zipper

Good advice. The structure is not that bad any more. $6,000, one hour levels starting with 25-50 and no ante until the 5th level. You do need to get chips when the opportunity is there. But, to your point, If I fold on the flop to the CR I have $6,000 chips left and room to move given the structure is not rediculously quick.

My thought on calling the CR instead of pushing was that if my read was right and he had a flush draw, especially with a pair or the Ace of spades he would have the odds to call my push given there were two cards to come. However, if a blank came down on the turn and he calls my push, there would be almost no hand that I was ahead of that the call would be right at slightly less than 2:1. It could be close, but not right. Of course I could be beat already so the turn could save me money.The only hand I feared in the end (right or wrong) was 8-8 which would give him the str8 and might make s

Yesterday's $750 tourney at the Borgata. The tourney started slowly. There were only 4 players at my table for the first few hands then had a 5th sat in and the sixth after about 10 minutes. The sixth player will be the villian in this post. I raise that because his first hand after sitting down was as follows: The blinds are 25-50 and the UTG raises to $200 and he calls on the button. The flop is Q-6-8 rainbow. The original raiser (OR) bets $400 into the $475 pot and he calls. The turn is a 2 keeping the board rainbow. The OR bets $700 into the $1,275 pot and he raise to $1,800 and t

Boxing the cards is a term used by magicians that do card tricks. Whether they are passing the cards from one hand to the other or doing tricks which seperate the cards they always return the cards to a neat packed form thus they have "boxed the cards" as they present the cards in one neat stack after the action.

Hand number one: He could be tired of you coming over the top of him, but at a final table I think the worst hand he has is A-K. Even though you said everyone folded to him, he appears to be in fairly early position since it is an 8 seat table and you are in MP, so I would fold assuming he is very strong since he showed strength. Folding knocks you out of the chip lead but $80K still leaves you in great shape. Too early at the final table when logically the best you can hope for is that he either has A-K or was tired of you coming over the top and he has 9-9 or 10-10. Hand number two. Yo

I recently played in the $1,200 NLHE event at Foxwoods. It was the largest $ tourney I have played in to date. Generally I was happy with my play. I built stack to $7K in the first two levels but in the 100-200 level I lost a tough pot (set to a rivered nut flush) to get me down to $2,200 in chips. Then these were my last three hands.UTG, I raise to $600 with AJ suited. The person to my immediate left raises to $1,600. He had a stack of about $12K from the $5k we started with. He has only showed down two hands and both times he was first in the pot and won a good pot with KK. He had re

[ Anyway I'm glad they are reopening it and its great for the NY people since Mohegan Sun is about half hour closer then Foxwoods.When you go to Foxwoods, if you drive by Mohegan Sun instead of staying on 95 it cuts the trip by about 15 minutes. Foxwoods gives the directions to stay on 95 because they do not want to have you drive by Mohegan and possibly stop and play there instead. It is actually only 15 minutes or less to go from one to the other.

It is set to open in th Spring of 2008, so while it is still a ways away, fortunately it is not 3 years

There is also a WSOP Circuit event at Harrah's Atlantic City which overlaps with this tourney. It runs from 12/9 through 12/19 while the Trump tourney runs from 11/27 until 12/17. The championship event at Harrah's starts on 12/17 and is $4,900+250 while Trump's championship event starts on 12/16 and is $5,000+150. Interesting that they are fighting for players instead of spreading it out. Does anyone venture a guess as to which tourney will draw more top players? I guess the WSOP circuit events have tied up some players like Chris Ferguson with his video game contract. Perhaps some will

I just called again and I was able to speak to a more knowledgeable person and he said the $500 events start with $5,000 in chips. That makes a lot more sense.

I called them today and they said the starting chips is just $1,000 and blinds start at 25-50. I am hoping they made a mistake (will call again tomorrow), but they said they start all the $500 and lower events with $1,000 in chips.

This past Saturday I was playing in the NLHE event at Foxwoods. About 15 hands in this happens:I had won four pots already w/o a showdown and was up from $5k starting stack to just under $7K. Blinds were 25/50 and I limp into the pot with 4-5 of spades (I normally do not play with this especially in early position, but I am trying to open my game and I had chips to see a flop with). We took the flop with 5 players. The other four all had around the $5K they started with.The flop comes 3 of spades, 6 of spades and 7 of diamonds. I hit the current nut straight and have OE st8t flush draw.

never mind

17. If the deck stub gets fouled for some reason, such as the dealer believing the deal is over and dropping the deck, the deal must still be played out, and the deck reconstituted in as fair a way as possible. The above info is from Robert's rules of poker, which are used in many (if not most) card rooms as the basis for their rules. Clearly the dealer in this instance chose the most unfair way possible as the river ended up being one of the only two cards that prior to his mistake could NOT have been the river card.

