Congratulations Daniel

https://x.com/pokerorg/status/1806566447080255874

Some of you know that I have written a poker themed screenplay that has won 3 honors in various film festival screenwriting contests. I have tried to go the Hollywood route but it’s very difficult for a new writer without connections and not living in California to break into that arena.  And it’s especially difficult now with Hollywood never having fully recovered from Covid and also changing audience tastes that has hurt box office attendance.

But I think the good news now for a poker/gambling themed movie is that gambling entertainment has been exploding across the nation in the last few years.  If you would have told me 6 years ago that the NFL and other sports would be promoting betting on their games I would have thought you were crazy. The times have definitely changed with regard to gambling in this country.

I’ve seen the two movies mentioned above that were made soley with a cell phone and was quite impressed with them.  The movie “High Flying Bird” had at least 2 scenes where the light weight cell phone camera was an obvious advantage. In one of those scenes the camera followed an actor as he was walking all around downtown.  The lengthy walking downtown scene would have probably cost a fortune to film with standard Hollywood filming techniques and all the film crews required. I was also impressed how good the “9 Rides” film was able to film the interior of a car as it was moving in traffic at night.  My screenplay has several (in a moving car) scenes and they could be done very cheaply with a cell phone.

Also my script has several poker tournament scenes. Filming those scenes with a cell phone would allow the phone operator to easily walk from table to table capturing the essence of a big tournament rather than just having a big stationary camera focused on one table. Also my film has location scenes in several places like the desert and Hoover Dam which would be expensive to transport a fim crew to. No big deal if your just using a cell phone.

Sure there are a lot of changes going on in Hollywood today and a lot of people are losing jobs.  But this idea of films being made with cell phones opens up tremendous opportunities for people with video making talent that they never had before when the big studios were the gate keepers and access to that industry was extremely restricted.

Heck, nowadays a trust fund kid with a lot of time and good cell phone skills or an investor with a couple hundred thousand could make a feature film. I heard the famous actor/director Orson Wells say in an interview that a cinematographer told him that he could teach Wells everything he needed to know on how to make a movie in 2 days. Wells took him up on his offer and made his first movie ever at 26 yrs. old. The movie was "Citizen Kane" and was generally considered by movie critics of the 60's and 70's as the greatest movie ever made. Not bad for a 26 yr. old kid who never made a movie before.

Will this new environment in filmmaking lead to an increase in new movies made outside the expensive Hollywood system of old? Only time will tell I guess. But I know of one multi-honored poker themed screenplay that is out there for the person with 1) access to a decent amount of funds, 2) the talent, 3) the energy, and 4) good video/cell phone skills. Anyone who believes they might have what it takes, or knows someone who might, can take the first step and message me. Let’s give the gambling world, and the world in general, that one great poker themed movie we know is possible.

On a side note, if there is not too much trollish activity in this thread, I will post in this thread 3 full pages of my copyrighted script 2 weeks from today.  For the record those pages have never been shown before on the web.

I stood up from my chair to stretch my legs a little bit, threw in my ante and small blind awaiting the next hand. Obviously since I threw in my chips on my own, I was directly behind my chair. My friend at the table next to me said hello, so I looked over at him and said hello back. I moved maybe 12 inches to the left, still very much in arms reach of my chair. I was actually, in the moment, very conscious of the rule and knew it was important to not walk away from the table as my hand may be killed.

When I turn my attention back to the table the dealer scooped in my cards. I at first politely explained that I was standing right at my chair and my hand is live. The dealer argued that it wasn't. The rule states quite clearly:

32. At Your Seat - A player must be at his or her seat when the dealer delivers the first card off of the deck in order to have a live hand. Dealers are instructed to muck the hands of players not at their seats immediately after the final card is dealt to the button, or in Stud Games, the final up card is dealt on third street. Players must be at their seats to call time. “At your seat” is defined as being within reach of your chair. In case of doubt, Floor decision is final.

Well, this seems pretty self explanatory, but I was the one who threw my ante in, so of course I was in reach of my chair! The dealer claimed I was standing about a foot further back from where I claimed I was standing. Even if I was standing where she said I was standing, my hand should still be live as I could easily reach the chair with my arm.

The floorman wasn't clear on the application of the rule and what was written, saying something to the effect of, "We are told that it should depend on whether or not the player was paying attention to the table or not." I knew immediately that this was clearly not true. The floor man asked the dealer if it was close, and she said it wasn't. However, she wasn't asked, "was he in reach of the chair."

I was sitting in the one seat, and was looking behind me when the cards were dealt. There was zero risk of me seeing an opponents hand, and besides that, I wasn't breaking any rules. Ultimately the floor went with the dealers take, despite the fact that she didn't understand what the rule states.

