Interested in social media?

Date: Sun, Sep 5, 2010 Internet

If you are then check out four/sixty. [ mutterings and musings on social media ]

http://www.foursixty.com

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all change!

Date: Wed, Aug 19, 2009 Internet

poker is going well at the moment, but one of the things i like to do periodically is change the room i'm using. i usually find it helps keep me fresh, interested and allows me to hunt new fish! with online poker being a largely solo pursuit, a visual change can often refocus the mind and give your game a little kick up the backside. there is nothing worse than getting lazy, lazy costs money!

since poker is the same everywhere its a pretty easy thing to do, just my roll, neteller and away we go! i've decided to download the poker software over at 888 and give it a go. its been a room i've been meaning to try for a while now and it seems like a good time to kick it up a gear.

i'll let you know how it goes, probably post a review once i've put in some hands there.

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high stakes report

Date: Mon, Aug 17, 2009 Internet

the last 7 days on full tilts nose bleed tables has been intense to say the least! if you have been following any of the action you will have seen the same familiar faces as well as quite a few new ones.

it seems that since the highest action has moved from the $500/$1000 tables down to the $200/$400 and $300/$600 with ante tables a couple of the almost there players decided to step up to the mark.

now don't get me wrong, the players stepping up are at the top of their game, players like aejones or cole south, however in the past these players have had a pretty tough time at the very highest stakes. so the fact the action droped down maybe made it all the more compelling for them to take a shot. and what a shot they have taken. in the last 7 days some of these players have been on sick heaters, just ripping through the likes of ivey, antonius and durrrr.

taking a quick look at highstakes db you can see that the big winners in the last 7 days are

> martonas, up a staggering $1.6m
> richard ashby, up over $1m as well
> aejones, clocking in at just shy of $900k

but when there are big winners there has to be big losers, and there are

> durrrr, down $1.5m in 7 days. after pulling himself out of the $4m hole he found himself in he is now stuck again!
> patrik antonius, down $1.4 million although he is still very much in the green for the year
> din_fru, running bad and down $1.2m

the action has been mad and the play has been unreal. not mentioned above is cole south, but he has been tearing the plo tables in recent weeks, so do not be surprised to see the red pro book some big wins in the coming days.

also worth a quick mention is the return of matusow to the high stakes online tables. maybe matusow felt the new blood sitting would be easy pickings. sorry mike, i'm sure they were happy with the $140k you donated yesterday!

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poker copilot review

Date: Tue, Aug 11, 2009 Internet

i've spent enough time with poker copilot 2 now to review the product, so here we go :)

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will obama free online poker?

Date: Sun, Aug 9, 2009 Internet

while there were many regrets american citizens had about the policies of the bush administration, one of the toughest blows came to online poker players in the form of the uigea, the unlawful internet gambling enforcement act. this act made it illegal for banks in the united states to do business with online gambling sites, which spelled the end of online poker in the united states for a number of sites.

uigea and poker

online poker players were outraged, specifically feeling that it was unfair for online poker, which can be proven to have a vital skill element, to be lumped in with video poker and other online casino games that are entirely luck. this was especially grating to online poker fans when considering the fact that forms of gambling that benefit the government, such as horse racing and state lotteries, were still considered completely safe and legal.

obama’s response

many poker players whooped that obama would ride in to the rescue. as a democrat, it was hoped that he would be less morally conservative and as a poker player, it was hoped that he would recognize the merits and distinctive character of the game.

the future of online poker

it remains to be seen what will happen. it seems likely that the current question now is not “will obama free online poker?” but “when?” when the white house posted a website asking citizens to post their most important issues for consideration and for people to vote on these issues, legalizing online poker was voted the number one technology issue and the number eleven issue overall.

when will obama free online poker?

this is a new administration with much to do in the wake of the last administration’s failures with respect to the economy and other issues. obama needs to choose and time his battles carefully. however, when the time is right and the right bill is introduced into congress to restore the legality of online poker, it is almost certain that president obama will sign it. when he does, online poker players will be free to come out into the light once more, playing on their favourites sites with no fear of persecution, hopefully ever again.

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pokerstars offers $600 sign up bonus!

