Tired of playing online?

Vegas has been and will always be the center of the Poker World!

On my last trip into Vegas, I spent several sessions playing poker. Frequent readers to this site know that I have always heard great things from players and readers about many of the new card rooms, The Mirage, The Bellagio and Mandalay Bay all treat players well and have outstanding tournaments.

The Orleans has been very consistent on our last 2 trips with great touraments, and good action on both No Limit and spread Hold’em games. Samstown also has a new HORSE tournament on Sunday nights.

Mandalay Bay is also a fantastic stop with a great cardroom where they really treat the players well (comps/good room rates)

Click Here for the LV revised the Tournament Schedule.

And remember………”What happens is Vegas…..Bring It Home, Baby!!!”
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]]> http://pokerchest.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/winning-in-las-vegas/feed/ 0 pokerchest http://pokerchest.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/poker-helps-pacific-poker-parent-888-holdings-double-profits/ http://pokerchest.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/poker-helps-pacific-poker-parent-888-holdings-double-profits/#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:19:30 +0000 pokerchest http://pokerchest.wordpress.com/?p=29 ]]> 888 Holdings, the giant Gibraltar-based parent company of online poker rooms Pacific Poker and recently Lucky Ace Poker, announced preliminary results for year-end 2007 with profits more than double those of last year, due in large part to poker revenues expanding 18 percent to $80.8 million from $68.2 million a year earlier.

Pretax profits for 2007 from continuing operations were up 106% to $46m compared to $22m in 2006.

The report noted that quarterly casino and poker active customers increased by 11% to 209,000. Poker comprises 38 percent of 888′s business. In addition to online poker, the company casino style games like blackjack and most recently an online bingo and sports betting in February and March 2008 respectively.

Commenting on these outstanding results, Gigi Levy, CEO of 888 said:

“2007 was a year of transformation for 888, in which we had to restructure our business following the enactment in the United States of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act in October 2006. I am very pleased to report that we have now successfully completed the restructuring and repositioning of the business and have delivered record results for the year, both in terms of revenue and profit. This demonstrates the resilience of our business, the strength of our team and the continued attractiveness of our business model. With many strategic initiatives now underway, we see a bright future for the business.”

30 PERCENT GROWTH IN THE FUTURE?

888 is optimistic of 30 percent revenue growth in 2008, helped by a better-than-expected start from its new sports betting and bingo sites.

“Current run rate indicates 20 percent (overall revenue growth), and we are bullish on pushing this. Do I think 30 percent is too much? No, I don’t think 30 is too much,” Chief Executive Gigi Levy told Reuters in a telephone interview.

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The event is expected to draw a field of over 400 players, including the new face of the WPT Poker Made Millionaire, Poker Pro Antonio “the Magician” Esfandiari, as he represents the worldpokertour online site at the tables.

Casino Barcelona will hold Super Satellite No Limit Hold’em (buy-in 200 EUR+20 EUR), with unlimited re-buys and add-on, starting from 3 p.m. on May 21 and May 22. Online satellites are available now at worldpokertour.com. The main event begins at Casino Barcelona on May 24 concluding with the non-televised final table on May 27.

Last October, the WPT Spanish Championship event saw 226 players from around the globe put up EUR 7,500 to compete. The field included poker pros such as Gus Hansen, Erik Seidel, Isabelle Mercier, Juha Helppi, Christer Johansson, and many others. First place went to Austrian Markus Lehmann, who won EUR 537,000 and the WPT Spanish Championship title.

If you cannot go to the event itself, you can still watch the Spanish Championship televised on June 2nd on its new channel, the Game Show Network, in the time slot immediately following High Stakes Poker on Monday night.

