Once just a high-stakes gambling destination, Macau is beginning to lure China's middle class.
"Many Chinese tourists come here for shopping purposes, because despite the 30% luxury tax, these top-tier products are still less expensive than if they were bought in Europe," wrote poker.co.uk's Frankie Price.
“The ‘game of skill’ argument to support the legality of poker was a lie perpetrated by Online Poker companies to deceive consumers into depositing money on their gambling Internet sites,” said [Gambling Law attorney Mark] Lavery to FORBES. ”I think this decision renders the skill argument a dead letter for loophole gambling like online poker and the so-called emerging ‘Daily Fantasy Sports’ craze. This ruling should not have an Impact on the Internet Poker Freedom Act. That bill tries to legalize what is illegal gambling in almost all states — online poker.”
Essentially, the court ruled that the whole "luck vs. skill" argument is immaterial. Poker is still gambling under New York state law and federal statutes.
2006 World Series of Poker champion Jamie Gold has sold his bracelet for $65,725 in an online auction.
Gold defeated nearly 9,000 other opponents at the 2006 tournament, taking home the $12 million cash prize and the iconic bracelet. Since then, he has won less than $150,000 in live tournaments, Card Player reports.
When his bracelet went on the market earlier this summer, the aptly-named Gold was cryptic about the reason why, suggesting it was against his will. From Card Player:
“It’s a legal issue that I can’t talk about, but what I can say is that I am not selling it," he said. "I would never do that. It’s really unfortunate what has been happening. It is out of my hands, but it’s not something I wish was happening. I’m not purposefully selling; I’m not involved in the auction and will not be making $1 if it does end up being sold.”
Emblazoned with 259 stones including over 7 carats of diamonds and 120 grams of white and yellow gold, the bracelet is "an absolutely amazing representation from one of the most talked about WSOP events in history," according to the listing.
A handful of other players have sold their winning bracelets too. The 2008 WSOP champion, Peter Eastgate, gave the proceeds to charity.
It was the beginning of the summer of 2006, when then-Dartmouth College freshman Andrew Seidman realized how good he was at poker.
"I applied for a summer job at a pizza parlor in my home town. In the week while I waited to hear a response, I made $7,000 playing online poker. So I pretty much gave up the idea of normal employment at that time," he told us over email.
For Seidman, known online as BalugaWhale, that summer was the beginning of a wild ride into professional poker, leading to "a surreal lifestyle — traveling all over the world, skipping class, seriously considering dropping out of college, clubs and bottles and Cirque du Soleil," followed by big losses, recovery, and a head-on collision with the Black Friday gambling crackdown of 2011. He still plays today, though new regulations and gambling fatigue have pushed him toward new things.
We asked Seidman, a college friend, to share some of his experiences over email.
The beginning:
I started playing recreationally with my friends in high school. I was the worst player at the table, and it frustrated me. In 2005 I read an article in Sports Illustrated about some Ivy League students (Jason Strasser & Vanessa Selbst among a couple of others) who were making boatloads playing online poker and who were practicing at a website called TwoPlusTwo Publishing. So, I visited twoplustwo and quickly became immersed in learning the game.
Making money:
Over the course of a few years I went from playing in $25 games to playing in $5,000 games. I realized somewhat gradually how much money I could win. Each time I moved up in stakes I was ecstatic about winning that amount, but I didn't really project into the future (i.e. "I'll be making a million dollars in 3 years at this pace!" never really happened). Instead, it happened in jumps. Summer 2007 I went on the first rush where I made more than $10,000. Spring of 2008 was when things got really insane and I started winning 40k+ per month. Basically, as I moved up in stakes I became more and more numb to the fact that the money was significant. I knew intuitively that when I won or lost 20k that that was the equivalent of a pretty good car, but I never processed it emotionally or thought about the money as anything other than a way to keep score of the game.
High times:
In 2008 I couldn't lose a hand and experienced a surreal lifestyle — traveling all over the world, skipping class, seriously considering dropping out of college, clubs and bottles and Cirque du Soleil.
One time, I was feeling claustrophobic in Hanover (it was one of the worst winters ever that year) and I impromptu bought a ticket to go to the Caribbean (and skip the last 2-3 weeks of classes; all of my finals were essays and I realized I could complete them from the beach). So, I went to Boston Logan Airport and played poker on my laptop while waiting to board. I made probably about $5,000. So, I thought to myself, "Trip's paid for." Then, I landed in Grand Cayman and played another pro online and booked what looked like my biggest all-time win; he quit playing me at around 5AM and I was up around $40,000. Then, as I was about to go to sleep, a famous weaker player sat to play me for $10,000. I got pretty unlucky and lost the $40,000 right back to that guy, then I went to sleep.
Another time, I met up with a poker player in Boston as I was in transit en route to Costa Rica. We hung out for the night (I had a 4AM flight the next morning). He offered to drive me to the airport. While on the road, he said, "Costa Rica sounds pretty cool. I wish I could go," to which I responded, "Do you want to come?" Suddenly we U-turned, went back to his apartment, he packed specifically one (1) t-shirt, one (1) board shorts, one (1) laptop, bought an $800 ticket leaving at 5:30AM that morning, and we went back to the airport. When I left him to go through security, he was lying down resting his head on his bag in the terminal. I arrived in Costa Rica to a voicemail from him saying that he'd slept through his flight and that he probably wasn't going to make it after all.
There are lots of stories like that; one guy I know played blackjack for $100,000 for his 20th birthday (he had to use a proxy player since they wouldn't let a 20 year old play); another friend asked me while I was at a club if I wanted to play blackjack and showed me 90k in chips (I declined, a great regret to this day). Another guy bought a brand-new Lexus with duffel bags filled with cash. We played credit-card-roulette for unbelievably expensive meals, paid in cash and never worried about it. I could honestly tell these stories indefinitely (I have begun working on a book that is actually a compilation of all of these insane experiences).
Low times:
In 2009 I had a massive losing streak and seriously considered quitting poker.
Primarily my own ego took control of my decision making processes. I started playing against some very good players in games where I was probably a losing player; I got extremely unlucky for a long period of time; I published my book and had been creating lots of poker videos online so it's also possible my opposition was learning a lot about how I was playing. Also, the quality of opposition was improving rapidly and I'd become less focused on improving my game while I was comfortably winning the previous year.
I took a lot of time off in 2010 before rebounding at the end of year and starting to make a lot of money again.
Black Friday:
On the Black Friday legal shutdown [April 15th, 2011] altogether I lost about $65k, though about $20k of that has been reclaimed.
Quick cliffnotes on Black Friday:
1) In 2007 the Congress passed the UIGEA which made it illegal for banks to process transactions related to illegal gambling (it was unclear whether or not poker constituted illegal gambling under the law).
2) Behind the scenes, banks started refusing to process poker transactions for fear of prosecution. So, the sites couldn't get money online. So, they started lying to the banks: "We're not a poker site, we're a golf supplies store! That $100k is for golf supplies."
3) Despite the lying, the noose was still tightening. Of the three major US-facing sites — PokerStars (PS), Full Tilt Poker (FTP), and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker (UB/AP) — ONLY PokerStars [did not allegedly mix player funds with corporate funds]. So, despite the fact that FTP and UB/AP couldn't move money, they [allegedly] continued to use player funds for business expenses (read: executive salaries). [While FTP has admitted wrongdoing, UB/AP litigation is ongoing.]
4) When players tried to deposit money onto FTP, most banks wouldn't let the deposits go through. However, FTP granted these players "real money" deposits under the expectation that they'd later be able to reclaim the funds. They never were able; these became "phantom deposits" and were a primary reason why FTP ended up $330m in debt.
5) FTP executives are on record instructing their customer service representatives to lie to customers and tell them that everything was fine and that their money was safe.
6) PokerStars was the only [company that] repaid their customers immediately (I had only about $5k on PS). In their settlement with the DOJ, they bought FTP assets for an additional couple hundred million with the extra money expected to be returned to the players. PS was in charge of non-US players repayment; the DOJ was in charge of US players repayment. Non-US players received their money shortly after the deal (I received $16k or so as a recently relocated "Canadian" player); US players are still waiting for a remissions process that is supposed to begin this September. In theory, we'll be allowed to apply to get funds from the DOJ.
So yeah, I feel pretty strongly that our money was stolen by FTP and UB/AP.
The new era:
Online poker in the USA (outside of Nevada & New Jersey who have legalized and regulated it) has essentially been pushed to the shadows. There are a few active online poker networks still operational stateside, but they are small and under constant fear of federal prosecution. So, basically every serious player has either opted to play poker live at the casino, or, as in the apparent majority of cases, leave the country (generally to Canada or Mexico). I only play online poker when I leave the USA (in fact, I have earning potential outside the USA such that it's probably a mistake to stay here). I occasionally play live poker, but in general, federal action has caused me to move away from poker and search for other non-poker opportunities.
He can still make money:
It depends on the stakes I'd be playing and the hours I'd be playing. I imagine that at a $5/10 game (usually buy-ins running between $1000-$4000) a good regular in Las Vegas could make $100/hour; online a good 5/10 player could make $300/hour; 10/20 players may make $500/hour, etc. etc. Those are extremely rough approximations, though.
Again, there is always significant risk though it's mitigated by skill advantages and bankroll considerations. If I was a favorite in a game and had an unlimited bankroll I could play forever and withstand any variance. However, it doesn't usually work that way. Usually people play with 20-40 times the buyin, well within a risk-of-ruin scenario in which a person could just get crushed by luck and bust out. Also, sample size matters. Can I go to Vegas and be assured of a winning weekend? No. Can I move to Vegas and be assured of a winning year? Probably.
There are a lot of elements of playing poker well — first, you have to psychologically profile your opponent (everyone fits into one of three general profiles); second, you have to understand basic probabilities (e.g. if I have two pair and my opponent has a flush draw, I win 65% vs his 35% and these are relatively easy to memorize); third, you have to predict your opponents likely holdings (this is called a range; a range is all possible hands your opponent might play in exactly the same way. To explain slightly further, you can imagine that your opponent would definitely raise with pocket aces, and they'd also definitely raise with pocket kings, which means that those two hands are played exactly the same way--therefore, that player's "range" would definitely include both AA and KK when he raises). Once you know roughly who somebody is, what they're likely to be holding, how often your hand wins against what they're likely to be holding, and what they're likely to do with what they're holding, you can start to make predictions and exploit your opponents' likely behaviors. In rock-paper-scissors, you may guess that your opponent is going to throw "scissors" so you'd throw "rock"; you'd be following essentially the exact same process.
Good poker players go through all of that process and are really mentally engaged trying to determine those things. Weaker players really don't do any of that and make purely emotional decisions (conservative players never really bluff, crazy gamblers basically always bluff, etc.).
In general, there are strategic breakthroughs and emotional ones. The strategic ones are complicated; the emotional ones come with personal development. I remember exactly where I was the first time I lost $50 (I was working at the News Desk at Dartmouth's Baker Library as a freshman), but I have no idea where I was the first time I lost $5000. Getting over the money is a huge part of breaking through as a poker player.
Why not play poker full-time?
Two reasons: first, I love living in the USA and I don't really want to live the Las Vegas lifestyle full-time. Secondly, I've been playing poker for a really long time and I'm generally more interested in entrepreneurship and developing new businesses. I've been working on a couple of different businesses (non-poker related). Also, while poker is still pretty entertaining and is a great hourly, there isn't a ton of room for growth (there are a lot of very smart people competing for the highest stakes at this point). However, if online poker returned in full force to the United States I'd probably resume playing at least 15-20 hours per week.
The guys around this table are no slouches, either. In the line up you've got — David Einhorn (Greenlight Capital), Steve Kuhn (Pine River Investments), John Rogers (Ariel Investments), Jim Chanos (Kynikos Associates), Mario Gabelli (Gabelli Asset Management), and Bill Perkins (Skylar Capital). Bloomberg's Trish Regan hosted.
Thing is, the last time Einhorn and Perkins got together, Perkins knocked Einhorn out of the World Series of Poker with gusto. Perkins didn't just have a better hand, he slammed it down on the table shouting "Leeroy Jenkins!!!", a reference to the popular World of Warcraft meme.
Last night at 9:00 p.m., Bloomberg TV aired a secret charity poker game between six of the biggest hedge fund managers in the game, and one takeaway is — everyone's a loser sometimes, even billionaires.
Take the clip below, for instance. Legendary short seller Jim Chanos blows his hand while David Einhorn — normally an even-tempered kind of guy — plays rough with his peers.
Another lesson: You never now how people are going to act once they get some cards in their hands.
Steve Kuhn (Pine River Investments), John Rogers (Ariel Investments), Mario Gabelli (Gabelli Asset Management), and Bill Perkins (Skylar Capital) also join Chanos and Einhorn at the table. Bloomberg TV's Trish Regan hosts.
As you know, David Einhorn is a sick poker player — so we picked up a few tips on the game from him after watching him play last week on Bloomberg TV's 'Poker Night On Wall Street special.
David Einhorn (Greenlight Capital), Steve Kuhn (Pine River Investments), John Rogers (Ariel Investments), Jim Chanos (Kynikos Associates), Mario Gabelli (Gabelli Asset Management), and Bill Perkins (Skylar Capital) participated in 'Poker Night On Wall Street', which had a minimum buy-in of $50,000.
Einhorn began playing poker in 2004, had a great time, practiced with a friend for a year and then went on to the world series in 2006, which was his first big tournament. Six years later, he was a world series winner.
Tip 2: Think On Your Feet
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Some poker situations are just simple math problems. Think of the payout in terms of the amount of money you have, the cards you have and the probability of getting the cards you need.
Tip #3: Play The Long Game
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Anything can happen in one tournament, it's like what could happen to one stock over quarter. But over time, the better stocks prevail. Similarly, in poker, over time, skill is more important than luck.
Tip #4: Don't Take Poker Too Seriously
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At the end of the day, relax and treat poker like any other game, a way to decompress from the stress of day-to-day life on Wall Street. "Frankly, I'm feeling a lot more pressure over some coming earnings releases over the next few days," Einhorn says.
On Wall Street, many of the biggest traders and fund managers love playing poker. And they're good at it, too.
Pro poker player Phil Hellmuth, who has won thirteen bracelets at the World Series of Poker, explained that there are a lot similarities between the card game and trading the markets.
When it comes to the market, you have traders managing money in a forum with a lot of other people around them. Just like in poker, the traders are betting against other traders and betting on or against certain stocks.
"It's very similar. You're sitting down and you're playing against other players and you're betting on your cards versus their cards. I also think traders, sometimes they're notorious. When they're on tilt, they over-bet a little. Same thing in poker."
Last night, hundreds of Wall Street traders, bankers and analysts gathered in the Prince George Ballroom in Manhattan's Flatiron District to play their favorite game for charity.
The Aces & Angels "Salute the Troops Wall Street Poker Showdown" raised funds for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, Wall Street Warfighters Foundation and the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation. Hellmuth was the host for the evening.
Firms in attendance included Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Drexel Hamilton, Greenlight Capital, Pine River Capital, Davidson Kempner Capital Management, SAC Capital Advisors, Sanford C Bernstein & Co., Magnitude Capital and others. We also met many financial services professionals who served in the military.
The winner got a seat in the World Series of Poker tournament this summer in Las Vegas.
If you missed the event, we've included highlights and photos of those who were in attendance.
Goldman Sachs vice president Jon Puckhaber (left) and Goldman Sachs managing director John Knorring. (Also, we love the beard. It looks like Lloyd Blankfein really started a facial hair movement.)
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Goldman Sachs managing director Dinkar Bhatia (left) and Goldman Sachs managing director/ former Marine Major Owen West
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(Left to Right) Former Marine Staff Sergeant John P. Jones; Goldman Sachs associate/ Army National Guard Staff Sergeant Eric Ceglowski; and Goldman's Owen West. Sergeant Ceglowski is headed to Afghanistan next month.
Over the last five years, the company that operates the World Poker Tour, bwin.party Digital Entertainment, has seen its stock price cut in half. Meanwhile, the London Stock Exchange, where the company has listed, has climbed by more than half.
Not a good look.
That makes this $1.6 billion market cap U.K company — which also has businesses ranging from casino games, to sports betting, to poker — a very attractive target for hedge funds that happen to play the very American activist investing game.
In this case it's Jason Ader and Andrew Wallach of SpringOwl Asset Management taking up the challenge. They own 5.25% of the company's stock and Ader has a long history in the gaming world. He made his name as a star analyst in the sector at Bear Stearns, and he currently sits on the board of Las Vegas Sands.
All he and Wallach want are four seats on the board. That's it.
"SpringOwl has made numerous attempts to work with the incumbent Board of BPTY to facilitate a reconstitution of the Board to ensure accountability to shareholders. Unfortunately, the incumbent Board has chosen to seek to maintain the status quo. We believe shareholders have become disillusioned by ongoing declines in business metrics as the Board approves incremental equity grants," said Ader.
Think of this like a reverse British Invasion. Forty percent of Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment's stock is held by American investors, anyway.
"At the end of the day we want to surround this management team with a board ... that's going to hold them accountable for underperformance," Ader told Business Insider.
We'll be following this to see how it all shakes out. In the meantime, check out the descriptions of the four proposed board members below.
Michael B. Fertik is the CEO, Chairman, and Founder of Reputation.com. He has been named Entrepreneur of the Year by TechAmerica, World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and a member of the WEF's Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet. Mr. Fertik is the named inventor on multiple patents in the fields of technology and data science. He is the author of the bestselling book Wild West 2.0 (AMACOM 2010) as well as the upcoming Reputation Economy (Crown 2015). He is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., Scientific American, Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC and the LinkedIn Influencer blog on topics including entrepreneurship, technology, innovation, data-driven leadership and Silicon Valley.
Francis X Grady is the founder of Grady & Associates (founded in 1994), a boutique law firm devoted to the representation of banks throughout the United States. Mr. Grady provides bank regulatory, corporate and securities law representation to banking organizations in matters involving bank supervision, payment and credit card processing, bank regulatory enforcement actions, executive compensation and shareholder relations. Prior to founding Grady & Associates, Mr. Grady held positions with the law firms Seeley, Savidge & Aussem; Hahn, Loeser & Parks and Muldoon, Murphy & Faucette. Mr. Grady began his career in the Honors Attorney Program at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington, DC, where he worked from 1984 to 1986.
Kal Patel is a private venture capital investor and advisor to emerging disruptive technology companies. From 2012 to 2013, Mr. Patel was Executive Vice President and a Member of Executive Committee of LRN Inc., with responsibility for global strategy and operations. From 2011 to 2012, Mr. Patel was a London-based Partner and Senior Advisor of VantagePoint Capital Partners, a venture capital firm focused on Energy/Resource Innovation, Information Technology and Healthcare, where he led the firm's global strategic partner initiative. From 2003 to 2011, Mr. Patel was a senior executive at Best Buy Co., Inc., where he rose to become Chief Strategy Officer and President and Chief Executive Officer of Best Buy Asia as well as running the Company's Best Buy Venture Capital Fund. Prior to Best Buy, Mr. Patel served as a Senior Partner at Strategos Inc, CA, strategy innovation consulting firm. Prior to Strategos, Kal worked at KPMG Consulting, where he co-founded and led the Business Transformation Practice. Mr. Patel was born in Kenya and raised in Zambia and the United Kingdom.
Steven Rittvo is the founder of The Innovation Group of Companies and has served as the Chief Executive Officer of a number of the individual component companies since the founding in 1999. The Innovation Group is an integrated service organization focused on the terrestrial and online casino and gaming industry. Its clients, in over 65 countries, include National and State Governments, publicly and privately owned casino and gaming operators and equipment providers and leading financial institutions. The services provided by The Innovation Group of Companies include project feasibility studies, financial analysis, development of marketing plans, restructurings and reorganizations, operational and situational audits, financing and M&A advisory. Mr. Rittvo has been identified by Global Gaming Magazine as "One of the 10 Most Influential People in Gaming." An acknowledged thought leader in online gaming, Mr. Rittvo founded iGaming North America, the first major US-centric Internet Gaming conference. Mr. Rittvo also produced and published the first comprehensive, nationwide survey of internet gamers in the United States. He is a frequent expert witness on gaming-related issues and has testified before numerous legislative and licensing bodies on both state and national levels. Mr. Rittvo previously served as a Director of Gametech Corporation.
Ben Affleck was banned for life from the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas last week after security caught the actor allegedly counting cards while playing blackjack at a high rollers' table.
Card counting — a method of using probability to predict the next hand — is not technically illegal, but it can get a player barred.
But Affleck being "too good at the game," as casino security told him in this instance, isn't anything new.
Before starring in last year's crime thriller "Runner Runner" about an online gambling tycoon, Affleck made many visits to Vegas — often winning large sums.
According to the NY Post, he "had hit it big playing '21' at the very same casino, raking in a total of nearly $1 million in two trips."
The Post reported at the time that Affleck won $140,000 in a single sitting while playing with pal Matt Damon and "gave away every one of his $140,000 in chips to casino staffers on the 2000 trip — tipping his dealers, waitress and door boys as much as $5,000."
A year later, Affleck reportedly "won $800,000 while playing three simultaneous hands at $20,000 a pop."
Affleck also has a proclivity for Poker, in the past hosting games at a Beverly Hills cigar bar with A-list players like Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Tobey Maguire.
In 2004, Affleck — who is worth a reported $75 million— even won the California State Poker Championship and its $350,000 grand prize. It earned him a seat in the World Poker Tour final tournament, but he didn't take home any prize money.
"This is not likely the last time you'll see Ben Affleck at one of our final tables," a Commerce Casino State Poker Championship spokeswoman said at the time. "He has become a respected member of the poker elite and continues to work to improve his game."
The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has not yet responded to our request for comment.
As the annual World Series of Poker gets rolling in Las Vegas later this month, hopeful competitors will be buying in and getting their poker faces on.
But why is it such a challenge to recognise deception – both on and off the poker table – even with past experience to draw on and lots of cues seemingly available?
Most of us are proficient liars. We all lie, probably every day, about something or other. Ever answered the standard question of "how are you?" with a less-than-forthright reply?
We understand the concept of lying before we turn four: Charles Darwin reported his son, a few months shy of his third birthday, trying to lie and there are data suggesting the behaviour can manifest from as young as two years.
And just as everyone engages in deceptions, everyone wants to know how to tell if someone else is lying. It seems as though it should be easy – there are "tells": sweating, eye movements, micro-expressions, changes in body posture and even changes in speech patterns, that can help us recognise a lie.
Those signals are a type of natural polygraph. Like mechanical lie-detector tests, they rely on a set of physiological changes that occur when we lie. Telling a porky pie, even a so-called white lie, requires cognitive and emotional effort.
Someone's lying in this video. Can you spot who it is?
Lying activates our autonomic nervous system, and the more venal the lie – the more there is at stake – the more activated the autonomic nervous system becomes.
Why is it so hard to detect a lie?
Pants on fire (if only it was that easy)
The answers are surprising.
First, there is "noise" in the lie-detection system: there are many things that activate the human autonomic nervous system.
Nervousness is a good example. People typically get nervous when
they are being interrogated, about anything
they meet for the first time someone to whom they are attracted (which, by the way, is one of the circumstances under which we are very likely to lie about something)
the stakes are high – when much depends on what they do, or how well they do it
there's confrontation involved: a deadline, great expectations … even in-laws.
When we are nervous we sweat more. We sweat a different type of sweat and so we smell different. We fidget and our hair stands on end. We either don't make any or make exaggerated eye contact. We change the way we speak and, without knowing it, the pitch of our voice changes.
Those changes also occur when we are lying. So it is a myth that there exists a reliable, unique set of cues that signal someone is lying. Some behavioural cues certainly are correlated with lying, but most of those also are correlated with other behaviours too.
Second, there is the cost to the lie-detector of a "false alarm". Socially speaking, it's a high-stakes game: the fear of the damage and embarrassment wrought by mistakenly calling someone out on a lie, combined with the high burden of proof involved, stack the decks against successful "prosecution".
Perhaps most surprisingly though, we are generally less interested than we think in actually discerning the truth. We are, very often, willing to accept as truth lies that smooth social interactions.
Similarly, lies that are congruent with our world-views or, and especially, with our self-image will less often be "called out". In other words, we actually are very skilled at not recognising lies.
I lie, therefore I think
Of course, the little white lies we tell to keep conversations flowing or to compliment (or at least avoid offending!) our friend/partner/boss seem hardly interesting. Juicier are the venal deceits that, when detected, leave trust shattered and lives changed. As it turns out, all lies, big or small, are tactical deceptions.
Tactical deceptions require the liar to actively manipulate information to mislead another. They are interesting because the creation of such a deception has been interpreted as evidence that the liar has developed a theory of mind– I lie, therefore I think.
If that is true the implications are broad: both old world and new world monkeys have been observed in tactical deceptions. The same is true for other great apes, and even ravens.
Lies, damned lies, and experts
Mark Twain, lamenting his lack of skill with numbers, stratified statistics as a worse than average form of lying.
Nonetheless – and acknowledging there is no small opportunity for irony when a researcher asks about how often people lie – who lies and how often are open questions across the behavioural sciences.
We do know almost everyone lies. Women and men lie on average equally often, but about different things. There is some evidence too that men are better liars than women.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, estimates of how often we lie vary wildly. That is partly because context is important. Lying is, after all, a type of social glue, and – not surprisingly – people lie in surveys.
So the next time you pull up a chair at the casino or with mates at a poker night, remember – while you may find it hard to tell if your opponents are lying, they're probably also finding you hard to read.
The authors do not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. They also have no relevant affiliations.
Gambling equipment maker Amaya Gaming Group Inc. (CVE:AYA) will pay $4.9 billion in cash to buy the world's largest poker business and owner of the PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker brands, to create the world's largest online gambling company.
To help finance Amaya's deal to buy privately held Oldford Group Ltd., parent of Rational Group Ltd., said late Thursday it has arranged financing from a unit of the Blackstone Group LP (NYSE:BX). Amaya also will issue common shares and preferred shares to help pay for the acquisition.
Rational Group is the world's largest poker business and the owner of the PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker brands, Amaya said.
Tonight your co-workers invited you to a game of poker. What should be a fun night, can quickly become embarrassing if you don’t know what your boss means when he says “pocket rockets”.
But don’t worry. We're here to help out with the key words so that you can sound like a pro.
Let’s start with the parts of the game. In poker, not only are you dealt your own cards, but there’s also a shared pile of 5 cards on the table. The first three cards are dealt at the same time and they’re called the flop.
After a round of betting, the fourth card – the turn– is dealt, and is followed by another round of betting. And finally, the river, or the fifth card, is uncovered.
In between all these card reveals there’s a series of bets. The first bet is the ante, which is a small bet that every player must make before the round starts. Then, you have the blinds, which are also required bets that the first two players to the left of the dealer must make. The first is called the small blind, and the second is called the big blind.
Matching or raising a bet that was made before you is known as calling the bet. And players who call too much are given the insulting nickname "calling station".
Why is it bad to call too frequently? Well, for starters, it reveals that you are an amateur because only players who don’t know the correct pot odds call often. And secondly, amateur players get lucky and end up with winning hands when they do this – which naturally annoys the pros even more.
Pot odds, by the way, is a ratio of the money in the pot to the amount it will cost you to call the current bet. Sounds complicated, but all it means is that if there is $100 in the pot, and the bet will cost you $10, you have 10-to-1 odds.
And even though betting is great, sometimes the odds are low and you don't have great cards. When this happens you have several options.
First, you can check. By quickly tapping their fingers twice on the table, players signify that they want to stay in the game but do not want to bet extra money.
Other players may want to bet your check anyway, after which you need to decide if you are willing to throw in the chips. Otherwise you can fold– or quit the round – and throw your cards into the dead pile, or muck.
Another option is to bluff, which is when a player makes a bet, knowing that they do not have the best cards, and hopes that his opponent will panic and fold in his place.
Unfortunately, even with a great hand (known as a monster) a player with even better cards might beat you. This is called a bad beat. And to make things worse, it’s usually because of a lucky last minute draw for the other player.
After a series of bad beats, some players start getting desperate and play too aggressively and carelessly. Others will refer to them as tilts. Needless to say, you want to avoid this nickname.
While we’re on this, you don’t want to be called a donkey or fish either. That’s someone who plays poorly and looks like he’s throwing away his money.
And if you’re feeling really lucky, you might consider going all in, a move when a player bets all his chips. Afterwards, he can no longer bet and a side pot may be created for other players to continue betting. You either win big, or you’re done.
Finally, here’s some slang terms for cards you might have in your hand:
Two Aces are usually called Pocket Rockets. Star Wars enthusiasts call them Admiral Ackbar when a player holds the aces to trap another player.
An Ace and King is called Big Slick because it is a slippery hand with which one can easily loose a fortune. Tennis fans call it the Anna Kournikova because it “looks good, but doesn’t win.”
Two Kings are called Cowboys
Two Queens are called Canadian Aces, referring to The Queen of England's relationship to Canada.
A Queen and Jack (QJ) is called the Oedipus, referencing Queen Jocasta from the Greek Tragedy
Two nines are called the Wayne Gretzky.
Two eights are called snowmen.
And two fours are called the Midlife Crisis.
Now get out there and don't make a fool of yourself.
Any athlete in any sport can tell you that 50% of the game is mental. Poker is no different. In fact, the mental aspect of poker is the most crucial part of the game because you need to know how to handle short term gains and short term losses in order to stay focused until the end.
Bumps in the road will happen. What matters is what you choose to do when you come across the challenging moments. And to be able to make the best choices and to strengthen your poker game, you need to know how to avoid getting stuck in mental pitfalls.
1. Stop thinking in terms of absolute values Poker is a game of relative values. That means that you don't need a monster hand to win, you just need a hand that is better than your opponent's. Similarly, even if you have a monster hand, it doesn't mean that you're going to win... Your hand might look better, but your opponent's might do better once the flop comes. Don't believe that? In the 2009 WSOP, Joe Cada's winning hand was two 9's. He beat Darvin Moon who had queen-jack.
2. Don't play every single hand New players sometimes feel like they need to play every single hand. This happens for several reasons, including wanting to be part of the action, not wanting to give away a bad hand, and wanting to impress other players. Unfortunately, you will not do well if you play to impress others because then you are not focusing on the game. Worrying too much about impressing others is a distraction.
3. Failing to study your opponent You can't completely ignore other people. You need to be aware of how your own habits betray what cards you might be holding. You must also be able to analyze other players and their playing styles in order to see what their tells are. If you can't pick up on your opponent's mental mistakes and you can't decipher any of their habits, you should find easier opponents. (Think of it this way: if you can't reach a basketball hoop, don't challenge John Wall to a slam dunk contest.) Understanding how other players think and behave is so critical to the game of poker that some professional poker players have an ex-FBI agent train them in recognizing non-verbal communication.
4. Not wanting to "give up" Of course, giving up is bad. But in poker, sometimes a good player needs to recognize when it is the correct decision to fold instead of waiting for a lucky strike. That's just how the game works. A lot of novice players get too caught up in waiting for cards in the flop. For example, a person might have 3 cards that could lead to a flush. Instead of actually considering the pot odds and probabilities, he will cling to the dream of seeing two more cards in the flop that will complete his flush. This might never happen, and by then the player might have unnecessarily wasted a fair amount of money. Not "giving up" has seriously negative consequences because the player is relying on short-term emotions, rather than investing in the long-term of the game.
5. Not knowing any math A huge part of poker is knowing how to correctly size bets and understanding pot odds and implied pot odds. If you can master this, then you will have a better sense for when it is best to fold and when it is best to keep playing. A lot of new players don’t take the time to learn the probabilities. Instead, they play the extremes by betting too much when their cards excite them, and by betting too little when their cards disappoint them. Ideally, a player should not get caught up in these emotions, but should analyze the situation and proceed to make choices that maximize potential winnings and minimize potential losses.
6. Bluffing too much Some people really get into bluffing because it's exciting — and it's incredibly enjoyable to bluff successfully. The downside of this behaviour is that your bluffs no longer become believable after a while. In other words, your playing strategy will be very easy to read for the duration of the game.
7. Cold calling raises Cold calling is when a player calls more than one player's raise at once. Opponent A will raise, then opponent B will re-raise, and then you call. This play indicates that you are either a timid or an undisciplined player — or both. If you do not feel comfortable enough to re-raise after opponent B re-raised, then you should probably fold.
8. Being afraid to make mistakes Some players are too afraid to play until they know "for sure" that their hand will win. If they are uncertain of the round's outcome, they fold. The problem with this strategy is that people who do this assume that other players play the same way. Often times, when a timid player sees someone playing aggressively, he automatically assumes that the aggression is a sign of good cards. And then, he folds, even though the other player might have been bluffing.
And finally...
9. Using your cards as an excuse This is the most important rule in any poker game. People use “bad cards” as a scapegoat constantly, but it’s not a legitimate excuse. Even the greatest poker players get terrible cards, yet they still end up at the final table.
You're not going to win every single round — accept that and move on. The trick is to recognize profitable opportunities in the game. You don't have control over the good or bad cards that you are dealt, but you do have control over making the best of your situation and finding the good opportunities. And that's how you win.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.PLAYA DEL CARMEN, MEXICO — When Matt Block walks into Big Al & Redneck Steve's Beer Bucket on 10th Street on a brilliant sunny Sunday afternoon with a tan and the tropics-approved outfit of light polo, simple shorts, and low tops with no socks, he looks like the thousands of people who flock to the vacation paradise 45 minutes south of Cancun.
Except unlike the tourists hemorrhaging cash on watered-down margaritas and overpriced beach chairs, the New Yorker is here to work. On this Sunday, he makes $7,100 in a few hours sitting in front of his computer, playing online poker. He arrived a month ago and has no plans to leave anytime soon. Life is too good, cheap and easy, with an endless string of women "actively looking to make bad decisions, "as he puts it.
The 28-year-old — "ancient for poker," he says — is a new addition to the informal brotherhood of about 150 mostly young men, the majority American, who have flocked to this beach resort on the so-called Riviera Maya to make their fortunes at online poker, spending their spare time partying, hitting on women, and living large. Members of the loosely connected group span more than a dozen years in age and varying degrees of card-playing talent. Some bonds are tighter than others. People come and go, but together they make up what you could call the Poker Frat of Playa del Carmen.
The life sounds like a dream. And for the most part it is.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
* * *
On April 15, 2011 — “Black Friday” in the poker world — the Department of Justice shut down access to PokerStars, Absolute Poker, and Full Tilt Poker for users in the U.S., freezing players' accounts in the process. Thousands of professional players, mostly young men who knew nothing other than poker, had a choice: Find gainful employment at a real job or move abroad and continue plying their trade. Many chose the latter option, alighting to Canada, Costa Rica, Malta, and elsewhere. A few found their way to Playa.
Life is too good, cheap and easy, with an endless string of women 'actively looking to make bad decisions.'
It's a manageable, walkable place, where it's possible to pay $700 a month to live five minutes from the famous Mamitas Beach Club. Life centers around Fifth Avenue, just two blocks up from the ocean, where cars are banned on a stretch of the road, turning the avenue over to tourists. Häagen-Dazs is big, as are, for some reason, the Montreal Canadiens. Five Starbucks dot the streets around the center of town. (Block credits the chain's dominance for his mother's willingness to support his move.) A shiny new mall, a sign of the coming Cancunification, has a Forever 21, Aldo, and Victoria's Secret. On the next block, a novelty T-shirt shop sells shirts reading "I [Heart] Justin Bieber" and "I'm in Cancun, Bitch."
When Gus Voelzel arrived in 2011, he was one of the first 30 or so poker players here. A lawyer turned cash-game maestro, he was planning on staying three weeks and still hasn't left. He made a few friends, but the group wasn't tight. Shaun Deeb changed that a few months later when he won four tournaments during the 2012 PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), totaling more than $160,000. Deeb invited everyone to a local bar, Coco Maya, to celebrate. The gang got along famously, bonding over booze, women, and cards. The Poker Frat of Playa del Carmen was born.
Each day they would wake up late, shake off a hangover, and log on. Most of the online players are in Europe, and the easiest way to make money is take it off the casual player who signs on after work. The seven-hour time difference between Mexico and Central Europe makes Playa the holy grail, says Seth Davies. So they'd play 10, 12, 16 tables at once for between four and eight hours, grab a six-pack per person, meet on the beach, and then head to a bar or club. They'd cut lines and skip cover charges, since managers and doormen soon came to understand that the group had money to spend. The boys would dance, drink, hook up with tourists, then go home and do it again the next day, reliving the highlights on a group Skype chat.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Word quickly spread around the expat poker community. Playa was cheaper than Canada, safer and more convenient than Costa Rica, and more fun than Rosarito on the west coast of Mexico. There's fishing, snorkeling, scuba diving, golf, paintball, beach volleyball, soccer, and other activities within easy access. Living on $1,000 a month isn't difficult, and $2,000 is more than enough. Block rents a two-bedroom apartment with a pool and a security guard for $1,150. Voelzel's three-bedroom place, which he shares with an ever-rotating cast of roommates, sets him back $1,800. And there's no need to learn Spanish. Playa Now, a service started by two non-poker-playing expats, will deliver food for 25 pesos (about $2). The delivery charge for other items — use your imagination here — is 50 pesos.
The lifestyle is badass. We're not playboy gangster helicopter guys, but we have freedom.
Thirty players doubled, then tripled, and they now sit at more than 150. The population peaks for SCOOP, the second-biggest online poker tournament of the year with $40,000,000 in guaranteed payouts, when another 50 or so players arrive. Being an online poker player is a transient profession. All you need is an internet connection, and most players in Playa have backup service.
"The lifestyle is badass," Seth's older brother, Nick, says. "We're not playboy gangster helicopter guys, but we have freedom. There are kids who I think could run Fortune 500 companies and there are kids who I wouldn't want watching my dog." Players of all sorts are welcome in Playa.
A Big Win
Seth Davies does not look like a guy who won $243,437.17 less than three days ago. He's "grinding," a term the players use reverentially to signify how diligently they work and how fastidious they are in their approach. Davies is shirtless, wearing only University of Oregon basketball shorts, his Luke 14:11 tattoo clearly visible on the inside of his right bicep, staring intently at the Apple monitor that displays the four tournaments he's playing concurrently. He spends at least 50 hours a week here — more during SCOOP — sitting in a leather chair at the kitchen table in the large, open apartment with purple walls and hideous modern art that he shares with Voelzel and another roommate, Drew. (He and Drew are Voelzel's 11th and 12th roommates in the past two years.) His roommates' laptops with huge auxiliary monitors are also on the table, and they're grinding away, too, looking to score.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Davies had a big win Thursday morning. The two-day No Limit Hold 'Em tournament he dominated began at 4 p.m. on Tuesday. It ran for 12 hours, then started up again at 4 on Wednesday afternoon. Davies was also playing in other tournaments, splitting his attention and attempting to maximize the opportunities to cash. About 8 p.m. Wednesday, he decided to focus, "one-tabling" as opponents busted and he began to think he had a real shot to win. Evening became night became daybreak. "I never felt really tired," he says. "It was adrenaline-fueled. All of a sudden I looked up and the sun was up."
At 8:16 Thursday morning Davies won. Voelzel, who had been watching the live stream in his room upstairs while simultaneously catching up on “How I Met Your Mother,” walked into the kitchen, high-fived his roommate, then passed out from exhaustion. Davies was too amped to sleep. "I took a shot of warm vodka," he says, laughing. "I just hung out here for awhile. No one was awake. I felt like a fucking crackhead. I was so hopped up on adrenaline. I needed to do something, so I walked to the store and bought deodorant." Then, he took a nap, woke up, went to his friend's to start drinking, partied, went to sleep, and started playing all over again.
Tales of poker marathons are common. The guys like to tell the story of a high-stakes player who had such horrible food poisoning he wound up lying on the tile floor in his bathroom while continuing a game. He was playing heads-up against a “fish” (a rich guy with cash to lose), and couldn't afford to step away. Eventually he made $220,000 while leaning on the porcelain, hurling into the toilet.
* * *
Online poker moves at a remarkable velocity. I watched Voelzel for an hour and a half. He played roughly 1,200 hands, with 15 seconds to make a move on each turn. He rarely took that long, though, glancing at his cards, processing his decision, then acting. He sat at 16 tables at once, 12 on his large Samsung monitor and another four a laptop that also ran two programs designed to help maximize winning. One kept the various games organized on his screen. The other tracked every hand Voelzel had sat in with different opponents, reporting the percentage of time that person took a specific action in a given situation.
The volume of data was astonishing. Voelzel had sat in 130,000 hands on one guy, 41,000 with another, and 15,000 with a third. At one point, he had A2 (a "bad hand") but he raised an opponent because the stats told him that the person folded to a raise 81 percent of the time. The opponent folded; Voelzel took the pot. It seems like cheating, but of course there's nothing to stop his opponents from doing it as well.
Voelzel also collects information on the players he sees frequently, taking notes on particular plays and tendencies. Sometimes they help, sometimes not. "Fuck, I have to fold because I don't have time to read all my notes," he says at one point, turning his attention to one of the other 15 hands he's playing. During 90 minutes of low stakes $1 or $2 big blinds, Voelzel made $400. Not bad, but not the $1,000 an hour he tries to earn.
It's getting harder to make money all the time. Black Friday eliminated a huge number of American recreational players, who made up 70 percent of the market. Those people, who played for fun rather than profit, were easy marks. Meanwhile, the velocity of online play allows inexperienced players to gain a decade's worth of experience in a few months, while the proliferation of poker books, TV programs, and the general popularity of the game mean the average player is better. "You'll often have five good players and one bad player at a six-max table, whereas pre-Black Friday the ratio was normally three to three or even two to four," Voelzel says.
The final factor is the Balkanization of the online sites. PokerStars.fr and PokerStars.es force players in France and Spain, respectively, to play only against players in their country; as a result, many of the pros from those nations have moved to nonsegregated places where they can play against a larger player pool. One of the biggest fears of the online poker players in Playa is that Brazil and Russia, two of the countries with the biggest poker playing populations and the most fish, will go the route of France and Spain. That would be a disaster. "It would be very difficult to make more than $50,000 or $60,000 a year," Nick Davies says. "And it's already difficult enough."
The Borrowers
Surprisingly, most tournament poker players prefer not to gamble with their own money. The majority are staked — given a bankroll to pay for buy-ins. Staking provides a hedge against the ups and downs of tournament poker, and a way for the "stable" owner to diversify his investments. These staked "horses" split any winnings 50-50 with the person who stakes them, but only after they have paid back the original money. If they haven't, 100% of the earnout goes toward getting the "makeup" back to zero. As a result, it's possible to win a tournament and see no money. One player in Playa earned $81,000 in one tournament but had had such a bad run of luck that he was still $19,000 in makeup after the victory.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Seth Davies is staked in part by Nick, who started a staking business with a friend in March 2009 with $3,000 and ran it up to $300,000 before Black Friday. Almost all their money was frozen when the feds descended on the sites, but Nick has slowly built his bankroll back. The elder Davies, who has about 20 horses, made $50,000 when his brother won his SCOOP.
When staking works, it pays off. But it's based on trust. "This morning I had to deal with a kid who stole $8,800 from me last fall," Nick Davies says, sipping a glass of water with a shot of vodka in it. (He is trying to cut a few pounds; a $5,000 bet is riding on the outcome.) "He kept giving me excuses, saying his girlfriend had a nine-month miscarriage, and then changing it to an abortion. That's the downside, Makeup can be zero or 100 cents. I used to value my makeup at about 95 cents on the dollar but Black Friday changed the moral compass of our industry. People got very shady."
For Block, getting staked helps with the emotions of the game. "Last week I lost $25,000. This week I made $25,000. The swings are a little tough sometimes," he tells me at Big Al's while C+C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" played over the speakers. "If you think of it as money, you're fucked."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The downside to being staked is that you don't win as much. Seth Davies took home roughly $90,000 of the $250,000 he won. His brother got some and another guy earned $80,000. Seth had to pay back makeup, too, the result of a year spent treading water. And even when he earned the payout, he needed to be careful. Another long dry spell could be coming. "As a tournament player, it's all about being smart with your real-life money," the younger Davies says. "It's about being able to get a $50,000 paycheck and not go spend it. It's funny as I'm telling you this while we're talking about planning a yacht party."
The Davies boys, Voelzel, and some of their closer friends made a deal that if anyone won $100,000 or more in a SCOOP event, they would pay for a yacht party. The question now was when to hold it. One faction hoped to rent the 56-foot boat the week after SCOOP but another group wanted to wait until they could recruit some girls. Negotiations on the Skype "Yacht Party" chat were tense, dozens of messages popping up every hour.
Ultimately, the decision would come down to the Davies duo, who were paying, and Voelzel, one of the few poker players who speaks Spanish, who would order the boat. (There was a 100-foot one to rent, but it was limited to 22 people instead of 30, apparently because the owners were wary of letting too many drunk 20-somethings on their vessel at one time.) If the Playa gang has a social chair, it's Voelzel.
"He's going to be governor of this place," Nick told me about his friend. Voelzel, skinny with a shaved head and a vague resemblance to Steve Nash, previously worked as an entertainment and sports lawyer in Austin, playing poker on the side. He's affable and easy-going, the type of guy who would go out until 4 a.m., pick up the backpack he left with the owners of a nearby bodega, jump in a cab to the airport, and take the redeye to Austin, where he'd tailgate before the University of Texas football game, go to the game, go out to party, and then take the redeye back to Cancun, arriving home in time to play the big Sunday Million tournament. "It was a lot," he admits with a smile as we took a shot of coconut-flavored mescal chased by a Corona at La Mezcalinna, the closest thing to a dive bar on 12th Street. A girl walked by wearing only her bra and a skirt. No one seemed phased.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Playa is a non-stop circus of vacationers from all around the world, beautiful women looking to party. The Norwegian University Colleges has an exchange program in Playa (offering Spanish and Personal Training among other courses), meaning there's another group of tall, blonde Norwegian exchange students arriving every few months. The general consensus of the poker players is that you could pretty much take home a girl any night you wanted.
We have a skill set that's immeasurable but kind of unadaptable to the real world.
The transient nature of life in Playa can be a blessing but also a curse. "The first lesson I learned down here is that tourists are great, but they are bad for you," says Block, who's hooked up with half a dozen girls during his first month in Playa. "The first 12 days I was here, I got absolutely nothing done. You meet people who are on vacation and you end up going on vacation with them. They are here for four days and you go out for four days with them. You know that feeling you get when your vacation is over and you're sad? You feel that."
"It sounds cliche," he adds later, "but when it comes to women here, it’s pretty limitless. I've calmed down now, though. I’ve been living with a really amazing girl from the Netherlands for the past two weeks. In one more week she leaves, though. Fuck, that's going to be weird."
Far From Home
There's a terrible movie called “Runner Runner” starring Ben Affleck as a shady entrepreneur who runs an online poker empire from Costa Rica. At one point, he's sitting in a hot tub, lamenting about his situation. "It's not that I'm homesick. I'm not away at camp. It's an issue of freedom," he says. "I can't walk down Michigan Avenue. I can't walked down Broadway. I can't walk down Art Rooney Avenue and have Primanti's kielbasa and cheese. You know what that's like for a lifelong Steelers fan?"
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The players in Playa can return to the U.S. — and many of them do, some to play live events like the World Series of Poker, and others to visit family — but they can't play there legally. States such as New Jersey have legalized online poker, but the player pool is so small that there's no money to be made. For many of them, this is the only career they know. "About 80% to 90% of the people here are going to have a very difficult time post-poker," Nick Davies says. "That's the nature of the beast."
He continues: "We have a skill set that's immeasurable but kind of unadaptable to the real world. I think that if you put me in a room with the right i-banking guy, we could get on. But then you have to be a bitch for six years, and then maybe be a VP, and maybe make 300 or 400k and still be a slave. I can hustle that in my own and live in Playa. If I want to go to the beach I can. If I want to go diving in Cozumel on a Monday with Gus, we do it."
And they do. Play poker, go diving, go clubbing, go drinking. Repeat. There's a saying down in Playa that there are two days: Sundays, when the weekly PokerStars Million tournament happens, and Fridays, which is every other day.
The night I arrive, around 2 in the morning, Voelzel and I are talking at the Blue Parrot, a club just off the beach at the end of North 12th Street, when the music stops and a group of people start breakdancing. The crowd circles around them, cheering aggressively. Voelzel glances over, looks away, then takes a sip of his Tecate Light. "It's the same breakdancing show every night," he says.
"It's like 'Groundhog Day,'" he adds with a resigned sigh.
If he could he’d return to Austin. He misses the family ranch near Laredo, Texas. Marco Johnson, who owns a condo in Walnut Creek, California, would go home, too. Nick Davies might not, but more because of the profits he makes from sports betting. If that were legal, he'd probably return. Block isn't sure, but he'd like to have the option.
As the group grows, the connections between the players weaken. They used to roll 30 at a time; now it's a little more fractured. "We can't go out and party then Skype each other the next morning anymore," Johnson says. The poker frat still exists, but it's never going to be the same as it was those first 12 months.
‘Stay Away From The Foam’
The night SCOOP ends, Voelzel, the Davies brothers, and a few of the other poker boys stand watching a "foam party," albeit from a safe distance.
