Internet Poker's Wall of Fame?

Last week ,Jan 26, 2016, TwoPlusTwo Pokercast hosts Adam Schwartz and Terrence Chan added Phil Galfond, Shaun Deeb, and Neteller as its ninth, tenth, and eleventh inductees to their Internet Poker's Wall of Fame (IPWOF).

It's because of Neteller and the online poker sites during poker's Black Friday, that I will most likely not be playing online poker anytime soon in the US.

I am probably in the minority, but unless I can walk into the place where I deposited my money so I can then withdraw it, in person, I can't trust any online site to pay me what I want when I want it.

I actually would trust most of the casinos in Vegas or the top 5 cardrooms in Los Angeles, if I could make deposits and withdrawals at the casino. Of course, I'd probably just use the cash to play live though, but at least I would have had it in my hand or on the table where I could see and touch it.

Jan 17, 2007
The United States crackdown on internet gambling took another twist after the two founders of Neteller, an online payment company, were charged with money-laundering and the company was accused of facilitating "illegal financial transactions".

John Lefebvre, 55, and Steve Lawrence, 46, were charged by the assistant US district attorney in the southern district of New York less than 24 hours after they were arrested in Malibu and the United States Virgin Islands.
The shares of Neteller have slid 80pc in the past 12 months. They were suspended yesterday at 176p.

Feb 7, 2007
Now the Web site for the company is advising customers that all withdrawals have been blocked and the funds are being maintained in trust on the customer's' behalf while Neteller works to resolve the issues.
Neteller has not disclosed how much money has been frozen and has refused to disclose or confirm any details of the freeze, as has a spokesperson from the Department of Justice.

March 21, 2007
In more good news for the online gambling industry, Neteller today announced that it has reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to return funds belonging to American players that had been frozen at the DOJ's request .

Neteller, the online ewallet company that at one time provided payment processing services for over 85 per cent of the online gambling industry, has been in legal limbo since the DOJ arrested two former executives on conspiracy and money laundering charges back in January. Neteller became the primary funding source for the online companies that continued to service the American market after the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) drove the American credit card industry out of the market.

The press release notes that Neteller has signed agreements with the DOJ and the forensic auditing group Navigant. The agreement provides a 75-day timeline under which Neteller will work out a plan to return funds in an orderly manner to its one-time US customers.

I eventually got my money back and after a while decided to take a try at PokerStars, FullTilt, Ultimate Bet Poker, and Absolute Poker.

Then came April 15th, 2011. Poker's Black Friday.
The DOJ closed down the four major online poker sites, Pokerstars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet Poker,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and the rest is history.

I NEVER BLUFF

46th Annual World Series of Poker Schedule Unveiled with 68 Events on Tap for 2015

Updated 2/11/2017
Rio® All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas to Host Poker’s Most Popular Festival from
May 27 - July 14, 2015

May 29, 2015, Marks Debut of the “Colossus” $565 buy-in, $5,000,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool
The tournament has been dubbed “The Colossus” for good reason as organizers expect it to set new records and become the largest poker tournament ever in terms of field size. In fact, while all is speculation at this point, several WSOP insiders are setting the over-under at a whopping 20,000 entries.

Las Vegas-based pro and New Jersey native Matt Stout, who offers one-on-one poker training through his website, says his basic advice for players entering a huge field event like Colossus is to avoid thinking too much about the big numbers.

“Take it one table at a time and don't overwhelm yourself with the thought of trying to beat out thousands of players” advises Stout. “If you just focus on what’s going on at your table, you “Take it one table at a time and don't overwhelm yourself with the thought of trying to beat out thousands of players” advises Stout. “If you just focus on what’s going on at your table, you won't believe how fast the competition seems to disappear.”

“Don't trick yourself into thinking that you need to drastically change your style in order to accumulate because the field is so big or anything like that. Just play your game and focus on what you can control.”

A number of players will come into the Colossus with a plan to fire multiple bullets, looking to gamble early to build a stack or reenter in a later flight if things don't work out. Stout says there are a number of factors to consider first before taking this approach.won't believe how fast the competition seems to disappear.”

“Don't trick yourself into thinking that you need to drastically change your style in order to accumulate because the field is so big or anything like that. Just play your game and focus on what you can control.”

A number of players will come into the Colossus with a plan to fire multiple bullets, looking to gamble early to build a stack or reenter in a later flight if things don't work out. Stout says there are a number of factors to consider first before taking this approach.

It’s a real minefield out there in big field events and luck and variance play an even bigger role than normal. But Stout says that’s not something with which players should concern themselves too greatly.

Huge Increase in Starting Chips! Who doesn’t love more chips to start play? New for 2015, the WSOP has significantly adjusted upward the starting stack for all WSOP events that have a buy-in under $10,000. The new starting stacks for these events will be as follows:

$565 buy-in: 5,000 starting chips (Colossus, new event; 10 times the buy-in, same as last year’s Monster Stack)
$777 buy-in: 5,000 starting chips (new buy-in level this year, treated like a $1k event) – 100 big blinds
$1,000 buy-in: 5,000 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 100 big blinds
$1,500 buy-in: 7,500 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 150 big blinds
$2,500 buy-in: 12,500 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 167 big blinds
$3,000 buy-in: 15,000 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 200 big blinds
$5,000 buy-in: 25,000 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 250 big blinds




UPDATE:

World Series of Poker’s ‘Colossus’ tournament sets record with 22,374 entrants
WSOP officials said Sunday the $565 buy-in “Colossus” No-limit Texas Hold'em tournament drew 22,374 entrants at the Rio Convention Center, easily surpassing the 2006 Main Event, which held the old mark with 8,773 entrants


WSOP officials said there were 25,571 paid entries for the “Colossus” event, but the official number came down due to no-shows, voids and players who survived after buying into multiple starting flights.

The winner of the “Colossus” will earn $638,880, and the total prize pool of $11,187,000 is more than double the $5 million guaranteed by tournament officials. The minimum prize is $1,096 for 2,241st place.

I NEVER BLUFF

Poker's Black Friday

Updated 2/11/2017

April 15th, 2011. Poker's Black Friday.
Fortunately I only play for real money in live games and I didn't have much real money online, back in the day. I've never really trusted online poker since Neteller stole what little real money I had put into the online games. I eventually got it back, as I expect most of the players will this time also. It will be interesting to see how the online poker millionaires recover from having their money frozen in time. Since the DOJ closed down the four major online poker sites, Pokerstars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet Poker, most of the blogs from the pros are about how slow the games are in Vegas. 30 hands an hour is ultra slow motion poker to an online poker junky.

Game play is down at all of the online poker sites world wide. There are still some sites that accept US players in real money games, but that may not last long. All of them still allow play money games, so that has not changed.  Online poker is still a great way to develop and improve your game. If aggression is king, online poker is your kingdom. Online poker will not be going completely away anytime soon. It has changed for now, but it will change again, and most likely for the better. One article likened it to the collapse of the stock market and 401k pension plans deflating.

There has been some speculation about online poker being totally dead in the US - forever - and most of the play will go to the brick and mortar games. Even though the DOJ has stated that the money in players accounts is accessible to the players, there are no payment processors in the US banking system. American poker players are hitting the casinos and card rooms, however most of the casinos and card rooms have had only a slight increase in activity.

I actually expect this to be a good thing for poker in the US, in the long run. I think that the regular casinos, card rooms, and Indian casinos will find a way to establish online poker for the US. Uncle Sam only wants to find a way to collect taxes from it and regulate it better.

I've never been acceptable to not being able to walk into a place of business and complete your transaction or make a complaint in person. You could never do that with an online site, you don't know who runs it or how to find them, yet alone talk to them.

I think you should be able to go the a local casino or card room and open an online account without using the internet, which would be a much easier process. You could then just go down to the casino or card room and make deposits or withdrawals, just like a bank, and still play poker online in your PJs. PokerStars and the rest of them may never be back, but new sites will find a way in. Only when I know the physical address of an online poker site will I likely go back to online poker.

Steely Dan Black Friday

I NEVER BLUFF

Poker's Mental Midgets and the art of Russian roulette

Let’s play a game of Russian roulette.

