response 3 of 32:

Dec 11 04:29 UTC 2005

i tried playing poker once this summer but it didn't work out.

blackjack was more fun.

response 5 of 32:

Dec 11 05:30 UTC 2005

Blackjack is best played by a computer.

More than one sense of the word 'best' is being used here.

response 7 of 32:

Dec 11 07:35 UTC 2005

Seven card stud is played with no community cards, three downcards, and four
upcards.

It used to be the ultimate game, but hasn't been for a few years.

The four hole cards one is OMAHA, which is like Hold 'em except that you have
to use exactly TWO of your hole cards and THREE of the community cards to make
your hand, and it's often played for LOW as well as HIGH hands.

response 9 of 32:

Dec 11 15:29 UTC 2005

Seven card stud is traditionally dealt in five rounds, and there are no
common cards (eash player is dealt her own hand of seven cards).

The first round is two cards face down and one card face up.  The next
three rounds are one card face up, and the final round is one card face
down.  Betting follows each round.

The group I play with most Friday evenings typically plays a small
variety of games including some we've made up, depending on the number
of players (range seems to be 3-9).  The games are: 
     Five card stud (four rounds, 1 down and 1 up, 1 up, 1 up, 1 down,
no common)
     Seven card stud (see above - 7 players or fewer)
     "Hedge" (one round, five cards down)
     "Coquilles" (pronounced "ko-kee" - same as Hedge, but add two
rounds with 1 common card per round)
     "Johnny Two-Hole" (five card draw plus two rounds of 1 common card
per round - generally good only for 6 players or fewer)
     Texas Hold-Em
     
Last night we added a new game, "Little Indian" (one card, dealt face
down to each player, who then - without looking at the card - holds it
up to their forehead where all the other players can see it. Players
then bet that their own card, which they cannot see, is higher than the
other cards that they can see. Last better has a significant advantage,
especially if the players are a little drunk.)

response 11 of 32:

Dec 11 19:40 UTC 2005

 I'm not sure to what extent the current television hold'em craze has
 eroded this, but until recently there were some definite regional
 preferences in poker play (and here I'm talking not about home games
 but about the sorts of games dealt in legal and semi-legal casinos
 and card rooms..)  The east coast, particularly Atlantic City, was
 known for favoring seven-card stud.  Hold'em has been the default
 game for national play for some time -- 30 years or more.  And for
 what originally started out as legal reasons but became established
 in their poker culture, Southern California has a regional pocket
 of draw lowball players, a game that's not commonly played seriously
 anywhere else that I know of.  I've never seen five card draw (high) 
 dealt anywhere in the country except for Deadwood, S.D., and that
 seemed more like a concession to tourists enamored with the Wild Bill
 legend than a real devotion to the game.

 As for myself, in my poker playing years I mostly played limit-bet
 hold'em (which is dealt according to the same rules but proceeds
 substantially differently from the no-limit-bet tournament version
 favored on television, since the betting has such a huge effect on
 strategy..)  A few years ago I started playing more Omaha, which,
 as was already mentioned is a flop-card game variant like hold'em
 where the players are all dealt four cards instead of two and (in
 the variant I played) is played high/low.  It's a less familiar
 game for many players and some find the increased possibilities
 from four cards confusing, leading to more exploitable mistakes
 from beginning players, which is why I found it attractive. 

response 13 of 32:

Dec 11 22:11 UTC 2005

So you make $93. How long does it take to play through $1600?

response 15 of 32:

Dec 14 01:27 UTC 2005

ALSO< UH< AN INTERESTING THING IS THAT THERE ARE MANY ONLINE CASINOS THAT
OFFER THE S_O_CALLED "MICROGAMIONG VIPER" SOFTWARE< WHICH AUTOMATICALLY PLAYS
PERFECT STRATEGY BLACKJACK FOR YOU>

IT MIGHT BE A BIT OF A HUMP GETTING OVER THE WHOLE *HEY< SOME COMPUTER IS
BETTING $60 OF MY MONEY PER MINUTE*< BUT IT"S REALLY NO DIFFERENT THAN YOU
DOING IT YOURSELF< EXCEPT THAT IT TAKES A LOT LESS TIME AND REQUIRES MUCH LESS
INTERACTION>

response 17 of 32:

Dec 14 18:54 UTC 2005

I object to the linking.

response 19 of 32:

Dec 14 21:05 UTC 2005

Because it was done without consulting me.

response 21 of 32:

