Online Poker is Saving the World!

October 15 is Blog Action Day, the day when the otherwise ineffectual and self-centered blogging world is directed towards something worthwhile.

The issue is climate change and if you read this blog you're probably already part of the solution, whether you realize it or not.

By playing online poker you are literally saving the world. There, I said it. So go ahead and contact all those people in your life that said you'd never amount to anything and that playing online marked cards poker was a waste of your life.

I might be a little narrow in my definition of saving the world but as a blogger on the internet I feel I'm entitled to a certain amount of creative license.

The fact that you have to play poker is a given, there's no changing that. So, you're presented with two options: Drive to your local casino and use up a bunch of gas in the process, or sit on your couch and play on your computer.

If you chose the latter I applaud your good judgment and hearty social conscience! So the next time someone brings up Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth, just tell them you play online poker.
-- Matthew Showell

WSOP Plans

Right now, I'm sitting on an airplane, on my way to Sacramento, California. I am going there to hang out with my girlfriend, who is out there on a business trip.

I will be out there for 6 days, then will be going back to Florida for 9 days, before leaving again to go to Vegas for the WSOP.

While in Sacramento, I am planning on playing infrared contactlenses the FTOPS events that start at 14:00 EST, on Tuesday through Friday (while my g/f is working). So I'll probably just play those 4 events because I definitely won't want to be playing that much.
I finally started planning out what events I'm going to be looking to play for the WSOP. I started by just crossing out what events I defintitely won't play (unless I win the 40k lol). My schedule looks as follows:
May 28th 12:00   $40,000 No-Limit Holdem
May 30th 12:00   $1,000 No-Limit Holdem
June 1st 12:00    $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha
June 2nd 12:00    $1,500 No-Limit Holdem
June 3rd 12:00    $1,500 No-Limit Holdem (6-max)
June 4th 12:00    $2,000 No-Limit Holdem
June 5th 12:00    $2,500 No-Limit Holdem
June 6th 12:00    $5,000 No-Limit Holdem
June 8th 12:00    $2,500 No-Limit Holdem (6-max)
June 9th 12:00    $1,500 Pot-Limit Holdem
June 10th 12:00   $1,500 No-Limit Holdem (Shootout)
June 11th 12:00   $1,500 No-Limit Holdem
June 12th 5:00    $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low
June 13th 12:00   $1,500 No-Limit Holdem
June 14th 12:00   $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha
June 15th 12:00   $2,000 No-Limit Holdem
June 16th 12:00   $1,500 No-Limit Holdem
June 17th 12:00   $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha
June 18th 12:00   $2,000 No-Limit Holdem
June 19th 12:00   $2,000 Limit Holdem
June 20th 5:00    $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha
June 21st 12:00   $5,000 No-Limit Holdem (Shootout)
June 23rd 12:00   $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem
June 24th 12:00   $2,500 Mixed Holdem
June 25th 12:00   $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low
June 26th 5:00    $1,500 Limit Holdem (Shootout)
June 27th 12:00   $1,500 No-Limit Holdem
June 28th 12:00   $3,000 No-Limit Holdem (Triple Chance)
June 29th 12:00   $1,500 No-Limit Holdem
June 30th 12:00   $5,000 No-Limit Holdem (6-max)
July 3rd 12:00    $10,000 No-Limit Holdem Main Event
There are 7 days in which I want to play the 5:00 tournament, but will only play if I bust the 12:00 tournament before late registration is over trick cards. Those events are:
June 3rd 5:00    $2,500 Pot-Limit Holdem/Omaha
June 6th 5:00    $1,500 Seven Card Stud
June 9th 5:00    $3,000 HORSE
June 11th 5:00    $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low
June 14th 5:00    $1,500 HORSE
June 21st 5:00    $2,500 Mixed Event
June 28th 5:00    $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low
The maximum events I will play is 38 events. Although this is pretty much impossible. I think realistically I will play around 25-27 events.
Anytime I make a day 2 of an event, I will then have to miss the next day's event. Using this schedule, the maximum days off I would have during the month of June would be 2 days. I may end up skipping some $1,500 events if I feel like I need to.
I am getting more and more amped each day that we get closer to the series. I am really looking forward to getting back on the grind and playing live poker every day.
Hopefully, I will ship an FTOPS event while out in Cali, and then have something to blog about when I get back to South Fla.

