High On Poker

I am currently in a best of 5 Heads-Up match against Veneno. Winner gets a poker t-shirt of their choice and banner ad on the loser’s site for a week. I can already taste the sweet sweet nectar of Veneno’s readership.

We are even at 1:1, with three matches to go. When I signed on tonight, I felt like donking it up, so I shot her an IM tonight. What proceeded was the lamest move ever:

Jordan X: HU?
yosoyveneno: i wish cant
yosoyveneno: i gotta get on a conf call
yosoyveneno: in 30
yosoyveneno: and i need a shower
Jordan X: no problem
yosoyveneno: wish
Jordan X: shower for a conf call?
Jordan X: worst excuse ever

Worst. Excuse. Ever.

You should see the emails being passed between GCox, TripJax and I. As time passes, the tone of the emails has transitioned to the usual joy of impending poker to the ghostly voice that accompanies the realization that poker as we know it is gone. It isn’t something any of us has typed out specifically, but rather the big pink elephant in the room that everyone sees and no one wants to discuss. Things don’t look good with emails like, “I only have $10 left on FT, so I won’t be playing any time soon.”

Of course, I’m not going to sit here and type hellfire and brimstone at ya. What is, is, and what will be, will be. I believe that there are certain things that are really out of my individual control, and the government is first and foremost on that list. I don’t vote because the cost of going to vote outweighs the benefit of going, a happy feeling that I did my civic duty. Some of you are wincing right now and will probably think that I am a terrible person for not voting, but on a pure cost-benefit analysis, my decision makes sense. After all, no one in NY that I am aware of has ever won or lost an election on one vote. Sure, if everyone thought like me then my entire voting block would be wiped out and I’d be doomed to lose…but I can’t control the rest of that “block” anyway, so that is out of my hands as well.

So this is how I’m handling the change. That and as much live poker as possible.

One of my concerns with my own personal withdrawal and Neteller’s withdrawal from online poker is that the poker blogging community will be strained. 99% of the time that I spend with my fellow writers are online playing poker. The WPBT event, with 61 or so players, is a sign that we are staving off the end. But there are other things that have brought me pockets of joy, playing live poker with new people. And that leads us to Thursday…

Last night, wifey Kim turned to me while I finished preparing the ziti I made us for dinner and said, “You can play poker Thursday night because I am going to dinner and drinks with some friends from work.” I let that marinate and later, when I checked my email, I confirmed my suspicions. None other than 23Skidoo would be in NYC that night, and all was right in the cosmos.

Right now, the plan is to head to Salami Club for their 7:30pm $50+10 tournament, followed by their deep stack 1/2 NLHE game. Skidoo and I tossed the idea of dinner around, but when I mentioned that it would be hard to fit in work, dinner and the tournament, Skidz essentially echoed my sentiment: “Dinner takes a back seat to poker as long as I can grab something at some point.”

And with that said, I put out this general announcement:

If you will be in the NYC area on Thursday, February 1st and are either throwing a home game (cough I Had Outs cough) or would like to join Skidoo and I for some poker (cough I Had Outs Cause You Are Degenerates cough), hit me up with an email or leave a comment.

And that concludes today’s announcements.

Until next time, make mine poker!

I sat across the table and stared at the black guy in the 3s. I was at the Extra Big Bet Club in NYC, an underground club with three times the table as my usual underground club, Salami, and a crowd that ranged from pimply-faced spoiled rich kids to craggly old foreigners.

I held 84c, hardly a strong hand, but something about my opponent tempted me too much. He was the epitome of a Jordan-primed mark. Just like in the dating world, in the poker world, your style of choice likely has a perfect match, a player where everything just fits right. Unlike the dating world, when this perfect match comes up, you are the only one who ends up happy. Your mate will end up broke.

As I said, I had 84c, and I was in BB when the black guy decided to raise to $10. One player called before it folded around to me (with one player to my left yet to act), and I considered all of the information available to me. My opponent was a squat but strong looking guy, dressed in clean cut, if not snazzy, clothes. He wore a cap and blacked out sunglasses that looked like a combination of the huge sunglasses that geriatrics wear over their prescription glasses and something out of an 80s sci-fi flick. When our table first started, another player at the table asked him if he was joining us. At that time, he said no. He was at another table, trying to win his money back.

