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“The Department of Justice is not taking or confiscating funds. I get 5 to 10 calls a day from clients that think the US Department of Justice made them close. I think this should be made clear to the gambling community.” a respected bookmaker who wishes to remain anonymous told TheOnlineWire.com Friday. “Just because a federal judge in some state puts an indictment on a sportsbook doesn’t mean that they have to close. Sportbooks are perfectly legal in Costa Rica as long as operators obey Costa Rican laws. Why BetonSports closed is a mystery.” the bookie added.

SBN: A Sucker’s Bet

America’s new poker poster boy Jamie Gold had railbirds and players alike scratching their heads and scoffing when he told ESPN that he didn’t want the fame of being the latest WSOP champ. The black-clad endorsement-bedecked former Hollywood talent agent smacked disingenuous when he actually announced that he was willing dump his massive chip lead and settle for second place to avoid all the attention associated with the big win at the “big dance.”

Hollywood, Interrupted: LIAR’S POKER: ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT (WSOP CHAMP) GOLD

U.S. movie producer Philip Ittleson is following the ethos of his poker documentary “No Limit” this week by publicizing his Let The People Play.org website to help educate and unite the millions of poker players in the United States who are against legislation that would ban online gambling, including poker.

“The whole internet gaming ban is a joke,” Ittleson says. “Poker players aren’t terrorists - let’s get our priorities straight. The biggest crime is that we aren’t regulating and taxing it.”

In order to combat the legislation, Ittleson set up the Let The People Play organization with the goal of raising a volunteer “army” to educate the estimated 70 million poker players in American about legislative moves in Congress and get them to sign up to defend the game and poker players’ rights.

Let the people play Mr. President

Daniel Negreanu and Greg Raymer are feuding, and they are doing so in a public arena. The rift between the two began when Negreanu criticized the seven players for filing the lawsuit via his video blog. Negreanu voiced his displeasure at both the timing and the nature of the lawsuit, stating, “I think it’s a bit ridiculous, frankly. I think they’re making a really big mistake, not only for them, but for all poker players. The people at the WPT are going to destroy them – they’re going to smear their names, discredit them, show that they’re affiliated with online poker sites, and that’s exactly what the WPT is going to do.” Negreanu also added that because of the bill against online gaming in Congress, it was bad timing for the seven to add more negative attention towards poker.

Daniel Negreanu and Greg Raymer Have ‘Online Feud’ Over WPT Lawsuit | Poker News

Following the arrest of BetOnSports’ CEO as he passed through the US on his way back to Costa Rica, the site shut down while it dealt with its legal problems. With so much attention, the payment processors who worked with the company have bailed on them, saying they won’t process payments any more. For the most part, that doesn’t matter, since no one can use the site any more. However, for existing customers who already had bets in process with the site, there’s a lot of money hanging out there — and the company can’t even give it back. The company claims it wants to give back the money, but is finding it difficult with the various payment processors not cooperating. Of course, given that some in Congress are trying to say that anyone doing any kind of betting online deserves jailtime, perhaps some of those who are out some cash on these bets should just be happy they’re not going to jail and let the money go.

Techdirt: Anyone Want To Bet If BetOnSports’ Customers Will Get Their Money Back?

Key findings from this report:

* Poker is thought to still offer the most online growth over the next three years, compared with online gambling and online games.
* Online Poker playing respondents tend to play weekly.
* Offline Poker playing respondents tend to play very occasionally.
* The largest amount of respondents play Poker for fun and to relax or socialize.
* They occasionally watch Poker on television and feel there is the right of amount of Poker programming in their countries.
* PartyPoker comes out on top as the most recognized Poker brand, followed by 888.com and the World Series of Poker.
* Ben Affleck is the celebrity who the respondents most associate with Poker.
* Respondents feel that legislation offers the biggest threat to the Poker industry.
* Nearly half the respondents are sitting on the fence as far as their outlook for the industry is concerned, with 48 percent staying neutral. Of the rest, the majority are however bullish.

Poker still offers the best online growth prospects

Is there anything worse than being the first to bust out of a tournament that you are hosting?

It is your house, so you can’t simply make your leave gracefully. This unfortunate set of circumstances has happened to many of us on more than one occasion. A couple of dozen guys converge on your basement for a cutthroat game of No Limit Hold ‘Em. You make an early misstep or get unlucky and boom, all of your chips are gone. Suddenly you seem like a stranger in your own home. You look around uncomfortably, unsure of what to do next. You are really no longer a part of the action at your table. There are no other players around to chat with, or to play side games as they are still in on the main tournament action. It is the poker walk of shame. Maybe you’ve played for hours in a medium buy-in tournament in an Atlantic City casino and built up a huge chip stack. It looks like you’ll cruise to a nice cash finish on the final table. Five hands later you’ve bluffed and called away all of your money before the bubble, and the railbirds are asking you “What happened?” as you make your way to the door with your head hung low. It is the poker walk of shame.

