She is Linda.  Besides being my beloved old boss, she was a poker dealer and wrote about it.  TMZ ain’t got nothing on her.  It was always my must read.  Sadly, she left the casino life and all that Bobby’s room dirt dried up for a while.

Now she got the Jones going and has reembarked on the dealer’s life.

You must read!

The latest one is about 4th in the series so mosey on over

And the smart ones will start from the start.

Related posts:

1. Hire the Handicapped
2. Back at it
3. He’s Back

After a series of suckouts, the final table met at 10 P.M.  10 P.M. Isn't typical for starting times of anything other than a downtown tournament for chump change.   Why the final, final table at such a witching hour?

It seems it was the evil duo stacking the deck.   You have got to be a nut case to while away good sleeping time or even playing some poker instead.  The idea seems to have been to avoid the spoiler route as much as possible.  That was funny because my clock radio turned on to the results being broadcast on my radio.  Joe Cada!


The last few years have been kind to Harrahs and friends.  Sponsors stick and ESPN, well, ESPNs things in the own inimitable fashion. I'd have liked to see some more of the odd games but NLH is the thing the masses can understand.  Poker players have been the wrong demographic since riverboat days. 

Who else pays a horrid rake to struggle against the drawouts?  The 15% vigorish going to many events is typical.  So, why not throw in ruining our sleep or just adding more neglect.  This is done while completely ignoring things that might work to the players benefits.

Over the years, I've continued to knock Harrahs.  Better is a relative term and doesn't define who it is better for.  It has gotten better in some respects for players.  In others...

Moving on we have the better champion.  Darvin didn't want the spotlight.  But this doesn't look like a Moneymaker moment either.  Seems a level headed fellow.  That better than a lot of them came across.

ADDENDUM:
I've played a bit of poker the last couple of days.  Even managed winning sessions for varieties sake.   But, there isn't really a blog in it.  Little bit of interest coming back is the real plus.

No related posts.

That might all sound a bit doom and gloomy but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Eliminating the fly-by-night poker rooms and spammers is a good thing. It might also be good because hopefully it will inspire some innovative thinking. No longer will poker rooms be able to sit back and follow the ABC model to profits. If they want to have any hope of surviving they’re going to need to look under new rocks to find customers. They’re going to need to figure out more cost efficient ways of reaching out to players rather than relying on affiliates and cookie-cutter promotions. In other words, they’re actually going to have to fight for your business and that’s not a bad thing.

My one-word counterpoint is Harrahs.  You can extend that to MGM and the rest if you like. While those U.S. facing sites are getting rich and richer in the manner he outlines – which we U.S. patsies are paying for –  those waiting in the wings for the Barney Frank largess have business, funds, and goals to wipe out even today's cash cows.

The Yankee site are doing all the things he mentioned in redirecting our funding/rake outside the country.  You can find things like German only freerolls or add-on tournaments. You can look on Stars and see rakeback icons for said players that we aren't eligible for.  They are investing rake that used to be available to us elsewhere.

That is a business decision that plays right into the wheelhouse of the Vegas crowds strengths. While Bill rightfully points to using profits to clear the market for the strong players can eliminate the current weak sisters, those very entities are the weak sisters in Harrahs and fellow travelers' target. 

That will, in both scenarios, bring about consolidation.  Consolidation benefits the business and not the customer.  Consumers may see temporary benefits but reduced competition will eliminate that over time.  To accomplish that a Harrahs type can operate without a profit for extended periods.  There we'll see great benefit.  When they kill the completion who's revenue is fixed to online and thus destroyed, then the plan changes and we're had.

Vegas has loyalty programs down to a science.  As long as our facing sites ignore us, the easier and cheaper it makes it for them.  It looks like Full Tilt, Stars, and so on can't see the forest for the trees.

Related posts:

1. Abortions and Inside Straights

So, head by for some good writing and reading at the Borgata Open Blog.

It features:

• Riggstad
• Al Can’t Hang
• Gorilla
• RS
• Bradley Utz
• Lacey Jones

You’ll find the list of notables interesting.  I think Pauly is the only one that knows them all but only because he was wheel man for them.  That may hold true for Pauly with the guys on the blogging crew as well. But that part involves lap dances.

Good writing … Go Read!

Related posts:

1. Online Poker is Riggs’d

It is about the takeover by penny slots.  Our local boats have been mentioned.  I never could see slot play as a drug like Grubby.  If those darn things still had a lever, the lad would have a right arm that could be stunt doubling for Arnold. My only remembrance was playing a nickel one for an hour or so while wasting time heading for the airport.   LOL, I ended up cashing a bucket and a half. 

Whether casino or online, I've always approached it as recreation.  At times, I have considered playing higher when a particular flavor was working well.  Would do it a bit and find I wasn't having any extra fun. 

It is funny because in so many ways I'm a competitive person.  I see people who like to gamble often do it on a competitive base.  Poker is the only casino activity that caters to that and most aren't poker players.  You really can't compete with a slot or keno balls dropping.  You can take a flyer on Keno or the local lottery for fun.  Expected value it ain't

How did the Feds ever figure they needed to jump into my life and protect me from the evils of 'gambling' on the Internet?  What would I have done without all those hours of poker?  I guess I could have become a hypochondriac and cost Medicare a bundle.  Lots of folks do that.  If I totaled up all my ISP fees over the years, it is even harder to think I'm profitable.  But I think the profit has been huge.  I remain sentient and enjoying life. 

We're three months from having the bank deadline for UIGEA implementation.  Rumor has it the poo hits the fan and affects more than the big three sites.  Maybe all that will be left is my having to play higher or dumber at the boats.  Thanks be to my Federal protectors.

ADDENDUM:

A few more spam today but nothing like yesterday.  All of that was caught by a new plugin I am trying called Cookes For Comments.   It beats Akismet Stats to the spam so the count on my main page didn't go up.  So, I disabled it again.  Askismet had caught everything and was wrong only once.  But, the CFC is sneaky while the other uses heuristics and data storage.  CFC sets a cookie and spammers typically disable cookies when they go on their spam runs. It is a sneaky approach that Dick Tracy could admire.  Although, liberals would accuse it of profiling.

Related posts:

1. Neat — Cheap

The Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA) is a not-for-profit corporation headquartered in Washington DC.

was founded in 2007 as a professional association dedicated to the continued growth and innovation of the Internet. We seek constructive engagement with government at the Federal and State levels to ensure that the challenges of this still nascent medium are addressed with the full participation of the people and companies that have built the Internet into the powerful influence on society it has become.

Joe Brennan Jr. is chairman of iMEGA. He is an online marketing consultant, and previously worked as a Director of Strategy for America Online, Inc. (AOL) and Senior Editor/Manager of Internet Promotions and e-Commerce at Nextel (now part of Sprint). Joe has developed strategies and campaigns for premiere media brands like Sirius, Time, CNN, Warner Brothers and People Magazine, as well as top sports brands like the NFL, NBA, NASCAR and Major League Baseball. His commentary has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post and CBS News. Joe was educated at Marietta College and Johns Hopkins University.

One of Joe's past relationships seems to stand out.  That is NASCAR.  Everything seems to be spaghetti letters for the real names, doesn't it?  Who else is from NASCAR?  WSOP guy?

We look at the good old days as having ended with the UIGEA.  (Damn all these letters.) In looking ahead we see supposed improvements in the offing.  What I really wonder is when we string the next collection of letters together whether we'll think of now as the middle good old days.

Online gaming is lucrative.  There are lots of entities out there salivating for a big piece of that pie.  Las Vegas is over extended and scrambling to make the next bond payment.  Does its getting involved mean things will get better for our play?  I don't know but it scares me a bit.

ADDENDUM:
Any media type reading here?  You probably have access to the funding groups behind all this alphabet soup.  It might make interesting reading.

P.S. The guy who caused my last blog responded again without using a legit email.  Says he really works for a software company and not a union.  OK, Mr. Software Guru, ever think about a semi-private Gmail account?  I can clear your comments with that and you won't have to worry I'll sell your address to spammers.  And, seeing that he still thinks I'm wrong, he's welcome to go by Google and give me a longer comment finally explaining why.

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Doyle’s Pink Caddy?
 

I visited Vegas first around 1980.   The main reason was to attend COMDEX – a computer show.  I got a junket package for a 4 day stay and that was at the old Dunes.  It was pretty down hill at the time.  One unique happening was a rain storm.  One morning when I stepped out for a cab, Las Vegas Boulevard was a river.  It was right up to the curbs and had an identifiable current.  There was also a movie shooting in town and late night/early morning LVB was shut down for the car chase.

Storm describes a time before my visit about how it became the poker mecca.  It makes an interesting read.  In those days, about all I played was blackjack.  Before the trip, I used one of the early BJ games on my pre-IBM computer to learn the basics.  Didn't win then but didn't lose that much and managed quite a bit of play.

But there was a poker area that attracted me.  It was at the back of the table area and a step or so up from the floor proper.   It was surrounded by wrought iron railing and the right side was a game I'd never seen before – Texas Hold'em.  For some reason, it attracted me.  I didn't play but it drew me to the rail.  It was probably 10-12 tables in all and stud and the other 'normal' games had signs over the tables in the left area.  The whole right side was Hold'em and it was always full.  Moneymaker was unknown and probably still crapping his pants but Hold'em already reigned.  The area was leased to a guy name Chip Reese.


I wonder who I saw playing there.  They didn't appear to be many fellow tourist.  That was the Bobby's room of the day.  The property must have a magic spell to be the premier property for poker.  The Bellagio stands there today.  And that old table area is somewhere in the fountains now.

I was really tempted by the game.  I kept watching it and thinking it looked easy enough to follow that I could sit down.  I didn't and avoided being the fish or producer as Doyle and his friends called the tourists.  But, I'd spend a bit of time each evening railing and really attracted to something I knew nothing about.
After that trip, I'd always play a bit of poker.  That'd be the only time in the year I would.  I wasn't very good but the games were cheap.  You could find quarter-half games at the smaller places.  One of the places I stayed had a little alcove with a single table spreading half-dollar draw.  I never found Benny's Bullpen.

What a difference 3 or 4 decades can make.  Hope I'm not still a producer.

No related posts.

Any legalization of online gaming will come with a regulatory body who will determine who can and cannot offer gaming to US citizens. One of the big assumptions at the moment is that because Party Poker paid a fine that they are clean. Actually, part of the settlement was an admission of guilt. That admission may come back to haunt them if companies like Harrah’s lobby for licensing requirements that state that any company allowed to offer gaming cannot have illegally offered gaming previously. It’s a perfectly logical requirement and one that many people would agree with so I don’t think it would be too difficult for a land based casino to attempt to get it inserted into any licensing requirements.

The online poker press has been getting giddy over the prospects and pining their hopes on a gay, New England liberal.  It wasn't the obvious choice but he has the committee chairmanship to pull it off.  We all look at that as the cure all to online poker.  But, there is a good possibility we're being slow played.  

First off.  It fits the Harrahs mindset regarding gambling/poker.  Their first look is always at the bottom line and maximizing it.  They like the WSOP not only for the rake but for its captive nature.  They will perform song and dances galore to maintain the brand.  Beyond that...

Next, you have to consider the government involvement.  You saw the AON and car guys pounding their foreheads before the mighty intellect of a house committee.   You see the politicians  also erode rights, right and left, and that in their creation of a new and politically correct world.  The UIGEA drove poker into the shadows.   The ones we see and have access to are outside our control or any control.  That will change and the skill set moves from the online entrepreneurs to the corporate law guys with help from their PAC of choice.  It is like you or I being Hold'em players and taking that skill set. to the Badugi table.   You go from shark to minnow and end up scrambling.

