Winning a World Series of Poker bracelet is an achievement that all poker players would love to experience, and online sites are currently running WSOP qualifiers, giving players many options for winning a seat in the $10,000 main event, and even the smaller buy-in events.
Brandon Cantu entered the final table of the Bay 101 World Poker Tour Shooting Star championship with a monster chip lead, and when it was all over, he had collected $40,000 in bounties and bonuses, and took home the $1 million first-place prize. Nearly everything went Cantu's way, and despite the extremely low blinds, he was able to dictate a pace of play that had the final table wrapped up in just under eight hours.
To unwind after his days managing a depression and then a world war, Franklin Roosevelt hosted a nightly cocktail hour in his second-floor study. "How about another sippy?" he would ask from his wheelchair before splashing together old-fashioneds and martinis amid the clutter of his desk. Though he seldom had more than one drink, he relished this down-time for the chance it gave him and his staff to recharge their batteries, the better to face the mind-bending decisions the next day would certainly bring. A simple dinner would often be served, followed a few times a week by a game of low-stakes poker.
Billy Baxter turned the phrase professional poker player into a legitimate job title decades ago when he stood up to the Internal Revenue Service. In William E. Baxter v. the United States, a Nevada judge ruled that Baxter's gambling income was not unearned income (which could be heavily taxed). The judge decided that Baxter had earned his poker winnings and that they should be taxed as any other earned income would be. Baxter has made his living as a professional poker player to this day, in part thanks to that landmark decision. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2006.
Card Player is heading back to the Playboy Mansion this year on May 17 as a main sponsor of the Urban Health Institute's (UHI) third-annual Vegas at the Playboy Mansion soiree. The event, which takes place on the grounds of one of the most famous private residences in the world, features a ton of poker, a ton of Playboy playmates, and (I guarantee) a ton of fun.
For 12 days in early February, I was in London playing in Premier League Poker. This one-of-a-kind event features 12 known players who are playing in six heats, six players per heat, for points. The top four point earners advance to the six-player finals, the middle four point earners play heads up for the other two seats, and the bottom four point earners are "relegated" (a common word in European sports, meaning something like "sent down to the minors").
After a couple of disappointing first-round losses in 2006 and 2007, it was time to make an impact in 2008 - first of all, to satisfy my own competitive nature, and second of all, to convince the tournament directors that I'm not just a "pretty face," but actually belonged in this NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship!
I know you're wondering why I let that donkey Phil Ivey win the L.A. Poker Classic, so I'll recap my short-lived tournament before getting to what this column is really about. It was about halfway through day one. A guy in middle position raised my big blind, one player called, I called with the 7 5, and the flop came A-6-4 with two clubs. I checked, the raiser bet 3,000, the other guy folded, and I moved in for 18,000 total. He had a bit more in chips than I did, and studied awhile.
Conventional wisdom dictates that you generally follow through with a bet on the flop after raising preflop. Of course, knowledgeable/observant opponents know this, creating lower bluffing value when you missed the flop and making yourself a check-raise station for those who flopped a hand. You need to muddle your opponents' thinking by checking some of these hands when they expect you to bet, making yourself unpredictable to your opponents, causing them to make errors.
Years ago I got my MBA. In the process, I took several economics courses. Somewhere in one of them, I was exposed to the theory of marginal utility. Basically, the marginal utility of something is the value of one more unit of that thing. For example, if you are without water and are extremely thirsty, one bottle of water has a high marginal utility. The second bottle of water would have less value. By the time you get the 100th bottle, it is more of an annoyance than a benefit. The same logic applies to money. It has a diminishing marginal utility. If you are broke, $10,000 means an awful lot. If you have $100,000, it means something. If you are Bill Gates, it is effectively meaningless or lacking in marginal utility.