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The American Red Cross will hold a “Ride for the Red” Poker Run on Saturday, starting at Creek Ratz Restaurant in Florence.
The run will start at 10 a.m. with the last bike leaving the restaurant at noon. The last bike will return to the restaurant at 4 p.m., and festivities, including live entertainment and drawings, will begin.
Debra Suggs, spokeswoman for the Pee Dee Chapter of the American Red Cross, said the event is meant to be a celebration.
“It is a celebration event for our heroes campaign that we’re closing out in a couple of weeks,” she said.
Suggs said the heroes campaign is one of the American Heart Association’s annual springtime fundraisers that focuses on grassroots efforts to raise money to help others in need.
“We had a Five for Fires fundraiser, where children collect money, five nickels, five dimes, whatever they can,” she said. “It’s a really grassroots campaign and its one of the most popular for the Red Cross chapter.”
Kelli Dowling, special events coordinator for Creek Ratz Restaurants, said the company always is looking for ways to be involved in the community, so when the Red Cross approached them about hosting the event, they were happy to take part.
“All the motorcyclists who wish to participate will pay for a hand,” she said. “There is a course they will travel and, at each stop, they will draw a playing card and when they come back to Creek Ratz, they will draw their final card.”
Once the participants have all returned to the restaurant and drawn their final cards, Dowling said the Red Cross names the winner based on who had the best poker hand.
“Whoever has the best hand will win the top prize,” she said.
In addition to hosting the poker run itself, Creek Ratz will provide a complimentary hot dog bar to riders in the poker run, combined with live music for those who want to hang out and enjoy the fun.
“We’re hoping to have live entertainment starting at around 5 p.m. and lasting until 11 p.m. that night,” Dowling said.
She said there also will be
T-shirts available with the Creek Ratz logo on the front and the name of the event on the back. There also will be a 50/50 drawing to close out the event.
“The 50/50 drawing is when they pass around a big basket and everybody throws money into it and then they get raffle tickets, and whoever’s is drawn gets 50 percent of the bucket, and the rest goes to the Red Cross,” she said.

If you’re going
What: Ride for the Red Poker Run to benefit the American Red Cross
When: 10 a.m. Saturday
Where: Creek Ratz Restaurant, 2001 S. Cashua Drive, Florence
Info: Call Kelli Dowling at (843) 655-1437.

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Special to FOXSports.com

Tournament star Eric (Rizen) Lynch shares unique insights into the inner game of poker with Foxsports.com in part two of this interview.

FoxSports.com: You are always looking for ways to improve your game. More players could benefit from this type of self-analyzing.

Eric Lynch: I was reminded recently of something I said a while back, and some recent events have had me thinking of it again:

‘Poker, especially tournament poker, is a game where hours of brilliant play can be undone by one momentary lapse of thought.‘

I still think that’s probably one of my better all time quotes, and I’d like to expand on the idea a bit, and provide another quote that may not be quite as good, but is similar in nature.

‘It’s often the mistakes we know we’re making that hurt us the most.‘

What I mean by that, is when I’ve been doing some hand history reviews or talking with people about certain plays, I hear people often tell me ‘yeah I knew that was stupid when I was doing it, but for some reason I did it anyways’ or some similar quotes, even from some VERY good players I’ve talked to.

So, instead of reading more material or studying more, I decided on a different approach. Every night when I was done playing, I’d go back and look at key hands from the tournaments I had played and some key cash game hands and look at them and try and evaluate my play honestly, and I found a disturbing trend. I was consistently making plays I knew were mistakes! I’d let emotion or ego get in the way, or I’d make the classic blunder of finding a way to put my opponent on the one hand I could beat. Sometimes I even remember telling myself as I was making a call that it was a mistake, but I pushed the button anyways!

My point is, I was making plays I knew were wrong, and even though I knew they were wrong, I was still doing them! This was canceling out all of the good, solid plays I was producing and killing hours worth of hard work. Sure, I was still a winning player, but not at a rate that satisfied me, and I wasn’t showing improvement the way I could. So after a month or two of seeing this trend of constantly making mistakes I should have known better than to do, I finally got the discipline for myself to stop making those dumb plays. I can’t honestly say what the key was, but after realizing how much I was costing myself I was able to put aside my ego and emotions and just constantly make good plays. Within a span of just a few months I went on to win the 55k (aka rebuy madness) and the Friday Special for over $60k total. The rest, as they say, is history.

