When you think of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in comparison to all other things, the last thing that comes to mind is poker.  But, somehow, the connection was made by Full Tilt as they recently signed former Heaveyweight Champion Randy Couture to their mix of celebrity players.

Couture is fresh off of the beating that Brock Lesnar handed him for the UFC title, but is long revered as one of the greatest mixed-martial artists of all time.  And even though he is 45 years old, many believe he still has the stuff to make it back to the top if given another shot.

Still, how all of this fits into the scheme of Full Tilt Poker I’ll never know.  The room seems content to throw money at anyone who will agree to whore themselves out in Full Tilt logos.  In his match with Lesnar, Couture made his way to the ring covered in FT garb which only foreshadowed what was to come. 

In addition to signing Couture, FT also grabbed two other UFC stars in Matt Hughes and Mike Swick.  But Couture remains the big name in this deal since he is a world-renowned fighter who walked away from millions in the UFC at one point just so he could go up against the best fighter in the world at the time - Fedor Emelianenko.

The signing of these UFC fighters has me wondering where Full Tilt is going to go looking for players next.  Maybe they’ll start hitting up athletes in other sports such as basketball, baseball, soccer, and football; who knows?  All I know is that it’s a good bet Randy Couture, Mike Swick, and Matt Hughes aren’t exactly the world’s greatest poker players.  If this is the case, it would be nice to catch them online at some point.

There are certain hands which I like to play almost every time when I get a hold of them.  One of those hands happens to be A-10 since I seem to call just about anything with this.  But lately, I haven’t been winning a whole lot with this hand so I started studying up on what the experts think about playing A-10. 

When playing A-10, you’ve definitely got to look at where you are on the table before making any kind of move.  After all, if you play A-10 from early position then you’ve got to know a better hand is out there almost 70% of the time (on a full table).  This means that you’ll not only be behind the betting action the whole time, but you will also be an underdog to win the hand anyways.

Another thing to take note of is that A-10 will lose to pocket 2’s through 9’s at a 52%-56% clip.  Against better hands such as pocket kings, queens, jacks, and tens you’re only going to win about 30% of the time.  Think you’re going to hit a two pair or straight and beat pocket aces?  This only happens about 10% of the time.  So anyway you put it you’re at a disadvantage with A-10 in early position.

This doesn’t mean people should avoid playing A-10 though because it can be an effective hand when in middle and late position.  But it’s a hand that you want to wait to see the flop with since A-10 is definitely a drawing hand.  The best thing to do is to simply call in middle position if you expect others behind you to limp in while possibly raising in later position to get limpers to fold.

The key with A-10 is to exercise caution because it’s a pretty vulnerable hand and one you shouldn’t be raising with preflop if you’re at a full table or are playing with loose players.  After studying the subject, I definitely plan on reigning in my play with A-10 from now on.

I remember hearing about the Internet gambling case down in Kentucky several days ago and immediately dismissing it as an attempt by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to get his name in the papers (see the first post here).  After all, how could a small state such as Kentucky have the power to take away some of the biggest gambling and poker site domain names?  What reason could they possibly come up with to justify themselves - out of all of the other 50 states in the US - being able to take away property from these global companies? 

And just think, places such as Doyle’s Room service many different nationalities and many different countries yet Kentucky thinks that they have some divine right to cripple these businesses just because the government doesn’t like its residents gambling online.  Unfortunately, we live in a world that allows crooked governors to align with crooked judges to keep these circuses going.  This was revealed after Kentucky Judge Thomas Wingate ruled in favor of allowing this case to go to trial.

Never mind the fact that the only reason Steve Beshear is doing this is so that Kentucky’s long tradition of reaping money from tourists, as well as its own residents, through horse race betting can continue (this was actually one of Beshear’s platforms for getting elected).  Now how stupid is this?  Beshear wants to stop online gambling in his state, yet boost the gambling activities of his own state even more. 

It’s sad to see that this case is even going to trial and also that a state government has the power to perform an injustice such as this.  Plus the power this wields to the government is also a scary thought and this was summed up nicely by the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association when they stated, “Should the actions of Kentucky’s chief executive stand, the harm to Internet freedom would be immense. What a powerful weapon would be placed in the hands of government: to arbitrarily seize politically, religiously, or culturally-based Internet domains that may run contrary to the views of those in power.”

Let’s hope that even more unthinkable things don’t arise from this case.

If you’re like me, you may be seeing recent information popping up on the Internet about the World Poker Congress and how it plans to hold a convention in Budapest, Hungary.  Or you could’ve also seen stuff about it in the past since this is the third annual meeting that the organization will be holding.  And also if you’re like me, you may be wondering just what in the hell the World Poker Congress does!

Are they anything like the Congress of the United States?  Do they have votes on different matters and hold a third of the executive powers within the poker community?  Honestly, if someone would have told me the answer to both of these questions was a resounding “yes”, I wouldn’t have known the difference.  This is why I set out to discover myself just what exactly the World Poker Congress was.

After doing some searching on various sites around the Internet, I discovered that the World Poker Congress claims to be an event that seeks to bring both the heads of online and live poker together so that they can grow in unison.  Basically, what this means is that the WPC seeks to see how both online and live poker companies can use each other to make more money.  Oh, and there’s some sweet marketing seminars on the side too.

In addition to the aspect of figuring out how to make more cash and recruit more poker players, the WPC also brings out big wigs such as WPT CEO Steve Lipscomb and (in the past) WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack.  I have also noticed that a few poker pros such as John Kalmar, Michelle Lau, and Marcel Luske will be speaking at the meeting too.  But as far as I’m concerned, they won’t be speaking too much about playing poker since the convention doesn’t seem to have anything to do with that.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a whole lot about the game of video poker.  And the reason being is that I just never had much interest for it because it’s one of those casino games where you’re at a machine playing against the casino.  And most of the time that’s a really bad situation for one’s bankroll.

Now sure I’ve played video poker every now and then when I’ve been in casinos but that was only to pass the time or provide myself with a little entertainment while trying to get some free drinks.  But I never thought that the game of video poker could actually be beaten or that professional video poker players existed.

But the other day I was talking to a friend and he said he heard something about how John Juanda was a professional video poker player in addition to his other exploits in the poker world.  I checked it out and didn’t really find anything about Juanda being a pro video poker player but I did find plenty on what it’s like to be a professional video poker.

And no I’m not talking about the guys who claim they can beat any Vegas game, are banned from every casino, and simply want to share their secrets with you for the low price of their book.  Rather I’m talking about a really fascenating interview I saw with a real Las Vegas video poker pro.

I found it to be extremely interesting as it’s a culture I’ve never really looked into even though it’s a sub-culture of professional poker in general.  Basically this player going by the alias of Johnny Chung (probably wanting to protect his name from view of Vegas casinos) said that he started as a card counter in Blackjack during the 70’s but found it easier to make money off of video poker when it came out in the 80’s since they always shuffled the deck or kicked him out in Blackjack.

Once he got laid off from the aerospace industry in the mid-90’s, he started getting far more serious about video poker and started playing full-time.  With his experience during the 80’s and early 90’s, and the knowledge he gained in video poker he has been playing it full-time ever since the mid-90’s.  Last year, he made $135,000 for the whole year of playing and Chung only plays 40 hours a week.

Now I’m not saying I’m going to drop everything and go for the prospected of riches in video poker but I did find this story amazing since I’ve never thought of video poker in this light.