Vegas Poker Blog

Sometimes, you just have to tear yourself away from the poker table and spend some time with the family. Kids, wives, and husbands are just like that!

It isnt always easy to make the transition from poker addiction and find activities that will easily take your mind off poker. Heres a suggestion �watch movies that involve poker! You can sort of sneak some of these into the ˜to be watched pile so there will be times when you can still be thinking about poker but not quite so obviously.

Poker has been a fairly consistent movie subject over the years not to mention television.

Alfred Hitchcock used poker quite a lot in his t.v. stories and then there was Maverick.

Remember that? Nothing but poker �well with a few gunfights thrown in for outdoor action. Even Cheers provided a few episodes about poker games.

Poker widow spouses and kids probably wont watch a documentary about the game, but heres sort of a top ten list of movies you can likely work into the mix.

Big Hand for A Little Lady (1966) - yup, its an oldie but its got Henry Fonda, Joanne Woodward, Jason Robards and more. Its a comedy about a woman having to learn poker quickly after her husband, who shouldnt be playing with the family savings to begin with, drops dead when he gets a good hand. In order to save the farm (literally), she has to learn quickly. Its funny with great acting!

California Split (1974) �� George Segal and Elliot Gould are two gamblers on the road, and end up in Reno for what looks like a World Series of Poker game. The film was made by Robert Altman so expect a really gritty look at casinos and the game in those days. Good atmosphere!

Cincinatti Kid (1965) ��Steve McQueen and a cast of well known faces! Who doesnt like McQueen especially when hes an up and coming player determined to become the top poker player in the land �but first hes got to oust a master who has held the title for years. Set in 1930s New Orleans, it full of poker and atmosphere!

Freeze Out (2005) �� There isnt a soul in this one youve ever heard of but dont let that put you off! Its a great story about a group of guys who play poker weekly. One of them isnt so good and gets tired of the ribbing. He trains, studies and then challenges them to a big Freeze Out game. The results are not only funny but poignant!

Havanna (1990) �� Robert Redford at his most good looking best in Cuban casinos. Enough said!

Casino Royale �� There are two versions of this gambling caper. One from the 60s and a recent remake. Either one will do as the story is always fun because its James Bond at a high stakes poker table. Loads of laughs and great music too.

House of Games (1987) This is a dark one, but what you can learn is great. Its all about a guy who runs poker games who gets his shrink to help him learn about tells and body language. Not many laughs but highly educational on the psychological aspect of poker!

The Music of Chance (1987) ��Another drama which is all about what happens when you get in over your head. Yikes!

Rounders (1998) Matt Damon �in simply a great great poker movie. The tagline says it all œTrust everyone �but always cut the cards�

Amarillo Slim (2007) �� yeah, this one isnt out yet and its just going into production, but its destined to be one of the great poker movies ever. Its being made by Milos Forman (Larry Flynt, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, etc) and will star Nicholas Cage as Amarillo Slim. You can start talking about it now because it will be huge!

So buy these or rent these and keep them around �time with the family can be fun!!!!!

All over the world there are poker players just itching to get their heart broken at the 2006 WSOP. The odds are against them. Hey, if the odds are 500-1 against a top player, the guy down the block from you has worse ones! Thats a fact. Yet, the World Series of Poker has created such an event with so many avenues to get in that if youre serious about poker, you want your shot.

After all the qualifying, and if you get to Vegas, you still have weeks of playing in front of you. Sound tough? It is. But the great thing about the WSOP is that anything can happen and anyone could win the largest prize for any winner in sport in history �$10 million!

Every poker blog you go to has its picks, but not many of them have a single pick. Its all divided down between men, women, celebrities, and shoulda woulda coulda players too. Theres simply no way to know who will have the skill, the stamina, and the sheer guts to go the distance.

Of course, there are familiar names like Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, œJesus� Ferguson along with the ladies �Kathy Leibert and Jennifer Harmen. Even James Woods, the actor, is given a half way decent chance as hes come up with some terrific wins. Then theres Jennifer Tilly, Ben Affleck and other familiar screen faces.

As ESPN broadcasts the events, well get to know more players and their stories. Some will touch our hearts and others well be happy to see go home. Then there are the guys from Operation Dreamshot, who are all soldiers playing for Wounded Warriors which is a charity for service men and women wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Theyve been guaranteed two slots so you know those guys will be playing their hearts out.

Even without color commentary, the WSOP from beginning to end will play itself out like movie �theres intro, the hard fought hands and loads of drama and unless were one of the lucky 6500 entrants, well be soaking up as much as we can on television.

Itll probably be a lot like watching ˜24 every week �except theres a different Jack Bauer all the time.

So, if youre going to be on your way to Vegas as a player, best of luck to you, and if youre going to be watching it with a beer in front of television, you going to see some fine poker and pick up some fine pointers too.

WSOP starts 26 June and ends with the main event on 10 August!

Texas Holdem is by far the most popular poker game these days, and theres good reason. Its fast, its fun and it encourages all different styles of players.

For most of us, we tend to play a loose game and wait for a strong hand to come along. But as your game skills improve, the ability to know what hands to play out and whether to play loose or tighter becomes apparent. With a good foundation, you will quickly sort these options and put them to good use.

The blind is one of the most difficult aspects of Holdem. Mediocre players lose more in blinds because they either give up too quickly or chase stupid ideas. If youve learned your basics well and pay attention to the styles of others, you will know what players are going to make mistakes and youll seize on those times for your own benefit.

First, you want to think logically with style and attitude. If you have an opponent who is aggressive, play tighter but maintain your own aggression. Its all about learning which hands to play and creating edges for yourself. Remember �as long as you get more out of the pot than you put in, youre ahead and the tiny edges you create can mount up to profiting more than you put in.

With blinds, you want to take the position of defending what youve put into the pot because that money is gone unless you can get it back. If youre forced to put in, also remember that your opponent is forced to put in twice that much, and when thats the case, the odds are already on your side. It only costs you one bet to call, and its costing the guy who is raising twice that. So, keep the word ˜discount in your head. Force your opponent to play badly and make mistakes. Even if you lose, you will have lost less than the other guy �and thats coming away from the table doing well.

Playing the blind well is one of the most important nuts and bolts of your Holdem game. If youve got good basics, you know big blinds are usually big losers so you just want to cut the amount youre going to lose to as low an amount as you can. What you can do is learn how to encourage the other players inabilities with good offense and defense.

Remember poker is a battle game. Whenever theres a big bet on the turn, you better have a very strong hand to stay in. Anything else is sending good money after bad and we all want to walk away a winner when we can! Theres luck and theres blind luck �we all need both!

The World Series of Poker seems to have been with us so long that we usually dont think about it origins, but those origins, and its originator, are great poker legends.

We owe the whole thing to a guy by the name of Benny Binion.

Binion was a Dallas character of sorts, and someone who seemed to run just ahead of the law. He served a little time for tax evasion and even murder, but he was completely honest when it came to poker. Like so many true gamblers, he ended up in Las Vegas and eventually started his own casino, The Horseshoe. While the very first World Series of Poker actually took place in the late 1940s, it was Binion who seized on the idea and set off running with it in 1970 from The Horseshoe. He was a tireless promoter and we owe him much for his expert marketing which took poker from seedy backrooms into swank casino gaming rooms.

With the help of Amarillo Slims participation in a 1972 tournament, the World Series of Poker became a well-known and important facet of professional poker playing. The part, which Binion played in all this, is enormous. Casinos hadnt wanted to have poker as a part of their gaming because the cheating was too hard to control. Binion either used some of his street learning or just had innate smarts because he really changed the situation. In his casino, the security increased, he made the casino a much nicer place for people, and made poker a mainstay in the gaming rooms. He got people into playing poker for high stakes in a nice place where they felt they wouldnt be cheated.

Binions marketing ability was brilliant and from a small start in tournament participation, the World Series of Poker has grown into a huge and respected entity.

For an example, in 1982, there were 52 participants and in 2002, there were 7.595!

And, its still growing! There are thousands of players in over 33 competitions a year now.

So, the Texan whose trademark dress was a big Stetson hat and a buffalo hide coat created a lasting gift to poker, and its with good reason theres a huge bronze statue of him in Vegas. Binion died in 1989 so didnt live to see what the Series has become, but he lived long enough to know he was leaving us with something pretty special. And his family continues the quest for all of us avid players.

Thanks, Benny …we owe you!

A poker table was once an all male domain, but not anymore. More and more women are playing serious poker, and one of the top players period is a beauty by the name of Evelyn Ng.

The 31-year-old Toronto native started shooting pool at age 14, and grew up to work as a blackjack and poker dealer in Las Vegas. But, once there, she was always keeping her eye out on the game itself. Her first tournament was a satellite World Poker Tour womens event, and she came in second. Because of her looks and abilities, the media attention began and it hasnt stopped.

Her great looks may deceive some guys, but not those who have sat across a table from her. Shes a tough player with four money finishes in the World Series of Poker and three on the World Poker Tour. Even Evybabee (one of her nicknames) describes her style as œselectively aggressive�. Shes a sought after player and has recently signed with Bodog, who is heavily touting her on their new Wild Card Show, which is airing on U.S. television. Because shes such a strong player she has quickly gained respect throughout the poker world. She is frequently coached by Daniel Negreanu, which says a lot right there!

Ng has a great personality and sense of humor so has been sought after for quite a bit of color commentary on television. Beyond that, she can be colorful at the table too. Shes got some old dealer tricks with the chips that are well known, too. Her most famous is called the ˜butterfly trick and involves a very ambidextrous flipping of four chips. Shes deceptive because of her good looks (after all, how many poker players can be found in an online video looking great in a bikini??) but the word is out on her. Shes simply great. With so many attributes aside from her playing abilities, shes also becoming a great icon for women players.

This year, her earnings are up to $150,000 already so that makes her pretty and formidable. As she says, shes making enough to live on now. Good for Evybabee and lucky for poker to have something as good and easy on the eye as she is!

Watch out for the pretty ones, guys �they can be really really good.

Bodog poker comes to you directly from Calvin Ayre, one of the most respected and successful gambling entrepreneurs in the world. His sites are heavily marketed with use of celebrities, connections to MTV and a guarantee of fast payouts. Bodog started its poker site just over a year ago, and its becoming enormously popular with recreational as well as professional players. Its easy to see why! Ayre says hes based much of the groundwork on Richard Bransons methods and he does, indeed, seem to have incorporated many of the more successful Branson ideas into Bodog. The result is slick entertainment value with a well-oiled and proven system of betting. The company is Costa Rican based but does all payouts from the U.K.

The site itself is incredibly
user friendly, and with a
quick read of features and
rules, you can be online at a
table in no time. The quick
tour of the site gives you
an excellent idea of how it
all works, and the graphics
are simple and elegant yet
so much more innovative
than so many of the
sites around these days. Bodog makes it simple to play on up to three tables at a time (with chat features), and their stats are immediate and easy. If your bent is toward tournament play, there are numerous scheduled ones daily. Bodog also has a points system where you can accrue free ones for playing time (1 point per 60 minutes of playing time) which is handy for tournament entry fees. Otherwise, you simply buy points at the rate of 3 per $1.

The rakes are on a sliding scale which at times seem somewhat high, but Bodog does deliver like no other company so there is compensation for the rates. They also pride themselves on their certificate of random deals, and guarantee the validity of the random deal generator. Whats great about them is that they seem to really cover their customers with a blanket of solid software solutions for an ultimate poker experience.

Bodog is also linked with WSOP for contests and competition, and also supplies constant updates from the world of poker. Its a one site does all kind of place for pros as well as newbies and with all the extras, tournaments, contests and freebies, they keep you going back for more.

Because this site sometimes does upwards of a million bets a day, theyve got the system down pat and you can count on 24/7 support either online or by telephone. Bodog prides itself on great customer service at rapid speeds, and from the looks of the site, they deliver!