Essentials For Poker Travel

When traveling to play poker events, cash games, and tournaments there are a few things besides good play you need to bring in your bag of tricks. Below are some tips for preparing to travel for poker.

Make A Plan
If you are planning to play a series of tournaments, take a look at the tournament schedule and get an idea of what events you are planning to play. If time allows, try to schedule in a day to take a break and enjoy the sites or do something outside of the poker room. This will help you clear your mind after a few long days of tournament play.

Choose A Hotel
There are a few things to consider when choosing a hotel. To save on rooms, get a few buddies together and split the cost of the room. Booking in advance will also save a ton of money and allow you to lock in the best rate. Also consider the proximity of the hotel to the poker room. If you are playing tournaments you will have to consider how long it will take you get ready and get to the tournament before it starts. Sometimes convenience is worth the extra cost to stay closer to where you will be spending most of your time.

Load Up On Music
This is a great time to download all that music you’ve been putting off adding to your Ipod. New tunes are a great way to entertain yourself while you are grinding it out at the tables. Make sure you get all your music together before you leave so you don’t get stuck without it when you get to the hotel. Even though the hotel might say they have internet, sometimes it runs so slow it is difficult even surf the web.

Poker Attire
Bring your lucky hoodie, shoes, socks, underwear, etc. Part of playing good poker is being comfortable and having confidence. There is no way you can play your best poker if those new jeans that cute sales girl sold you are smothering you while you’re trying to bluff someone. Bring what is comfortable and warm enough to withstand the breezy poker room.

NBC Announces Heads-Up Championship List

The online poker forums have been buzzing with rumors of just who is going to be invited to this year’s NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship, an event that has become one of the more prestigious in poker. There are some names that every year you know will be included, such as Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Hellmuth, but NBC does have a tendency to mix things up and throw in a few players you wouldn’t expect to see. Finally, the company has released the official list for this year’s Heads-Up Championship, which as in 2009 is made up of 64 players.

Twenty two of the names on the list were automatically qualified and given an invite to the game due to accomplishments they racked up last season, including WSOP Champion Joe Cada. Two players who qualified but will not be playing are Jeffrey Lisandro (who was the WSOP Player of the Year) and Barry Shulman (who won the WSOP Europe main event).

Another high-profile dropout came from poker godfather Doyle Brunson, who was reserved a spot but decided not to participate. He spoke on the matter in one of his online blogs stated: “I’ve got an invitation to play in a big TV tournament and immediately afterwards is the NBC Heads Up Championship. I’ll have to bow out of all these tournaments because there is no use playing unless you are at your best. The competition has gotten so good you need to feel good physically as well as mentally to have a chance to win.”

More Poker Songs Coming Your Way

Poker has been on the tips of everyone’s tongues these days, and the success of Lady Gaga’s biggest hit has inspired other to use poker as a new theme in their music. Lady Gaga’s song Poker Face was an international hit and sold over 8 million albums. Now, Marcel Luske and Jason Mershon are jumping on the bandwagon.

Marcel Luske has release an album of songs centered around poker. Apparently Luske is quite talented and exhibited his new songs during the Doyal Bruson Five Diamond event in December. A few well known poker professionals attended the concert and later twittered about Luskse’s talent.

Jason Mershon has recently released a song called Playing for a Livin. To promote his song Mershon is offering 50% of any final table winnings at this years WSOP to the first 15,000 people who download and buy his song. He is planning on playing the Main Event, so this might be a pretty fantastic investment for his listeners if he actually makes it.

Although it might be a pretty good return on investment, Mershon doesn’t have the most impressive tournament stats around. According to PokerPages player database Mershon only has four tournament cashes since 2004 and every one of them are under $900. But who knows, he could be the next Darvin Moon.

“I wrote the song to humorously tell what it's really like being a professional poker player; the sarcastic attitudes of many professional poker players; and the monotony of actually playing poker for a living and grinding out the long hours in a casino card room,” stated Mershon.

For more information on where to purchase the song visit www.playinpokerforalivin.com.

PPA Feels California Online Poker Regulation Will Happen

Last week, the California state director for the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) attended a informational hearing in the California Senate Governmental Organization Committee, and left the meeting confident that the state’s legislature will quickly move towards legalizing intrastate poker in the near future.

"I think it's clear after the hearing that, if not for the financial mess the state is in, these hearings wouldn't even be held," Steve Miller said. "It's such a mess, and they are trying so hard to close the budget gap, that it seems like something is going to happen for certain."

California’s financial woes have been well publicized over the last year, with state officials looking into every possible resource as a potential way of driving in revenue, with online poker being one of the more lucrative options. The meeting lasted more than eight hours, with Miller and PPA executive director John Pappas on hand to testified on the behalf of the poker rights for the 127,255 PPA members that hail from California.

"The PPA respects the due diligence of the committee to investigate 'if' online poker can be regulated, and we stand here to tell you that it unquestionably can be regulated and, in fact, already is being regulated, very effectively, across the globe in well-respected jurisdictions," Pappas said in his testimony.

