The last few months have been a blur of poker and travel. I had a handful of days between wsop circuit stops to unwind and no spare time to write. I should say no spare time to write my blog. I have been working on a side project that has been eating up most of my creative writing efforts and cutting into my poker sessions. Hopefully the work pays off this summer and opens up some new business opportunities. Until things settle down I guess I will have to forgo sleep to fit in my blogging sessions.
St Louis Circuit Props:
Welcome to the St Louis WSOP please “smoke freely”
It’s a global gambling show, with industry news from England, France, Belgium, Germany, Antigua, and the USA! Stories include licensing, trade disputes, and the collapse of a spread betting firm.
I was never an online poker rock star. At the height of my online career I was mid-stakes PLO grinder on Pokerstars and FTP. The low expenses and generous player incentives made this a comfortable lifestyle for La and I, who also made her living grinding online mtts. Decent bankroll management and a few well timed live scores prior to April 15th 2011 left us in better shape than most when our virtual bankroll was frozen, but our lives were still drastically altered after our freedom to play online poker was taken away.
Our average pre Black Friday day consisted of waking up whenever, having “breakfast”, and grinding out sessions in the upstairs war room. We lived a good life in a nice house close to our friends and family in DFW. A few times a year we would travel to a deep stack tournament series for a change of pace, but the majority of our working hours were spent at home in our boxers and bathrobes. When we went on the road we would take our laptops with us. If there was no action after we busted a live event we could supplement our income with online sessions.
After Black Friday our war room got turned into an arcade.
The first thing you need to understand when planning a trip to Rincon is that it’s not San Diego. Our friend Billy made the mistake of bringing his family thinking he could play poker while his family enjoyed the city. Rincon is an hour outside the city up a nice windy mountain road and should in no way be categorized as “close to the beach”. Billy’s family left him the day after arrival, exchanging their mountain view for something oceanside.
Coming up in Texas poker is tough. In addition to fading the normal variance of the game, players have to fight exorbitant rakes and dodge robberies and raids. Spots come and go often, with no regulation cheats can operate with impunity for years before their reputations get tarnished. No poker tours come to our home towns, no special promotions for pit players trickle down into our economy, and no advertising means we have smaller player pools to fish in. When people express shock that grinders from Texas are going on a rush in a regulated market like Cali I just laugh- compared to our home games this is a walk in the park.
4,500-chip, four-color starting stack at Stratosphere.
The Stratosphere’s quaint 10-table poker room sits in the back of the casino, past a row of slot machines, craps tables, another row of slot machines, down the ramp past Roxy’s Diner, near the escalators to the Top of the World restaurant — just before the Double Down Pit and Back Alley Bar. On Thursday, there was a sole 1-2NL table of action about 30 minutes before the nightly tournament.
You’d hardly know that this room has supposedly become the new Sahara when it comes to Las Vegas’ most popular small buy-in dailies — with the 7pm event drawing consistent fields of 50 players or more.
I approached the podium and purchased a seat for the event. The buy-in is $45 for 4,500 in chips, plus a $20 add-on that gives you 4,000 more chips, which you can purchase any time within the first hour. (There’s also an option for unlimited re-entry within that time frame.) With 20-minute levels, that add-on is necessary, especially considering there are no automatic shufflers in the tournament tables.
On the road again! J Todd has landed in Houston after his time in Barcelona, and this week he reports on the wildfires in Texas, the smouldering remains of Full Tilt Poker, and how their players are getting burned!
Full Tilt Poker finds some cash to pay their obligations! Unfortunately, their players were not included! Also, online gambling news from Greece, California, and Fair Play USA.
This week, J Todd reviews the continuing troubles for Full Tilt Poker since “Black Friday”, including the loss of their licenses in Alderney and France, and a new class action lawsuit filed this week. We also get a status update on the launch of legal online gambling in Washington, DC
That’s what I thought after playing in and being a witness to the 2011 World Series of Poker Ladies’ Event — the line from the 1992 film, A League of Their Own, where Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks) famously said, “THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!“. Don’t people know, “There’s no crying in Poker!”
The tournament brought plenty of controversy as it always does, summed up into two divisions: (1) whether or not men should be allowed to enter the “ladies-only” tournament, and (2) should there even be “exclusive” tournaments within the WSOP schedule of events. More…
Federated Sports + Gaming (FS+G) announced today that it has acquired Heartland Poker Tour (HPT), the nation’s leading grassroots poker tour and one of the largest independent producers of poker content on television.
“HPT is one of the great success stories in the poker industry”
“HPT is one of the great success stories in the poker industry,” said Jeffrey Pollack, chairman of Federated Sports + Gaming. “In a relatively short period of time, the Heartland Poker Tour has firmly established itself as an important national brand with a passionate, loyal player base. We are committed to poker entertainment in the broadest sense and to serving players and fans across the spectrum. The addition of HPT to the FS+G family fits perfectly with our approach.” More…
This week’s online gambling news comes from New York City, where a “Black Friday” defendant has been denied bail. Plus, is legal Internet betting in Washington DC in jeopardy? Also, updates from Merge Poker, Intertops, and QuickTender.
This week’s online gambling news sucks! More fallout from “Black Friday” has resulted in the seizure of ten more domain names from poker rooms, bingo sites, and sports books. Also, major payment processor QuickTender has been forced to shut down and leave customer deposits in question. Plus, affiliate program Best Casino Partner is leaving the market.
I am not the sort of person that would ever turn a blind eye to information. More importantly, it would be unfair to my readers to suggest that they form an opinion without first providing them with all the information that I have available to me. More…
JoeOE18: Had a great session with Deus Ex. Then got to another boss. Contemplating giving up and moving on to something fun. Wish there were cheats. 1 day ago
