The Hurbicide Guru

Historically, online poker is a game of deception. Poker players are known as liars at the table, as you never want to let on what you are holding. When you do, it is often equitable to death.

With that in mind, sometimes telling the truth under the expectation of lying can be even more deceptive than straight ahead lying. Because players now are so expecting that you are trying to deceive them, they might find it difficult to believe that you are actually telling the truth. It’s a whirlwind circle, but no matter how deep you are, it’s just really hard to believe someone would actually be honest in a game of thieves.

No one has exhibited the value of being honest in online poker more than Jamie Gold. In his World Series of Poker main event win, Gold baffled his opponents time and time again by often telling them exactly what he had. If he had a monster, he would say he had a monster. His opponents were so indignant that he would be so forthcoming, that in effect it seemed like lying, and they tended to pay him off every time just to see it. The effect was brilliant, and won him the title.

The more you can throw kinks in your game, and offset expectations, the more you are going to get paid when you want to, and avoided when you don’t. Remember these things when you play poker online.

There was a time not so very long ago, when we all believed that we could be the next great poker thing. Just at the moment when it became possible for someone to make a living off of their celebrity status as a online poker player, the online poker was flush with optimism that such rankings were based on merit. We were told, as players, that if we were good enough, if we studied hard enough, and if we practiced enough, we too could get our fifteen minutes of fame. Well, fifteen minutes have now passed, and many of us have been left on the shadier side of the street. We are not bathed in the light like the poker celebrities. We are the amateurs.

The problem with this development is that we no longer root for our own. Instead of championing the geniuses of our rank, we turn to those that are already established. We turn to the poker celebrities because they had the skill to succeed when we could not. They are the celebrities, and we are the adoring masses. We have found new poker gods, however, but lost our dreams. Maybe it’s time we realize that the poker celebrities are not everything they are supposed to be. We need to find new idols.

Texas Hold ‘Em poker online tournaments are formatted to facilitate elimination of players through escalating blinds. For those poker online players who have survived down to the last 25 percent or so of players, it becomes imperative to build up your chip stack to prevent erosion by the blinds.

Unless you get very lucky, you will have to attempt to steal the blinds sometimes. Being able to win some pots uncontested is a must. There are few things to consider when looking for the best opportunities for stealing the blinds.

Position is everything in blind stealing, and the optimal position to do it is when you are first to enter the pot after the blinds. You want to represent strength right away. The only disadvantage to this poker strategy is the chance you may get called by a bettor behind you. You must take notice of the stacks between yourself and blinds. If there are medium stacks behind you, then the raise is a good strategy. With an exceedingly large stack or desperate short stack behind you and in front of the blinds, then you risk your raise being called. Against the short stack, it could still be a good tactic with any live cards.

The biggest threat of a call is from the blinds themselves, who are already invested in the pot. How big are their stacks and how tight or loose have they played? When attempting to steal blinds, stack size and player styles are the most important factors in your decision.

In the manner of thinking about playing your position in online poker, the general idea is that you want to get more money in the pot when you have a positional advantage, often regardless of the cards that you have. Playing in position bestows the player with a situational advantage in that he gets to ask after everyone else, and is therefore more likely to win the pot based on presence alone.

The popularity of position raising, then, is based on the fact that most of the time, your online poker opponents are not going to pick up a hand, and even if they do, they will be scared off by the flop, when they miss or scare cards come. Though obviously this is not always the case, as sometimes players do genuinely make hands, the odds of them making the hand versus not are extremely in favor of notthus giving more value to the player that is more aggressive. And because it is easier to be aggressive when your opponent has already shown weakness, you want to play more pots in position for more money.

In a way, online poker is about exploiting the best times to get your money into a pot while putting pressure on your opponents to make a mistake. Imagine watching a roulette wheel and seeing the odds on your bet change (as the odds of your hand winning, and the odds of your opponent folding change) as the wheel spins to let you enter where you will.

Whatever variation of the online poker you are playing, one rule is constant-play your position. In poker, the betting order rotates around the table, and the closer you are to being the last to act, the more of an advantage you will have.

Players in an earlier betting position are forced to act (check, bet, or fold) without having any idea of what the players who bet after them are going to do, while the player who is last to act (or “on the button”) gets to see how everyone else has bet, and can act accordingly.

If you are first to act and you make a raise with a moderate hand like 10-J suited, it’s entirely possible that you may be re-raised by an opponent holding a hand like pocket Queens. On the other hand, if you’ve got a risky hand on the button, you can see what the other players will do, and decide whether or not your hand is worth playing when you play poker online. Also, players who are last to act are in a much better position to buy an uncontested pot with a big raise. For example, if the entire table checks after the flop, it can mean that nobody saw what they liked, and the button player can usually buy the pot with a good raise. Since your advantage varies in relation to your position, it makes sense that the value of your starting hands will also depend on your position.

One of the most difficult conundrums facing the modern poker player is how to effectively move from poker en ligne to actual table play. There may be a future on the horizon where table play itself is a thing of the past, but that day is not today. We still live in an age where out top skill poker tournaments are held in person. You can earn your entry online through a satellite online poker tournament if you are lucky, but at the end of the day you need to put down the keyboard and pick up the cards. The lure of online poker is its ease and the ability to do it when completely alone. It is one of the most suggested ways to learn poker because it allows you to focus without the distraction of other players. You learn alone, you practice alone, and in the end you play alone. It is a solitary sport. Playing in person, however, is not so solitary. Even those among us who love the blissful solitude of online poker are thrown into the harsh glare of social interaction when we take our place at the felt. It is a shocking change, often underestimated by new players. I cannot stress enough that you need to prepare yourself for social poker. You are going to lose your solitude in order to play. Don’t be disheartened though- you can always go back to online poker after you win the championship.