Unless you have some other reason to be up in the middle of no where the guy is right. Go to AC

Be very careful with what financial planners tell you. Remember they are insurance salesman with a fancy title. Usually they are very willing to speak of a guaranteed return. That is usually the sales pitch. if there is a guaranty it is very low. When they present the program to you they usually present an 8-10% return and act like that is guaranteed and it is NOT. Except in exceptional markets the return rarely meets their original projections. And, that is when they tell you they were just projections.Remember, people selling life insurance make a very large commission in the first y

New York state does not hold that the player is performing an illegal act by playing poker. Over the last two years there have been many busts in NYC card rooms. They do take all the money from the players and cause them grief, but they have not, to my knowledge, arrested the players. They do arrest the dealers, managers and owners.Knowing NY law enforcement (they do what they want), they would consider the game illegal since a price was paid to "join" and you are buying drinks and food while you play. NY will turn any activity into an illegal one so they would try at least to say that the

Generally I agree and would fold this most times. However, the questions I have are as follows: Has he been very agressive with his big stack? Has he built the stack while you were at the table? If yes, how? Have you shown a willingness to fold previously in this situation?The answer to these three questions would help. In NL many players will play their stack this way with a weak King if they believe you are afraid to play for your stack. So If I have folded to check raises recently and he has been pushing people around with his stack, I might have to push back and see what happen

I posted the below hand earlier today (see below) from the hero side. Villian had two pair (K-2) and I hit my flush on the turn to win (as the description states top pair and flush draw). My question is:If you are the villian, do you ever consider just calling my post flop raise with the intention of pushing a non spade flop? That play would give me bad/marginal odds for a call on a non spade turn.My gut says if you do not have a read that I am on a draw, meaning you are not planning on check folding if a spade comes, you might as well push. But clearly given the hands, the right play is t

I did hit the flush on the turn and win. He had K-2. The villian did not go crazy, he just left. The reason I posted was that I am new to cash games (roughly six weeks) and in a tourney, if this was the early part of the tourney I would have thought long and hard about folding to survive (especially if I felt I had an edge at the table), but probably would have called (assuming I did raise the flop).Moving into cash games, I am pushing my big draws much harder and am just looking for reinforcement that it is the right thing to do. My results over that short period indicate that a willingne

Do you agree with the raise on the flop?

It is possible that one of them is playing AQ or Q9 so 6 outs might be to a push or loss. It is also possible that one is playing the Ace high flush draw and you could lose that too. That is the bad news, the good news is you have a monster draw and cannot fear all that could go wrong.My question is, when you checked the flop, what were you thinking you would do if someone bet? You have a big draw with top pair, were you going to check raise or just call? I assume a fold was out of the question. My line would have been to lead into the pot for about 3/4 the pot and see what happens afte

.50/1.00 NL. I was at the table for over an hour when this hand came up. Before posting I have $156 in the BB and the Villian has $92 in the SBUTG raised to $2 and everyone called so I completed the BB with K6 of spades.$12 in the pot and the flop comes K-2-4 (2 and 4 of spades). The SB leads out for $9 and I raise to $33 and the SB moves in ($90 total). So it is only $57 to call into $135.The villian had played agressively when he had a hand and was recently sucked out on in a big pot (about $225). I figured he had at least top pair (better kicker), probably two pair and even a set of 2'

You cannot get away from this hand. If I checked the flop, and I probably would have, I would have check-raised his bet. Raising it to $12 would have been my play, especially if you thought he had aces. He would have either smooth called or moved in as I am sure he would not fold AA or AK for that matter. In the end you would have lost it anyway even if he just called the flop reraise as you cannot fold on the turn just because you fear AA.The only way to possibly get away from the hand, and I would not fold, is if you reraised him preflop to $7 and he pushed. Then some would fold (I am

Thomas Keller wrote a couple of articles on this topic in CardPlayer. I think it was the beginning of this year. There were some good guidelines in there. Check it out at www.cardplayer.com