Monthly Archives: February 2009

When Poker Tournaments Fail

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All of the poker tournaments that we hear about are the successful ones that run without any hitches and pay the winners their money as expected.  We don’t hear about the poker tournaments that went wrong or the ones that were so disorganized that they had to be scrapped.  So if you’ve never heard of a poker tournament such as this then here’s your chance because there was recently a poker tourney that absolutely collapsed out in Las Vegas.

Sludikoff Gaming Inc. in (Las Vegas) was hired by Hall of Fame World Poker Championship LLC to run a poker tournament for them where athletes and celebrities would compete on teams and try to advance to the final round where they would compete for $1 million.  Sludikoff Gaming Inc. was paid $10,000 a month to work on the tournament and get it up and running.

The problem came when the owners of Sludikoff felt they were being taken advantage of by Hall of Fame WPC LLC because they said the company was trying to profit too much off of them without further compensation.  What has ensued since then is an ugly lawsuit where Sludikoff Gaming is seeking extra compensation for the mishap.  Hall of Fame has countersued them in a defamation suit since then.

After this big mess, it definitely appears that the poker tournament will no longer happen and it also appears that these two companies will be locked in a long legal battle.  Luckily, we don’t have to hear about poker tournaments falling apart like this too often and there are plenty other ones for us to play in.

Poker Room finds way to Greyhound Track

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Poker has managed to find its way to many places throughout the world since it is commonly featured on five of the world’s continents.  But one place that you don’t find a whole lot of poker being played at is horse races and greyhound tracks.  However, that trend could change due to a new twist at a greyhound track in Pensacola, Florida.

Realizing the lack of jobs in the area and the fact that there are no new jobs for these people to go to, Escambia Country officials voted 3-2 in favor of allowing a huge poker room to be put at the Pensacola Greyhound Track.  The vote is no doubt controversial since the poker room combined with greyhound betting will create somewhat of a gambling extravaganza in Pensacola.  But it is a move that needed to be made in the eyes of three of the officials involved in the vote.

After all, Pensacola has been hit hard by the loss of jobs just like other parts of the United States and they needed a way to create new ones.  In fact, the amount of jobs at the track had fallen down to just 35 and this ruling will ensure that at least 150 new jobs will be added at the Pensacola Greyhound Track due to the poker room alone.

If adding a poker room at this greyhound track proves to be a success, it could be possible that other places will follow in Escambia County’s footsteps.  The idea of being able to not only play poker, but watch and bet on live races in the same place is very appealing.  I would definitely like to see poker rooms added at some of the tracks in my area too!

Dealing with Poker Jerks

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Whenever I get the chance, I like to play online video games with my Playstation 3.  I would say that the majority of the other players in any game you’ll play are pretty cool and reasonable.  Basically, they’re just on there to relax and have a good time.  Unfortunately, there is also a breed of people that get on these games and act like total assholes doing things like berating others for messing up and bragging about how good they are at the game.  Whether they are good at these games or not, it doesn’t matter because the only reason they play for hours is to fill some giant self-esteem void.

I see the same thing in online poker rooms where most of the people are pretty cool while there is also a minority of losers ruining the game for everyone else.  These are the same players that will hit a straight and criticize those that called them at the river with a middle pair.  Then, they’ll turn around and do the exact same thing as the person they were criticizing before and call that player a “donk”, “fag”, or “idiot” through the message box. 

Now, to deal with this type of player, you could always leave the game and find a friendlier bunch to play with.  But this isn’t any fun and the great thing is that, most of the time, these players aren’t really very good themselves.  Personally, I like to challenge these types by raising them a lot and trying to bait them into focusing about me.  A lot of these types will relentlessly go after you until they’re satisfied that they won a pot from you while forgetting the amount of money they lost to try and “get back at you”.

Sure you’ll lose a few pots to players like this and have to hear about it afterwards.  However, I’ve won a lot more money off of these players than anything and think that challenging them is the best thing to do – as long as you can stand the barrage of text insults thrown your way.

