Humans are designed to think
whether they like it or not.
While animals live to preserve
their gene pool, a huge part
of being human means to
relentlessly think for the sake of
something larger than life, for
the sake of survival.

It goes without saying that in
order to be a victor and survive the game of Poker, sharpness of the mind shall be used.

Being sharp does not mean that you have to be academically intelligent, it means that you have to be knowledgeable. Sharpness in the game of Poker means knowing how to properly deal with your own game, your opponents and most importantly knowing how to deal with your skills.

The line that separates a good Poker player from a winning Poker player is the willingness to constantly learn, observe, and adapt.

Successful Poker players survive because of self control and eyes that carefully read each opponent. Do not bother playing Poker if you do not have self control and is impatient. You will only lose. Self control is about the art of suppressing your emotions so you can carefully analyze the exact situation you are in, which in turn, will help you make wise decisions.

The greatest Poker players are like journalists who are always eager and always on the look out for more information that will lead them to discover something big. For instance, what will you do if you are faced with a player who might be bluffing? Do not make the mistake of stereotyping that player. Instead, what you do is just observe that player until you can gradually see his intentions and his real position. When you observe, you learn. Remember that.

If you think observing is mind reading then you can put it that way. You can attempt to read or decipher the ulterior motive of your opponent by observing both his actions and expressions. Your opponent’s verbal and facial expressions can help you crack the code you are looking for. Once you have cracked his style, you can now freely anticipate each move he makes. But be careful not to draw any conclusions yet.

Though anticipation is critical in a game of Poker, it does not mean that you will not prepare yourself for any backfire. You have to make sure that you can adapt well to every situation you might get yourself into. Losing is not an option and anticipation does not always equate money.

The game of Poker, like evolution, is all about survival. In order for you to survive, you need to observe. Observing allows you to learn and be vigilant to the possible dangers around you. Keep in mind that observing is the only way to learn and learning is the only way to cultivate success.

In a podcast discussion, a man said that the correct attitude in playing Poker - the one you should always strive to have - is that you are always even when the hand begins. No matter what has happened previously - play your hand for what it’s worth now.

He made sure to make a mental note to follow his own advice. It is sound advice - one of those things that’s easy to grasp intellectually, but damned hard to put into practice as players unconsciously and constantly struggle with the concept.

It’s never easy to see your play as one long Poker game. Engaging in some deep Poker pondering this week the speaker put all his efforts to understand game theory,

He said that he was re-reading a discussion of applications of game theory and ended up pondering Emmanuel Kant’s categorical imperative which states:

“Act only on such a maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”

While the intention behind the imperative is aimed at the principles of morality, it got him to wondering what would happen if it was applied to the decisions we are faced with when playing poker. Was it even applicable? The following example of Kant’s imperative he mentioned further intrigued me.

“Always borrow money when in need and promise to pay it back without any intention of keeping the promise”

If you try to follow this maxim logically, you will discover that, whereas this maxim is beneficial to the individual, it cannot be regarded as a universal law - everyone would then be insincere that people would break promises, making them irrelevant, therefore they’d cease to exist. This maxim is nothing but a contradiction since, ultimately, it’s not in an individual’s best interest to break the promise. If you can keep a promise, why will you break it?

But is there a dictum for a Poker player to act on that given that he is willed, could become a universal “Poker” law? For the Poker player it’s naturally his individual interest to try to make the correct decision on each hand. It is not in his vested interest for his opponents to do the same. Success in Poker is dependent upon making wise +EV decisions while your opponents make -EV mistakes. If everyone is making the “correct” play all the time then, theoretically, at best you will break even over the long term. Right?

Poker, then, i assume, would seem to require a little chaos and unpredictability in order for the individual to achieve ongoing gain. Therefore, Kant’s categorical imperative isn’t applicable.

Even so, if you think about how far you have reached when it comes to playing Poker, philosophizing the events and strategy you employed will really help since thinking deep about it will not only motivate you more to do well in a game, it will also help you understand your who or what you are in relation to Poker.

The Amazon Room
opens its doors again
today with the start of
the 2008 World Series of
Poker and will remain
that way for the next six
weeks, fifty-five events
are scheduled with
thousands of players
expected to battle it out
for millions of dollars.

Typically reserved for extraordinarily large conventions, the Amazon Room of the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is said to be the size of a football field with a space for more than 200 Poker tables that run tournaments, cash games, and satellite events around the clock.

An elaborate stage is also reportedly prepared for all the televised final tables complete with a full ESPN crew and seating for spectators.

“Never in a million years would I have thought Poker would ever come to this,” Poker legend Doyle Brunson said.