Date: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 Internet

anyone else notice the 1200% increase in the new player bonus at pokerstars? i first spotted something strange last week on pokerstars italia where they were offering a 600 euro bonus. interested to see if that was the norm i jumped over to pokerstars.com but alas, the sign up offer still sat at a paltry $50.

then, on wednesday i noticed that my banner execution , see below right, had refreshed and was promoting a $600 offer. again i jumped over to pokerstars.com and yes, there is was in big bold letters! interestingly enough though, the banner creative switched back to the wcoop less than 24 hours later! strange!

so what does this deal signify? from my point of view its a very aggressive message to the market. pokerstars have seen huge growth without offering the same level of sign up bonus as full tilt, party and other poker rooms yet now they have entered into the financial incentive space. was new player growth slowing at pokerstars? is this a big push by them to really turn the screw on their closest competitor, namely full tilt, as their bonuses are now exactly the same?

either way it great for new players, not so great for me as i already have an account, although hopefully an influx of fish will be my return on investment.

it will also be interesting to see if and when pokerstars promote the new bonus. the banner creative changing to the bonus and then back to the wcoop could suggest two things, one that they don't want to take any attention away from a big marketing property, the wcoop. or this is only a soft offer, in which only those consumers affected by pokerstars other marketing activity will be exposed to the bonus message rather then pushing it out with heavy investment for everyone to see.

either way people, the offer is there, its good and if you don't already have a pokerstars account it is definitely worth exploring.

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top 5 poker players of all time

Date: Mon, Aug 3, 2009 Internet

a question that is often asked but almost impossible to answer. regardless of that i thought i would give it a go, here are my thoughts on the who the best poker players of all time are.

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>phil ivey
after the 2009 wsop finished, all bar the returning final table of the main event, it has become clear just how good ivey really is. with 7 wsop bracelets and a chance to take down an 8th come november, plus an astounding record playing in the highest cash games around, ivey is the pinnacle of the poker illuminati. if ivey can keep his hunger alive then who knows where this man can go.

>phil hellmuth
love him or hate him, hellmuth, the most polarizing player in poker is also the most awarded player in wsop history with 11 bracelets to his name. each of his 11 bracelet wins may have been in hold'em but you cannot deny that that he is an incredibly astute player. his self awarness proabably exceed that of any other player and hellmuth, who has cultivated his poker brat image over the years knows exactly how to exploit it to his advantage.

>doyle brunson
one of the patriarchs of poker, brunson has defined the modern game. with skills honed on the dangerous and cut throat texas poker circuit brunson has seen it all. with back to back wsop main event wins in '76 and '77, 10 bracelets in total and the defining poker text to his name (super system) brunson has done more for the game than any other poker player alive today. he may be 76 years old but doyle is ever present at the big games in bobby's room and still teaching the young guns a thing or too about the game he loves.

>stu ungar
equally talented and troubled. stu ungar had a unnatural ability for all card games. winner of the wsop 3 times in 1980, 1981 and most impressively in 1997 after a 16 year absence filled with alcohol and substance abuse. ungar was a widely feared and highly aggressive player constantly putting his opponents to tough decisions. we will always be left wondering what he could have achieved if it wasn't for his self destruction. stu ungar, poker legend.

>tom 'durrrr' dwan
potentially a controversial inclusion but its hard to ignore the young internet juggernaut that are steamrolling the highest games online. durrrr has emerged at the forefront of the internet generation and his rise to the top has been both rapid and a roller-coaster. with daily 7 figure wins and loses a regular occurrence for the young poker star, its his ability to deal with his high variance style and maintain his a game when many others would have imploded. whether or not dwan will still be playing poker in 20, 10 or even 5 years time remains to be seen but right now its hard to ignore this raw talent.

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i realize many of you will have your own opinion on who the top 5 poker players of all time are and i invite you to share your thoughts in the comments. as i said, its a nigh on impossible question to answer but given enough feedback we can get a better idea of what the overall feeling is.

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can this be played slower?

Date: Sun, Aug 2, 2009 Internet

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rounders to rounders 2

Date: Wed, Jul 29, 2009 Internet

with rumours that a sequel to the seminal rounders is being thrown about in hollywood i thought it would be worth remembering what made the original the stand-out poker movie of our time.

> a great cast, norton, damon, malkovich, janssen, turturro, landau etc. a selection of a listers and legends coming together and delivering a believable and interesting dynamic on screen.