J Merc WSOP Update

Today, I will be playing the $1,500 NL event. I plan on jumping in the $2,500 O8/Stud 8 if I bust the 1500 before dinner.

Yesterday, I played infrared ink the $1,500 Shootout and made it down to heads up at my table. I was up against Dutch Boyd, who finished me off on the 4th or 5th hand of heads up.

On June 9th, I played the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em. I got fairly deep in that busting with 120 or so players left (63 got paid).

Last night, a few of my friends were railing that event with two tables left because our friend, Phildo, was still in. He bubbled the final table getting 10th.

I know how disappointed he was with this finish, but I'm positive he will bounce back from this because that's what great marked card tricks players do.

A few of my friends won their shootout tables so they will be playing today. GOGO bhanks, berkey, scott, and gboro!!

Also, how sick is t soprano?? 2 bracelets in 4 days? I mean, come on bro, you're making me look bad! Lol jk well done sir!

Tomorrow I plan on playing the 5k PLO8 which should be a really fun event. I'm really looking forward to that one.
Well, just wanted to update everyone on what's been happening and what will be going on for me in the next few days.

James Akenhead

James Akenhead came agonisingly close to joining the elite club of British WSOP bracelet winners

Hot Squad member Akenhead tells us about beating a huge field of 3,929 and winning $520,219.
JAMES AKENHEAD: It’s going to take me a bit of time to put things into perspective. When Praz Bansi won his bracelet, it took me two or three weeks to come to terms with what he did. Generally I’m happy about the result, but pissed off that I was so close – one hand away from being a champion. But I realise I’ve won half a million dollars and it’s my career highlight.
I felt confident the entire tournament – from start to finish. In the first level I had 80% of my chips in on a bluff after telling all my friends that I was going to play really tight! But it was a good bluff and from there my stack just went up and up. I went from 3,000 to 65,000 at the end of day one when the average was 27k.
I wouldn’t say I played the best marked cards contactlenses poker of my life on day one, but when you’re playing against bad players you don’t really have to play that well. Every bluff I was making was getting through. But on day two and at the final table I played well.
I had a great rail. For instance there was a hand where I was all-in against Chris Ferguson with Aces against his straight draw and flush draw. When I won the hand they were hugging me and stuff. It definitely helped boost my confidence.
Heads-up with Grant Hinkle, I didn’t want to get it all-in in a big pot – I wanted to grind him down until the stacks were 75/25, not 50/50. But I couldn’t keep folding. After I made it 1.2 million in the final hand, I only had 4m behind. I can’t fold there. If I pass, that’s bad poker.
I wasn’t massively ahead on the last hand, only a 60/40 favourite (with A:-K; vs 10U-4U). But when the money went in, I thought, ‘This is it. It’s going to come A-7- 2 rainbow…’ But it came 10-10-4 and there was a complete switch in my emotions. I went from feeling luminous contactlenses confident that I was going to win a bracelet to feeling like, ‘Get out, mate, you came second,’ kind of thing.
Some people say, ‘Why didn’t you do business heads-up?’ I was a better player than him and felt I had him on the ropes. It’s hard not to look at the short-term when you’re playing for so much money, but I am also looking at the long run. I’m quite strict with doing deals and unless they’re in my favour, I won’t do them.
I’ve made a conscious effort to improve my game, playing a lot more aggressively in certain situations. I’ve been playing a lot of online tournaments and taught myself a lot. I’ve also been taught a few lessons by some of the top pros and this has really helped my tournament strategy. I’m running quite good as well, winning my races and reading the game well.

