09 January 2004

Poker blog link of the day: Anisotropy - "The difference in the property of a system with changes in direction or position, or, what the hell is this little white disk thingy?"
As the title says eloquently, all about sean's property change as he moves from losing to winning hands!...

"AS A WISE MAN once said about the game of poker, you've got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em, know when to walk away, know when to run.
As World Poker Tour founder Steve Lipscomb discovered, you've also got to know how to film'em. "

Poker's real ace

Interesting investor's analysis on the value of the WPT: Betting the World Poker Tour
"On the ratings success of the WPT, Lakes' stock has more than tripled off its May lows near $5."

08 January 2004

This is one I meant to blog for a long time, but I just couldn't get used to the yahoo group format. Alas, The greatest lady poker writer has set up her compelling, amusing and enlightening offline poker stories in some sort of web format. So welcome to Felicia's Poker Journal online. This is a must read, despite the fact Felicia hates online poker:

"The one thing that keeps me winning in poker is my ability to read hands, other players, know the psychology of players, anti-tilt, etc.

Players often pull me to the side after a session and ask me how I "know" this and that. How did I "know" so-and-so didn't have the ace? How did I "know" my pocket aces were no good? How did I "know" second pair would win?

I'm not saying that tells and psychology are a huge part of poker, that someone is going to make a million dollars if they DON'T play solid poker, but have incredible reads. They will lose. But it IS my strong point. My only real advantage in poker."

------
(Phil Hellmuth, watch out!)
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"This is rendered null and void online. Not only that, but I just don't like it. It bores me to tears. I'd rather read a good poker book, read the poker forums online, write stories, watch a movie. Well, basically anything but play online poker!"

Poker blog link of the day: Brian's Poker Journal - from humble gambling beginnings to WSOP champion? Promising stuff.

And the keyword referrer of the day (for a top 1 position in Google please!): FHM bunny poker. Ah well...

Is online poker beneficial to B&M cardrooms? Or is it draining the player base away? This is one of the important question the latest Cardplayer magazine table tal column asks in Clicking for dollars: our perceptions of Online Poker.
A few years ago (1996-97) I did some work for a publisher in South Africa, and there were some intense discussions about the threat of online publishing, and how they would have to turn their business model on its head to weather the digital revolution! I think almost anyone in the publishing industry today will agree that making their content available online has boosted their print publication business rather than the feared opposite. Even better, many publishers have been able to introduce successful pay for content schemes, creating a whole new revenue line from their online presence.
Poker in my view will go through the same phase. The huge difference though is that many Brick and Mortar cardrooms have not seized the opportunity to extend their physical presence online, and are now faced with pure play new entrants who have build enormously strong brands and taken the lion share of the market. If I am not mistaken, most of the big online poker brands (partypoker, pokerstars, planetpoker, Ultimatebet, pacificpoker, paradisepoker,...) are pure plays, with no relation to B&M casinos.
Today, the net effect for existing B&M cardrooms is positive, because of the increased popularity of the game and because the online pokerrooms are driving their clients to physical cardrooms for the big tourney events (WPT), which are being showcased on TV.
The situation will become interesting when partypoker decides to create a party branded B&M cardroom (or buy one over). But all in all, there will still be a significant part of the poker economy which will remain offline.

Actually, come to think of it, the situation in the UK is quite different, as it's definitely the established and existing brands which are leading the pack when it comes to online poker: Ladbrokes, Victor Chandler, William Hill... With the notable exceptions of pokeroom and possibly 24hpoker. Yet one more sign that the UK is the next big growth area?

07 January 2004

Vegas, we've got a problem...Poker blog addict here. See I'm snowed under work, so I promised myself I would not spend more than 10 minutes on poker blogging, 'cause it's just not serious, yada yada yada. But then, I just happened to stumble accross Mean Gene's PokerBlog (A crazy, madcap ride through the wilds of low-stakes online poker) and of course I'm still there 45 minutes later! But then the first line of his latest post is "I'm watching Celebrity Poker on Bravo, and...Good God. What a horrible show." Any regular reader here will know that this has made Mean Gene immediatly eminently sympathic to my eye!
But there is much more important though (what on earth could be more important then getting rid of celebrity poker, you ask, and you are right!): Well Gene Bromberg is an official candidate to the Presidency ot the US of A. Not that I care, being a French citizen living in the UK, but:
1 - Gene's first offical campaign promise is "the legalization of poker rooms in all 50 states" which is a good start
2 - He has made no other pledge yet and there is therefore a unique opportunity for the poker community to join behind Gene to create a program entirely based on the meritocratic values of Poker
3 - I now have a hint of hope that I can get the highest man in power in the US of A supporting me in my crusade to get rid of the celebrity poker show! (this being of course the most important point)

(Please note that my comments here should most definitely not be taken seriously, apart from getting rid of.....well you know!)

Busy start of the new year, blogging time is taking a hit. Just a quick poker blog of the day link. O.J.'s Pokerblog
Fairly recent and irregular posting, but the stuff is good. OJ seems to want to turn pro, so should be worth following if he keeps the blog up to date.