> it wasn't set in vegas. new york added emotion, grit and realism to the movie where as the neon lights of vegas would have blinded the audience to the real struggle portrait in the movie.

> actually watching people play poker took a back seat with the tension and bravery of the game coming to the fore.

> there was no ridiculous quad aces getting rivered by a royal flush moment

> its was about the grind, the emotional roller coaster, about trying to make it playing poker. something that all players can relate to on one level or another.

at the end of the movie damon went off to chase his wsop dream in vegas. i would hate to think the sequel would continue exactly where the last left off, i feel it would be an anticlimax to the power of the originals script. the story in vegas may make a nice intro or even form itself through flashbacks, but for me, the grind in new york is far more compelling than any bright vegas has to offer. here's hoping that rounders 2 doesn't become a traditional hollywood over the top sequel.

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mac poker: your options

Date: Tue, Jul 28, 2009 Internet

how many people play poker on their macs? how many of those players only use native mac software? what are you left with? probably not a lot in all honesty. online poker is predominately a pc orientated pastime, and even those brave enough to use a mac likely run windows via bootcamp or parallels.

however it doesn’t need to be this way. ss a new mac user and one that was absolutely against running anything not built for mac osx i went in search of options, and what follows is what i found. i hope that my research can help guide others that are in the same predicament or are tempted by a mac but find playing poker on the platform daunting.

hardware
i’ll keep this brief as i’m not here to sell the benefits of an apple mac as a system, needless to say if you are thinking of buying a mac you have the same opportunities available too you as you would buying a pc namely a desktop or a laptop. i’m a laptop fan myself as it gives me the flexibility to play poker wherever i please, plus I always have the option of buying a separate screen if I want to take advantage of a bigger viewable area. apple do a great 24inch screen, it may be a little more expensive then adding a standard pc monitor but if you are really that price sensitive then you probably won’t be buying a mac in the first place.

card rooms
of the hundreds of card rooms out there these days there are only 2 that offer native mac support through downloadable software. the alternative to downloadable software is insta play, which is essentially playing within your internet browser. i for one prefer the piece of mind that comes with running the card room off local machine software, meaning you have a choice of pokerstars or full tilt poker.

pokerstars
pokerstars is my favourite cardroom for tons of reasons which i won't go into here, however if you would like to read a full and impartial review of pokerstars then click here.

full tilt poker
full tilt is the second of the two cardrooms offereing native mac support and was actually the first in market to offer it. again, a full review is available if you click here.

hand analysis software
this is where life becomes a little tricky on a mac as the major programs do not currently support native mac osx. there are a number of strands appearing on the major poker forums that poker tracker 3 for mac is well under development and being a big fan of the software i very much hope that this is true.

while waiting for pt3 though, there are 2 alternatives that you can try. both offer 30 day free trials and are resonably proced if you decide to go ahead and purchase the full version.

poker copilot
poker copilot is the software i have mentioned previously in relation to mac poker. they are about to poker copilot 2 with a number of upgrades direct from consumer feedback. things are looking promising for this mac native hand analysis package and i will be putting together an indepth review over the next few weeks which will be available here.

flopzoom
flopzoom is the second piece of mac native software i have found. check out their website here. i currently have no experience with this piece of software but have recently seen some improvements that make me want to test it. if i do take the plunge then a review will appear here. in the meantime any comments or experiences with flopzoom are welcome.

summary
in conclusion, at first glance the opportunity to play and analyse your poker on a mac seems fairly limited. however once the surface has been scratched it becomes clear that there are a variety of options available to the mac owner. so don't sit around fretting mac owners, fire up some of the quality software available to you and get playing poker.

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music to watch the cards go by

Date: Sun, Jul 26, 2009 Internet

poker can be a lonely game. you’re a lone warrior battling in solitude with only enemies for company. many a poker player therefore finds solice in music. a constant companion that can lift spirits or deepen despair.

but can music alter the way you play? can upbeat, high tempo music make you play more positively? and conversely can slow beat, angst esq music make you play more passively? recently i’ve been experimenting to test just this.