One of the biggest roadblocks towards the regulation for California comes from the California Tribal Business Alliance, which overseas Indian-related gaming in the state. One of the alliance’s members, Leslie Lohse, says that regulating online poker in California would violate tribal gaming compacts and result in the stopping of payments from the tribes to the state’s general fund, amounts which total in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

NBC Heads-Up Championship Is Back

The NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship is heading back to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for its sixth season. The Championship will run March 4-7 and be presented by GoDaddy.com. This event is pretty impressive because 64 of the world’s greatest poker players will battle head to head in a game of wit and skill.

Some of the famous figures that will be there include Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, and Daniel Negreanu. Husck Seed, who is last years defending champion, will also be there to defend his title. Vanessa Rousso, a GoDaddy girl and last year’s runner up, will try her luck again at beating out the boys. Joe Cada will be one of the new fixtures at this year’s event.

"We're excited to bring this annual tradition back to Caesars Palace," said Jon Miller, executive vice president of NBC Sports. "The National Heads-Up Poker Championship's compelling poker action has become a must-see for the casual and hardcore poker fan alike."

The tournament is a single elimination tournament. The winner of each round progresses to the next bracket until they reach the final two for the championship round. The total prize pool will be 1.5 million with a first place prize of $500,000.

Players will be matched up with each other randomly for the first round. Selections will be made during the tournament’s Draw Party at Caesars’ PURE Nightclub on Thursday, March 4. Matches will begin the next day at 12 pm. Don’t worry if you are not able to make it to Las Vegas to watch the matches in person because the tournament will be broadcast on NBC on Sundays in April and May.

Gowen vs. Full Tilt Over

For the past couple of years the poker community has been following the lawsuit between Clonie Gowen and Full Tilt. The lawsuit was originally filed on November 14, 2008. Gowen filed the suit seeking $40 million claiming, among other things, breach of contract. Those named in the suit included Full Tilt Poker, Tiltware, Tiltware CEO Raymond Bitar, as well as a group of Team Full Tilt players.

One of Gowen’s main contentions with the lawsuit was that in 2004 she was offered a 1% stake in the Full Tilt site in exchange for her services as a celebrity poker endorser. However, she states that she was not given the 1% compensation.

Since hearing the case U.S district Court Judge Robert Jones determined that there was a fundamental flaw in the allegations put forth by Gowen. She was never held responsible for the site’s losses prior to become a profitable business, so it seemed unlikely that she had any legal partnership.

“Nowhere in the allegations does Plaintiff allege, consistent with a general partnership, that the agreement made her liable for 1% of Full Tilt Poker’s losses before it became profitable. Therefore, it is not plausible that a partnership, limited or general was offered,” states the decision.

The case had been previously dismissed in April 2009 to be heard again at a later date when changes were made to the complaint. Then in October 2009, Judge Jones denied Gowen’s appeal and dismissed the amended complaint. The judge asked for Gowen to change the complaint a third time to only include Tiltware as the sole defendant. However, the third time was not a charm as the case has been dismissed for the third and final time.

High Stakes Poker Returns to Television

In case you missed it, High Stakes Poker aired its first new espisode of 2010 on Sunday, February 14th at 8pm EST on the Game Show Network. HSP has long been one of the favorite poker shows on TV, featuring well-known professional players competing at nose-bleed stakes using their own money. This will be the sixth season of High Stakes Poker, and while the show hasn’t changed its formula much since Season 1, this year they are looking to change things up a little bit more, namely by dumping AJ Benza in favor of poker babe Kara Scott.

True, the attempts at humorous interaction between Benza and co-host Gabe Kaplan did have their charming moments, much of the commentary fell flat in comparison to the high energy/informative dialogue that could be heard on other shows like the World Poker Tour. That’s what happens when you put two analysts together without a color commentary, a diasterous move especially when only one of the analysts knows anything about poker.

Kara Scott should be able to breath some new life into the party, as the former host of the European Poker Tour has plenty of time in front of the camera, plus she’s also proven herself a formidable poker player, having cashed in the WSOP main event both in 2009 and 2008. Their back and forth in the first episode was underwhelming, but that’s understandable considering that it takes time for any on-screen duo to find their chemistry.

The buy-in for this season of High Stakes Poker is set at a minimum of $200,000, with blinds at $300-$600 with a $100 ante. The entirety of season six will be filmed at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in Downtown Las Vegas. Many veterans of the show will return this year including Patrik Antonious, Doyle Brunson, Tom Dwan, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari, along with a few new faces like Lex Veldhuis and Dennis Phillips.

Poker Room Opens to Accommodate Olympic Tourism

When a city is selected to host the Olympic Games, it guarantees a rush of tourism in the area from the time of the opening ceremonies to the end of the closing ceremonies. Local businesses often reap huge benefits from this vast infusion of potential customers, and one casino in Vancouver underwent a dramatic poker room overhaul in order to be ready in time for the Winter Olympics, giving the crowds a place to play some poker.

The Edgewater Casino, which is located near BC Place in downtown Vancouver, the site of the opening ceremonies, finished a 15-table poker room in time to accommodate the influx of tourists that may be looking for get in some Hold’em while in the area. The add-on was officially announced on February 9th, where they’ve been open for business ever since.