06 January 2004

This has to go down as the best poker idea this year (I take no risk on the 6th of January, but still, it is an excellent idea). Pokersavvy has just launched the Bad-Beat-o-Meter, the only how "quantifiably bad is bad" tool I know of.
This is how it works:
"We've created an algorithm that determines how big a favorite a hand was on each street and multiplies that by the amount of money that went in on each street. So the more money you get in as a more prohibitive favorite, the higher your score. The equation subtracts points for money put into the pot as an underdog. The full equation is as follows:

(pre flop pecentage favorite-50 * pot size pre flop) + (on flop pecentage favorite-50 * money added to pot on flop) + (on turn pecentage favorite-50 * money added to pot on turn) - money added to pot on river
_________________________________________________________

little blind + big blind
"


And not satisfied with this superb and ingenious coup, they came up with this stroke of genius: The bad beat Hotline.
Absolutely stupidly true; if you really need to let it out you can call 1-866-SUCK-OUT (1- (866) 782-5688) - well I haven't tried it but I do trust it is a real number.

I wonder what pokersavvy is going to do with those bad beat stories and callers though..

Doing the round of my favourite poker blogs, I noticed that the excellent Random thoughts and thoroughbred selections blog has recently changed address to Gamblingblues.com. Update your bookmarks. It's worth it, the poker blogging world is currently being infiltrated by food (and tasty discussions), all on the verge of a vegan player who thinks of mammals as his fellows! Iggy, as usual, has got the prime news rib!

In Interactive gambling: 2003 and beyond Interactive Gaming News takes the obligatory 'start of the new year' look at what's gone and what's to come. And reflects as everyone else on the Poker boom:
"Online Poker Arrives.
After four or five years as a relatively small, niche industry, online poker finally broke through in a big way. The surge was helped immensely by the World Series of Poker, which was won by a player who qualified online, as well as promotional opportunities through World Poker Tour, a big hit on the Travel Channel. Most online casino have added table poker to their offerings, greatly increasing the volume of online players. Professionals are flocking to online poker rooms and players of all calibers are following."


The other big growth industry is peer2peer betting a la Betfair (£50 million bets per week for Betfair alone!) - So all we have to do now is find a way to combine Online poker, with online dating and online P2P betting to create the next big success story in online gambling! Send me your business plans...

Finally managed to put my hand on the by now famous Ladbrokes poker Britain report, courtesy of Pokerpulse. Fascinating read, which I am delighted to make available for your pleasure here. [PDF file - Right click and choose 'Save Link / Target as' to save the file to your computer]. The summary is: to win by playing poker online in the UK you need to be young (18-19), female and from Northern Ireland - it also helps if you have some skills.
(And for the US readers here, check this fascinating line at the very end of the document stating: "Ladbrokes does not allow US players to play. Americans are the best players in the world, a fact that explains the popularity of Ladbrokes."!!!)

New poker blog link of the day: Diary of an Online Poker Player. A new year's resolution blog, let's hope he keeps it up and shares some of his tricks. I have played against poker bunny a number of times on Party and he is a mean gambler!

I received an email this morning from my friend Daryl over at serious poker who tells me the attemps to combine Poker and dating have already well matured in something called strip poker. Well, may be we have a slightly different definition of dating. But nevertheless, that got me thinking about the origin of strip poker. So I did a quick google search which once again only revealed the sad nature of us human animals....but for one amusing little tale on the origin of strip poker. "And so it was arranged that in exchange for his loan, she would visit the ladies' room and return leaving in his hands whatever she wore under the gown-at 30,000 francs per item."

05 January 2004

Poker bloggers, pauly has set up a poker blogger online photo album. Go get your pick on it. Next, we'll get the poker blogger dating site going! hehe.


A few poker news links to feed my frenzy, just in case I'm not alone:
More TV poker stuff. Actor Vince Van Patten plans to launch "poker dogs" (You've got to be in awe at the naming genius here....or did I miss something?), a poker reality show. "Poker players by their nature are natural storytellers," Schotz said. "Poker is the mechanism for (eliminating) the players, but there's so much more for us to tell about the players, about their strategies and how they play off each other." Someone explain me how it's going to be different or more interesting than real TV tourneys, but if it feeds the ocean, than all is well!

The recent ladbrokes poker report, which I blogged about last Friday, created lots of noise but none as excellent as this article in the Belfast telegraph: "Province's poker players sharpest", for which the sixfold growth in the industry is no news compared to the fact that Northern Ireland players are now revealed as the best UK players, "pipping the intelligentsia of London to the top spot.". Seems they've learnt something from their Irish neighbours! (and I don't mean poker... :-) )
Also a good review of the changing poker scene from the times: The changing face of poker. Al Alvarez is quoted as saying: "Poker has suddenly become very chic; it's the game all the young want to play. Internet poker has been partly responsible for that. " Never thought I was playing a chic game.
So, fellow poker players, I have good news for you: We are not only fashionable, but also the rising stars in the world intelligentsia! Not bad for the start of the week! (nor for the start of the year actually)

LOL. Checking the referrers to my blog, I had a couple of visits from people searching on "French are called froggy".
Here it is: Google results for French are called froggy - Ah well, may they become poker players!

Quick post, in between the catching up of my 1500 holiday emails. Lots of new poker blogs springing up all over the place, which is great but jeez it's becoming a full time job to keep up with it all!
So just one link for today: Over at the poker penguin, richard is doing a great job blogging his "slightly confused ride through the turbulent waters of online low limit poker." Not that confused though, seems to do some pretty good playing!
I actually only noticed today, but "Poker penguin" commented on one of my post back in December, offering the genius idea of combining poker and dating for the next big commercial success. With 27 000 members on party and empire, the database should start to be big enough for some interesting matching! Anyone care to suggest how poker dating could work?

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