Marty Smyth

There were no mainland British bracelet winners this year, but Belfast-born Marty Smyth captured the PLO Championship
 I haven’t seen the WSOP bracelet since about half an hour after I won it
POKERPLAYER: You’ve been racking up big results for the past couple of years, but were you more of an online player prior to that?
MARTY SMYTH: When I started playing six or seven years ago, I’d play the odd rebuy tournament, but I started taking poker marked cards a bit more seriously when I starting playing on the internet. For the first few years I just played cash games online; at first I saw it as a hobby, but after a few months I was doing really well. I never thought I’d do it for a living, but I was making more money than I would have been in any job so I decided to give it a go for a couple of years and see how it went. It’s just got bigger and bigger ever since.
PP: What were you doing right to instantly get good results online?
MS: I think I was pretty lucky that I got into it when I did – I had a bit of a head start on other people. I was playing online at Ladbrokes and the games were really easy back then. It was mostly just UK players and most of them were probably just sports bettors having a bit of a flutter, so I built up a big bankroll pretty quickly.
PP: Did you receive your live tournament induction in Dublin?
MS: I’ve always played home games with friends but started getting more interested when I discovered a casino in Dublin and started playing Omaha and Hold’em. About 10 of us used to go there every couple of weeks, play the Friday night tournament, and then go out on the beer. But back then it was just a social thing.
PP: It must have been extra special winning the bracelet for an Omaha tournament with Ireland’s history of the game…
MS: It was and it’s right up there with winning the Irish Open. At 381 players, it’s quite a small field, but very select. There was no dead money like in some of the other WSOP events.
PP: Was the journey to the final table smooth?
MS: It was pretty much as smooth as it marked cards contactlenses could have been. At one point I was short- stacked, down to about half the average, but I doubled through pretty quickly to get me back in my comfort zone again. I seemed to get moved every hour on the second day, so once we got to the final, I’d played with nearly every player there.
PP: Joined by fellow Irishman Tom Hanlon at the final table, you had a lot of fans cheering for you both.
MS: I don’t think the atmosphere would have been as good if we’d have made it heads-up, as they wouldn’t have cared who won.

PP: Does it add to the pressure knowing everyone has such high expectations of you?
MS: It makes it more stressful because there is more pressure, but it certainly makes it more enjoyable. I had a far better time because everyone was there. I don’t want to sound cheesy, but it was probably the best day of my life because of the atmosphere and the guys cheering me on.
PP: Did it feel better than winning the Irish Open?
MS: It actually did. As I got to the final table, I thought, ‘Even if I win, it won’t be better,’ but it was much bigger.
PP: Did the enormity of winning the bracelet sink in immediately?
MS: It did, but I didn’t realise how big it was until after. I haven’t seen the bracelet since about half an hour after I won it. I knew I was going to get pretty drunk so I gave it to Paddy O’Connor and it’s been in his safe ever since.

Tom Dwan

At just 22, Tom Dwan has already won several million dollars playing the nosebleed high stakes games online