He screamed that he was tiltable. He also screamed over-aggression. With 84c, one of three things could happen: (1) I miss the flop, he bets out and I fold. (2) I hit the flop hard and get him to bet into me. (3) I hit the flop softly and then have to figure out what to do next. Or, I could just fold. When opportunity calls, you have to answer the door. I called.

A player after (1 or 2s) called as well, and the three of us saw a flop of 28T, rainbow. I checked my middle pair, shitty kicker. The guy between me and my key opponent checked. And then my opponent, I’ll call him Tough Guy (the image he was cultivating) bet $10. It was a small bet, and the pot was already $40+, so I thought for a moment before tossing two red birds ($5 chips) into the pot. The opponent before me had folded, as did the one after me. It was just me and Tough Guy, and the only hand I really feared was AT. His $10 bet meant one of two things. Either he had crap and was continuation betting (since the bet was so small, this was definitely a possibility) or he had a major hand and was trying to induce calls (opposite from his apparent playing style). The thing is, his style of play was not that far from mine, at times, so I could definitely see him making that play as a continuation bet with overcards. Specifically, AQ and AK seemed most likely.

The turn was a blank 5, and I checked rather quickly. My opponent paused for a moment and then went for his chips in a slow steady pace. The bet was $40.

Why $40? I mean, really?! If he was trying to keep me in the hand and extract more bets, why jump from $10 to $40. The more likely scenario was that he failed to push me off of a hand with his small bet, so he figured a big bet would do the trick. Classic. I’d make a similar move in some situations. What’s that smell? It’s bullshit, my friends. But $40 was a lot. At times like this, you can fold or you can follow your read. I tossed a bunch of chips into the pot. A call.

The river was another blank. Tricky tricky. My opponent fired a third shell, $50 or 60. It would leave me with less than $50 behind if I was wrong. But his betting pattern and image told a story of a guy too stubborn to back down from a pot. His last bet didn’t exactly fit that story. It could’ve been a value bet. I watched him carefully.

After he threw out his bet, he went into tell-lockdown. As he retracted his hands after betting, his movement stuttered. His hands seemed to return to a fiddling position, and then suddenly changed direction and folded in front of him. He held perfectly still. His face was blank.

If I can impart any wisdom to my readers, it is this: When someone who does not always stay still with a blank expression goes into tell-lockdown, he or she is likely bluffing. It’s sorta like the person who gives too much details when lying. In both instances, the person is over-compensating for their shortcomings. With the lier, they give more details to look plausible, and with the bluffer, they over-tighten up their behavior because they fear giving off any tells. Over-compensation will kill you in either instance. In this one, it told me one thing: Tough Guy did not want a call.

“I call.” I threw some chips in front of me with disdain. Over my headphones, I couldn’t hear what he had to say, but he didn’t look happy as he looked back at his cards. I took out the pug headphones and he repeated himself. “Do you have a pair?” I waited for him to table his cards. He did so slowly, “I don’t have anything.” He showed AKo. I laid down my hand, “8s?! Wow!,” I said aloud with complete sincerity. The table was shocked by the hand. One guy said nice call. I replied, “Let me get back to you after my ball re-descends.” The sole lady at the table cracked up. I apologized for my ludeness, but she was loving it.

Meanwhile, the Tough Guy steamed.

What a fucking time I had. SIF‘s game was canceled, but Chris, one of the SIF players and an all-around good guy, left me a comment about EBB Club. I hadn’t hung out with Chris outside of the SIF game before, but he helped me get past the EBB security and we sat at the same table for the entire day. As usual, my stack went through all sorts of fluctuations. Chris’ only went one way…up. He was playing a smart, tight game. This leads us to the last hand of the evening.

I limp in MP with 67s. One player calls in MP/LP and Chris checks in the BB. The flop is 589 with two diamonds. I flopped a straight.

Chris leads out for $10. I don’t just want to win his money. Really, I like the guy, and I’d rather take the other guy’s money, so I just call to keep the other guy in. The other guy calls too. The turn is another 5 and Chris checks. I immediately think that a full-house is possible, but I doubt that either player has it because of the soft action on the flop. I bet $20 or so. The other player folds, but Chris calls. The river is an Ace, and I’m hoping he has A9 or even AK, although AK did not seem likely at the time. Surprisingly, Chris bets out $25. I want to get as much as possible out of this hand. I think about min-raising, but instead bet $40. He calls pretty quickly. He then tables 95o. He caught the Full House on the turn with the BB special.