“We’re committed to giving our guests what they want, and that’s exactly what we have unveiled for our poker players,” said Lorea Ytterberg, poker manager of Edgewater Casino. “Our new space is a natural fit for a poker room that gives our players a private retreat from the casino floor, a convenient bar and lounge, and a Las Vegas-style gaming experience.”

Just some of the features offered by the card room includes broadcasts of Pay-Per-View and other major sporting events, complimentary poker lessons, advance call-in wait list, and short wait times. The new room is already catching the attention of Canadian pros like Brad Booth, who has been found at the tables regularly since it opened.

“They have a $5-$5 PLO game that goes regularly and there is no cap on the buy-in, so it’s a good little game. It’s a good game while I’m home here in town,” said Booth. “The staff is great, Lorea does a great job. It’s a great place to play.”

Poker Play Profile-Phil Hellmuth

Phil Hellmuth Jr. has earned the title for the world’s best No Limit Texas Hold’em tournament player in the world. Not only is he a great poker player, but he continues to break records and set standards for the industry. In 2007 he broke the world record for the most World Series of Poker Championships totaling 11 bracelets. It started in 1989 when 24 year old Hellmuth became the youngest poker player to win the Main Event. Then in 1993, he set the record for the most bracelets won in a single year.

Aside from being a dominating force at the table, Phil Hellmuth is famous for his big personality. Known as the “Poker Brat,” he doesn’t hold his tongue towards the other players at the table. His fits over other players’ “bad” plays have become an entertaining spectacle. He is one of the most colorful characters in the industry, and always keeps the viewing audience entertained. Love him or hate him, his talent at the table are known worldwide.

Hellmuth has over 9 million in tournament wins, and is sponsored by UltimateBet.com. His tournament success has also influenced best selling poker books including Play Poker Like the Pros, and multiple instructional DVDs. He is also a strong believer in giving back by supporting charities like Heifer International which benefits developing villages in the world’s poorest countries.

Good Spots, Lucky Flops, and Winning Pots at WPT Bellagio (Part IV)

At the WPT Bellagio I had experienced all the highs and lows of poker, and by dinner break I was the top 1 or 2 in chips. I was downing Bailey’s and coffee due to lack of sleep, but my hot streak had given me the adrenaline I needed to stay focused. After coming back from dinner break that all seemed to change.

Shortly after dinner break my table broke when I took out the last short stack on our table. We were down to four tables. After knowing my opponents inside and out and being able to push them around with my stack, I was seated at a table with unknowns. I told myself that I wasn’t going to get stupid with my chips and to play smart. I went two orbits without playing a hand before being moved to another table.

The next table didn’t bode well for me. A young aggressive German pro raised almost every hand knowing that the blinds were high enough to convince some players to fold to his raises. A few times I would reraise him to take the pot down, but his aggressiveness was keeping me from being the initiator. My cards were cold, so I was only able to pick up chips in a few spots. Without being able to pick up more pots I was swiftly losing the chip lead.

When we got down to two tables, I was sitting at an average stack and the blinds and antes were high enough that any pot could make you or break you. The German was on my table and continued to be aggressive with his big stack. There was also an equally aggressive French kid on the table who was now sitting as a short stack after bluffing his chips away. With blinds at 6,000/12,000 the German raised to 27,000. The French kid smooth called behind leaving himself with 170,000. I looked down at KK. I knew the German didn’t have a hand, but if I made it cheap enough he would see a flop no matter what he had. I wanted to keep him in the pot and take my chances of getting some chips from him. I was worried that if I raised too much that the French guy would shove feeling that he was committed. While considering my options, I counted out the chips and slid them across the line.

This is one time I should have announced my bet. Instead of raising it to 80,000 as I intended I had miscounted my chips and minraised. The German got out of the way and the Frenchman smooth called leaving himself with ten bets. Of course the flop brought an ace to which the Frenchman immediately shoved, and after careful consideration I reluctantly folded. He showed AQ. It is hard to know what the outcome would have been if I had not miscalculated my raise. It would have put the Frenchman in a position to either go all in or fold with his hand. This misstep could have saved me some chips in the event that he did go all in and I called.

I was able to knock a player out and hang on in the tournament until we reached the final table with ten players. The plan was to get to the final nine and then recess for the night to resume play the next day. Allen Cunningham, the German, and the Frenchman were at the final table so I knew it would be tough, but I was ready for the challenge. The first hand I was dealt pocket jacks, and being one of the short stacks I knew I would have to go all the way with it. I raised 2.5x and got an immediate all in from the other female at the table. I had eleven bets left with the BB coming around in two hands. I called, and she flipped over QQ. I wasn’t able to get lucky, and went out in a crushing 10th place. It was a quick end to my final table.

I was pretty happy with the way I played, but there were definite lessons to be learned. After the dinner break I made the mistake of letting up on my opponents when I should have been more aggressive. There has to be a balance when acquiring the chip lead of not being overly aggressive while still maintaining your dominance over the table. It will be something I will have to work on in the future, but overall I was glad to play well and run good in the critical points of the tournament.

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