Ultimate Poker Tournament: WSOP

The World Series of Poker is without a doubt the biggest and most prestigious poker tournament in the world. The WSOP, as it is known, gathers the best poker players in the world each year to battle each other until only one is declared champion and winner of millions of dollars—the biggest prize, and honor, in the poker world.

Poker tournament is a series of structured competitions where players compete against each other to accumulate all the poker chips in play. In "normal" casino games, each hand is unrelated to any other. Players can quit whenever they want. In tournaments, players can not quit and cash out their chips. Play continues until there is a winner.

There are different types of poker tournaments: "Elimination" or "freeze out" tournaments are the most common type. In this structure all players begin with the same amount of poker chips, and play continues until one player has accumulated all the chips. As players are eliminated, the active players are re-seated at fewer and fewer tables. While the winner of the tournament is the poker player who accumulates all the chips, the payout structure rewards several players. For example, if ninety-five players start a tournament, commonly the "final table" of nine players would receive prize money—with eighth getting a larger prize than ninth, seventh getting more than eighth, etc.

Turn Over Your Shoulder

A stranger walks into a saloon and gets a drink. He sees a poker game and asks if he can play. He's told to take a seat. It's a no limit 5-card draw game and he's a pretty good poker player. After about an hour of so-so hands, he draws Aces full and makes a sizable bet. The old guy across from him raises all-in and the stranger calls. The old guy lays down 23457o and reaches for the chips.

"Whoa, there. I've got Aces-full."

"Yeah, but I've got a wild cat.", says the old guy.

"A wild cat? What the hell is a wild cat?"

"A wild cat is 23457 off-suit." Like this, "Says the old man."

The stranger starts to burn and says, "I've played a lot of poker, but I've never heard of a wild cat."

"Well, if you've played a lot of poker, you oughta know that you should learn the house rules before you play. And this here's a house rule."

At that, the old guy points to a sign just over the stranger's right shoulder. The sign says,

"House Rule - Wild Cat is a 23457 off-suit and it beats everything"

Being a gentleman and an honorable gambler, the stranger takes his lumps and settles back for more poker.

Several hours later, the stranger is dealt 23457o. He bets and the same old guy raises him the pot. Without the slightest hint of a tell, the stranger raises all-in. The old guy calls and lays down an ace high flush, and reaches for the poker chips.

"Whoa there! I've got a wild cat.", says the stranger as he lays down his cards.

"Nice hand.", says the old guy as he scoops up the pot. "What did I tell you about house rules?", as he points to a sign over the stranger's left shoulder.

"House Rule -Wild Cat - Only Good Once a Night"

Here Comes the Great White

It has more than 10 layers of teeth;
It has stream line body with cartilage skeleton, enabling it to swim rapidly, plus in an agile manner;
It is a super-aggressive carnivore, merciless to its prey;
It is at the top level of food chain in the sea.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you … the SHARK.

And, there is such a group of people in the poker world that hold the same title with the same charactestics …

They wear the golden bracelet of World Series of Poker;
They top high on player ranking lists;
They eat on poker chips;
They are anything but ordinary.

We usually refer a super-good player as "shark". The poker shark knows what they are doing. From the basics like the ranking of all the poker hands, the mathematical and statistical likelihood that they can play the cards they have been dealt into a winning hand, to the top know-how: tell the opponent by the body language, command the poker strategy as well as little tips.

Things being said, all is not lost if you aren't a good poker player. You lose, you learn, and you grow. Just like a common little game shows, when you reach the final level, you turn into a big monster fish, too.

Begin with !
End with …

Crabs Walk Sideways

Everyone is a speck of dust in the universe, and uses his/her whole lifetime to show the shiniest sparkle … We may not strive to be the most perfect man in the world, like Che Guevara. Deep inside, a little voice moans: behave yourself, play by the rule. That makes me in confrontation with Sattre. Back to gaming business. Poker etiquette are not official poker rules that would affect the results of a poker hand necessarily. They are set of "gentlemen rule" set by the house to keep the game friendly, polite, and in general to keep everyone happy.