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mac poker

Date: Sat, Jul 25, 2009 Internet

i've always been a pc guy. ever since i convinced my parents to buy a pc back in the mid 90's, a gateway pentium 75. it ran windows 95 and i loved it! since then i've gone through one other desktop and 3 laptops. my last being a dell xps m1330 which was only purchased in 2007. in fact read my review of that purchase here.

unfortunately my lovely dell had a problem. deep inside its bowels the graphics chip, which was mounted on the motherboard, generated too much heat which eventually shorted its host. dell were kind enough to replace it the first time it happened but it has since happened again and although i'm sure dell would replace it once more i can't live with an erratic pc.

near where i work there is a big glass store with an enticing fruit mounted above the door. that store is the apple store. i popped in a couple of times during my lunch hour to play around with their machines and ended up falling in love! not only do macs look gorgeous but the operating system is so smooth and user friendly. applications open quickly and easily and nothing crashed or blue screened.

so guess what, i bought one! well i actually bought two as i bought my wife one as well so she wouldn't try and steal mine! i bought myself a 13 inch mac book pro and it is one slick piece of kit.

problem is with a mac is that there isn't a great deal of choice when it comes to poker software. only full tilt and pokerstars offer native support and none of the big hand analysis packages run on mac osx. i know you can run windows on your mac via bootcamp but to be honest, why would i slow down my system and eat up all its available resources to run windows.

luckily i'm a big fan of pokerstars so i have no problem placing my entire roll there, the hand analysis software however is something that i miss, even if its just for analyzing my own play as opposed to tracking others. poker tracker have mooted releasing a mac osx version of pt3 but no dates have been set. after a few searches however i came across a piece of software called poker copilot. it built for mac, and although it is fairly basic vs pt3 or holdem manager it does go someway to filling the void. i've only been using it for 24 hours but i have to say that i had zero problems setting it up, it hasn't missed any hands, hasn't frozen or had any other compatibility tantrums. something that neither poker tracker or holdem manager can claim, at least in my experience.

so all well so far then. i put in a couple of good sessions today and am up 2 buy-ins, nothing to do with the mac but at least i'm playing again. i'll definitely post a review of both my new mac and poker copilot as i log a few more hours with both, but in the meantime if anyone was considering a mac but was worried about their poker suffering, i wouldn't! poker lives, and it lives on the mac!

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the top 5 things all new poker players should consider

Date: Thu, Jul 23, 2009 Internet

new to poker, still learning the ropes, confused by it all? If you find yourself nodding your head and you want a little advice about what to think and where to start, then I hope the following five handy insights will set you on your way to a long and successful poker career.

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>bankroll
the bankroll or roll as its affectionately known. a subject that has been heavily debated by many. what is under-rolled or playing outside your roll? whats good bankroll management? questions that, in my opinion are best answered on a personal level rather than trying to broad brush stroke everyone. the key for any new player really, is not to gamble anything they can’t afford to lose. once you have determined that then if you follow my advice the rest of the decisions that you will need to make initially will almost be made for you. do remember though that your bankroll is your means to play poker. don’t make the mistake of calling your life money (ie. the money you need for food, rent, baby essentials) your bankroll, because its not. your bankroll should sit outside of all other financial obligations and just be there for poker. once its big enough and you are winning on a regular basis then you’ll be able to take money from your bankroll to add to your life money. in other words, poker will be a source of income, now that’s a good thing.

>poker room
so you have your bankroll and you are ready to gamble, but where do you play. there has been an absolute explosion of poker rooms in recent years, with skins such as ipoker and microgaming seemingly adding new rooms almost everyday. beyond just the room itself there are other factors to consider, such as rakeback, traffic, security, customer service and ease and convenience of depositing and withdrawing money. rake back is probably one of the biggest influencers in a small stakes players choice of card room, mainly because it helps offset the rake, which is the house take on each hand that is played. there are varying rake deals available ranging from 20-60% depending on the volume you play, and in part, the desperation of the room to attract new players. if you are interested in looking at the rake back deals that are available then I would recommend looking at those offered by rake the rake. i’ve had nothing but an excellent experience with the team there and they will offer you the same level of service. personally though, after trying room after room, shifting my roll around, there is only one place that I play at these days and that’s pokerstars. pokerstars doesn’t offer rakeback and to be honest there new player sign up deal is pretty lame but if you can see past those factors for a moment you will see that they have 1) the highest average traffic of any card room, over double that of its closest rival. 2) lots of fishy players to cash in on. 3) they have the best customer service I have experienced anywhere, always helpful, prompt and effective. 4) they are secure and safe, you won’t have any problems depositing or withdrawing money, they don’t slow down processing to hang on to your money a little longer and there aren’t any ridiculous security requirements to withdraw either like some rooms. pokerstars just offers the best product in the marketplace by a long way and that is why they are number 1. if you want my advice then play there, at least to begin with while you are finding your feet, and then experiment with other rooms once you are comfortable with the whole online poker process.

