2008 October 13

Clocking in at a seemingly infinite 19 hours and 10 minutes, John Juanda's victory at the 2008 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event was the longest final table in the 39-year history of the World Series of Poker. Measured in time from start to finish, the duration of this "final nine" shattered by three hours and ten minutes the mind-numbing 16-hours played in the $1,500 buy-in Razz championship, won by O'Neil Longson in 2005.

Justice is incidental to law and order. -J. Edgar Hoover

[This is a work of poker fiction set ten thousand hands in the future. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.]

I have seen an inordinate number of articles in the recent poker literature offering advice on when and how one might advance to higher stakes than they are currently playing. While much of what I've read is good advice, there doesn't seem to be too much out there on the subject of moving back down the ladder you once climbed.

We've all experienced rough patches when everything seems to go wrong and you begin to scratch your head while contemplating how you could be losing so much money in a game that you had been regularly beating like a drum. Hey... it happens.

It started with the Absolute Poker super-user scandal, and continues with the UltimateBet cheating scandal. There are many similarities between these two cases that involve two online poker sites, but the one overriding tie that binds is their joint ownership. Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG is a Canadian company that was established to purchase the two companies and bring them together under one roof.

When I'm not playing poker I'm a professional union negotiator and have been for 25 years. So when I write about bargaining, I know of what I speak. Let me tell you about a bargaining strategy that many of us apply, with disastrous results, at the poker table. Understand it, recognize it in yourself, and avoid it.

Oops! I Won Too Much Money
by Tom Schneider
Brown Books Publishing Group (2006) ISBN: 1-933285-37-0 218 pp, $24.99

Low limit and medium limit Omaha/8 is a potential cash cow at many internet poker rooms. A buddy of mine has built a substantial portion of his rather impressive bankroll by simply playing disciplined, patient Omaha/8 poker.

It's helpful to come up with a set of starting hand guidelines for the first betting round of whatever poker variant you're playing. A good set of starting hand guidelines will prevent you from:

1. Getting chips in immediately as a heavy underdog.

2. Becoming entangled in later betting rounds in situations that range from being perilous to outright disastrous.

Former Republic of Ireland soccer pro Tony Cascarino won the seventh leg of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT), outscoring a field of 175 players to win the first prize of £52,850 at the Grosvenor casino in Bolton and his first major poker event.

If your money odds for winning are larger than your cards odds are against winning, you will win in the long run. If your money odds are smaller, you're just gambling and in the long run you will lose. Because money odds are so important to your financial health, we'll focus on money odds in the next few issues of Poker Player Newspaper.