Among online poker players, Tom Dwan is a 22-year-old superstar. Logging in under the username durrrr, he’s managed to win millions of dollars by outplaying some of the game’s most lauded pros. Considering Dwan’s hourly return, his time is clearly valuable – for every minute that he’s not playing poker, he is essentially losing money – and he’s learned to be picky about parcelling it out. So much so that he once missed a vacation because a game online was so compelling. ‘I played two people with tilt issues,’ remembers Dwan, who stayed home and made $ 1.3m instead of joining his friends in Cancun. ‘They played for too long and had too much money in their accounts.’
In fact, Dwan tells me right off, he maintains no schedule and never knows what he will be doing or where he will be from one day to the next. He doesn’t like to plan ahead and expresses uncertainty as to infrared contactlenses precisely when or where we will do this interview. Eventually, though, we work out something of a plan: meet in Las Vegas or New York City, at some point in the coming weeks, and have our chat over a meal of sushi. He offers to take me to Nobu if we do it in Vegas. I tell him that lunch will be on me if the interview goes down in New York.
One night he texts to tell me that he’s at his parents’ house, in a New Jersey suburb, and would like to schedule our interview for the next day. We agree to meet at noon and I make a reservation at a favourite Japanese restaurant downtown. When I arrive, Dwan is sitting at a front table, sipping beer. He looks well-rested and cleanly shaven. His hair is nicely coiffed, gently cresting above his forehead, and his demeanor appears completely relaxed.
He doesn’t look like someone who’s been up all night, battling six-figure swings. He doesn’t even look like a high stakes poker player. Pressed to guess, I’d peg him as a college kid with family money. Here’s the reality: after spending a couple of nights with his parents, Dwan decided to go to New York. So he drove into town, checked into a W Hotel – he was a little surprised at the price, over $ 500 per night, but not so surprised that he drove back home to mum and dad – and anticipated playing a bit before watching a movie or working out.
Things began as planned. ‘In about 15 minutes,’ he remembers, ‘I was up $ 100k. Then, within an hour, I was stuck $ 200k. Then, in the next few minutes, I was ahead $ 200k again, and decided to quit. I was kind of tired and wanted to go to bed. But then…’ – he smiles here and appears to slough it off – ‘somebody decided to give me a bunch of money. I ended the night ahead $ 500,000.’
That’s pretty much how our conversation begins. After a couple of hours eating and talking, we’re ready to wrap things up. I call for a cheque, and, as promised, plan on paying. But Dwan insists on picking up the tab. Peeling off a couple of hundreds, he says, ‘I think I made more money than you did today.’ I don’t mount much of an argument.

Go go go

Dwan’s ascent – to the point where he cleared seven figures in profits well before the midway point of 2008, reportedly crushed the big pot-limit Omaha game in Bobby’s Room during the recent World Series, and casually made one final table before bubbling another one – began like most modern poker careers: with a $ 50 deposit into an online account. Dwan was halfway through his senior year of high school and curious about the game. He played cheap sit-and-gos, found it easy to read people, and immediately saw value in tightening up against loose players. Winning the mini tournaments seemed astonishingly simple. Within a few months, he ran his $50 deposit up to $ 10,000 and matriculated into Boston University’s engineering department.
By the end of Dwan’s first semester, his poker account held $ 100,000 and his grades were in the toilet. ‘Most college kids are screwed if they fail; I didn’t have that worry,’ he says. ‘That made it easier to pick up the Halo controller instead of going to class. I remember alumni coming in and telling us about making $ 70k a year. The night before I won $ 4k. I was like, “Are you kidding me?” I couldn’t motivate myself and so I failed.’
Where he felt completely motivated, of course, was in the world of synthesized whooshes of cards and clangs of chips. It’s allowed him to emerge as a guy who will play almost anyone online for as high as they are willing to ante.
‘Phil Ivey’s heads-up game is very good,’ allows Dwan. ‘But if he tried to 12-table me heads-up, I would be at an advantage. I’m a favourite in just about any pot-limit Omaha game online. I don’t think there is anyone you can put in the same league as Ivey, except Patrik Antonius.’ Dwan then acknowledges that they both have an advantage over him in live play.
What about online? ‘I’m not going to comment on that,’ he answers, tightening up.
This begs a query as to what Dwan does online that some of the best poker players in the world do not. In fact, I pose this question to him twice. Here is an amalgamation of what he told me: ‘There is no easy answer to what I do. High stakes poker is all about making more right decisions [than the other players]. It’s a combination of gathering information, analysing that information and adapting to your opponents.’ It’s also about thinking rationally while taking emotions and guesswork out of the equation. ‘The more you think logically about the game, the better your decisions will be. It’s not about gambling, though there was a time when I thought that. I haven’t thought like that in a while.’