A crowd of women in miniskirts frolic in a bubbly cascade that pours from a machine strung 15 feet in the air.
"Stay away from the foam," Kevin Killeen, a 24-year-old from Dublin who earned more than $120,000 in March for winning a tournament while wearing a fuzzy ski hat bedazzled by a monster, advises with the gravitas of someone who has been there before. "I've lived in Greece and Spain and that's what I've learned." He buys another round of mojitos for himself and a few friends and the night marches onward.
The foam inches ever closer to our spot by the "Ladies Bar" where women are served sugary rum drinks for free. Block walks by and says hello. Then he bounds off toward the dance floor, looking for the pretty blonde bartender he's planned to meet.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Another hour passes before Voelzel and the gang tire of the Parrot. We move to another club just down 12th Street. The bouncers at La Vaquita let our group of 10 through without charging a cover. Voelzel talks to one of the waitresses, who gives us a table overlooking the dance floor where 150 coeds dance. Someone buys a round of Tecate, then another, and another. The poker players yell back and forth to one another, voices rising and falling above the ear-splitting dance music.
The bar closed at 5:30. Three couples peel off. Voelzel and I walk up the street to a taco joint, where we sit in white plastic chairs, eating perfectly fried fish tacos topped with fresh pico de gallo, talking optimistically about our hopes and dreams in that way you do when you're a bit buzzed and the dawn is breaking over the beach. The bill comes to less than $10. We part ways at 10th and 26th. Voelzel ambles toward his house, shaved head bouncing. There's another yacht party to plan and thousands of poker hands to play.
The World Series of Poker is going right now in Las Vegas, and we're going to bring you one highlight a day of solid play.
Here's what caught our eye on Tuesday, day two.
In the first round of betting, David Tuthill spiced things up by immediately raising to 2,600. The following players around the table all folded... until one unnamed opponent decided to go all in with his last 25,100.
Tuthill called, and both players revealed their cards.
Tuthill had 10♥ 10♦, while his opponent had A♠ J♠.
Now, all that there was left to do was to wait while the dealear produced the cards.
The first three cards were 8♠ K♠ 3♠, meaning that the unnamed opponent had just flopped an ace-high flush.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is currently going on at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and we're highlighting our favorite play of the day.
On Wednesday, two players went up against each other with nearly equally great hands ... but only one came out on top.
After a flop of J♠ 3♠ 2♠, Ronnie Bardah called Brian Tsang's check-raise. The next card was an A♥, which was enough for Ronnie Bardah. He decided to go all in with 83,900.
Tsang called, and the two players revealed their cards — both had a flush.
Bardah was holding A♠ 10♠, while Tsang had 8♠ 6♠.
Tsang basically had no hope because Bardah was holding the ace. The river — or fifth card — was a 9♠, which solidified the win for Bardah.
Ronnie Bardah finished 24th in the 2010 WSOP.
Bonus Poker Term! An opponent is drawing dead when he is hoping to complete a hand that will nevertheless lose to his opponent. Tsang was drawing dead because the best that he could have gotten would have been a King-high flush — which would nevertheless lose to Bardah's ace-high flush.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is currently going on at the Rio Hotel and Casino is Las Vegas, and we're highlighting our favorite play of the day.
On Thursday the Dutch player Jolmer Meelis made an insane call — and it actually paid off.
The board had a 10♠, 7♣, 3♥ after the flop. Meelis bet 12,000 and his opponent, Steve Tripp, called. The fourth card was a 10♦, and that's when things got interesting.
Meelis decided to check. Tripp bet 32,000. After thinking about his next move for a few moments, Meelis decided to make the call.
A 2♣ came up on the river, and Meelis checked. According to the WSOP blog, approximately 20 seconds later, "Tripp asked Meelis to make his stack visible, and the Dutchman complied by moving his hands". After seeing Meelis' remaining 100,500 chips, Tripp deciced to go all in.
For those who are familiar with poker, you know that generally at a moment like this a player will think about his next move. But not Meelis — he immediately made the call and revealed his A♦ K♠.
Tripp did not reveal his cards, and merely responded "Nice call".
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is currently going on at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and we're highlighting our favorite play of the day.
Over the weekend, Poker News reports that Vladimir Bozinovic started with a pair of kings... and it only got better from there.
Even before the flop, things were heating up. Bozinovic opened up with 80,000, "only to have Tony Ruberto three-bet the cutoff to 215,000". Bozinovic then went up to 500,000, which Ruberto called.
The flop showed a 10♦ Q♠ 8♣ — and both players checked.
The next card was a J♦. After Bozinovic checked again, Ruberto bet out 375,000. Bozinovic ultimately called.
After the 9♠ on the river, both players checked.
Bozinovic then revealed his two cowboys, K♠ K♣, which turned into a straight on the river. He increased his chip count to over 4 million.
Additional WSOP News:
David Einhorn, hedge fund manager and renowned poker player, is out. He earned $44,728 — which will be donated to the Robin Hood Foundation.
Huck Seed is out. This means that there will be a first-time winner this year.
Most people who attend the Wharton School at UPenn end up with a one-way ticket to Wall Street.
David Sklansky is not most people.
After one year at Wharton, he dropped out and temporarily worked for an actuarial firm. Then, he quit to become a professional poker player — and has done exceedingly well ever since.
And if that wasn't enough, Sklansky is credited with introducing the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, which states:
"Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose."
Sklansky's success off the table comes from his ability to simplify and to "present ideas as simply as possible". He breaks down the complicated underlying concepts in poker such as mathematical expectation, pot odds, proper betting technique, and the value of deception in simple layman's terminology that is accessible to all readers.
Amateurs expect Sklansky's texts to contain play-by-play guildelines analogous to those found in chess puzzle books. Instead, he applies the fundamental theorem to various scenarios. He does not tell you which exact decisions to make, but rather shows you how to think critically about the game.
For example, both new players and the media often get caught up in the emotional highs of bluffing. Sklansky instead suggests a rational alternative: bluffing must be a tool used with "proper frequency" in order to deceive an opponent.
Everyone knows that when you bluff successfully, your opponent thinks that your hand is stronger than it is. Sklansky goes one step further and redefines bluffing in terms of the Fundamental Theorem of Poker: when you bluff successfully, your opponent is "playing differently than he would if he could see your cards". By thinking about bluffing as just "another way to keep the opponent guessing", you are less likely to make the careless emotional mistakes that sink amateurs.
His ability to communicate these kinds of ideas has lead him to doing consulting work for casinos, internet gaming sites, and gaming device companies.
And on the table, Sklansky's poker winnings speak for themselves: he has a total of three World Series of Poker bracelets and has won over $1 million in live poker earnings alone.
Interestingly enough, although his employment at the actuarial firm was relatively short-lived, it greatly influenced his poker career. While he was working there, he discovered a faster way to do certain calculations. But Sklansky's boss "promptly dismissed them".
In "The Biggest Game in Town", a book on the World Series of Poker by Al Alvarez, Sklansky describes this episode in his life as following:
"I knew something no one else knew, but I got no recognition for it. In poker, if you're better than anyone else, you make immediate money. If there's something I know about the game that the other person doesn't and he's not willing to learn or can't understand, then I take his money".
And he has certainly made a career of making money by knowing what other players don't.
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