So many changes are scheduled to happen to this year’s World Series, reports said.

The highlights of the event will start from July 3 to 14, however, the final nine players that will make the final table will have to wait until Nov. 9 so the ESPN cameras can catch the action and have a live broadcast.

According to reports there is also an overwhelming increase in the number of large buy-in tournaments.

During the past years, the World Series flooded with lower $1,500 buy-in tournaments that made the events accessible to a larger percentage of Poker players, but were criticized for their repetitiveness.

The $10,000 buy-in for the Main Event was the largest found in Poker but now the 2008 World Series has now made it possible to schedule eight $10,000 buy-in in various games and formats with the first tournament, the World Championship of Pot Limit holdem, scheduled to begin Friday.

If playing an event is not in your plans, there are still two ways to follow all the tournament action.

You can be updated by Online Poker web sites such as cardplayer.com, worldseriesofpoker.com and bluffmagazine.com when it comes to chip counts, cashes and spotlight hand updates.

Better if you happen to be in Vegas since you can just walk over to the Rio and check out the tournaments free of charge.

Throughout the World Series, you can pick any random day and chances are you will bump into dozens of the famous faces seen on television that will be more than willing to sign an autograph — provided they do not desperately need to take their scheduled bathroom break.

June 25 is the start day for the World Series’ richest event-the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E tournament, which informally crowns best “all-around” player- where there’s a Poker legend at every table, and some tables may have a millionaire sitting in every seat.

The championship chase is one of the most interesting angle in writing a news story.

In 2007 after winning his 11th, Phil Hellmuth scored a higher record than Brunson and Johnny Chan.

Another angle which people should follow is size of the field for the Main Event.

After setting a record in 2006 with 8,773 players, the field thinned down nearly 2,500 players to 6,358 in 2007; this devaluation in field was a result of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which handcuffed the Online Poker sites from buying players into the tournament via satellites.

APCW Interactive just recently made public the first social networking site, similar to MySpace, devoted strictly to online gaming, Poker players, casino operators and gaming site webmasters.

Upon checking out the site, you will notice that it has everything you would expect from a social networking site. Poker and online gaming enthusiasts are given their own page where they can customize the look and feel they want by adding a profile, some pictures, video, blog, feeds and the like.

Also, it goes without saying that just like MySpace and Facebook Poker and online gaming enthusiasts can interact with other members of the site and meet new friends.

Additionally, public forums are in place where enthusiasts can discuss the latest industry announcements and news. Poker players and gaming enthusiasts can also search the online database for not only posts but articles, news stories, podcasts and videos such as Weekly Perspectives produced by the site’s webmaster.

As of today, a total of 927 players joined the site and a total of 63 topics with not less than 15 replies for each topic were posted.

There are only a handful of organizations that examine online gaming sites for integrity, and only the APCW looks at affiliate programs as well. Reportedly, they are always checking and tracking a variety of criteria including software downloads & installations, deposits and withdrawal methods, interactive game play, customer service responsiveness, bonus awards, and overall site ergonomics. Additionally, they are also said to be tracking affiliate programs to make certain they keep accurate track of webmaster traffic, conversions, and revenue.

When it comes to their advocacy, APCW said that they are not just a community of people who play and work in the online gaming industry. Their members area is a social network that allows complete interaction between all members: Players can contact and message casino programs. Webmasters can leave comments and questions for affiliate managers. There is nothing restricting the free flow of communication and information. And if there are problems, they said that they are to help with mediation and advocacy when needed. In the past, they said that they had resolved complex issues that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in the pockets of players and webmasters.

Joining APCW is easy. As mentioned above, membership means access to their gaming clients where you can legally play online casino games, win real money, and cash out your winnings. As a member you will also be able to download our free toolbar for easy access to our data, timely online gaming articles, and instant “Bulletins” when breaking industry news happens.

Join for free and build your own personal, fully customizable page listing your favorite games and where you like to play. Upload your own pictures and videos. Start your own blog and create a group of players or webmasters within the APCW community.

Now is your chance to get in on the ground floor of what I’m sure will be a very successful site and community. Join today it’s totally free.

Playing Poker is a game wherein the more information you know about your opponent, the more advantageous your position is. Holding on to more pieces of information will make you most likely beat your opponent. While luck is a big factor in Poker, it is still the struggle for information that is the most important since it enables people to play Poker professionally.

Often times you, as a Poker player, resort into concealing information about yourself, but you also have to be vigilant of what information you want your opponents to see, either intentionally or unintentionally. There will be times when you will wish to let your opponents have some information, as you want to compel your opponents to take certain actions. If your opponents are falling to the information you leaked, you can lead them straight into a disastrous game, or simply cause them to make the wrong turn.