Swingaments

According to highstakesdb.com, between January 1 of this year and July 20, Dwan is ahead nearly $ 2m online. It’s an impressive number, but Dwan points out that over the short-term the swings can be mind-blowing. ‘Amounts of money that change hands day to day are ridiculous,’ he says. ‘Recently a friend’s girlfriend congratulated me on a big win. I asked her which win she was referring to. She was talking about $ 200,000 that I had won in a live game at the Bellagio. But, I explained, since then, over a card cheating two-week period, I had made $ 200,000 four times – and I was down $ 25,000, all told, for the period.’ He smiles tightly and shakes his head. ‘The swings are just insane.’
Though high-stakes swings are euphoric on the upside, they can be brutal in the reverse. During one awful period, not long ago, Dwan lost more than half of his seven- figure bankroll. The nearly devastating beating came about through a bad streak online and rotten investments in backing other players. ‘I cared a ton about that,’ he says. ‘It really bothered me and made me question playing poker.’
But he didn’t question it for long. Instead, he did what every long-term winner does: hunker down and grind it out. With stunning efficiency and the kind of work ethic that would have allowed him to ace his way through university, Dwan quickly got back to where he needed to be.
Possessing less ego than a lot of old-school players – who have a hard time dropping down to low levels when they are getting killed at the big games – he found smaller, less challenging, mid stakes opportunities. As explained by Dwan, it sounds as if he’s a virtual lock to win at that level. ‘In three weeks of multi-tabling $ 10/$ 20 no-limit, I would be a huge favourite to make $ 90,000,’ he emphasises, turning incredulous when I suggest that he ought to do it all the time. ‘In order to do that, I would require a large bet; somebody would have to bet me $ 500,000 that I couldn’t do it.’ He considers this, then says, ‘Actually, the bet would need to be higher. It would need to be for $1m. It would be a shitty three weeks, with me putting in, like, 200 hours. But I could definitely win $ 90k.’ Unfortunately, he says, ‘Nobody I know is willing to make the bet.’
Understanding that he means he’d need some extra motivation before devoting so many hours to playing at those stakes, I tell him that for most people the simple opportunity to make $ 30,000 in a week would be motivation enough. ‘Yeah,’ replies Dwan, ‘but those people, who so badly want to make $ 120,000 per month, might lose $ 10,000 in a pot and flip out. Or else they’d go on tilt and stop playing, even though they’re up against a bunch of fish.’

