Monday, June 22, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
A quick note–the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event is moving to the ESPN Feature Table, and so that’s where I’m going. And when the $1,500 No-Limit Hold-Em event moves to the secondary feature table I’ll bop over there as well. As you might expect I won’t be carrying my laptop with me, and even if that was practical it wouldn’t be permissable because only PokerNews’ folks are allowed to have laptops right there on the floor.
So I will be updating as best I can via Twitter, posting chip counts and notes and photos of rather middling quality. I’ll sprint back to my computer whenever possible, but chances are it won’t often be possible. And you should be following along with us on Twitter anyway because I do post updates there and, anyway, it’s was the cool kids are doing. So tweet along with me and let’s see if Matt Graham and Brandon Cantu can take down a brace of bracelets.
Tags: 2009 twitter, 2009 world series of poker, Brandon Cantu, Matt Graham, poker twitter, twitter wsop, ub twitter, ultimatebet twitter, world series of poker, WSOP, wsop final table twitter updates, wsop twitter, wsop twitter updates
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Saturday, May 16, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
The most obvious difference between live and online poker is that when you play online you ain’t physically sitting at a table with other people. And that can be a good thing–say, when someone you’re playing with is violently ill. Last year at the WSOP I was sitting at a low-limit table a few days before the Main Event when a gent who looked like he hadn’t slept in a week sat down. His salt-and-pepper hair was slick with sweat, his flannel shirt had various stains of indeterminate origin, and his watery eyes were bloodshot.
Now someone looking like that really isn’t THAT unusual for a Vegas cardroom, especially in July when a few minutes under the desert sun would leave Pierce Brosnan looking disheveled. What was unusual was the guy constantly coughing and hacking into a hankercheif he kept pulling out of his front pocket. Polite as it might’ve been to use that disgusting strip of cloth, I don’t think the Center for Disease Control considers a hanky an acceptable way to prevent the spread of germs.
Especially as the guy kept reaching for chips with fingers that had to be swimming with bacteria and virus particles. You never see a sick guy at the poker table playing tight, do you? No, they’re the ones raising every hand, tossing clusters of droplet-spattered chips into the pot to mix with everyone else’s checks. And that’s what this guy was doing, raising and re-raising almost as much as he was gobbing into his hankercheif. It took me about a minute to realize that I wasn’t sitting at a poker table so much as a felt-lined Petri dish. I racked up, bid my tablemates good night, and ran to the bathroom to wash my hands. Up to the elbows.
What does this have to do with anything? Well, last night was UltimateBet’s Follow Friday Freeroll–if you aren’t on Twitter, and don’t know what Follow Friday is, then it’s time to emerge from the cave and get with the times! Twitter has been the big thing in social media for the last month or so and last night was the first freeroll tournament for the folks following UltimateBet on Twitter. And a stunning 564 players took the virtual felt last night, myself included. Even though I’ve been battling the flu for the last two days. To say that I couldn’t have played last night had it been a live tournament is a gross understatement–I’ve been so sick that getting off the couch to get a glass of water seemed a more difficult task that rowing across the Atlantic.
But I was able to roll over on my side and log on last night to play. It’s hard to play inspired, aggressive poker when you want to die, but I did manage to execute one brilliant bluff (making a pot-sized bet on the river with four clubs on the board and nary a club in my hand) before I was sent to the rail in 76th place. I had pocket 7s, DOCGB2000 held A-Q, and the flop came K-J-10. It’s never a good thing when your tournament life hangs in the balance and the other guy flops the nuts, and that was especially so for me last night.
After getting bounced I checked the leaderboard and saw that WHOJEDI was at the top. I knew that nickname, as it belongs to poker journalist Jay Newnum who, as it turns out, wrote an article a month or so ago about how Twitter is changing how poker is covered. He also maintains a list of poker players/personalities/writers on Twitter that would no doubt be of interest to poker fans. I confirmed that this was indeed Jay (through Twitter, natch) and followed along to see if he might be a most-appropriate champion for our initial Follow Friday Freeroll.
