Poker Player Newspaper

by Tricia Tequida
 
Look around; low limit tournaments are everywhere. The back of this newspaper lists all the tournaments at most card rooms in the USA and it’s actually rather mind boggling just how many are available [Editors Note: also available online]. They are fun, fast, and furious, most with very few chips, and very fast blind levels. But are they really cheap? If you play just three times a week, two $40 buy-ins and one $60 entry amounts to $7,280 a year. If you cash at least twice a month, maybe it’s not too bad of an ROI. But these tournaments are not easy to win. Because you get so few chips there is no margin for error and luck is a huge factor. Realistically you have the opportunity to play one hand, and if you don’t win your first hand, you may be playing for the balance of your chips on the next hand.

 I frequently play these low limit tournaments and what is the appeal?

 Well let me tell ya! I recently played a $40 tournament with 157 players, an incredible number for a Monday tournament, but it was a holiday and no one was working. The prize pool was $5,000, a large sum for a daily tournament, and if you make it to the chop you are looking at about $600-$700, which is not bad for three hours work and a $40 investment!

By A.C. Clark

 Greetings readers, please allow me to introduce myself. I am the new Northwest Region Sales Representative for Poker Player Newspaper. As implied by the title of my column, which I must give credit to my beautiful and witty wife for coming up with the name, I will be writing about what is happening in the northwest region, starting with Washington and Northern Quest Resort & Casino. It’s a truly world-class casino in Airway Heights, conveniently located near Spokane’s International Airport. All-in tip: Northern Quest offers a free shuttle service from the airport to the casino that is quick and easy. Don’t hesitate to use it.

 Recently I spent some of my winter break playing poker in Northern Quest’s state-of-the-art poker room. It’s all about no-limit Texas hold’em in this nine-table, non-smoking poker room with at least two small limit $3-$6 hold’em tables and a spread limit $2-$200 up to $5-$500. During tournaments, a tenth table is usually set up to accommodate late arrivals. If you like Omaha/8, there is a morning group that plays on a $4-$8 table regularly.

by Tom "TIME" Leonard
 
 The best way to avoid a swing and a miss is to keep your eye on the ball. While that’s good advice when standing in the batter’s box, what about when you’re sitting at the poker table and the flop completely misses you? This occurrence happens all too frequently. To cite one of the oldest laments in history, “If I had a nickel for every time... yadda, yadda, yadda!” I guess we would all be rich if we got paid for every time we missed the flop. So what should we do when this occurs?

 I bet you know the answer to that question … it depends! Let’s examine a common situation such as holding a suited A-K in early position. OK, we raised before the flop and collected four passengers on our train ride to victory. Our first problem is we were out of position and our second is an ugly flop of 3-9-10 of mixed suits and our suited Big Slick is the missing suit. You had such high hopes for this great looking hand. What do you do now? Many players automatically make a continuation bet since they were the aggressor before the flop.

by Lou Krieger
 
Last time [Read Part 1] we left you with these suggestions about reraising. Building a pot with the best hand was the first and foremost reason to reraise. We also told you that you can build a pot with a big draw, and that you do not need to be a favorite to win the pot to make it a profitable play.

 Another reason is to isolate the raiser and contest the pot heads-up. This protects your hand from weak draws by eliminating their pot odds.

 You can also reraise whenever you think the bettor is drawing. If a card comes that supports their draw you can shut it down and not give them any more chips. Reraising also allows you to determine the pot odds your opponents will be getting, and can be used as leverage to push your opponents off of drawing hands. With two pair, you’d like to price out the straight and flush draws, but if you have a full house you’d ideally want to bet only enough to garner their calls, since they will be drawing dead.

by Mike Caro - The Mad Genius of Poker
 
We hear it in sports frequently—an announcer telling us which team has the momentum. Momentum can apply in poker, too. But does the concept really make sense? Let’s use today’s self-interview to investigate.

 Question 1: Is momentum as important in poker as it is in sports? Wait! Stop assuming things with your questions. Sometimes momentum isn’t even important in sports.

 Often it’s an illusion. A sequence of coin flips can seem to show momentum. But there is no momentum whatsoever. There’s only the observation that, recently, either heads or tails landed at a pace considerably greater than the expected 50 percent. You can call that momentum, so go ahead. But actually it isn’t. That’s simply because the previous series of outcomes has no bearing whatsoever on whether the next coin flip will be heads or tails. Assuming a perfectly balanced coin and a fair toss, it’s exactly 50 percent likely that the next toss will bring tails. Same for heads.

By Wendeen H. Eolis

BULLETIN: TAPIE LAWYER EXPOSES FTP PRO DEBT  

This morning, Group Bernard Tapie lawyer, Behnam Dayanim acknowledged to Poker Player Newspaper that multiple hurdles will need to be overcome for the deal to acquire Full Tilt to go through. He notes one key issue is outstanding debt by players to FTP. Poker Player Newspaper has separately learned that the debt is in the range of 15 million dollars and that most of those players have made no effort to arrange for repayment. GBT has counted on these monies as real and viable assets, and does not envision having to litigate to obtain them . Information is now coming in to indicate other specific hurdles that could imperil the deal, as well.

Full Tilt Update Bulletin at High Noon:

GROUP BERNARD TAPIE EXPOSES PLAYER NAMES