So from here I lose it a little bit and react in anger. I decide I just don't want to be there anymore so I ship my chips in blind from the button and get called by the small blind. He has 77, I ended up having a decent hand, the Ah 3h. I lost the pot and stormed off. Now, my reaction is silly and I realize this. I allowed myself to let anger consume me and cause me to make a silly decision. I can live with it, but I'm not at all claiming I handled the situation properly. The hand I had mucked was irrelevant to me, it was KT off suit, it was just the point.

It's no secret that I, and the VAST majority of players don't like the first card off the deck rule, but this was the first time it's implementation actually cost me personally. My rage had to do less with the situation then it did the realization that currently the players are powerless. I'm committed to changing that and making sure that the players are heard before the games rules are tampered with further without player input.

I realize that some organization and change was necessary for the games growth. Some of the things people could get away with in the 70's and 80's needed some cleaning up, but there is such a thing as going too far and I believe we've done that by failing to allow tournament directors and dealers to be empowered with common sense in certain situations, and always with the focus of what is the most player friendly, fair, common sense solution. Anything close, should always go to the player, provided it doesn't compromise the integrity of the game.

Here you have a situation where a player and a dealer are arguing over semantics. Arguing over what essentially amounts to 12 inches. Again, as I mentioned previously, even if she was right in where she claimed I was standing, the ruling was still very much incorrect, but for the sake of argument, lets say it mattered. In situations like these, its in the best interest of everyone involved to give the player the benefit of the doubt. That's just good policy and good business. Even in baseball, a game of inches, the tie goes to the runner!

So I'm sitting in my room now writing this and cooling off. My plan is to re-enter the tournament at some point and make a deep run. I've already spoken to the tournament director, a very likable guy, about the situation and there are no hard feelings whatsoever. He made a mistake, but the information he got from the dealer didn't help. End Rant :-)

• How do you recognize when you’re on tilt, and what steps do you take to regain focus during a tough session?
• What strategies can you implement to minimize emotional fluctuations, especially in long cash game sessions?
• Do you take breaks, and if so, when is it appropriate to step away from the table during a bad run?
• How do you protect your bankroll and decision-making when dealing with the psychological effects of a poor session?

‏@ProducerRoss

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Eli Elezra has been known to say this.

DOJ New Stance On Wire Act Makes Interstate Online Poker Fully Legal (legalgamblingandthelaw.com)

HU sng grind

Thoughts?

I am a Computer Science student at the University of Bath in the UK and am completing a project related to the handling of buy-ins/payouts in small home cash games.

The way my home game tends to handle it is by pickign someone as a 'bank' who everyone sends their buy in to then transfers everyone's payout. Would be great to have some discussion in the comments about what people think is the best way of doing it.

I have also made this survey to collate what people think is important in running a game: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScSnTp8swCpkQ34JmZeb-c291-iI23nr7M9En4N62HTgoeTgg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Its all multiple choice so should only take a couple of minutes to complete and I'll post the results here if we get a good response.

Cheers

I recall that the ante bet alone has a house vantage of about 3.4%

I recall reading that pair plus has a house advantage of 7.3% 

Then read that playing the pair plus with straight bets leads to a House advantage of about 2.3%.

it seems this should result in a number somewhere between 3.4 and 7.3%. I don’t understand how it goes down to 2.3%.

I have avoided this bet due to do the 7.4% house advantage, but have become uncertain due to the figures stated above.

Six card bonus seems like a sucker but anyway you cut it.

Poker players and gaming companies around the world are finding themselves increasingly enticed by Bitcoin currency for their financial transactions

Using Bitcoin has several advantages for poker players. The first advantage is the speculative aspect of Bitcoin. Recently, a young Norwegian sold some of the 5,000 Bitcoin he purchased for $27 during the currency’s infancy for over $800,000, because the value of bitcoins had increased dramatically. Anyone who thought that value was significant would have been premature, because by mid-November one bitcoin had rocketed to more than $900, and there is the potential that it will keep increasing. This opportunity for increase in value makes it possible for poker players to potentially gain a return on investment (ROI) by buying a bitcoin at a lower price and watching the value of the purchase go up (or potentially down) based on the scarcity of or demand for this cryptocurrency.

The second advantage poker players who use Bitcoin have is getting money on and off Bitcoin-driven poker sites. Whereas traditional currency-driven models require a payment processor and extended periods for cashouts, Bitcoin lets players transfer money on and off sites and dramatically increases the speed of these transactions.

The third advantage for poker players using Bitcoin-driven sites is that these sites let players from all over the world play with one another while current "dollar-only" sites do not. For example, U.S. players who are residents of Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey can play online poker in their respective states, but anyone can play on Bitcoin sites.

In the same way a poker player tries to evaluate how to beat an opponent by playing the “meta-game” (how players play over time and their patterns) and how to maximize the information available (cards on the tables, betting patterns, tells) while a poker hand is being played out, companies and players are trying to evaluate the implications and opportunities of the emerging Bitcoin market on poker.

see link for article I just took a few pieces to share

http://www.pokernews...ide-1-16960.htm

With the WSOP right around the corner there should be quite a few coming up,