>tournaments or cash
the next big decision is whether to play cash or tournaments. new players often ask what the difference is, after all you are playing the same game in both. however the dynamics of cash vs tourneys, as they are affectionately known, are vastly different. the biggest difference is that you can’t reload in a tournament if you lose all your chips. if a player sucks out on you then that’s it, your chance at the money is gone, however in cash you can simply buy back in and wait for the fish who sucked out on you to make the same mistake again and give you your chips back. there have been many occasions where i have seen a particularly bad player get lucky time and time again, building up a huge stack of mine and others money only for me to play patiently and eventually take all his chips off him making a very tidy profit in the process. that obviously isn’t possible in a tournament. however single table tournaments, called sit and go’s (sng’s) are a good place to learn the ropes in poker. your loses are limited to the buy-in and it gives you a chance to play with the safety net of always knowing where you stand financially. my advice is to experiment though, find your groove, develop your style and see where you are most profitable.

>stakes
the question of stakes has more to do with your bankroll then anything else. you would have seen me mention bankroll management above and deciding what stakes to play is a big part of this. the general rule when playing cash is that you have no less than 20 full buy-ins for whatever stake you are playing. so for example if you are playing nl20, or no limit holdem with a max buy-in of $20 then you should have at least twenty times that in your bankroll. so $400 minimum. the max buy in is usually 100 times the big blind, so for nl20 you would have blinds of 10/20c. the small blind being 10c and the big blind being 20c. there is variation to the 20 buy-in rule for example there is less swing in limit holdem then there is in no limit holdem and more swing in heads-up then in ring games but personally i always like 20-25 buy-ins in my account to absorb any bad runs i go on.

>style
lastly, there is the question of style, or how exactly you are going to play poker. so are you a loose or tight player, are you passive or aggressive. generally being aggressive is always better than being passive. all of the top pro’s are aggressive players and they put their opponents under a huge amount of pressure because of it. the difference between loose and tight is more personal in my opinion. loose players get more action but get themselves in many more difficult spots. if you are a great reader of the game then you’ll have the skills to find the right play in those tough positions, if you aren’t then you’ll see yourself making a lot of mistakes. tight players generally see less swing in their game but are easier to read and therefore don’t always get paid off on their big hands. i suggest finding whatever you feel most comfortable with and practicing as much as you can to develop the instincts and experience you need to succeed.

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so that concludes the 5 key elements to consider when starting out in the world of online poker. i won’t lie, there is a lot to learn, but it will be a hell of a lot of fun. i still remember firing up my first real money sng and busting early on. i didn’t really know what was going on but it was fun, and i fired up another one straight away with pretty much the same result! But after about 4 or 5 goes i took down my first sng and the buzz was great! not long after that i moved to cash games and that has been where I have stayed ever since.

however your journey begins though, just have fun and remember, we all started in the same place!

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high stakes report

Date: Tue, Jul 21, 2009 Internet

for those of you that read my high society post yesterday, you would have seen the not to difficult to predict prediction that when tom ‘durrrr’ dwan returned to the online tables the action would pick up. it seems it has already come true! as the $200/400 games raged yesterday turning a little crazy as they went on, it was nothing compared to what was to come. as the games turned down right insane once durrrr and david benyamine sat down. durrrr proceeded to go on a crushing marathon taking down any and everyone that got in his way. what made the action even sicker was the number of deep multiway pots taking place, which naturally durrrr seemed to take down. if the gamble continues then we could see a new biggest pot even at these stakes.

once the carnage had subsided and the dust had settled there were a number of victors with brian townsend, richard ashby, rafi ‘howsitfeellike’ amit all posting a profit but it was durrrr that sat proudly at the top of the pile banking in excess of $800k for the session. hopefully this is the beginning of some sustained high stakes action, as the railbirds have been feeling a little neglected over the past 6 weeks.

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