 

 

Will Phelps Pot Smoking Scandal make Him turn to Poker?

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Michael Phelps was once America’s sweetheart after breaking the Olympic record for most gold medals won in a single Olympics.  My how times have changed after he was photographed smoking weed out of a bong at a University of South Caronlina party.  Suddenly, the squeaky clean image had been crafting for the past 4 or 5 years was gone and so is one of his major sponsorship deals.

The Kellogg Company has decided to part ways with Phelps after the damaging photograph was plastered all over the news and Internet.  Now, his other sponsorship deals with companies such as Visa, Subway, Omega, Speedo, and Hilton Hotels are all in question too.  And while he certainly won’t lose all of those deals, he is definitely in danger of losing one or more. 

All this has led people to speculate what Phelps will do for extra money if he does lose any more sponsors.  Some believe that he might turn to his friend Doyle Brunson and become the next star for Doyle’s Room since he has such good ties with the poker legend.  Phelps has already met many of the pros through his poker excursions in the fall and he is a pretty solid player on top of all this.

Obviously, Phelps will still be training for swimming too, but he could definitely fit in some tournaments and promotional events for Doyle’s Room on the side.  And he has said that 2012 will probably be his last Olympics so he’s going to need to build for something after swimming.  Most of his sponsors probably won’t carry him after his Olympic days are done with either so being a major figure for Doyle’s Room would be a great way for him to make money after swimming is done with. 

Steve Martin says Ambien helped Him win at Poker

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I certainly wouldn’t advise people to use sleeping medications when they don’t need them.  After all, this stuff can make people really groggy the next morning and, even worse, it can be harmful to your health if you use too much sleep medication.  However, it might be worth a try to use a little Ambien some night after the story I heard Steve Martin recently tell.

The former SNL funny man and movie star appeared on David Letterman to talk about The Pink Panther 2 and other stuff he is working on at the moment.  And during the show, Martin also started talking about online poker which brought up a very interesting story involving him and Ambien.  Steve Martin takes Ambien to help him sleep better and Martin happened to play poker one night before he took his Ambien.  Before he went to sleep, Martin had $500 in his account and, when he woke up the next morning, Martin found that he had $1,500 in his account.

Martin wrote the site he was playing at to find out how the money got there and, much to his surprise, found that the money made its way into his account during the hours he thought he was sleeping.  Apparently, Martin was playing online poker while he was kind of sleeping under the influence of Ambien and had added $1,000 to his account during this time. 

Ambien has been reported in other odd cases where people will do stuff while they’re sleeping such as drive, make food, use their phone, etc. while they’re on this medication.  It looks like you can add playing online poker to the list of things you can do on Ambien now, but I still wouldn’t recommend it for this purpose.  It seems like you could just as easily lose money this way too.

Someone is Finally getting a Clue

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Coming out of the same state where a judge ruled that poker is a skill game and should not be considered illegal gambling, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell is trying to get video poker machines legalized so that the profits can be used to help pay for students to go to college.  According to Rendell’s plan, video poker machines would be put in various establishments all over the state and the 17,000 machines that currently operate illegally would become scarcer.

If the state approves Rendell’s bill then as much as $7,600 for college money would be generated for each student that comes from a family earning under $100,000 a year.  Right now it is much tougher for students and their families to pay for college since the recession in the US has hit so hard.  An extra $7.6K would certainly go a long way to helping these people pay for school.

Now I now that legal video poker machines isn’t the same thing as poker but, if this bill did go through, then lawmakers might start looking more seriously at legalizing regular poker in the future.  Just like video poker, online and live poker could provide the US government with extra revenue in America instead of having players spend their cash at offshore sites.

This is the first serious attempt I’ve seen at (totally) legalizing anything related to poker in an area where such things are considered illegal.  And I think that this is a great idea since it would give the authorities more time to do meaningful things such as investigating real crimes rather than running around trying to seize video poker machines from bars and other places.  Plus the taxes on these machines would be providing the government with a ton of extra money.