Alas, it was not to be, and it was a cruel hand that derailed his chances. After winning a huge pot with pocket Kings against ACTION_JON’s pocket Queens, Jay was all-in with Ah-Kh to DRAWZ1977′S Ad-Kc. A split pot, right? Divvy it up and let’s get back to it. Well, no…
Ugh, the ‘ol runner-runner club flush. That left WHOJEDI will just a few thousand chips and he eventually went out in 15th place–but in the money. Attrition tooks it’s toll and before too long we’d set our final table:
As you can see several of the players were talking about Twittering the fact that they’d made the final table–which is exactly as it should be. The field was thinned down to three players and it looked like KIBLOUCHA would go out in third after he flopped a set of sevens…when DEFEDOG1 flopped a set of Kings. That left KIBLOUCHA with just 50,000 or so but he battled back from the brink and after DEFEDOG1 took out DJFOG86 when the latter’s straight and flush draws didn’t connect after the money went in, we were heads up. And it didn’t take the final two long to discuss making a deal, which seemed an agreeable way to end the evening’s festivities.
So now our beloved readers can follow us on the UB Blog and on Twitter and keep up to date on news and promotions and freerolls. And we’ll be posting even more fantabulous content once the World Series of Poker kicks off in a bit more than a week.
Tags: poker freerolls, poker twitter, Twitter, ub, ub freerolls, ub twitter, ultimatebet, ultimatebet freerolls, ultimatebet twitter
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Thursday, February 19, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
Last week I wrote that a South Carolina judge, deciding the fate of five men charged with running a poker game from their home, said at the conclusion of the trial that he believed poker is indeed a game of skill. That concession came after WPT host Mike Sexton and a statistics professor testified to that effect, and the judge’s statement seemed to bode well for the defense. That’s because the South Carolina law says that it’s illegal to run a game of chance from one’s home, and if poker is a game of skill that law might not apply.
The judge was to announce the verdict today and just a few moments ago he did just that, finding all five defendents guilty. My friend Brad Willis, who lives in South Carolina (and is a blogger for PokerStars) was in the courtroom during the trial and just posted the judge’s official ruling. In that ruling Judge J. Lawrence Duffy again stated that poker is a game of skill, and referred to other rulings in Pennsylvania, California, Missouri and Nebraska that also agreed that poker is a game of skill. However, as Judge Duffy wrote, “If this Court knew that this State follows that test in this factual circumstance the decision would be simple. But it is not.”
It’s not simple because one of the other people arrested in this case earlier pleaded guilty to operating a gaming house. And the South Carolina law says that “If any person shall play…in any house used as a place of gaming…at any games with cards or dice…upon being convicted thereof, before any magistrate…”. Which means, I think, that because because this house was already defined as a “place of gaming” when that other person pleaded guilty, the law applies regardless of whether poker is a game of skill or chance. I’d like to point out that I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but that’s my back-of-the-envelope interpretation.
An interpretation I think is supported by Judge Duffy then writing, “There is no definition by the Legislature as to what will or will not constitute a house as a place of gaming.” Which, again, renders the skill vs. chance argument somewhat moot–the law doesn’t specifically say what exactly gaming is. Previous rulings quoted by Judge Duffy show that South Carolina courts have said that the Legislature prohibits “any game with cards or dice”, and since poker is played with cards, well…
The judge concludes by stating that the Court “…thus is compelled, since it has no clear guideline from the Legislature or from the majority of this Supreme Court to find the defendants guilty…” And so, because the law is vague (perhaps deliberately so), the judge had to rule in that way. Some people getting together for some $20 sit-n-goes, with the folks hosting the game taking a few bucks out to pay for pizza and drinks, and it all ends up in a court of law. It all sounds a bit absurd, but only to someone who hasn’t been paying attention to America in the 21st century.
There will be more information and reaction to this as the day goes on and I’ll try to update later on. I got the scoop on this via Twitter, by the way, following along to Brad’s tweets as well as the feed from the Poker Player Alliance. Yes, the PPA is on Twitter, too, as are all the cool kids these days (and the UB blog itself).
Tags: poker law, poker legal rulings, poker trial, ppa, ppa twitter, south carolina poker, south carolina poker ruling, south carolina poker trial, ub, ub blog, ub twitter, ultiimatebet twitter
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