by Ashley Adams

The first part of this two-part article [read it now] was a report on the Hollywood Casino in Toledo, Ohio, a poker room I enjoyed. I stopped there on a trip through Ohio with my daughter, Hannah, to visit my brother, Lee, in Minnesota. I stopped at another Ohio poker room, the Horseshoe in Cleveland, on my way back to Boston.

 This is a beautiful downtown casino. It is in the former Higbee’s department store. Parking is free in a multi-storied parking garage across the street. Higbee’s was a Cleveland landmark and was the famous location of the movie A Christmas Story. I enjoyed walking around in and seeing the old architecture that I had seen first in the movie.

 The casino is three stories high, with the 30-table poker room aptly on the top. I was impressed with how many different games were going. When we arrived on a Wednesday evening there were roughly twelve $1/2 no limit hold’em games, three $2/5 games, a $5/10 game, a few $3 - $6 limit hold’em game, a $1/2 pot limit Omaha game, and a $2/5 pot limit Omaha game.

On the same night the winning six numbers were chosen for the record Powerball drawing, a set of jackpot winners claimed California’s largest poker jackpot. At 6:44p.m. on Saturday, May 18, the Pechanga Bad Beat Megashare Jackpot hit and pain 177 players in the Pechanga Poker Room a share of $194,663.00. The “loser,” Jose M. from La Palma, Calif. scored $58,398.00. His hand, a queen high straight flush, was beat by a royal flush and triggered the massive payout.

by Debbie Burkhead

The 44th Annual World Series of Poker kicks off on May 29 and runs through July 15 with 62 coveted WSOP gold bracelets up for grabs in 2013 – which is one more than last year. The WSOP starts off in grand style on Saturday June 1. Event #6, The Millionaire Maker, ($1,500 no-limit hold’em) will feature a one-day start, twoflight, single re-entry event, where the winner will receive $1,000,000!

 The WSOP season is heaven for poker players; the tournament draws tens of thousands of poker players from all over the world, and Las Vegas cardrooms prepare well in advance to offer a variety of games during this once-a-year gathering of poker players. Poker Player Newspaper will have information on specially designed tournaments offered throughout Vegas as an alternative choice for players.

  PPN is also happy to announce that once again, we will be your go-to publication for information on all of the games around town as well as all things WSOP related. This publication will have four special editions that will also include trivia and information about the history, happenings, and results of the WSOP.

  Make sure to pick up your free souvenir copy of PPN, which, as always, is available in every cardroom in Vegas. For your convenience, PPN will have all the latest tournament schedules from cardrooms around Las Vegas, with four special editions during May- July for your most up-to-date information throughout the Series.

 I hope that all our readers have a great experience while here in Las Vegas, and I know that information in our souvenir WSOP editions will help you make the most of your time in town. Good Luck, and I hope to see you at the table.

by David “The Maven” Chicotsky

 How we approach tournaments will have an affect on the way we play. We’re aware going in that there will be ups and downs - that we’ll need to make many correct decisions if we want to have a chance at getting to the final table. When bad things happen while we’re playing, we need to be able to hit the proverbial reset button. Tournaments are long poker marathons where it is necessary to make many correct decisions, and it only takes one mistake to knock you out.

 There are many things that set off poker players and make them lose their mind. When a player loses a big hand, they’re all of a sudden more likely to play in a polarized fashion: go into a shell and play extremely tight, or go on tilt and spew their chips off. Recognizing this, we must be very precise with how we play after we (or our opponent) lose a big hand. These are the times at the table where there is a strong connection between the last hand and the present hand.

by Tom McEvoy

My friend Paul Zibits was playing a tournament at the Commerce Casino in Las Angeles when the following hand came up. This hand was haunting him and he did not know if he made the right play or not so he asked me for my opinion. Here is the situation: We are now one table from the money and Paul has an average stack and is in the big blind. One player goes all-in and Paul has him covered. Now the biggest stack at the table (a good young tournament player) flat calls. Since he is the chip leader he could have a wider range of hands to call the first player’s all- in move. Paul looks down and has pocket Jacks and the action is now on him since all the other players have folded. He knows he has no fold equity since he would not have enough chips left to push the other player off his hand. His thinking was that he probably had a coin flip against one or both of these guys and the 2nd player could have flat called with a bigger pair to trap in this spot which is not uncommon. In the end he folded. If he was up against just the original all-in player, he would have called for sure. If he made the call and lost he would be very short-stacked even if he put no more chips in the pot. This hand has been haunting him ever since and he wanted to know what I would have done in this situation. This was a big tournament at the L.A. Poker Classic so there was a lot at stake.

By Barbara Rogers

Did I get your attention? This is something special, this marathon of events at Delaware Park. Primo event after event, spanning over a time period that should allow players plenty of action to choose from, there is still plenty of time for you to get there. It didn’t take long for the professionalism of the staff, headed by Kevin Castora, making the move from the West Coast, to turn Delaware Park poker action’s into one of the top premier hot spots on the East Coast. And this ambitious schedule, (read it on this outside cover of Poker Player) is one of the many reasons why it happened.
Delaware Park Poker Classic will continue right up to May 28th. Over 1 million in guaranteed prize money has created quite a buzz in the poker rooms. Everywhere I’ve played, I’ve spoken with plenty of players that have already made arrangements to be there. This includes quite a few poker room employees, from dealers to managers in nearby states. Note when you review the schedule, just how many times Delaware Park has added $1,100 to generously sweeten the pot of the satellite’s. With a long list of impressive payouts, the main event is offering a whopping FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR guarantee! Day 1A will be Sat. May 25th at 11am, Day 1B will be Sunday, 26th at 11am. Sixty thousand in starting chips will allow for solid poker playing. You should get your money’s worth in playing time, seeing a raft of hands.

By Shari Geller
 
The World Series of Poker held its annual conference call at 1:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday, May 15, with Executive Director Ty Stewart and Tournament Director Jack Effel sharing news and information about the upcoming series and took questions from the media.  Stewart started out by telling the participants that the theme of this year's series is "To get it right and put on the best damned poker tournament series in the world."
 
The 44th annual WSOP will start on May 29th at the Rio All-Suite Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. "One of our big goals over the past few years has been to kick off the series with a bang," Stewart said as he introduced some of the special events set for this year.
 

by George “The Engineer” Epstein

Here’s an interesting query I received from reader Jack Durr who picks up his copy of PPN at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, NY where he enjoys playing 1-2 NLHE $50Min-$200Max:

 “Could you tell me how many players would have to limp in before the blinds for it to be a +EV to complete the small blind with any two cards?

 The game is small stakes – $200 max NLHE; lots of limping preflop.” It’s an intriguing question—one I have never seen/heard addressed. Basically, the question deals with starting-hand selection. With Jack’s permission, here’s my answer: