members-only articles
Well, the Celebrity Apprentice cat is out of the bag now. The cast is announced and, yes, I am part of it. Okay, so what would make me do this show? I mean I have tried to avoid reality TV. I really value my private life and protecting the privacy of my kids. So then why on Earth would I agree to do this show? Read more »
I will be the first to admit that I am no expert at Omaha High-Low. You will never, ever see me sitting in the $1,000/$2,000 game at Full Tilt Poker, not even if I happen to win the Main Event of the World Series of Poker some day. But Omaha High-Low is my favorite game and I haven't embarrassed myself at the tables. Read more »
I'm sitting at my computer listening to Christmas carols and thinking about how much I enjoyed the holidays. My good friend Rita Axel made the turkey and stuffing (yummy!) and I made the appetizers, salad, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, lamb, and ham. After dinner, we played trivia and sat around telling tales from our favorite moments from 2008. Read more »
We have all been there (unless your luck is crazy bad): we flop the nuts and our heart gives a little jump as we start to think about how to bust all the fools who decided it would be a good idea to mix it up with us. Read more »
Wow! What a Super Bowl! Many people thought that last year's Super Bowl between the undefeated New England Patriots and the New York Giants wouldn't be topped for quite a while. Well, this year's Super Bowl surpassed that one. Read more »
As I stood on the outside of the velvet rope, the sound of the chips clattering was nothing short of intense. The huge ballroom was filled with poker tables, each one carrying the hopes of men and a few women all with the same goal in mind: Becoming a World Poker Tour (WPT) champion. Read more »
The early part of the 21st century saw hordes of newcomers and experienced poker players flocking to Texas Hold'em, especially the No Limit variety. As this decade has rolled along, though, many have decided to look to other disciplines of poker to test their skills. Read more »
How time flies! I cannot believe it is once again the start of a new year. It seems like just yesterday that we rang in the new millennium. In 2009, we begin a new era with the inauguration of our 44th President, Barack Obama. Read more »
2008 was an incredible year. The poker world continued to expand globally and here in the U.S., we elected Barack Obama, a black President (of course, we're hoping he's a pro-poker president). The Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) held its first-ever "Go All-In for Veterans" charity poker tournament in Washington, D.C. Read more »
If you were to walk into a brick-and-mortar card room in most places in the world, you may not have many options when choosing a table. If you want to play poker then you may have no choice but to play in a full-ring game if the only table that is available already has eight seated players. Read more »
I have been thinking lately about a particular paradox in my life and trying to figure out how to handle it. The paradox is that as I have become more well-known for playing poker, it has become harder and harder for me to find time to play poker at all. Read more »
Whether you like it or not, you will at some stage be forced into playing heads up poker. This even applies if you are sitting in a full-ring game with nine or even ten players: imagine you are in the hijack seat in a nine handed cash game and action has been folded around to you; you open raise with Qs-10s and action is then folded around to the big blind, who calls. Read more »
When it began just over six years ago, the World Poker Tour was the only game in town. Sure, the World Series of Poker was showing its usual mild growth, but it was a tournament schedule that didn't have any draw other than its traditional April-to-May run. Read more »
Having only been a poker professional for three years now after starting to play the game in 2003 right at the beginning of the "poker boom," I was very fortunate to have been able to ride most of the meteoric rise that the game experienced from 2003 until 2006. Read more »
When playing poker, be it online or live, it is easy to not give it your all. Online, you could be playing multiple tables and not be able to give your full attention to any one game, or you could be distracted by any number of things, such as the world wide web, television, or even your un-potty trained toddler running around naked. Read more »
I've been playing poker for more than 30 years in legal card rooms and have seen many actions that annoy me at the poker table. Here's a partial list of them. First, I detest "over-celebration" at the table and think there is no place for it in poker. Read more »
As is pretty much the case every week, I had trouble thinking of a topic for this column. Nowadays, my brain pretty much revolves around poopy diapers, the new addition to my house, and the timing of my next nap. But, now that we're at the turn of the New Year, I got to thinking about New Year's resolutions. Read more »
As we enter the month of December and the holiday season, many readers often ask me for a list of poker books for holiday gift ideas. In this blog, I have compiled a thorough list that ranges from timeless classics to modern day standards to recent releases. I hope you enjoy them. Read more »
Having a big stack at the end stages of a sit & go can be a lot of fun and almost guarantee a victory -- as long as you're playing optimally. In this article we'll analyze a situation that you'll find frequently on the money bubble, but have probably overlooked as a big-stack tyrant. Read more »
I recently returned from a seven-day trip to Pendleton, Oregon for the annual Poker Round-Up series of tournaments at the Wild Horse Resort and Casino. It's hard to find a card room these days that truly gives back to its customers, but Wild Horse believes in doing just this. Read more »
PokerStars Team Pro Bertrand Grospellier, better known in the online realm as "Elky", has ripped through the live poker circuit in 2008. Grospellier began the year with a victory in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure EPT Main Event for $2 million and has followed it up with several massive scores all over the world. Read more »
The calling station is one of the ultimate "love ‘em or hate ‘em" players you can run into at the poker table: either you treat them like an automated teller machine, or they win hand after frustrating hand against you. Read more »
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) final table is finally over. After the 117 day intermission, the November Nine finally reassembled in Las Vegas to continue their quest for the WSOP Main Event bracelet. Although poker traditionalists were originally against the idea, many poker fans are considering this experiment to be a success. Read more »
With the preponderance of six-max ring games now dominating the online scene, there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of theory on full ring games with between eight and ten players. Read more »
It may seem that everyone wants to play Texas Hold ‘Em but, for those that caught the fever at the beginning of this decade, the desire to learn other disciplines of poker has certainly caught up. Omaha Hold ‘Em, with its four cards and multiplicity of options, has been the game of choice in Europe for years and is beginning to build popularity in the rest of the world also. Today, we're going to look at an offshoot of Omaha, the Omaha Hi/Lo game, and the best tactics to take to the tables for it. Read more »