It is a great practice for those who run house poker games to add some of the following poker etiquette rules to their house poker rules sheet, print it before the game, and make sure all players are aware of them.

Poker Etiquette During Play

Act in turn.
Keep your cards on the poker table at all times.
Act in a timely manner. Don't take too long to make your move.
If you are not in the hand, don't comment: Don't give advice or information to players who are playing. They are supposed to pay attention themselves.
One hand one player: Don't give advice to anyone. Don't pursue them to make any actions. Everyone is grown up enough to make their own decisions.
Keep your large denomination poker chips in front of your stack.
Don't talk on the phone while playing.

Betting

Don't splash the pot.
Don't string raise.

Showdown

Don't expose your cards until the hand is over.
At showdown flip both cards at the same time.
Don't slow roll: Slow rolling is to pretend your hand is not good enough and take a long time to reveal your cards at the end while your hand is really the winner. Do not do it - it is very frustrating.
Don't check down hands: This is a very non-friendly practice, so unless you are in a very large poker tournament stay away from it.

Aware or not, you are helping make a stand for online poker right here, right now. Thanks for the contribution.

She is Teresa

1, she loves juicy fruits.

2, she likes to whistle.

3, she has 3 piggy banks, with over 2,000 coins.

4, she is not a big fan of fluffy pets.

5, she keeps a safe distance from dogs.

6, she has ticklish areas all over.

7, she likes watching Korean entertainment TV shows after coming back home from work.

8, she is pretty upset when losing lots of fake poker chips.

9, she panics, usually with screams when heroes in TV are in danger.

10, she holds my arms and squeezes them if I happen to be there at that moment.

11, she screams at sight of cockroaches, too.

12, She would only eat dumplings if there is no option.

13, she jumps and hops a lot when she is happy.

14, she teases and speaks to babies and hopes them would talk back.

15, she brandishes her arms in a robot-like move in front of the computer.

16, she calls it aerobics.

17, she has a mark on the inside skin of both her ears.

18, she needs snacks to be around while I am responsible to eat most of them.

19, she knows little about poker rules so far.

20, she puts her efforts into remembering poker hand rankings.

My Big Plan

I am planning writing a book on poker and gambling!

The idea is simple.

First step is to look through some in-depth reviews about best-sellers. Keep the essence, and go the dregs.

I would make up a beautiful name for my works. For example, Zen and the Art of Poker would be a good choice, though it has been registered one step earlier by an anonymous poker player.

Anything you can imagine in the gaming world, you can find it in this to-be encyclopedia. Special sessions will be dedicated to poker strategy and tips. Ever-changing poker rules will take up little space due to their stubbornness?! And an extra chapter is for calculus—poker odds are always the pus-filled heel of we Achilles.

To make it attractive to both professionals and fishes, entertaining elements will score high here. Dumb Q&As will be tolerated. Amateur-type articles such as the list of differences between Baccarat and Blackjack will abound.

As for the catch, I will throw in pros and cons of cheating, the know-how of stacking poker chips (I can only offer links on Youtube due to paper's 2D limit). To be thrilled, my collections of freak poker news/stories will be the trump card.

Finally, I will contact with those slick print-on-demand publishers, like iUniverse or AuthorHouse. Of course I won't publish it, at least not with an ISBN. Current copyright law is lagging way behind in the trend of internationalization. For the time being, I will let it printed in limited edition, circulated first among my pals and relatives. It would be a superb birthday gift.

I won't tag price on it—money would be an insult to the art. To be honest, it won't surprise me it is worshiped as the bible of poker 2,000 years later.

Gravity Counts

On the 6th floor of an apartment building, John Doe falls off the window. It's no doubt an accident. What surprises is that during the less-than-one-second dive, the man's mind goes through a ton of things with high pressures to the extent of collapse. Besides, due to some unknown reasons, his five senses becomes blurred and hallucination sets in. Holly Molly, it's going on in slow-motion!

John passes through 5th floor: the window is open; a couple of people are playing Texas Hold'em. He sees himself among them. He is sporting his usual-casual move: stacking the poker chips on and off. Entertainment is fun.

The 4th floor: it's a kitchen scene. Seems nobody is not at home while the water tap is kept on. John can't hear the sizzling sound for it's being overlapped by the Beethoven Symphony IV from the living room next-door. Coffee cups are in the sink, toaster is still warm. A nice morning to be remembered.

It appears to be a casino lobby on the 3rd floor. John stands beside the Roulette wheel, his eyes rolling tightly with the little gold ball. It's a 2-grand bet. The roaring voices around evaporates into thin air the moment it stops at slot 26, his pregnant wife's birthday.

2nd floor turns to be his gaming specialty store. He dedicates a whole shelf for equipments like Mahjong tiles and poker cards. Another one is piled up with books on poker strategy and poker rules. On the wall, posters of celebrity poker players and their autographs are everywhere.

Ground floor is the bank VIP room. The bank manager brandishes a roll of documents in front of John's face, looking helpless. The Financial newspaper on the table typed in capital letters: 1929 in 21th Century.

Pong …

The clues are not clear. The detective before the monitor rethinks his judgment.

Host Your Poker Game At Home

The first thing you should do before you consider hosting a poker game at home is check the local laws in your area. Once you're sure no laws are broken, skip down to the section you are interested in.


Getting People Together
Hopefully this is the easy part. Typically, you are going to need somebody to make phone calls and get people together. You'll also need somebody to supply the house, table, poker chips and food/beverages. These can be the same person or several people, whichever is easiest. Sometimes people will even bring felt table tops just for poker, so tasks can really be split up. If you work at a bar or restaurant, sometimes you can hold free poker tournaments at your business, but again check with your local laws.

Setting Up Poker Tables, Chips, Cards
Somebody in your group will need to aquire poker supplies. I suggest convenience store or just Walmart for poker chips, cards, tables and dealer buttons.

Blind Levels and Payout Structures
You should visibly post your tournament's blind levels, payout structures, and rules so that every player (old and new) fully understands the game they are getting into. This will avoid unnecessary conflict in the future. You should also decide how you will handle chipping up.

Game Types
Whether you're running a friendly home game, or a larger tournament, you'll need to make it clear what style of game you intend to play. Cash game or tournament, texas holdem or seven card stud, limit or no limit, whether to allow rebuys, addons or bounties, other variants, and how to handle buyins and fees.

Moving and Seating Poker Players
Moving and seating players can get hectic in a larger tournament, but with a few simple rules you should be able to keep it under control. In a smaller game the emphasis is on fairness by ensuring quick table balancing.

Dealing and Shuffling
Consistent dealing and shuffling procedures can effectively ensure fair and speedy play.

Chip off your shoulder

Here is the lesson. You don't know how to flip or stack your poker chips, so what? Having a handful of thumbs doesn't hinder you to be a good poker player. Learn the lesson below:

So you have a pair of Ts. The guy opposite you is wearing a cowboy hat, shades and a month of stubble. You can't see his eyes but you know he's staring into your head. You start to think that inside he's laughing because he knows what you've got, but on the out side he is cold and calculating. You raise and he re-raises, without hesitation. While he watches you sweat he starts to shuffle his chips with one hand, split the single stack into two and reshuffle them again with one hand. He seems to do it so easily and almost without thinking. How does he do that? It's really cool, but intimidating at the same time. I wish I could do that. But the chinking of the chips is getting louder in your ears and you start to question your poker hand. He must be good. Look at the way he shuffles those chips. You fold. He laughs at your weakness with contempt as he starts to take your chips and shows you his 3 8 off suit.

Try to think it another way: Look how quick Chinese people build up their Mahjong piles and his opponents would be more careful when meeting such a guy. Although you may find it doesn't apply to online poker … Anyway, never let this happen to you/again … Try to learn some tricks on Youtube if you like.

Evolution: things vs. thoughts

My piggy bank is full of poker chips; and as luck would have it, I really love using a set of chips as a birthday present—my knowledge on poker odds won't help me figure out the probability here. Yes, you see? Poker players have hobbies, some of which are really hilarious.


Today, a wide variety of chips are available. For me, I usually buy these cheap plastics at 7-Eleven. Sometimes I go to novelty shops for decent ones. And if you're planning to play at least once a week, I can't overemphasize how much better the 11.5 gram chips are. They shuffle better, don't knock over as easily and feel more like money.
In previous years Walmart had a whole half isle devoted to chip sets. The sign on the walk ways are so big that the department manager feared that his toy department would be taken for as a casino supply store. It's surely not the case now. Maybe due to the uprising of online poker rooms or maybe the downswing of poker is on the way? I don't know. But the day before yesterday, I tried to upgrade my swimming suit and gadgets for a weekend beach walk, but the Carrefour service lady told me the swimming goods were off the shelf days before. Come on, it's just mid September!

Anyway, things change fast nowadays, it's somehow like a mental chewing gum for us.

Top gun—Blackjack

Sometimes I love being in the crowd, enjoying the feeling of thinking while others are yelling. That's when I play in the pit, that's the charm of casino game, among which Blackjack is my favorite. The following is a simple-version of know-how about it.


Blackjack is partly based on luck, so don't expect to win every time. Compared with poker games (Texas Hold'em, Omaha, etc.), the way to play Blackjack is easy. All you need is a dealer (you can do that if it's played at home), some people, a deck of cards, and some poker chips (really optional and unnecessary when you play at online casinos). First of all, the dealer serves TWO cards to each person, face down. When people say HIT ME, you give them a card. If they pass the number 21, they lose. If you win with a black jack (it consist of an ace, a jack, queen, king, or the 10 card), you beat everyone, and the house wins. If you pass the 21 limit, you lose, and the players may win. If you play with poker chips, when you win, you take the chips (or if someone else won, they take the chips).

Quiz: I do not recall what it is called if two people have the same number (like you have 19, and someone else has 19).

P.S. My mind is like an open high way. Every thought can lead very far or nowhere.

Learning in poker

Once at the poker table, you face a lot of choices and have a lot of decisions to make. Believe it or not, my motto of life seems to apply here: live and learn. For your record, selective thinking and learning can help you avoid being sniffed at as a bystander or a follower.

Texas hold'em case study: hole cards are 6s, Ts; flops are 2h, 9s, Jc.

No doubt it's a good start. It leaves us with a great space for imagination (though based on calculation). Listed below are the possibilities (from the best hand to the worst):

1 - Straight flush. You pick up 7s, 8s in the turn and river, Bang!
2 - Flush. Two more spades will suffice.
3 - Straight. From K-straight to J-straight. 7, 8, 9, T, J, Q, K of rainbow, we need the last two cards to be blessed.
4 - Sets, two pairs, one pair, high cards. There is no math involved.

The above is utterly obvious. I can imagine you would use your online poker calculator to figure out the pot odds of catching such hands. Then you are not seeing the whole picture. Remember: diamonds cut diamonds. After you find out at what odds you can form your desired hand and how many poker chips you could throw in the pot accordingly, don't forget to glimpse over to see your opponents' moves. You have your odds and they have theirs. If you don't count them in, then it's a natural thing that a black horse comes out from nowhere, with a poker hand just better than yours. And you can't afford that happens. Of course, if everyone is playing according to the book, you would estimate out what hands they have by calculating on their bet, on the condition you are the last one to call. Since you can't control the game, you must take everything into consideration.

I am always quick to summarize. Skill-wise speaking, I am focusing on POP (pot, odds, and position) here. Maybe I'm not that good at picking up the right words, but my idea is basically there. Now, put out a deck of cards, play your case while thinking a little bit, and you can be a self-made mentor quite soon.