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Pocker Tables on Tilt

December 29, 2005

The book is a "big pot" tournament pocker book and can be especially useful for those that have found that their game has hit a wall that they are having particular trouble getting over. Where I found the book particularly useful is in the adaptation of the strategy as a "gear change" that some players seem to lack in their game. It can be a tremendous way to get a table on tilt and, once you have shown down some winners with less than the best cards, when you do catch a monster hand you can maximize the action that you get, your pots and your wins. It is also a very useful guide to final table strategy, where the use of the "all-in" move is at its best.

The potential downside in the book is that you are using a very risky pocker style. When the theories that "Kill Phil" espouses are working perfectly, then your tournament runs are great and the potential for huge dividends are there. If you miss your hands or are played back at, it can lead to an early exit from events and, potentially, damage to the bankroll. The "Kill Phil" strategies are not for the faint of heart, to put it mildly! It is also not a strategy to use in a cash game setting (where stacks are normally well above the blind structure), but strictly for that of a tournament surroundings where the stacks are finite and there is a ramification for losing all your chips. Additionally, while they do offer an online strategy as well, they are quick to emphasize that the "Kill Phil" strategies are less effective online for a variety of reasons.

All in all, Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson have come up with an aggressive and excellent strategy for anyone to step into the tournament arena and succeed from the start. With "Kill Phil", they have given players a chance to knock heads against the greatest in the game and, in many ways, take the professionals game from them. If, for nothing else, it is a book to read to capture the nuances of someone who is using the style and perhaps formulate a counter-attack for it. "Kill Phil" will definitely help anyone's game on a variety of fronts and should be something that party pocker players, from beginners to the greatest "experts", should read and have in their libraries!

Legislators wanting to legalize Internet pocker in North Dakota won another victory Tuesday when the House voted 50-44 in favor of a resolution that would put the question on the June ballot.

House Concurrent Resolution 3035 allows citizens to vote on whether the North Dakota Constitution should be amended to make Internet pocker legal.

The vote on the resolution was taken in the afternoon following a four-hour hearing on House Bill 1509, a separate pocker bill which would set guidelines for establishing the industry in the state.

HB1509, which passed the House 49-43 last month, is useless without changing the pocker constitution first.

Supporters of the game say millions of people are already playing pocker on the Internet on offshore sites that receive little or no regulation.

Rep. Blair Thoreson, R-Fargo, said regulating the industry will help reduce problems with those who already play the game.

"If we don't do something to regulate it, who knows what the downside is," Thoreson said.

Internet pocker sites operate offshore because of fear of the 1961 Wire Act, which was aimed at preventing betting over the phone lines. However, supporters of the legislation say that law does not apply to Internet pocker.

"Obviously the Internet wasn't even a gleam in anyone's eye at that point," Sue Schneider, CEO of River City Group, told the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday.

Schneider said the law is specific to sports betting, not Internet pocker.

Opponents of the bill are worried that legalizing Internet pocker will pit the state against the federal government, or it will lead to an expansion of gambling.

Rep. Kari Conrad, D-Minot, said the state could spend $1 million to fight the federal government if the Justice Department says the state's law is illegal.

"All of the other gaming we've considered was in the realm of possibility. This is not," Conrad said. "This I think it is too big of a gamble."