Poker Player Home Page :: Articles :: Poker Walk of Shame

Too remote. Both players checked, as did Mike. He says he could have bet here, but the fear of a straight flush was still too remote, and the pot was too small to protect. He preferred to give his opponents one last chance to bet on the river. The river card was seven of hearts. The small blind checked and the big blind bet about half of Mike’s stack. Mike just called. I asked him why he didn’t raise. Since the big blind hadn’t raised before the flop, Mike thought that it was less likely that he held an ace of hearts. More likely he was bluffing or held 9h, making a straight flush. A legitimate bet centered on the 9h (a straight flush), the Ah (the best regular flush), or a bluff. With the 9h being slightly more likely than an Ah, it wouldn’t make sense to raise if the bet had been made from strength. And Mike couldn’t throw it away, because the likelihood of the opponent either bluffing or holding an Ah meant that Mike was the favorite on the call. So that’s what he did, called.

Poker Player Home Page :: Articles :: Four of a kind loses at the WSOP

“Chop Chop
With no raises, Michael Binger and Dan Nassif see a flop of 754. Both players check. The turn brings the 7. Binger fires out $200,000 and Nassif just calls. The river brings the 7 and Binger checks to Nassif who bets out $500,000. Binger calls and shows Q-7 for 7-7-7-5-5. Nassif, however, also shows a seven with K-7 in his hand. The players chop the pot. “

Check the Deck | PokerBlog.com

And then there was 9. . . Fred Goldberg was the unlucky winner of $1,154,527 as the 10th place finisher in the World Series of Poker main event. His Q3 ran into KK and he became Poker’s first ever final table bubble millionaire!

Poker.com’s Poker Blog: WSOP Final Table Decided

Having spent the last 7 weeks here in the desert, I can tell you with certainty the best way to watch the final table of the 2006 World Series of Poker will be in the comfort of your own living room. ESPN pay per view will be carrying a live feed of the final table of the main event of the World Series of Poker this Thursday. Coverage starts at 5pm Eastern.

Sure, if you bought the pay per view, you would miss the energy of being in the room for poker’s greatest event. However, having been in the room for many of the bracelet events this year, comfort and sightlines are not exactly the strength of the poker ’stadium’ being built for this huge event.

Watch it From Your Couch: The WSOP Final Table is on Pay Per View | Poker News

Humberto Brenes capped off a fantasitic 2006 World Series including eight cashes and one final table appearance with his 36th-place finish in the Main Event, winning over $400,000 during the last 40 days. Said Humberto, “I feel good, but it is difficult to feel good when you’re out. I was dreaming all year of winning the World Series, but when I see that I made it 8 times in the money, in 36th place out of 8773 players, I think I played good. Every time I was deep in the money, I got busted with the best hand.”

After logging dozens of hours with several of the players throughout the last few days, this poker guru shared whom he believes should be the players to look out for our of the final 18 players left, and why

Handicapping with Humberto Brenes – Players he Thinks you Should Watch | Poker News

As some of you know, I’ve been creating a list of 6-max rules by running some statistical analysis on my database. I had to learn queries, and I thank all the guys in the SQL forum for helping me learn.

I have done the following:
1) I used Excession basic 10-max rules as a starting point. You can find his latest rules at http://www.andymcnish.btinternet.co.uk/newauto.htm
2) I adjusted my database for outliers because they were skewing the data. A few of the hyperaggressive types (say AF of over 20 or even infinity) were making the average AF much higher than the median.
3) I declared that anything greater than 1 standard deviation or in the upper 1/3 or bottom 1/3 of the population qualified as extreme. For example, a tight player must be more than 1SD from the average or in the bottom third of all VP$IP.
4) I used 50 hands as a minimum threshold to qualify for the autorate rules. The problem here is you need a minimum threshold that is large enough to be representative of that group’s style, yet not so large that a losing style has already busted out. By 100 hands, many poor styles (like Extra-loose) have already busted out making the data look different.
5) I then finetuned the database rules so that there is a relatively even distribution between the major categories (e.g., rock, fish, etc.). This is extremely time consuming.

I hope this helps everyone. I have this all in Excel and I’m happy to forward it to anyone who wants the full data. Thanks to Excession and Aperfect10 for all their help.

6-max Rules–Finally

As I mentioned in my last installment that low stakes poker can be exceedingly frustrating, - so much though - that I began to buy in to the biggest game that I could find with only one minimum buy-in. If in fact I had $200 I bought into a $20-$40 game where I only had 10 small and 5 big bets. No matter, it is just about the quality of cards coming into the pot - and players not staying for the duration of the hand - that I made this move. The first time that I played $20- $40 I actually played the hand badly and probably should not have even been in the hand. If it were not for the fact that two of the early players into the pot, just called sucking me in, I would have folded my hand - ace-9 of clubs. When they started raising and re-raising, I knew that I was in trouble. Well, I figured it was too late to fold since all my money was already committed. The flop brought 2 little clubs and the 10 of diamonds. At this point, I knew that the two slow players had to have kings and aces but since the board was not paired I was drawing to the (nut) best hand and I was running out of money as well. The turn card brought the unpaired jack with the loveliest club attached to it. The river brought a brick and I was home free with a huge pot to go along with it. I took an out button - right away - to eat my free meal (steak and potatoes) and enjoyed the ambiance of the losing players wanting their money back. Even though I got away with playing badly this is the kind of thing that happens all the time in these poker games. Some person like me sits down with a meager buy-in plays ace-9 against aces and kings and drags the pot, I said, “and drags the pot”.

Poker Player Home Page :: Articles :: Conquering Flaws

SSNL is officially the highest-traffic strategy forum on all of 2p2! We have a lot of great posters here, and they contribute a lot to the forum that everyone should know about. If we just stickied these things as they happen, like most strat forums, we would have 12 stickies.

This thread was created to be a master sticky. It will have links to our FAQ, the previos digests, essays and other works by our posters, and any bits of news that come up. This way we can get the information to everybody without cluttering up the front page.

All posters need to read the Posting Guidelines and the FAQ at the minumum, but you really should read everything here. It will make you a better player & a better poster.

Good reading!

The 2+2 Forums: SSNL Master Sticky - ALL POSTERS MUST READ (Digest 7/25)

This is it: my 1000th post (except I posted it in the Jurollo forum and deleted it, so now it is 1001st)! I should start by thanking everyone on this forum: you’ve made me tens of thousands of dollars and made it a lot of fun to play poker. Special thanks to Jurollo and Lloyd for moderating the form so well, keeping it full of high-quality content, coming up with fun events, etc. (ZBT and Chief as well, but J and L have been the main ones during my time here). I want to give something back to the forum with this milestone post, and since I am the Philosopher of Poker, I’m going to share the way I’ve been thinking about poker recently and consider some of its implications.

The 2+2 Forums: Millenial Dissertation: Profitable Situations (Very Long)

It’s *my* personal opinion, as a lawyer who studied antitrust law in law school, that Raymer’s being a pedantic ass (and that the lawsuit has a serious uphill battle). Also, I thought Greg Raymer was smart enough to know that not every one is going to be pleased by this action, no matter that “we are doing this to help them”. Did he ever consider that maybe some people don’t want or *need* his “help”?

That he’s doing this to “help all of us” is a load of tripe, of course. The average player stands to gain nothing from this lawsuit. The antitrust arguments are a stretch and anyway won’t really matter much to a guy who satellites into a WPT event off of Party Poker, and the portion of the poker community that will benefit from a change in the WPT release is less than 1 percent. Who’s got whose hand in whose ass, Greg? And really, don’t expect any pity party that you’re using your own money to fund this lawsuit.

Riding the F Train: Let Slip the Dogs of War

Now that Drew Barrymore does not have to stay in character, the actress says she is ready to learn poker from the pros.

Barrymore, who stars in Lucky You, a movie set at the 2003 World Series of Poker, said she missed out on lessons given to other actors by pros such as Doyle Brunson because she plays a lounge singer who doesn’t know much about gambling.

“Now that I don’t have to stay true to the movie for my character, I’m planning to pick up as many tips as I can from the experts so I can go home and kick my friends’ butts,” the 31-year-old actress said.

Drew ready to give poker a try - People - Entertainment - smh.com.au

First, a disclaimer: This subject is ridiculous. Advancing the notion of poker as sport and its players as athletes will certainly get you laughed at out in the real world - away from the gambling hall - and possibly slapped around by anyone who has ever made a living at basketball, golf or even bowling, for that matter.

Yet there must be a good reason Chris Tarantino showed up a half-hour in advance of his day at the World Series of Poker to go through a rigorous regimen of stretching. There must be a reason poker pro Phil Gordon drinks enough water to fill Hoover Dam before he enters the main event. There must be a reason the most popular people on the tournament floor come 10 o’clock each night are not the cocktail waitresses but the roaming masseuses.

“This game,” Gordon says, “is about sustenance. You use a whole lot of mental energy at the table and if you don’t replace it, you’re killing yourself.”

Gordon isn’t trying to fool anyone. He doesn’t consider poker a sport.

AP Wire | 07/31/2006 | Pays to be in shape for poker - really

That’s the theory at least, and since Internet poker was invented, it’s been a concern of a small but loud minority of players. Up to now, I’ve never had much time for these people, mainly because in several years of playing on-line I’ve been a constant (albeit small) winner. Some of my friends have experienced even better results. None of them have ever seen any evidence of a bot playing on-line, and a lot of the “I was cheated” stories reek of paranoia and show a fundamental misunderstanding of the standard deviation inherent in poker (i.e. luck). Also, I’ve worked in the software industry for 20 years and know something about how difficult designing a successful “poker-bot” would be.

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