An example of this happened in a nine player sit and go. A good looking player was playing on Poker Stars. He had been getting horrible cards, and went almost an entire level without seeing a single face card. After a long period of folding, He finally picked up a hand, pocket queens. He was on the button, so he had a good hand with good position. However, the second player to act pushed all-in, and at this time his stack was only slightly decreased from his starting stack. Another player called, so he made the proper move for this stage in the tournament: The player threw his hand away. As it turns out, he would have won the hand, as the raiser had Q-8 and the caller held A-K with unremarkable community cards. One player revealed that they had folded A-Q, and after careful deliberation, the good looking player revealed that he had held pocket queens.

Why did he do this? First of all, the other players were starting to realize that he was playing tightly, so by revealing that he had not given in to the temptation to play a big hand in a bad situation, they would come to the conclusion that he truly do only play good cards, and he wouldn’t be making any dumb plays when he held good cards. He wanted to instill fear in them, fear that would cause them to fold when he did raise, as his style relies on aggressively forcing other players out of the pot when he enter a hand.

Just shortly after revealing that he had pocket queens, he started to pick up hands and he was willing to play with in good position. He used these hands to his advantage, raising when he came into the hand, either winning the pot outright or isolating himself against one or two opponents. If he did get callers before the flop, he was always able to make them fold after the flop. His stack was growing, and he became a powerful force at the table without winning a truly big pot.

At one point he, apparently, looked at his stats, and saw that he had seen eleven flops, and had won ten pots. A couple of those wins came preflop, so that slightly skews the numbers, but the only time he saw the flop and didn’t win the hand was when he was playing for cheap from the blinds. Every time he raised before the flop, he won the hand. He had accomplished his goal of getting the other players to fear him. it is also during this time that he had only made it to one showdown, this occurring when he was in the big blind and called the short stack’s all-in, as they only had five more chips than his big blind. He won that pot for the very small win and an elimination.

This is, in reality, a perfect example of what can happen if you take time to analyze carefully all the information that is available and use them to your advantage. Being able to carefully control information is essential if you want to win in Poker and sometimes it is a good idea to leak some information to your benefits.

According to a statement,
Representatives Steve Cohen
(D-TN) and Steven Rothman
(D-NJ) placed their signatures to
HR 5767’s list of existing
sponsors last week to block
the implementation of the 2006
Unlawful Internet Gambling
Enforcement Act (UIGEA) which
made it illegal for financial institutions to pursue transactions between US residents and online poker and gaming operators.

Earlier, Congressmen Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced HR 5767 which quickly gained ten signatures.

All seven of these new sponsors also reportedly signed HR 2046, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (IGREA) which was introduced on April 26 of last year to legalize and regulate online gambling in the United States.

It is said that Frank now focuses on blocking the implementation of UIGEA, following an April 2nd hearing conducted by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology that voiced the inconsistencies, ill definition and inherent problems of the UIGEA.

In addition, the April 2nd hearing also discussed the concerns raised in over 200 comments received during the government’s open feedback period in 2007.

Reports said that the Banking Industry and frustrated government officials testimonies showed the failure of government to define transactions that are considered to be illegal amid the already overworked US financial services industry objecting strongly to side with UIGEA’s role.

HR 5767, in particular, targets the Treasury Department and U.S. Federal Reserve, to further stop the possibility of more work on the regulations to enforce the UIGEA.

“The Bill would prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve from proposing, prescribing, or implementing any regulation under Sub Chapter IV of chapter 53 of title 31, United States Code, and for other purposes,” Congress website said.

The following congressmen have signed onto the new bill:

• Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY)
• Robert Wexler (D-FL)
• Shelley Berkley (D-NV)
• Russ Carnahan (D- MO)
• Michael Capuano (D- MA)
• William Lacy Clay (D-MO)
• Steve Cohen (D- TN)
• Bob Filner (D-CA)
• Charles Gonzalez (D- TX)
• Luis V. Gutierrez(D-IL)
• Michael Honda (D-CA)
• Peter T. King (R-NY)
• James McGovern (D-MA)
• James Moran (D-VA)
• Ed Perlmutter (D- CO)
• Steven Rothman (D- NJ)
• Robert Wexler (D-FL)

According to a statement, the office of Frank continues to rally for supporters to contact their congressmen to voice their support of Online Poker, saying it is the biggest factor for getting sponsorship and support of the bills.

The Poker Players Alliance website also reportedly offers a contact list and letter template for writing congresspersons (by zipcode) making it quick and easy to even add highly valued personal comments.

For a complete list and informative profile of all current members of congress please go to the online directory for the 110th congress.