Before that hand, I was maybe up or down $15 at most. After than hand, I was down more than $100. But the guys came around to take $5 time charge, and we had already discussed leaving. We packed up our chips and cashed out. If I had to lose to someone, I’m glad it was a friendly face and not the Tough Guy.

I love me some live poker. The entire time I played, I felt confident that if I stayed longer I would eventually beat the table. I was beating it steadily, but took some losses that are inevitable in my loose style. When we walked to the subway, I complimented Chris on his play and he returned the compliment. I was proud that I walked away loser, not because I like losing, but because it didn’t sting. If this is just a portion of one long session, then at least I played well. That’s all you can hope for in poker.

Until next time, make mine poker!

Last night, tired from a tough work week, wifey Kim and I had dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant that we always passed but never entered, and then came home to watch a movie. We had rented Wordplay, a documentary about crossword puzzles and crossword enthusiasts, since wifey Kim has been playing the crosswords daily, thanks to a local free newspaper.

While watching the film, while wifey Kim quietly slept, leaning in the cruck of my arm on the couch (I eventually waved my hands in front of her eyes to verify her unconscious state), I saw an amazing parallel between poker and crossword puzzles. Mostly, it was the issue that I wrote about earlier this week, the solitary nature of the game.

Much like online poker, crosswords are done at home in relative anonymity, without anyone else’s involvement. Granted, many a poker blogger or serious player has made online poker buddies who might railbird, but for the great unwashed masses, it is a solitary pursuit.

Every year, there is a crossword puzzle tournament held in Stamford, CT. The movie followed the tournament from the players’ arrival to the big finale. Upon arrival, one of the regular patrons explained to the camera (and I paraphrase): “Crossword puzzles are such a solitary thing. When we have these tournaments, all of these people who are used to solving puzzles alone at home are suddenly surrounded by people with similar interests. It’s like an instant family.”

Therein lies the nexus between the loner-centric world of poker and the community-centric world of poker bloggers. We all started playing poker individually. We found a passion for the game. While it remains inherently a game that attracts loners (not everyone is a loner, though), the loners can come together every couple of months, be it in Vegas or Philadelphia or Oklahoma, and there is an instant comraderie. We share things in common that most people wouldn’t understand. A passion for the game, and often, a passion for writing. Organization does not come naturally, but once we are together, a comraderie does. At least that’s what I felt at the Bash at the Boathouse, and essentially what I read about everyone else’s first experiences at blogger gatherings.

This is not so much just about blogging. I am sure the same can be said for 2+2′ers or BARGErs or whatever other subsect of the poker community you can come up with. I imagine that the WSOP is the essentially the parallel to the yearly crossword tournament, when a community of individuals come together to form a makeshift family, but I also expect that the money aspects of poker and attraction to degenerates makes ours a much more disfunctional family.

On that note, let me thank my blogger brother from another server, GCox, for his great post on his Loner personality. Ironically, I consider that loner one of the closest friends I met through this loner blog.

Loner on Poker.

Until next time, make mine poker!

My blog sucks. Okay, maybe not totally sucks, but lately I bust out a post and then read it later and think, That’s content? I mean, Jesus. I long for the days of You Decide posts.

It’s all about my decision to cut down on online poker. In the past, I never really have a problem posting. I played poker online daily so something would come up, whether it be pontifications of a particular aspect of the game or a recap of my wins and losses. Luckily, I never even had problems posting about losses, for the most part, so even when things were running bad, the blog was running good.

Now, not so much. What is going on out there? I was supposed to play at the SIF homegame on Saturday, but that has been canceled. (For all NY players…anyone know of a cardroom that is open and has a good game going on Saturday afternoon?) The cancellation of the SIF game isn’t so bad, overall, because I should probably go into the office at some point.

The thing about poker blogging is, it’s a melding of poker and the Internet. It is so closely linked to online poker, for me and for a great number of the community, that online poker’s death [Disclaimer: For all of you who insist that online poker is not dying, I only refer to my own decision to slowly kill off my online poker play. For everyone else, can you believe these fools who think that nothing has changed in online poker?!] is having a real impact on blogging.

For one thing, you can’t throw a virtual stone without hitting a post about the horrors of the ban. I’ve done it here too, on both sides of the argument, so guilty as charged. It is, very much, the tie that binds me to the community, first with the Challenges and then the DADI tournaments, eventually giving way to the weekly tournaments that I tried to attend semi-regularly. I still played the Mookie this week and got fairly far along in 11th out of 55, but it is becoming a rare occassion.

