Irish Open Reaches Final Table
March 23, 2008
Two Hundred and Sixty-Seven runners began the 2008 Irish Open Poker Championship last week. Now they are down to the final six for tomorrow’s final table. Among the starters were: Last year’s Irish Open champ Marty Smyth, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, Roland De Wolfe, Alan Smurfit, Teddy Sheringham, Jon Kalmar, Andy Black, Todd Brunson, John Duthie, Bruno Fitoussi and Ian Frazer, Sorel Mizzi, Padraig Parkinson, Conor Tate, Surinder Sunar. Of those big names exactly zero made the final table, which goes off on Monday at the Citywest Hotel card room in Dublin.
Here is how the final six will stack up tomorrow. Chip counts are approximate.
Seat 1: Neil Channing 2,700,000
Seat 2: Tim Blake 850,000
Seat 3: Kai Paulsen 650,000
Seat 4: Thomas Dunwoodie 875,000
Seat 5: Edwin Troupier 525,000
Seat 6: Donal Norton 1,000,000
Poker Skill or Luck: Real Data
March 23, 2008
The Poker Shrink wants to remind you that his position of skill versus luck in poker is that there is no luck in poker. None! There is variance that arises from the random distribution of cards in a standard poker deck but what some call luck is only a statistical anomaly that will disappear with successive trials.
That being said; there has been way too much argument, particularly in front of legislatures and courts on the question of: Poker, game of skill or game of luck. Why debate something that can be empirically verified? I mean you wouldn’t debate whether a “heart pill” would cure you or kill you. You would expect testing and so would the governmental agencies involved. So why not simply run the tests?
Well, a group at Case Western University has done just that. The test was quite simple: they took some students with little knowledge of how to play poker and gave half of them a brief history of poker and the other half some basic strategy guidelines (like what are good starting hands in Hold’em). Surprise, surprise; the group with the strategy tips did better than the uninstructed group. Furthermore, the groups each improved as they played more hands and self-deduced better playing strategies. Even in the short term timespan of these trials: some skill won out over simply the “luck” of the draw.
Read the full article here.
Dogs
March 22, 2008
I should probably go to bed.But I’m not going to.Mrs. Blood and I went down to the Fort Myers Dog Track for what would end up being 3 hours of poker. I played the 1/2 $100 buy-in NL game and she went to the 2/4 limit game. When we signed up for each …
Fox Sports TV to Broadcast Aussie Millions
March 21, 2008
Fox Sports Television will begin coverage of the 2008 Aussie Millions tournament next month. The Aussie Millions cash game with a $100,000 entry stack by each player will begin airing on Fox Sports Saturday March 23rd. Times will vary on different cable providers with all Fox Sports programming.
There will be four one hour episodes of the Big Cash Game at Aussie Millions. This year’s cash game included: Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Gus Hansen, Tony G., Tom Dwan, Brian Townsend, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer and John Juanda. The Aussie Millions main event tournament will follow the four weeks of cash game coverage.
Antigua Ups Ante in Poker Trade Dispute
March 21, 2008
In the ongoing saga of David vs. Goliath (Antigua vs. U.S.), it appears the big, bad United States government seems to think they can violate World Trade Organization rules and still dictate the actions of other countries. Afterall, several countries have settled with the U.S. over the banning of online gaming by the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. It would seem only natural that the behemoth U.S. should think that other nations would take the meager settlements and move on. Taking on the U.S. in any legal action can have dire consequences in other areas.
Antigua & Barbuda was the first country to step up and demand the U.S. honor WTO regulations and allow online gaming access to the U.S. market. The U.S. trade commission ignored the WTO suit filed by Antigua and lost the hearing and subsequent appeals. Finally, after a massive reduction in the original award, the U.S. semi-agreed to the $3.2 million compensation offered to Antigua. The U.S. further went on to attempt to specify how Antigua could collect such compensation.
Well it appears David is not listening again Goliath and now it appears that Antigua may be leading the way in an all out assault on the arrogant position of the United States.
As reported by the leading U.S. entertainment newspaper, Variety:
“The government of Antigua is likely to abrogate intellectual property treaties with the U.S. by the end of March and authorize wholesale copying of American movies, music and other ’soft targets’ if the Bush administration fails to respond to proposals for settling a trade dispute between the two counties.
“The Motion Picture Assn. of America has been closely following the case with tremendous concern fearing that the copying could be extensively damaging and that — worse — a dangerous precedent could be set for other small countries angry at U.S. trade policy.”
“It is not our preferred option to punish the MPAA or others for the U.S. government’s intransigence, but the U.S. has refused to negotiate fairly,”
said Mark E. Mendel, who represents Antigua. Goods and materials that would be copied include
“virtually everything from pharmaceuticals to music, anything with IP protection that can be duplicated, though we’ll go for softer targets first.”
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All of this because some right wing politicians don’t want us to play a little online poker. Makes you want to run right out and participate in the politial process, doesn’t it?
The Bodog Poker Open Sets Records!
March 21, 2008
The Bodog Poker Open Main Event happened last Sunday and set a record for the biggest tournament in Bodog history! The prize pool was just over $300,000 after Bodog sweetened the pot with an additional $25,000.
The field of 596 brought out some heavy hitters like pros Annette “Annette_15? Obrestad, Kevin “beLOWaBOVe” Saul, Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, Eric “Rizen” Lynch and obviously, Bodog pros Josh Arieh, David Williams and Evelyn Ng.
In the end it was Shawn “phatcat” Luman who received the distinction of being named the first-ever Bodog Poker Champion. He earned $76,280 for his win as well as that super flashy and pimpin’ Omega Speedmaster watch worth $4,400.
With the Bodog Poker Open all wrapped up for this year, the new focus in the Bodog Poker room will switch to the 2008 World Series of Poker qualifiers. There are at least four WSOP seats up for grabs every week in March and April with that number jumping to five per week in May and June.
I Did It!
March 20, 2008
Me! Moi! I did it!
“A few thoughts. The prior snippet about this here humble poker blog has provoked me to write up a damn uber. It might not be this weekend, but damnit, I’m gonna write one. “
http://guinnessandpoker.blogspot.com/2008/03/bonus-code-iggy-on-party-poker-damnit_20.html
The “prior snippet” Iggy refers to is my mention of him in my last post, my blog roll. […]