October Poker News

October 28th, 2006 - I'll be heading to Sheffield in a few days to play some freezeout and double chance tournaments at Napoleon's casino. The casino is very small, with only 10 casino game tables and a handful of poker tables. Poker plays second fiddle, as the emphasis is very much on blackjack and roulette. But, the dealers and tournament director, who are employed primarily as croupier, perform a very professional job whenever the tournaments are played. It should be a model for all small casinos in the UK.

After that, I might head to Amsterdam to play in the Masters Classic, most likely just to sample a city that I've heard great things about.

October 21st, 2006 - When it comes to online poker, Saturday is all about $300 multi-table tournaments. PokerStars $300 tournament starts at 1.15 pm (ET), this is one of the toughest internet poker tournaments. Take a look at the lobby 5 minutes before the start, it's like watered down whisky, without the water. The number of pros greatly outnumber weaker players, which isn't helped by the absence of satellites to the event.

October 20th, 2006 - My Mum was in hospital again this week suffering from chest pains. Thankfully she is OK.

Hopefully that good news will spur me on to victory this weekend in the PokerStars $1 million guaranteed tournament or the US-less PartyPoker $200,000 guaranteed tournament.

October 16th, 2006 - I had a rough day yesterday, health-wise and too a lesser degree money-wise. There were loads of tournaments with big prize pools and naturally I had to be sick. PartyPoker had a $500 tournament with a small field of around 100 runners. I tend to play well in small field tournaments because the finish line is visible. That's the problem with big fields, you look at the lobby after 3 hours and there's still a few thousand players remaining. At this time, my eyes felt like sumo wrestlers so I skipped the tournament to get some sleep. Slept through the PokerStars $1 million guaranteed, and woke up in time to enter the second chance, where I basically didn't play a hand for an hour and then got busted with pocket Kings all-in pre-flop against Ace Queen. At the same time, Full Tilt Poker had a $500 buy-in, $500,000 guarantee, I managed to scrape by for 2 hours and then busted with a horrible all-in pre-flop call with Ace 8 of Clubs. The solution to my poor play - stay in bed.

October 14th, 2006 - Check out this hilarious hand from a PokerStars satellite. I felt so bad for the guy, I sent him his buy-in back.

October 13th, 2006 - There's a £500 double chance tournament in Brighton on Saturday, which about 3 hours drive from my home in Bristol, but I desperately need to get some live practice before the EPT Dublin. Alternatively, there's a series of tournaments at the Aviation Club in Paris, with the main event being a €3,000 No Limit Hold'em tournament. I've played in Paris 3 times before, the Paris Open of Poker in 2005, the WPT event in '05 and the Euro Finals of Poker at the start of 2006. Every time I've been, it's been a blast, in the sense that I had an awesome time but also had some holes burnt in my pockets.

Online poker is going well so far this month. I've won 3 and final-tabled a few multi-tournaments on the CryptoLogic Network. If only I could transition the success to the big Weekend tournaments on PokerStars! Meanwhile, PartyPoker have scrapped their big tournaments due to completely suspending US citizens accounts, and a few other poker sites are following suit. Here's a list of poker sites allowing US players.

October 10th, 2006 - The EPT Dublin event starts at the end of this month, I'll decide at the last minute whether to make the trip across the Irish sea. I played in Dublin 2 years ago and a had a great time at my first major series of tournaments. In those days, I was strictly an online cash game player and buying in to $300 tournament was like buying a car, it was a big deal. Today, my mind is immune to figures, it would simply be another tournament. Looking back, it's fun to remember how badly I used to play as a novice player, and how naive and overconfident I was at the poker table. Paradoxically, perhaps my recent failures with tournament poker is thinking to deeply and trying to overcomplicate such a simple game.

October 2nd, 2006 - The chess board suddenly sprang to life this past week as the US government is taking it's first steps to get in position to milk the big, fat, juicy cow (sacred to India) which is online poker. Hidden behind the veneer of a crusading moralist, is the real truth behind this crackdown on internet gambling. Not underage or addicted gamblers, but, money, lots and lots of money, which currently streams out of the United States, to the tune of $7 billion per year. Who wouldn't want a slice of that beef pie?

As a British citizen (thought I'd better add that to the front page in case the FBI or whoever reads this), I can relax in the knowledge that I can play online poker wherever and whenever I choose. As a poker player, I'm disappointed that this legislation will scare away new players for the time being. As a human (/poker bot), I feel for Americans who will not have the liberty to play online poker for a few months. But, this is a stepping stone to the future of internet poker.

Just think - no more shady sites, running off or withholding player's money. No more fraudsters stealing from accounts and going unpunished. No uncertainty over the legalities of online poker. One step back, two steps forward.