God damn it. There I go again with the navel gazing.

I feel a definite desire to continue posting, mostly because I feel an obligation to myself, my blog and anyone who reads me. It has been the corner-stone of my blogging principles, and is deteriorating in front of my very eyes.

Then there is the other rule I try to place on my blog. I try to avoid posting things that would only interest fellow bloggers because, even if they may make up the majority of my readership (no confirmation on this), this is a public blog and ideally accessible to the public reader. And here I go, posting about the effects of the online poker ban on poker blogging.

Here is my new promise to me and to you: I rededicate myself to this blog with a newfound set of rules.

1. I will post when I feel I have something worth saying.
2. I will delete posts after the fact if I mentally masticate (with a C!) them and later determine that they are utter crap. Sorry RSS feed readers, but you’ll still have to sift through it.
3. I will continue to post updates on the AC gathering, because that is really the light at the end of the tunnel for me.
4. I will do my best to keep things interesting.

That’s really all there is to it. I still love poker and I still love blogging. I just need to change my expectations and my assumed expectations of readers so that I can continue without feeling like I’m doing a piss-poor job. And with that….

Until next time, make mine poker!

I’m game. Hey folks. Are you sitting at home watching brainless television tomorrow night at approximately 9:30 pm EST when you’d really rather be mixing it up with some poker? If so, you are just like me. Now, do you have $11 in your PokerStars account? In that case, you are nothing like me, cause I got jack squat.

But alas, dear reader, I may be able to join you for some festivities, as CC of Pokerworks is kicking off his second round of CC’s Thursday Bash! (How could you not end that sentence with an exclamation point!!)

Will there be value added like last time? How the hell should I know? But the possibility is there. If nothing else, you’ll be playing poker with some real fun folks, and if I’m lucky and CC considers me worthy, you’ll get an easy $10 from me too!

And with that, I leave you with this banner. See you at the Bash:

Play or the kid shoots.

Things have been pretty tight in Jordan’s world lately. The result is a week of no live poker, thankfully to be broken up this Saturday as I return to the SIF game. Otherwise, my weeks have been spent toiling away at work, where things are as busy as ever, and relaxing at home with wifey Kim whenever I can. Thank god for the return of primetime television, with Heroes kicking a few days ago along with the mis-titled Prison Break.

I played a couple of heads-up SNGs a few days ago on a hunch. Even though I am easing off of the online poker, I felt a desire to play something. I have been seemingly boobytrapping myself by making stupid moves whenever I do play. For example, I decided to play some $25 max HA, a mix of pot limit hold’em and pot limit omaha high. I then proceeded to push all-in with the nut low in omaha…HIGH! When I was called and showed my nut low, I was surprised to see the chips sent to my opponent. Then I remembered that low doesn’t play, and I promptly shut down Full Tilt feeling like the douschebag that I am (down only $10 thanks to his small stack).

I played two heads-up matches with Veneno recently. In the past, I have always done well against V, and I would even be so bold as to say that our early matches may have taught her a thing or two about the importance of aggression. Don’t get me wrong, she holds her own and has whooped me more than a few times.

Playing her most recently, it is clear that her game has continued to improve , and we went 1 and 1 for the first two games of our best of 5 series. The winner gets an ad banner on the side of the other players’ blog for a week and a poker t-shirt of their choice. I’m looking to collect my 3rd bounty from the V. On that note, thanks V. I received a deck of black Copag cards for our last bounty, and while I haven’t used them yet, they are some real beauts.

Heads-up poker is likely the best option for me now. First off, because there is only you and one other player, reads actually become an integral part of the game. He is watching me and me only, so I can also counteract “reads” and lull my opponent to do what I want him to do. Meanwhile, since I only have him to concentrate on, I can gather a lot of information as well. Throw in some chatting and suddenly my arsenal has gone from pea-shooter online poker skillz to an artillery of information, deception, and utter tomfoolery.

Aside from this, there are two other great reasons for me to play HU almost exclusively online. HU matches are relatively short, and therefore allow me to avoid that other pitfall of my online play: distraction because of boredom. I have one match to win (or lose) and then I can walk away. It is finite, like an SNG, but short, like a cash game hit-and-run session. Final point, my losses are capped. I know how much I am playing for before I start, and I can’t win or lose any more or less. Here is a quick bonus benefit: HU play seems a lot more personal, so winning a $5 match feels just as good as a $20. The players are pretty much the same, and the pride I get for defeating my foe is worth even more than the scraps that serve as the prize pool.