It would be great if we all had beautiful, leafy gardens in our back yards, but the thing about living in a densely populated city, is that you have to sacrifice things like gardens for the sake of living in the thick of it. Thankfully, not owning a garden doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice the joy of growing your own seeds, herbs and fruits. You can now have your very own indoor garden which uses unique hydroponic technology so that your seeds grow in water and air rather than soil. This not only produces the very best results, it also gets rid of all the aches and pains of fully throttle hands-on gardening. There’s no messy soil to worry about, you don’t get your fingers dirty, but you do get the same pleasure of nurturing your own produce, and watching it spring to full and vibrant life before your very eyes. Now everyone; the old, the less-abled, the hay-fever sufferer, the agoraphobe, even those with garden phobias, can have the satisfaction of gardening without the added exertion. There’s nothing like the joy of having watched a seed develop and then reaping the rewards. Most of aerogarden’s products, which include chilli, cherry tomato, edible flowers and herbs, are edible. So, you can use them in your cooking. Watch how your guests gush and gawp at the added freshness and home-grown feel of all your culinary concoctions.

One of Baltimore’s staple attractions, the Walters Art Museum kicked off with William and Henry Walters’ collection of different art items - paintings, sculptures, and other artifacts, all totaling to 22,000. The father-and-son tandem begun to gather pieces of artwork during the 19th and 20th century. Their collection included masterworks from famed European painters, Greek and Roman antiques, and ceramics and porcelain from the Far East.

Following Henry Walters’ death in 1931, the city administration of Baltimore proposed to open a public museum that will house the artifacts left by the Walters. The museum opened in 1934 and was named the Walters Art Gallery. Apart from the 22,000-item collection of the Walters, the then newly-revamped Walters Art Gallery showcased mummies, jewelries, and medieval armaments.

In 2000, in an effort to project the establishment’s public image, the museum was renamed to the Walters Art Museum. After a 3-year renovation on some sections of the museum, the Walters Art Museum opened its largest building in 2001. One of its main attractions is the Archimedes Palimpsest.

Currently, the museum is running 2 separate exhibitions: the Salviati and Antique; and The Special Dead: A Medieval Reliquary Revealed. The Salviati and Antique showcases different glass and ceramic works that were made in the later part of the 19th century. The Special Dead exhibition, on the other hand, features a replica of an ancient reliquary that houses the remains of St. Amandus. The Salviati and Antique will run until November 2, 2008 while the exhibition of The Special Dead: A Medieval Reliquary Revealed will end on January 18, 2008.

Just recently, the Walters Art Museum has announced that the admission to the said institution is free.

Alice Walton, philanthropist and patron of the arts, founded the Crystal Bridges Museum.

Alice Walton to unveil museum in the state of Arkansas.

Learn more about Alice Walton and the Walton Family Foundation.

The fallout from the Kentucky domain seizure case in October continued Thursday as word spread that Microgaming would begin blocking all new registrations from the U.S., not just the ones from the state of Kentucky.

Several online poker and gambling portals said they would stop accepting all new U.S. Players, for fear of similar litigation like how the state of Kentucky seized 140 or so domain names from online gambling sites, because gambling is illegal in that state.

The fallout from this case could be disatrous for players all over the world, as it could mean that any local entity could force a multinational online gaming and poker operation to shut down. However, there was some good news for law abiding gamblers during this recent election in the U.S. Voters in three states, Missouri, Colorado, and Maryland approved ballot initiatives that expanded legalized gambling and poker opportunities.

In Maryland, voters overwhelmingly approved the addition of 15,000 slot machines at five different locations. The estimated 48 percent to 51 percent tax on gaming revenues would be directed toward the state’s educational fund. Missouri voters repealed a loss limit in which gamblers were held to $500 in losses every two hours. In exchange for Las Vegas-style gambling, the state’s casinos agreed to a 1 percentage point increase in the gaming tax. In Colorado, voters allowed the state’s casinos to increase wagering limits to $100, extend gambling to 24 hours, and add craps and roulette to the table games mix. And, though he has no official stance on the issue, word has it that President-elect Barack Obama is in favor of legalizing online gambling. Now that’s change we can believe in.

Poker Superstars is the first poker show broadcast and acquired by the Fox Sports Net (FSN) Channel, though they have recently expanded their poker programming to include online poker and the World Poker Tour and High Stakes Poker. Poker Superstars is unusual in its format in that it is an invitational poker series limited to the most well known poker players in the game, who participate in a series of single buy in tournaments wherein points are awarded for high finishes.

After a ‘regular season’ of short handed table events, the players with highest points then quality for ‘post-season play,’ where eventually the field is narrowed to two players who play a best 2 out of 3 matches for the championship of the event.

The interesting thing about Poker Superstars in relation to other poker on TV is that it demonstrates the unique position of playing short handed, regularly increasing blinds, which is the most common format of tournaments on online poker. Studying the play of those like Johnny Chan and David Sklansky in such a context can be very helpful in understanding the differences in the format, as opposed to the slower blind structure and longer haul of the World Series events, and etc.