Home comforts

High stakes poker has afforded Tom Dwan a cushy lifestyle. It includes a posh house in Texas, a BMW M3 in the garage, and enough cash that he can take a $ 250,000 flyer on a chess bet and lose with few consequences. Plus, he has the freedom to travel wherever and whenever he wants.
Last year, for example, on the spur of the moment, Dwan and his online compatriot Alan Sass decided to visit Europe. They packed light and headed to the airport. Laptops in hand, the pair barnstormed through London, Amsterdam and Rome, checking into the best hotels, doing a bit of touring and enjoying lots of online poker. Despite massive room service bills, the trip was quite profitable and they split each other’s action.
That much was predictable. What happened soon after is fairly extraordinary.
Their deal, on certain sites, remained in effect after they returned to the States, but Sass wasn’t thinking about it a whole lot. Then a late-night call came to a house that Sass and some friends had rented for the 2007 World Series of Poker. A buddy answered and told the caller that Sass was asleep.
‘Kick him awake,’ said the caller, who turned out to be Dwan.
As Sass remembers it, ‘In five or six hours, Tom had run $ 7k on one of our accounts up to $ 675k. I had just won, like, $ 335k. To me that was a shit-load. I had slept for six hours that night and worked out that for every minute I slept I earned nearly $ 1,000. At the end of the Series, Tom gave me a pile of cash. I didn’t even know what to do with it. I kept a bunch and spent almost $ 100k on furnishing my apartment.’
One surprising thing about Dwan, and a testament to his natural poker ability, is that he plays without the tools that other online wizards, including Sass, find indispensable: data-mined statistics, opponent-tracking software, and optimal play devices (such as Pokerstove). ‘I’m lazy and I think they’re overrated,’ he says in a laconic tone. ‘I should use those things, but I think a lot of people spend time on the software and don’t apply logic. Besides, when you play against many different people, the software matters more.’ Because of his nosebleed stakes, says Dwan, ‘I play a small group. New names come in every day, but the regulars are maybe 200 or less.’
And for somebody like Dwan, whether he’s using software or not, the small field presents a bit of a problem that has nothing to do with gaining tiny edges through technology. His reputation and stats are such that few people are enthusiastic about playing against him heads-up, which is where he has his biggest advantage. I tell him that there must be some satisfaction in that – in knowing that he’s one of the baddest gunslingers on the net. ‘No,’ he replies. ‘I wish people would play me more. Last night I was up against a guy who won half a buy-in – $ 20,000 – and he quit. Lots of people say they want to play me heads-up, live and online, but it doesn’t happen that often. I’d feel better if they would play me.’
Dwan allows this to sink in for a moment, then he gets to the stripped-down crux of what drives him, what disappoints him about the lack of willing opponents, and maybe the basic core of what allows him to be so successful. It also makes Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan sound like a weekend rounder who’s in love with the game and the lager cash it provides. ‘I don’t have an ego with poker,’ he says simply. ‘I play for money and enjoyment.’

The History Of Poker

Here I will briefly discuss the origins and history of the world’s most popular card game, Poker. We’ll take a look at who invented it, where it was played, and how it became so popular.
Card games have been played very early on going back centuries. Thus, in China in the 13th Century they were already playing cards. In the 12th and 13th Century the Egyptians were known to have created playing cards. The first known card game ‘Ganjifa’ originating from Egypt in the 16th Century, consisted of 96 beautifully detailed cards made of wood or ivory.
Although the origin of this game is unclear, one widely assumes that it has evolved from the Persian marked card game As Nas, which has affinity with today’s poker. For the first time there were differences in the card values and combinations. This game from Persia originated in the 16th Century and consisted of 25 cards of 5 colors, which is somewhat similar to today’s 5 Card Stud Poker. There have also been similar rankings and values.
In the 14th Century, these card games came to Europe and were further developed. In Spain, they developed the card game Primero, which can be regarded as a direct ancestor of today’s poker. In Germany it was a poker variant, which goes by the name Poch, France Poque. Poch, Poque and English to poke derived from the German word, rap, which is further developed in the course of time in the poker world.
French settlers that moved to America in the 19th Century invented the present form of poker. It was then played with four players, with a deck of 20 cards. In the following decades, the game spread around the country. In the time of the Civil War 1861-1865 it was played with a traditional deck of 52 cards. During this time a combination of cards were added to make the straight and flush poker hand rankings, and it developed into other forms of poker like Five Card Stud and Five Card Draw.
During the Early 20th Century, a new form of poker contact lens was invented going by the name Wild Widow. This form of poker is the first form of today’s Texas Hold’em. For the first time community cards had been used, but back then it was still a single community card. Only in subsequent years saw the development of today’s Texas Hold’em.
Until the early 70s, poker was a game of chance. Regular WSOP tournaments were held, and the image of this game was transformed from simply being “a good amusement/entertainment” to a very strategic game, involving a great deal of skill, and the first poker pros were born who were playing this game for a living. The technical capabilities of the Internet revolutionized the game of poker and online poker experienced the biggest boom in its history after Moneymaker won the 2003 WSOP Main Event. The number of poker players, both in online and offline games, has never been so high, and the numbers of players online are still understood steeply rising.