Yeah, but back to that booby-trapping thing. After the matches with V, I realized all of these things about HU matches and decided to try some out for size. This was a few days ago, and as I sat down in a $5 4-player HU SNG with one other guy, I saw that it was going to take a while to fill. 5 minutes passed, and then I noticed the $10 4-player HU SNG filling up. I opened that tournament lobby quickly and hit Register. I then quickly went back to the $5 4-player HU SNG, expecting the tournament, which stalled at 2 players, to still be available for unregistering. My bad. In that .15 seconds, the $5 table filled up too. I was now playing two 4-player HU SNGs at the same time. Nice job, Jordan.

Ironically, I had won the $10 event before event defeating my first competitor in the $5 event. I made it to the finals of the $5 event as well, but lost due to a suckout that I orchestrated beautifully.

As with most of the HU matches, I tend to start off very aggressively. This is part of my Inverse Theory of Aggression in Heads-Up SNGs, which states that when you are closest in chips, you must actually be more aggressive. That simple small lead will do a lot for your momentum and can also open up other opportunities.

In this specific case, I was betting like a madman and my opponent was folding like a Gap employee, all the while building my image as a loose fucktard who would eventually hang himself with his own play. The hands usually went one of three ways: (1) I bet preflop and he folds, (2) I bet preflop, he calls, I bet the flop and he folds, and (3) he shows any sign that he has a hand and I fold. Options (1) and (2) dominate, but option (3) has to be sprinkled throughout or I would be in trouble with crappy hands. Also, by allowing an occassional (3), I am giving my opponent more reason to think that I am a bluffing fool.

Because of the pattern established, I ended up getting my opponent all-in when I had the best of it. I raised preflop with J6s or some other crappy hand. He called, which seemed to be a common theme. The flop was J-high, and I bet out, exactly as I had countless times before. Top pair is not a great hand, but it’s a shit-load better HU, so when he re-raised me all-in, I was confident that I was ahead. I called, and he showed QTo for middle pair (tens). The turn was a K and the river was a 9, and he made his straight. I had 400 left (started with 3000), and actually made a few comebacks, reaching over 2k at one point. Alas, it was not meant to be though, as I eventually succumbed. I did realize two things, though. Aggression allowed me to force my opponent to make a stand with crappy cards, and gave me the extra chips needed to launch a possible comeback when I was shortstacked.

Remember folks, you can’t go bust on a suckout if you had more chips than your opponent. In most tournaments (SNGs and MTTs) that is decent advice although not necessarily practical all of the time. In Heads-Up, though, its absolutely crucial.

It seems like the blogger gathering in AC is actually coming together. I personally have a room booked (Showboat has rates that break down to less than $250 per night if you are a Harrahs/Showboat/Caesars/Ballys card member). I can book another with my card if anyone needs. I’m also looking for roommates, unless Matty Ebs is a definite.

I have also rented a car for the drive down. It will cost me $150 or so, plus taxes and gas, so I expect the total to be closer to $200. If anyone wants to share the cost and a ride down, let me know.

Otherwise, I am sticking with the old saying, organizing poker players is like herding cats. Instead of trying to corral anyone, I am just throwing a shitload of pokery catnip and cat chow at AC and hoping that the cats will come. Seems like it is working, too.

Until next time, make mine poker!

I’ve termed the potential blogger gathering in AC as The Gathering because it really is the best word for the trip. I don’t particularly plan on, well, planning much, aside from suggesting a few tournaments to swarm, suggesting a hotel, and choosing a weekend. I have not been to any of the Vegas blogger gatherings, but AC is no Vegas. We cannot get private tournaments, and we do not have the convention center resources. But really, these trips are for two things, poker and people. I know I’ll have the first one, and hopefully the second, but even if it is just you and me playing at the 1/2 NL tables and kicking ass at a Showboat tournament, we’ll still be having fun.

With that said, let me tell you what I do know. I do know that I asked wifey Kim if she would have a problem with a weekend trip in March for poker, and she didn’t flinch. God bless her. So, for all intents and purposes, I expect to be able to go.