You are tied to your chair and can’t get up. Here’s a gun. Here’s the barrel of the gun, six chambers, all empty. Now watch me as I put a single bullet in the gun. I close the barrel and spin it. I put a gun to your head and pull the trigger. "Click". Lucky you!

Now I'm going to pull the trigger one more time. Which would you prefer, that I spin the chamber first, or that I just pull the trigger? 

(This is actually one of the game theory settings in learning game theory, but, using one or two bullets)

Game theory is the study of strategic decision making. Specifically, it is "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers." The use of game theory in the social sciences has expanded, and game theory has been applied to political, sociological, and psychological behaviors as well.

Ok, do the math, then watch 'The Deer Hunter' movie for an interesting take on the mentality of Russian roulette players, or lack there of.

Mental Midgets play poker as if they are playing Russian roulette, willing to fire or go all-in preflop, hoping that:

• A. Everyone will fold and the Mental Midget gets to steal the blinds, which happens frequently.
• B. They will have to go up against only one person and the Mental Midget is at worst a 4 to 1 dog, which is not usually the case because there tends to be 2 or more  Mental Midgets in the same game.

If the Mental Midget does this with one of the top 10 hands, which is also not usually the case, they are likely to be at best a 60/40 favorite, as most challengers will also have a good hand, probably at least a top 20 hand.

The problem with this strategy is that it works every time but once and the problem with Mental Midgets is that they don't know when to stop and they end up shooting themselves eventually. Worse is that since there tends to be more than one Mental Midget at the same table, the luck factor is elevated beyond 50% and you now have at least 2 dogs fighting it out. I like to call it the 'Michael Vic' factor. I really like it when there are several Mental Midgets fighting it out and 3 or 4 of them are eliminated on the first hand, since I like to play multi-table sit-n-go games.

Not to be confused with the 'Kill Phil' strategy put forth by Rodman/Nelson or 'Kill Everyone' strategy by Nelson/Streib/Lee, Mental Midgets do not have any viable plan to win the tournament anymore than those who enter a tournament only to 'sit out' for the entire tournament hoping to get 'in the money' in the end.

Poker pros rarely go All-in before the final table and even more rare is an All-in bet - preflop. It's usually because they think they have the best of it or they are at a point where their stack will be too low to make the correct bets if they are going to see their hand all the way to the river. Except for the final table, good players don't really gamble on poker and they don't use the All-in bet as a bluff, unless they can afford to lose and they will still have a decent amount of chips to get back in the game.

Oh, about Russian roulette.

Does spinning the chamber cause the chamber with the bullet to fall to the bottom due to gravity?

I read a comment that if the gun is well maintained, the extra weight of the bullet will tend to make the chamber stop with the bullet at the bottom.

In that scenario, no one would ever die. However, revolvers 'click' as they are spun because there is a ratcheting mechanism which causes drag on the spin and allows the bullet to stop - anywhere. Then the 'cocking and/or firing, ratchets the chamber for the firing pin, which will move the chamber either into or out of the correct position to properly strike the bullet casing.

  



I Never Bluff

Black Swans, the impact of unpredictable occurrences

Black Swans are unknown unknown catastrophes or miracles, as opposed to known unknown coincidences or known known events, based on 4 things regarding knowledge, things you know that you know, things you know that you don't know, things that you don't know that you know, and things that you don't know that you don't know. I think more things are turning into things that I don't know that I know (forgot).

Trying to account for random occurrences in chance by looking for swings in the probability of success or disaster when you can't predict a Black Swan occurrence is really futile. The best you can hope for is to limit your disasters or losses and protect your successes or gains. You do this by setting limits and keeping within those limits or at least protecting part of your successes while hoping for a Black Swan miracle.

There are those who advocate continuing to play when you are on a losing streak, because you know you are playing correctly and those who advocate cutting your losses, because psychologically you're just playing head games with yourself. I think the smart thing is to at least take a break to regroup or reassess your play and the players in the game.

Whether it's playing poker (cash games) and looking for your hand to improve, your stack to grow or playing roulette and praying your number hits, if you're calculating the probabilities of success or failure, set limits on both. Losing all your chips is better than losing all your cash and it's always better to limit how much of your profits you are willing to give back, when the tide turns after being on a winning roll.
(The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb)

I Never Bluff