To this day, at the end of the night I go back and look at my play. If I can look at my play and tell myself I honestly played to the best of my ability and didn’t do anything I knew was wrong, I consider the night a success, even if I end the night with no cashes and down over $1000. Conversely if I win $10k in a night, but I made a dumb move heads up at the end that cost myself a chance to win $20k instead, I consider it ‘lost opportunity’ and get a little upset with myself. To use an already over-used sports analogy ‘control what you can control, don’t worry about the rest, and success will follow’. Don’t dwell on bad beats or cold decks. Those happen and you can’t control them. Focus on your own play and if you’re putting yourself consistently in the best position you can to succeed, then you’ve already won.

© 2007 Fox Sports Interactive

Updated: January 11, 2007, 2:11 PM EST

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LOS ANGELES, March 20 (Reuters Life!) – Oscar-nominated actor Woody Harrelson has been called many things over the years including an out-of-control party animal, marijuana enthusiast, vegetarian and all-around nice guy.

Now, add accomplished poker player to the list thanks to his new film “The Grand,” which debuts in major U.S. cities on Friday. Set in the world of professional poker, it follows six players who reach the final table of a high stakes tournament.

While some things written and said about him have been exaggerated, he admits he is an “extremist.” But in recent years, Harrelson has been busy cleaning up his act and practicing what he now preaches — a healthier lifestyle.

Looking tanned and fit, Woody drank herbal tea as he set the record straight about substance abuse, his views on marijuana, the price of fame, and his laid-back life in Hawaii with girlfriend Laura Louie and their daughters, Deni (15), Zoe (12) and Makani (2).

Q: Were you a big poker player before this film?

A: “Yeah, I like poker. I definitely did get into poker during the shoot. I read all the books and then I was just trying to find more poker games.”

Q: Is it true “The Grand” was totally improvised?

A: “Yes, and I was a bit scared when we began shooting. I didn’t think I had it all together, but then it kicked in.”

Q: How much of you is in your character, One Eyed Jack Faro?

A: “Way too much. Or maybe way too much of him in me. He’s a guy who’s dancing with his demons, so in that sense I feel a real connection.”

Q: Ever had a gambling problem like Jack’s?

A: “It’s only a problem if you mind losing (grins). Yeah, probably. I just like gambling. It gives me a nice charge. Generally I gamble a lot. I like to bet on anything. Doesn’t matter what it is.”

Q: You’ve called yourself an extremist. Still true?

A: “Yeah. Whatever it is, I tend to get into things in an extreme fashion.”

Q: You also once said, ‘When I let up from the weed and drinking, I cried every day, and I liked that. I like crying.’

A: “That’s true. I’m a sensitive soul. Now I feel pretty balanced. But it’s not like I don’t like to party. I will always like to party, and if that ever changes, slap me.”

Q: You’ve long said that marijuana and hemp should be legal. Do you still believe that?

A: “Yes, both should be legal. It seems logical that in a free country you should be able to do whatever you want to do as long as it’s not hurting anyone else.

“It’s unfortunate that when I started talking about all this — and partly through my own fault — the focus became totally about marijuana, and hemp got marginalized.

“My whole focus was on a sustainable economy, which we still don’t have. But at least we’re talking more about the melting ice-caps and greenhouse gases. The problem is, nothing’s really changed yet and we live in a society where the economy is based on all these giant industries that are raping Mother Earth.”

Q: Where do you live now?

A: “Mainly in Hawaii, on Maui, in this community of mostly organic farmers. We run off solar and wind and generators if necessary. I’ve been there nine years and it’s Shangri La to me. I have lots of fruit and coconut trees, and every day I swim, I surf, climb coconut trees, play with my kids, eat mangoes. There’s no form to it, which I kind of like.”

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Patricia Reaney)

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But that St. Paddy’s Friday night, we almost weren’t so lucky. This time the incident involving Pat’s cocked-up behavior in a casino turned into one of those both unbelievable and unforgettable stories.
It was a Friday night and the MGM was our target casino. My other partner, Balls, and I arrived at Pat’s apartment at 10 P.M. to find him sufficiently cocked-up (if he wasn’t, he didn’t move on the tables). Balls drove us to the MGM and we went directly into the sports book. There, I passed Pat $11,000 in chips, two chocolates and a $1,000 in blacks. Ever since that Hilton incident with his leaving the chip-filled jacket slung over a chair in the sports book, I took extreme caution in handling and accounting for chips. I always counted them twice and watched Pat put them safely in his pocket before we left the sports book to cruise the casino.
We made a round through the MGM during which Pat had sat down at only one table, where he made three bets but didn’t move because they all lost. Then we went back to the sports book and Pat developed a headache and said he wanted to go home for awhile and rest. We dropped him off at his apartment and returned two hours later. He was feeling better, so we went back to the MGM. In the sports book, Pat was preparing the chips for the move when he suddenly said, “Where’s the other chocolate chip?”
“You only had two of them,” I said. “One for the move and one for the back-up.” I was thinking that he probably thought I had given him three chocolates, which was often the case.
“Well, I only have one now,” Pat said, rifling through his pockets.
“What!”
“Johnny (we affectionately called each other Johnny), I don’t know what you gave me, but I only have one chocolate chip.”
I knew he wasn’t kidding as well as I knew that I had given him two chocolates earlier that evening in the sports book. There was no doubt in my mind. I had given him $11,000 in MGM chips; I’d counted them twice.
Everybody searched their pockets but it was useless. I was sure that Pat had lost the chip somewhere in the casino. We retraced our steps through the pits, our eyes scanning the floor, darting to-and-fro, hoping to spot the missing chip. Unfortunately, the MGM carpeting was brown. I placed the remaining chocolate chip on the surface to see how it blended in. More unfortunately, too good. Finding that missing chip on the floor of a large, busy casino, even if it was still there in defiance of probability, was going to be a difficult if not impossible task. The best chance was that maybe Pat had dropped it near the lone table he played at while we were at the MGM the first time. That seemed to all of us the most likely scenario. Pat could have easily lost the chocolate while preparing the move and back-up chips.
I got down on my hands and knees, looking for the chip by the table. I wasn’t bashful about crawling around under people’s legs, making them feel uncomfortable. A floorman bent down over me to ask what I was looking for. I told him that I had been at the table earlier and had lost a contact lens. He wished me luck and turned away, and I continued brushing my hands through the carpet in search of the chip.
Nothing. It was gone. Some lucky son of a bitch was going to have a hell of a time partying tonight, I thought, walking away from the table. Pat’s cocky attitude had finally cost us.
The question of infidelity or dishonesty concerning Pat never entered my mind. Nobody ever held out on anybody. But what bothered me even more than the loss of the chip was the possibility that Pat was thinking I was full of shit, that I had locked up the chip for myself and was taking advantage of his cocked-up state to say that he must have lost it. Later, I learned that such a thought would never have entered his mind either, but at the time, we’d only known each other a month.
Pat said that he had been twiddling with the chips back at his apartment while he was watching TV. Maybe he had inadvertently dropped the chocolate on the plush carpeting of his living room and hadn’t heard any noise. Perhaps it was still there on the floor.
We rushed back to Pat’s apartment, the adrenaline pumping through my body. I wanted more than anything to find that chip, just for the reason that a breach of trust wouldn’t be created by its loss.
“I swear,” Pat said with conviction in the car as Balls sped toward the west side of town on Tropicana Avenue, “if that chip isn’t on the goddamn floor of my apartment, someone’s in a lot of trouble” (he meant the casinos, that he would unleash a battery of moves against them). “You know what, Johnny,” he said, looking over his shoulder at me in the back seat, “maybe we’re better off if that chip isn’t in the apartment.”
We arrived and all three of us raced up the stairs to Pat’s second-floor apartment. After a two minute search, Pat called out excitedly, “I found it!” But the chip he found turned out to be the other MGM chocolate he had placed mindlessly in the ashtray on the entranceway ledge as we all hurried through the door of the apartment. When he realized the mistake, he threw it against the wall. The roller coaster ride of my emotions—losing, finding and then re-losing the chip—was making me nauseous. We ransacked the apartment but the second chip was nowhere to be found. Pat kicked the sofa he had been sitting on while watching TV and shrieked, “Motherfucker!…Let’s go.”
We got back in the car and headed a third time for the MGM.
“I don’t have another MGM chocolate for back-up,” I said.
“I don’t give a fuck, Johnny. I don’t need any back-ups. They’re dead over there at the MGM…Just get me there, Balls. I’m a little pissed off right now.”
We cruised the casino looking for an available third base seat. You could see the impatience and aggravation written on Pat’s face as he passed along a row of filled-up blackjack tables. He finally found a shortstop position open and made his two-hundred-dollar bet, which lost. He slammed his fist down on the cushioned edge of the table and got up, leaving a bunch of scornful stares behind him. He sat down at another table, lost again, and hollered at no one in particular as he got up in a rage, “I hope yuz all die.” The third table he found, I noticed was the same one he had sat down at during our initial round of the casino, before we’d discovered the loss of the chip. He made the bet, which finally won, and moved and claimed super aggressively, perhaps now possessed by the Haverstraw insane asylum demon. He got paid the $5,100, getting us even for the night, and was in the process of playing his bet-back hand of $1,100 when a man sitting at the middle of the table began talking to him as he showed him something in his hand.
“This must be yours,” he said to Pat with a slight drawl. “I just found it on the floor.” The guy was an older Midwestern type, plainly dressed with an unsophisticated air. Pat didn’t even hear him, let alone look at him.
I was looking into the man’s hand. There was something brown and circular resting in the palm, the size of a casino chip. My brain needed a few seconds to sort out the message it was receiving from my eyes. It was the missing chip! This country bumpkin had just found the five-thousand-dollar chip that Pat had dropped at that very same table maybe four hours before. I couldn’t believe it. That chip had not only been lying there on the floor all that time, but the person finding it was returning it to its rightful owner, as if it were about nothing more than a dropped handkerchief. I doubted that the good Samaritan even knew the value of the chip, despite the fact he had witnessed Pat’s claim on the move with the same-colored chip.
I had to go around the edge of the table and notify Pat audibly that the “gentlemen to your right has found something of yours, sir.”
Pat took a look at the guy who was putting the chocolate chip in his hand, reached out across the blackjack table and gruffly pulled the man’s head toward him and gave him a kiss square on the lips. The man was mildly shocked himself and accepted gracefully the black chip that Pat put in his hand as gratitude. To amplify our joy at recovering the lost $5,000, Pat went on a bet-back streak, winning the next six hands in a row, including a double-down and a blackjack. With all that, he left the table with $18,000 more than when he had sat down. Then he went to another table, did a second move and got paid $5,100 again. Afterwards, in the keno pit across the street at the Tropicana, Pat said, “Johnny, let me ask you something. Do you really think it was a blessing that we found the chip…or would we have been better off if it stayed lost?”
Knowing what the man sitting next to me was capable of, I couldn’t answer that question.
I told him so.
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2007-2008 World Series of Poker Circuit
Grand Casino Tunica
Event #19
No-Limit Hold’em Championship
Final Day
January 22, 2008
Buy-In: $7,500 + $200
Number of Entries: 180
Total Prize Money: $1,350,000 (+ WSOP Main Event Package)