The planned weekend for the trip is March 9-11 (Friday-Sunday), and it coincides with the WSOP Circuit event at Caesar’s. The events that weekend are outside of my bankroll, but a few of you might be interested. You can see the full schedule (8 events over 8 days) HERE. Otherwise, the weekend events are as follows:

Friday, March 9, 12pm- $500+60 NLHE.
Saturday, March 10, 12pm- $1000+80 NLHE.
Sunday, March 11, 12pm- $200+30 Ladies Event.

The Main Event (essentially $5k buy-in) starts on Monday, but there are satellites and mega-satellites all weekend (and likely Satellites to the other events as well).

Realistically, I don’t plan on spending much time at Caesar’s at all, unless some bloggers are playing the events, in which case, I’ll railbird (and likely buy some of your action, if you are interested). Otherwise, I plan on playing in the many poker rooms in the Boardwalk-area hotels. Borgata is supposed to be great, too, but for my money, I like being on the Boardwalk, where the rooms are cheaper, the poker is plentiful, and you can get everywhere by foot.

The High On Poker Hotel Buyer’s Guide for Atlantic City suggests one rule: Get the Cheapest Room at a Hotel with a Casino on the Boardwalk. There are about 8-10 hotels that fit this description, and I’ve stayed in every one but three. I’ve played in those three, though, and can say with confidence that the hotels will all do the trick.

A quick perusal finds these rates:

Bally’s- $249/night (via Travelocity). This is right next to Caesar’s and centrally located on the Boardwalk. Bally’s has a poker room. It’s the only smoking room in AC, though, and you need a compass, shirpa and hunting dogs to find it.

Showboat- $300/night (via Travelocity). This is the official hotel of High On Poker. It has a great poker room and tournaments four times, daily.

Ug. It looks like the tournament or something else is causing a rush for rooms that weekend. Tropicana is sold out on Saturday, and Hilton is sold out on Friday. Other rates are not too great. Resorts was listed at $300/night on one site, but Showboat is better. Flagship was also listed for a good price, but it doesn’t have a casino, so it fails the HoP test. There are also a shit load of crappy hotels in the area, but I leave that up to you. Me, I ride in style. I’d rather split a Showboat room with one other person and pay $300 for the weekend.

I’ve received interest from about 6 or so bloggers, but I’m not holding anyone to anything. If you are interested, please let me know by leaving a comment or sending me an email at HighOnPokr AT yahoo DOT COMMUNIST. I’ll create a list and we can start brainstorming together.

I’ve touched on this before, but let me just explain how I see this coming together ideally. I would like to start booking rooms in the next few weeks. I expect each individual to work out their own rooming situation, but I’ll be happy to act as a hub to set people up or facilitate everything. Once we know who is going, I will choose a central meeting place for Friday night. We’ll get some food (I’ll make reservations depending on the amount of people and feasability), and after we will hit a poker room. I’ll also designate a tournament or two to storm, but don’t feel obliged. Everyone is free to do as they please. We’ll probably also arrange a place to meet for breakfast, and/or a few other meals, but overall, it’ll be all very organic. We’ll meet up when convenient, and individuals or groups can break off as they desire. If you don’t know anyone, no problem. Stick with me. I’ll keep you informed as much as I can as to what everyone else is doing, and we’ll hit up some poker rooms and tournaments. I know the AC Boardwalk like the back of my pimp hand, and would be glad to show anyone around.

Hmm…I guess I didn’t do a great job illuminating what is going to happen. Sorry, folks, but I really just plan to go for the weekend and meet up with whoever else may want to go. I would love to all play in a tournament and maybe get a small side-bet going, enough so that the winner is at least freerolling. I am not too hot on having meals with 20+ people because the logistics always suck, but I don’t mind meeting up at 1am at the bar for cocktails.

I plan on booking a room at Showboat soon. I love their poker room, and they have nice accomodations. They even have a video-poker bar where (like Vegas) you can drink for free if you are playing. In fact, its the only AC bar I know of that has this rule. Showboat’s tournaments are also the best bang for under $100, and the Saturday 11pm is $120 or so, which also isn’t bad.

The only shortcoming to Showboat is that they are on one of the ends of the Boardwalk. It is still very safe, but if you want to walk to the Tropicana (nice-sized poker room with lots of different games) or Hilton (smaller room with lots of different fish), it’ll take probably 20-30 minutes on foot. That said, the Taj Mahal is next door (and attached so you don’t have to go outside), and is the 2nd biggest room in AC (albeit, the most dirty and the one with the most rumors of collusion/cheating). Other rooms are also a short 5-10 minutes away, AND you can take a free shuttle to Caesars, Bally’s, and Harrah’s (near the Borgata at the Marina section of AC).