What is worse than being drawn out on repeatedly?  “I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”

ADDENDUM:
The miracle of the $18.45 bankroll on FullTilt came to an end the other day.  I am busto there. It was a miracle  that I managed to keep that active through thousands of hands using total ignorance of bankroll management.  Se la vie.

I also took everything off of Ultimate bet except (accidentally) $4.45.  With Stars making me a non-person, that it for cash games at the moment.  I have to now wait 30-days after the withdrawal to be able to deposit and get bonus.

I am playing .05-.10 and showing a profit.   A couple of years back they sent Felicia and me a free ten-spot at the same time.  We competed to build a bankroll from that.  She won.  But, I grew the roll nicely right up to the point of tilting over the micro world and donk that away too.  We'll see.  I won't play a lot of hours but I'm – so far at least – remaining patient.

Related posts:

1. Red Balls — Blue Balls
2. IMEGA
3. Riggs’d I tell ya

In college, I worked as a Maitre d' at a restaurant/night-club.  Folks in the service industries – like dealers – do complain a lot.  Some of that complaining is more valid than others.  The industry is a mixed bag.  It isn't something your typical seven-year old will put ahead of astronaut or fireman.  Most adults come to it as the place they can make the most money given their skill set.  That goes for high school dropouts and liberal arts majors.

Dealing, as Riggs points out is demanding and stressful.  But, so is putting the safety framitz or lug nuts on in an assembly line.  Few have the job they feel they truly deserved – throw in the Peter Principle here too.  

So, it all starts as a really mixed bag with a lot of folks making way more than they could in any past or hoped for job.  Others, barely squeak by while busting their hump. And that could be the same job just a week or so apart.  Often their check parallels a kid at MickyD's and frankly use of a similar skill set.  The difference is that MickyD kid isn't the one that gets exercised over the lack of tips.

In a perfect world, the Casino would share out that typically 17% rake a bit better and maybe get the regular dealers to tip based on the big increase in table activity like the waitress shares with her bus boy.

The place I separate from Riggs is putting the onus on the players.  Probably 90% never placed before and aren't that likely to do so again.  They walk up to the pay window without an idea they should figure out the tip.  The house mentioning it to them at this point is a lot like finding out what those Macadamias cost from the room's fridge.  They should have gotten an informative flyer or such long before the bubble needed to be considered.

Tournament dealers are, for the most part, either moonlighters or dregs.  If they don't have a regular dealing job they usually aren't going to have the full skill set needed.  Or they have trouble sustaining responsibilities.  That doesn't mean they aren't a hell of a nice guy; they just need to seek out a different career path that provides more than a few weeks work here and there.

You see the guy walk up for the payout but he doesn't show up with a current P&L and Balance Sheet.  Gamblers always look better off than the majority are.  There revenue source is often less secure than the dealer's minimum wage. 

I guess, if I were to pick out a demon in all this, it'd be the employers.  That goes not only for the casino but includes restaurants and all the rest.  They do what they do because they can do what they do.  There is no other justification.

Riggs, I know what you are saying and I agree in principle.  I just don't think it is anything more than the way the world operates.  Dealer jobs don't come with any guarantees and service people may complain but they know the pot odds going in.

ADDENDUM:
Well, my new TV arrived.  The cable to use it as a monitor didn't make it yet so the success is partial.  But, it did what I suspected the QAM feature would provide.  I found a lot of channels on the cable feed that my old set couldn't locate.  A good number are annoying duplicates but I'd say I roughly double the number of useful channels.

The old TV had downloaded a custom channel listing and let me start show automatically when they play.  I'll miss that.  I found TitanTV and am going to give that a try.  The menu program inside the new TV is incomplete to the point of being worthless.  I'm not sure if that the fault of the set or the stations.  Some list their schedule but those are few and far apart.

No related posts.