Final Results:

1. Bart Tichelman Atlanta, GA $415.595 (+WSOP Seat)
2. Donald Nicholson Tunica, Ms $229,309
3. Giovanni Marcacci Brooksville, FL $126,000
4. John Devia West Palm Beach, FL $100,925 .
5. Ben Sabrin Atlanta, GA $75,751
6. Mark Garner Portland, OR $63,165
7. Ryan Young Torrance, CA $50,578
8. Tom Schneider Scottsdale, AZ $37,991
9. Jordan Rich Portland, OR $25,404
10.Jesse Maupin Rowlett, TX $17,852
11.Tom Franklin Gulfport, MS $17,852
12.Jeremiah Vinsant Murfreesboro, TN $17,852
13.Dustin Bailey Center, TX $15,535
14.Charles Horvath Tellico Plains, TN $15,535
15.Charles Cardin Madisonville, TN $15,535
16.Tim Frostad Regina, SK, Canada` $12,318
17.Josh Arieh Atlanta, GA $12,318
18.Jesse Dean Bonita, CA $12,318

A lot of the pros got our early, including Daniel Negreanu, who went home to, apparently, bitch about how bitchy Hillary Clinton is. Great.

And the ones who didn’t high-tail it to their mansions are playing the WPT event (also in Tunica), as we speak. That is, unless they already busted out of that, as well. I’m looking at you, Jerry Yang!