Have questions, will answer.

Until next time, make mine poker!

Hoyazo left a comment to my last post about how the ban on online poker may actually help me in a roundabout way. He was understandably perturbed by the fact that I was essentially condoning the US Government’s direct infringement on something done in the privacy of our homes. I am the self-titled Devil’s Advocate of Poker Bloggers, so just bear with me for a moment while I induce my ability to argue any side of any issue without any logic or support. Here goes:

The truth is, dear reader, that our government, while doing something that inconveniences us all, is not doing anything improper. Now, before you start throwing things, I am not saying that I am for the law. I am a recently self-identified Libertarian (as far as I understand the word), and I deeply believe that the government should not over-legislate things such as online poker, which only effects the player and not the rest of society as a whole. Even though I dislike the law, though, it doesn’t mean that the law is inherently wrong.

On its face, to anyone who plays online poker, the law is horrible. We have seen the actual effects, and while people argue about the varying degree of effect it will have on online poker, we can all agree that it negatively effects the industry and our favorite degenerate passtime. For this reason, it is wholly understandable to be shocked at this stupid law and I encourage anyone who has a problem with the law to do whatever they can to influence those in power who could effectively revoke or modify it. But, and I’m flinching as I type this, the law in and of itself is not improper, and is in many ways justifiable.

Okay, okay, so right now you are getting red in the face and slamming your fists on the keyboard. I gotcha. It isn’t a popular position to take on the interwebs, but its not unsupported either. The bottom line is that online poker takes money away from the United States and distributes it to other nations and individuals. All of this money being syphoned from the US is not taxed by the United States. The US should man up and just create a regulatory scheme, like the UK, but because of our puritanical society, the lawmakers decided to ban online poker all together. I’m sure their desire for votes in Bible-thumping areas didn’t hurt their decision either.

I’ve seen the argument that the politicians and government hate online poker because they don’t see a dime from it. That is likely true, 100%. But there is another aspect as well. Online poker is gambling, and the government has traditionally imposed laws regarding gambling. Truthfully, gambling should be resolved by state governments, who are granted the power to make laws for the “welfare” of the people. In other words, states are given the power to make laws to protect their citizens, like, say, anti-smoking laws or anti-gambling laws. The right is given to states because they are better equiped to make laws for their local constituents in this large, varied nation of ours. That is why there are no casinos in New York City, or New York in general, except for Indian reservation casinos and some other cutouts; Nevada, meanwhile, allows gambling.

Online poker, however, is such that a state-by-state ban will prove largely ineffective. In fact, it is my understanding that Nevada already has an anti-online gambling ban in place, but it was ineffective because of the very nature of online gambling. The federal government, under the Commerce Clause, can make laws regarding interstate or international trade. This and other powers of the federal government have been used to make all sorts of “welfare” laws, even though “welfare” laws are the sole province of the states. One example involved the age of drinking. The federal government stated that if the drinking age was not raised to 21 in a given state, the state would not receive certain federal highway funds, thereby turning a “welfare” law into something the federal govenment can legislate, a federal spending issue.

So, the analysts have focused on the financial aspect of the law. They assume that the govenment is pissed that they aren’t receiving their cut of this huge industry. But gambling has been traditionally made illegal in the US, and where it is legal, it is highly regulated. Online, there are no such protections (right now, although US licensing could fix that). So, the government’s law against transferring to online gambling sites is not just the US government’s jealousy over money made by private companies outside of the US. It is also about protecting people from an unregulated gambling establishment, one in which the age of the bettor is not an issue, the accessibility is easy, cheating can and does happen (by other players by collussion, at the very least), and US citizens are spending countless dollars or are winning countless dollars without any way to enforce tax issues.

Now that I got this out of my system, let me add this: The beliefs stated above are merely the opinion of Jordan as the Devil’s Advocate of Poker Bloggers and does not accurately reflect Jordan’s compassion and understanding of fellow online poker players or Jordan’s distaste over regulating something that we, as online poker players, know is essentially a safe, harmless activity.

I actually have a lot more to write about, including my thoughts on the potential poker blogger Gathering in AC in March, the effect of the anti-online poker laws on bloggers and poker blogging, and a great conversation and some HU matches against the one and only Veneno. But since I’ve rambled on for long enough, I will save that for later today or tomorrow.

Until next time, make mine poker!

Hoyazo left a comment to my last post about how the ban on online poker may actually help me in a roundabout way. He was understandably perturbed by the fact that I was essentially condoning the US Government’s direct infringement on something done in the privacy of our homes. I am the self-titled Devil’s Advocate of Poker Bloggers, so just bear with me for a moment while I induce my ability to argue any side of any issue without any logic or support. Here goes:

The truth is, dear reader, that our government, while doing something that inconveniences us all, is not doing anything improper. Now, before you start throwing things, I am not saying that I am for the law. I am a recently self-identified Libertarian (as far as I understand the word), and I deeply believe that the government should not over-legislate things such as online poker, which only effects the player and not the rest of society as a whole. Even though I dislike the law, though, it doesn’t mean that the law is inherently wrong.

On its face, to anyone who plays online poker, the law is horrible. We have seen the actual effects, and while people argue about the varying degree of effect it will have on online poker, we can all agree that it negatively effects the industry and our favorite degenerate passtime. For this reason, it is wholly understandable to be shocked at this stupid law and I encourage anyone who has a problem with the law to do whatever they can to influence those in power who could effectively revoke or modify it. But, and I’m flinching as I type this, the law in and of itself is not improper, and is in many ways justifiable.

Okay, okay, so right now you are getting red in the face and slamming your fists on the keyboard. I gotcha. It isn’t a popular position to take on the interwebs, but its not unsupported either. The bottom line is that online poker takes money away from the United States and distributes it to other nations and individuals. All of this money being syphoned from the US is not taxed by the United States. The US should man up and just create a regulatory scheme, like the UK, but because of our puritanical society, the lawmakers decided to ban online poker all together. I’m sure their desire for votes in Bible-thumping areas didn’t hurt their decision either.

I’ve seen the argument that the politicians and government hate online poker because they don’t see a dime from it. That is likely true, 100%. But there is another aspect as well. Online poker is gambling, and the government has traditionally imposed laws regarding gambling. Truthfully, gambling should be resolved by state governments, who are granted the power to make laws for the “welfare” of the people. In other words, states are given the power to make laws to protect their citizens, like, say, anti-smoking laws or anti-gambling laws. The right is given to states because they are better equiped to make laws for their local constituents in this large, varied nation of ours. That is why there are no casinos in New York City, or New York in general, except for Indian reservation casinos and some other cutouts; Nevada, meanwhile, allows gambling.

Online poker, however, is such that a state-by-state ban will prove largely ineffective. In fact, it is my understanding that Nevada already has an anti-online gambling ban in place, but it was ineffective because of the very nature of online gambling. The federal government, under the Commerce Clause, can make laws regarding interstate or international trade. This and other powers of the federal government have been used to make all sorts of “welfare” laws, even though “welfare” laws are the sole province of the states. One example involved the age of drinking. The federal government stated that if the drinking age was not raised to 21 in a given state, the state would not receive certain federal highway funds, thereby turning a “welfare” law into something the federal govenment can legislate, a federal spending issue.

So, the analysts have focused on the financial aspect of the law. They assume that the govenment is pissed that they aren’t receiving their cut of this huge industry. But gambling has been traditionally made illegal in the US, and where it is legal, it is highly regulated. Online, there are no such protections (right now, although US licensing could fix that). So, the government’s law against transferring to online gambling sites is not just the US government’s jealousy over money made by private companies outside of the US. It is also about protecting people from an unregulated gambling establishment, one in which the age of the bettor is not an issue, the accessibility is easy, cheating can and does happen (by other players by collussion, at the very least), and US citizens are spending countless dollars or are winning countless dollars without any way to enforce tax issues.

Now that I got this out of my system, let me add this: The beliefs stated above are merely the opinion of Jordan as the Devil’s Advocate of Poker Bloggers and does not accurately reflect Jordan’s compassion and understanding of fellow online poker players or Jordan’s distaste over regulating something that we, as online poker players, know is essentially a safe, harmless activity.

I actually have a lot more to write about, including my thoughts on the potential poker blogger Gathering in AC in March, the effect of the anti-online poker laws on bloggers and poker blogging, and a great conversation and some HU matches against the one and only Veneno. But since I’ve rambled on for long enough, I will save that for later today or tomorrow.

Until next time, make mine poker!