or not, which I don’t think they had to be, which might explain why there were so many entries.

I also thought the prizes were not very well thought of, for example, 9th place paid out a poker chip set while 11th to 18th paid out an X-Box Elite, or 19th to 27th paid out an iPod Classic! You would think that the poker chip set would have not been a final table prize. Oh well, can’t complain though as PokerStars gave away $40,000 in prizes and the tournament was free!

2007 World Blogger Championship of Online Poker Final Table Results:

1. LParreira (Portugal) — $12,000 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure package
2. mathwise (Canada) — 50″ Plasma TV
3. lborba (Brazil) — 24″ computer monitor, a Canon Rebel digital SLR camera, and a Sony Camcorder
4. ulan-ude (United States) — poker table, a deluxe 500-piece clay chip set, Sunday Million ticket
5. Abellyus (France) — Eight $215 Sunday Million tickets
6. NileFever (United Kingdom) — $1,050 and $530 Sunday Million tickets
7. stakaman1962 (Greece) — $1,050 Sunday Million ticket
8. BoreN =P (Norway) — Canon Rebel Digital SLR Camera
9. fourflushers (United States)- Luxury Poker Chip Set

Thanks PokerStars for the free tournament and congratulations to LParreira of Portugal for winning the main prize, a $12,000 prize package to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure which included: one World Poker Tour event buy-in ($8,000), $3,000 - seven nights at Atlantis Paradise Island, $1,000 food credit, and $1,000 for spending and travel expenses.

Aintluck is a great site for you players playing on Absolute Poker and FullTilt Poker. Aintluck has probably the largest collection of free poker table skins on the Net.

You can download college, sports teams, poker themes and more for your Absolute Poker and FullTilt Poker tables.

As of this writing there are 463 Absolute Poker table skins and 249 FullTilt Poker table skins and full instructions on how to change your table skin for each site.

So head over to Aintluck and change your boring old Absolute or FullTilt Poker table skin to something new and personal!

The annual conference for the Association for the Advancement Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) hosted the first man versus machine poker championship.

The controlled scientific experiment held in Vancouver, Canada, pitted a poker-playing computer program called Polaris against two top professional poker players, Phil Laak and Ali Eslami. There was also $50,000 on the line for the winning side.

The format of this challenge was a Heads-up Limit Hold’em game that would consist of four 500-hand duplicate matches. Each duplicate match, the same series of cards would be dealt in two parallel Man versus Machine matches, with teammates playing the opposite hands in each game. At the end of the match, the total number of chips won or lost by each team is added together to determine the winning team. This format was used to reduce the element of random luck to a minimum, and get a much better indication of the differences in skill.

Phil Laak and Ali Eslami won two rounds out of three and this year’s match. It wasn’t easy and both players agreed that they had to play their best game to win.

“I really am happy it’s over,” said Eslami, adding: “I’m surprised we won, it’s already so good it will be tough to beat in future.”

The University of Alberta is no stranger to making the ultimate game programs geared to play and beat the best players in the world. Scientists at the University of Alberta developed a computer chess champion named Chinook, and it was so good that it was retired because no one could beat it. It seems as though the researchers are well on their way in making the ultimate man-beating-poker-program with Polaris.

Researchers are in discussion with a company to make Polaris available online. Now that’s a scary thought; imagine this program playing in the online poker rooms? No thanks!

Here’s a video with Phil Laak and Ali Eslami talking about the match after their victory:

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The 2007 World Series of Poker (WSOP) is just around the corner, so I thought it would be fitting to rewind to last year’s WSOP Main Event Final Table featuring Jamie Gold and Paul Wasicka.

Click here to see all 14 2006 World Series of Poker Final Table YouTube videos.

I analyzed my sit and go tournament games on SharkScope to see how I fair on PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. It appears as though that my recent games on these two sites have quite different results.

My recent run with PokerStars is terrible; coming in the money only two times in the last eight games (I typically have more “in-the-money” wins than loses there). Yet with Full Tilt Poker I managed to get into the money seven times in the last eight sit and go’s.

Keep in mind that these games have comparable buy-ins, they are all nine-handed games, and these games have been played in the same time-frame, I basically play a game at PokerStars and then a game on Full Tilt Poker.

So I wonder why there is such a discrepancy between the two rooms?

Here are some of my possible explanations:

1) Does Full Tilt Poker have softer competition? I just recently started to play more at Full Tilt Poker which would explain me not seeing this earlier on. I just might have to play more at Full Tilt Poker to see if this is the case.

2) Maybe it’s the Full Tilt player graphics and software? Full Tilt Poker player’s avatars can be viewed as cartoonish/childish; maybe I play more aggressive towards these players there because of that. It’s hard to take a smiling monkey seriously. I doubt it’s that though, but I have to admit that I enjoy playing the Full Tilt Poker software more than PokerStars because it offers more options and the interface is awesome. Maybe PokerStars needs a facelift?

