Beginning shortly, Pokerstars US, the online poker site currently available only in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, will be integrated into FanDuel, the sportsbook app.
Both are subsidiaries of Flutter Entertainment, and the new revamped site will be a one-step schlep for online sports wagers, casino games, and poker. The province of Ontario, Canada, which already has PokerStars, will also come along for the ride.
I guess this is progress, or pro-gess for my Canadian reader, but we’re still just talking about three states. It reminds me of the old days when there was only gambling in a few places: Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, and the Caribbean.
Also, just like the old days, you’ll be able to win money playing poker and then immediately lose it at the sportsbook.
“Poker isn’t gambling,” I always explain to my wife, but if I’m betting that LeBron won’t start the second half, I think that’s called gambling.”
And if I were playing poker online in one of those three states, it would be hard to resist the clarion call of those Super Bowl ads for FanDuel with Joe Montana and Luis Guzman selling us a piece of the American Dream.
Similarly, when I was a kid, there were ads on TV for a rewards program called Players Club, starring Telly Savalas, of Kojak fame.
“Do you like shows? Do you like action?” he baldly shilled. “Well, as a Players’ Club member, you’ll get huge discounts on hotels, meals, and shows in Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, and the Caribbean. All over the world!”
No, just in those few places, like with PokerStars Exclusively on FanDuel, the new entity’s cumbersome name.
Telly on the telly made gambling seem pretty exciting to a kid. Okay, fine, I was 28. I had barely ever gambled in my life except when I went to Arlington Racetrack with my parents in the 70s.
I thought that was pretty cool, too, so when I was 19, I quit my summer construction job with the plan to spend every day at the track. I made one post time and lost my shirt. Point being, teenagers do stupid stuff, and having an app on your phone that makes doing stupid stuff easy breezy can’t be good.
The merger of the mind sport of poker with sports betting is an unholy alliance. In other words, good luck to all of us.
Another major merger that could have a deleterious effect occurred recently. Warner Brothers Discovery will soon be subsumed by Paramount/Skydance. CNN will come under the purview of the already compromised Bari Weiss at CBS News.
HBO Max and Paramount+ will become one streaming service in an attempt to compete with the monolithic YouTube and Netflix. Hey, if they really want to compete, they should make the new entity a combined streaming service and gambling site. You can watch classic movies like Casablanca while betting on whether or not Ingrid Bergman gets on that plane.
I’m sure that AI can easily make various alternate endings, and one will be randomly inserted into the movie you are watching. I think I’m on to something. Or I’m on something. You be the judge.
Steaming Hand of The Week
A player is normally described as “steaming” after they have suffered a bad beat, or they’ve folded and are shown a bluff, or they are told about the new rake at CoinPoker.
However, our latest Steaming Hand of the Week concerns a player who was so afraid of monsters under the bed that he bad-beat himself. Or did he?
The hand took place in a $10/$25 cash game at the Texas Card House Dallas, a city that was also the site of the best season of the reality show, Lock Up – Lock Up, Dallas: Extended Stay.
There was a live straddle on from the UTG player, who goes by the name QQQ (not online, IRL), when a player with A3 off and the terrestrial name of Ryan, made it $150 to go from the hijack.
Spooky, holding pocket sixes and a moniker that belongs in quotation marks between Ossi and Ketola, called from the button as did Zak with 9♣8♣ in the small blind.
It was QQQ’s option, and he looked down at a pair of fours, which, along with his name, gave him a full house. He opted to call, and we went to a flop of:
4♠6♥4♥This was obviously an explosive flop, pitting QQQ’s quad fours against Spooky’s sixes full. It checked around, with the two big hands hoping to trap.
An ace on the turn hit the original raiser, Ryan, but it was checked through again, and the river brought the 3h for a final board of:
4♠6♥4♥A♣3♥QQQ was finally ready to act and bet $400. Ryan called with aces up, but Spooky made it $1300 with his boat. Zak got out of the way, and Triple Q made it $2400. This shook Ryan loose, but Spooky then went all in for $7565.
With a possible straight flush out there, QQQ did not insta-call. He, of course, had the effective nuts, but that doesn’t guarantee a good result, as my wife’s and my fertility doctor has explained.
With the third-best possible hand, behind only 7h5h and 5h2h, he was certainly the likely winner, especially with so many other possible good non-nut hands out there. But he went in the tank for about two minutes.
“What the f…. is he thinking about?” wondered the commentators.
In the end, QQQ folded his quad fours face-up, and of course, no one could believe it, with many f-bombs dropped by players and commentators.
Here’s a question that no one has asked: Was it a stupid fold, as everyone seems to think, or was it smart? Was he spooked by Spooky’s four-bet all-in because he saw monsters under the bed, or did he think:
“With any normal great hand like aces full of fours, Spooky’s just calling my three-bet because he’s beat by quads and the two available straight flushes. Therefore, he’s extremely polarized with either the straight flush or a hand that seemed good, but he’s now turned it into a bluff. Do I really want to call 5 grand and change, hoping he’s bluffing?”
I would have called, but I’m mediocre at poker. So, was this a no-brainer call, meaning QQQ has an IQ of 38? Or was it an amazing lay down that could have saved him 5K more often than not?
Feel free to tell me your thoughts about my thoughts on X @SklarChuck or on Instagram @sklarfac.
