Where am I? What have I been doing?
As many of you have noticed my poker career has been on hold for a bit however...
The location I am moving to is approximatly ten minutes from the Bay 101. I can assure you things around here are going to pick up very shortly.
Everyone hang tight and thanks for visiting.
Labels: poker
posted by JD52 @ 10:12 PM,
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101 Ways To Improve Your Poker Game
#002 - Be Honest With Yourself.
One very important tool every poker player should work on is the ability to objectively critique his or her own play.
At the conclusion of every hand you should go over the hand you just played and decide whether or not you played it correctly. When analyzing in this fashion you should put little weight on the outcome of the hand.
For instance if you throw caution to the wind and play the hand incorrectly, due to bad judgement or impulsive action, but manage to beat the odds and rake a huge pot your perception of the hand may be skewed to the positive side based on the results.
Inversly if you play the hand in the proper way and end up on the losing end but put too much emphasis on the outcome you may be working against the idea that you did indeed play the hand properly.
Labels: critique, honest, improve, poker
posted by JD52 @ 10:49 AM,
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001 Be Patient
Thursday, October 19, 2006
101 Ways To Improve Your Poker Game
#001 - Be Patient
In poker it is always vitally important to be patient with yourself, your opponents, and most importantly the cards.
In hold'em for instance you only receive decent starting hands a small percentage of the time. Only a small percentage of those good starting hands will improve with the flop. Mostly poker is a game of waiting for your shot. Waiting for the circumstances to be just right for you to take advantage and prosper. If you are someone who has a very limited attention span or must have action 90% of the time then maybe poker isn't for you.
Patience is also very important when playing in tournaments. One large mistake I see quite often is people making panicky moves at the table when the blinds are still relatively low in relation to the chip stacks. There is nothing more detrimental to your tournament life than overbetting pots. Throwing in monster raises when a much smaller raise could have accomplished the same goal with much less risk. There is a certain point in a tournament where you are the short stack and it becomes an all in or fold type scenario. Another mistake I see is people shifting into this mode way to early.
In many ways poker is a lot like fishing. Some days you get lucky and don't go more than a few minutes without a good bite. Some days you find yourself waiting hours for a nibble which turns out to be nothing more than a guppy. There is always the possibility that the next big one is only minutes or seconds away.
posted by JD52 @ 10:42 AM,
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I have recently seen a spike in traffic from people looking for information regarding the "Poker Ban" in the US. To call it a poker ban is somewhat of a misnomer because it doesn't ban or even make illegal playing poker online in the US.
What does it do then?
What it does, is attempt to make it illegal for financial institutions to knowingly make transactions with companies outside the US involved with games of chance.
Who's in and Who's out?
Here is a link to a post over at 2+2 Forums outlining which poker sites are here to stay and which have headed for the hills. I think it is important to remember who was first out of the pool when things started to heat up. If those companies ever try to rebuild their userbase in the US they should be boycotted. Just my two cents.
How does this affect me?
Unless you are unlucky enough to have been playing at one of the sites jumping ship, this legislation doesn't effect you at all. In fact it will be 270 days before there is any chance it might even affect you. That is the length of time the bill gives the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve to figure out how they are going to enforce this. I suspect in that 270 day period there will be numerous lawsuits and rumblings from the World Trade Organization on these matters. The fireworks have only just begun.
How are they going to stop it?
This is something that is widely debated within the poker community. Most people agree on one point. That point is that it is nearly impossible to stop online poker in the US. The method by which they are attempting and the language of the bill itself presents many many loopholes. One such loophole is their wording "game of chance". As many of you know, it is a fact that poker is a game of skill. The proof of this is that there are people who consistently make money at it. If it was a game of luck or chance then the wins and losses would even out and it would be a zero sum game. This is not the case.
Upset Bankers
One other thing I do not see mentioned much in all of this is the burden this bill will place on banking
Labels: government, legislation, loopholes, offshore, online, poker ban
posted by JD52 @ 9:27 AM,
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Poker Week In Review 10/13/2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Here is another exciting episode of Poker Week in Review. WoooHoooo
Right now you are wondering why there is a picture of a pig in a barrel to the left. It is to remind you that while the government dosen't want you to have the right to transfer funds to online poker sites they are perpetually spending millions upon millions of tax payer's dollars on hundreds of pork barrel projects. Something to keep in mind next time you vote.
On with the news.
Very good news for all online players. Neteller and Pokerstars will not be pulling out of the US market anytime soon.
Here is another great piece from Reuters on Pokerstars reaction. They say that the ban does not include poker because poker is a game of skill. I say right on. I suspect this whole thing will end up in the supreme court on that point alone. Is poker luck or skill?
I have this feeling that a lot of the companies that did cut off their US user base prematurely will be coming back before long only to find no one is interested.
Here is a pretty decent break down of the bill section by section. Most of it is right on the money.
More Shana Hiatt on late nite NBC poker show.
Some robber made off with a few kids bankrolls in Lawrence. The article says they only made off with about $600. Hrm.... Must have been low stakes.
Here are a few choice pro poker player blogs.
Good luck at the tables.
posted by JD52 @ 5:44 PM,
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