3) Is it the Blind structures? Here is a comparison of the Blind structures between PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker (nine-handed NL Hold’em sit and go for 90 minutes of play):

PokerStars
(10 minute Blind increments)

10/20
15/30
25/50
50/100
75/150
100/200
100/200 + 25 Ante
200/400 + 25 Ante
300/600 + 50 Ante

Full Tilt Poker
(6 minute Blind increments)

15/30
20/40
25/50
30/60
40/80
50/100
60/120
80/160
100/200
120/240
150/300
200/400
250/500
300/600
400/800

After 30 minutes: PokerStars 50/100 - Full Tilt Poker 50/100
After 60 minutes: PokerStars 100/200 + 25 Ante - Full Tilt Poker - 150/300

Hmmm, I don’t think it’s the Blinds; my style of play favors the PokerStars structure more so than the Full Tilt Poker structure.

My initial conclusion is that Full Tilt Poker has softer competition than PokerStars. I’ll play there more in the next few weeks and see what happens. If indeed this is the case, I’ll be playing PokerStars for the tournaments and Full Tilt Poker for the NL Hold’em sit and go’s.

I’ll keep you posted.

The earliest known game of Texas Hold’em was played in Robstown, Texas, in the early 1900s. The game was brought to Las Vegas by a group of Texan gamblers and card players, including Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, Crandell Addington, and Amarillo Slim.

Playing cards were invented in China.

A fifth suit was added in 1937 but never caught on because people had to buy all new decks.

At least 65,000,000 Americans regularly play poker.

In the 1800s, 2,000 to 2,500 riverboat gamblers played poker on American Waterways. By contemporary accounts, no more than four of these poker players were honest all the time. A straight beat a flush at this time.

Las Vegas Casinos are not legally obligated to pay off their gambling debts.

Due to French influence, Spades represent Royalty, Diamonds represent Merchants, Clubs represent the peasants, and hearts represent the clergy.

Playing cards were introduced in Europe in the 1300s.

When Columbus landed in 1492 in North America, his men plucked wide leaves from trees, drew pictures on them and played cards.

Historians generally agree that Bill Hickock was a lousy poker player.

Former President Richard Nixon won $6,000 playing poker in his first two months in the U.S. Navy during WWll. That is roughly equal to $42,640 in 2004 dollars. He used that money as well as more poker winnings to finance his run for the U.S. Congress in 1946, which he won.

Yahoo UK has launched real money online poker on Yahoo.co.uk. Yahoo Poker has partnered with St. Minver Ltd. and join IPN, the International Poker Network owned and operated by Boss Media AB.

Today’s news may mark the beginning of a new online poker landscape in the near future. With powerful brands and a large database of online consumers, Yahoo could certainly challenge established online poker rooms.

Which online giant would be next to join Yahoo in the online poker business? Certainly Google, eBay, and Microsoft must all be considering their options, to name a few.

Yahoo Poker’s customers will be joining the International Poker Network of Boss Media through their partner company St. Minver, which means there will mostly be European players on the network.

With the potential to become the biggest European poker network and the fact that Paradise Poker will migrate over to IPN in the up and coming months, the International Poker Network may soon be one of the three biggest online poker networks in the world.

Yahoo Poker (Yahoo.co.uk):

Poker Site: Yahoo Poker (UK)
Who Can’t Play: Canadians & Americans
Play: Play Money and Real Money
Client: Flash (No Download)
Available Games: Texas Hold’em
Tournaments: Yes
Site Celebrity: Sam Mann

Yahoo Poker… Who said online poker is dying?

Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, and Robert Duvall star in the new poker movie, Lucky You, opening in theaters on May 4th. It’s been a long time since a movie about poker has been released (does Casino Royale count?) and I’m sure there are many eager poker players looking forward to this movie. Let’s hope it keeps it real and most importantly, entertaining!

SYNOPSIS - In the world of high-stakes poker, Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) is a blaster–a player who goes all out, all the time. But in his personal relationships, Huck plays it tight, expertly avoiding emotional commitments and long-term expectations. When Huck sets out to win the main event of the 2003 World Series of Poker–and the affections of Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore), a young singer from Bakersfield–there is one significant obstacle in his path: his anger toward his father, L.C. Cheever (Robert Duvall), the poker legend who abandoned Huck’s mother years ago. As these two rivals progress toward a final showdown at the poker table, Huck learns that to win in the games of life and poker, he must try to play cards the way he has been living his life and live his life the way he has been playing cards.

Lucky You at IMDB.

Lucky You Preview:

My IMDB Rating prediction… 6.0