Dec 14 22:03 UTC 2005

If the author of this item wishes, I will remove the link.

response 23 of 32:

Dec 14 23:13 UTC 2005

what !

jep ! 

how come ric isn't FW of the sports cf over here ?>!

response 25 of 32:

Dec 16 03:35 UTC 2005

Anyway, I will now proceed to list some of the benefits of playing poker
online:

1) Selection.  With many online poker rooms running more tables than there
are in Atlantic City and Vegas combined, as well as the nifty statistics (such
as hands per hour and the number of flops seen, indicators of roughly how much
money one can expect to be able to make) easily reported with modern
electronic poker technology, it's much easier to find any table running any
popular game you want for all sorts of stakes.  As well, you can play for
stakes (all the way down to $0.01/$0.02) and with numbers of players (as low
as two) that wouldn't be feasible in a real life casino, where the cost of
running another table is prohibitive.

2) Portability.  You can play anywhere you have an Internet connection:  on
the train, on the can, wherever.  No need to search out silly regulated
casinos.

3) Bonuses.  Because of all the competition, online cardrooms are willing to
offer you large bonuses in exchange for your business.  Typically, the most
generous of these bonuses are the ones you make on your first deposit:  these
are frequently 100% of your deposit or more.  You can also get bonuses for
redepositing and for referring friends who deposit, though these bonuses are
generally less generous.

The bonuses are generally released based on how many hands you play at a
certain level.  Sometimes the bonus is 'trickled out' as you play, and
sometimes it's released in one lump sum.  (Trickling?  Lumps?)  Still other
sites release the bonus to you immediately, with the condition that you have
to play a certain amount before cashing out the bonus.

4) Rake.  Because there isn't as much overhead, online cardrooms can offer
much lower rakes than you would find in real life.  10% is typical in real
life, while most online cardrooms offer a 5% rake (THE AMOUNT THE HOUSE TAKES
OUT OF A POT IN EXCHANGE FOR ITS SSERVICES) with a $3 cap.  The rake is even
lower the fewer people are playing.

5) Rakeback.  Again because of stiff competition, there are third party
referral services that allow you to sign up for cardrooms through them and
receive a percentage of the amount you contribute to the rake back.  Getting
30% of your rake back is a VERY significant boost.

6) Speed.  The automization of the dealing and the shuffling of cards,
combined with the ability for players to make their decisions before the
action comes to them, leads to MUCH faster play than is possible in real life.
Estimates I've read say that online play is generally twice as fast as real
life play.  If you're a winning player, this means you'll make more money.
If you're there for entertainment, it means you can have more fun.

7) Safety.  A large problem in poker is collusion, that is, two or more
players secretly working together to fleece the rest of the players.  This
is something that happens both online and offline, but online there are many
more ways to detect it and combat it, since every action a player makes can
be recorded and analysed.

One form collusion is chip dumping, that is, one player in a tournament
purposely losing all his chips to another player, giving that player a huge
advantage.  If this happened in real life, it's fully possible that the losing
player would have mucked his cards before anyone could investigate -- if
anyone even thought to raise the alarm.  Online, though, every hand is
recorded.  Sites could be programmed to automatically be suspicious of certain
actions:  "Hmm.  He called the guy's all in bet with ace high and four flush
cards on the board when he knew he was in late position and so wouldn't have
to show his cards?"  Even if the software weren't sophisticated enough to
catch all such problems, if a player suspected trouble he could alert the
room's operators who would investigate, if they were at all reputable.

8) Quantity.  Online, you can do something that simply isn't possible to
elegantly do in real life:  play more than one table silmultaneously.  Again,
if you're a winning player, this can dramatically increase your profit without
forcing you to play for higher stakes.  You're likely to lose some profit PER
table, since you can't pay as much attention to what's happening at each
individual table, but being able to play more than one table can more than
make up for this.  I've read blogs of people who play eight tables at a time,
though I'm sure there are people who play even more.

response 27 of 32:

Dec 16 05:22 UTC 2005

Whoa!

SPEAKING OF POKER,

I had just made a reasonable amount of money playing positive expectation
games (i.e., games that I'll win at in the long run), so, uh, I decided to
play a few dollars at a SLIGHTLY NEGATIVE expectation game, i.e. Jacks or
Better video poker!

I was playing Euro 1.25 hands, and, uh, stayed around even for ten or so
hands, but then got trip treys on the first hand, and another trey on the draw
for quad treys... or, in other terms, about Euro 30!

I stopped playing after that, 'cause I figured that was enough!