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Pocker Shocker

July 27, 2006

Phil Hellmuth has delivered the first Pocker Shocker because now there is a 3 way tie for first place on the all time WSOP bracelet winners. An interesting thing that comes up in satellites is that sometimes money is not awarded to the winner. I have seen him lend money to dozens of players who really needed it. In Reno, you can select from among eight $300 events (one with a rebuy), six $500 events (two with rebuys), four $1,000 events (one with rebuys), and a $5,000 Championship event. In other words, when you hold A-Q, you are very vulnerable to kings.

It is every cardroom employee's job to answer your questions and deliver poker news. If you are a successful money player, a tournament strategy that blows you out of a lot of tournaments early gives you the chance to spend that time you didn't waste in the tournament playing side games, and if you blow out early enough, there's a decent chance you'll find yourself in a side game with someone who's on tilt because he blew out early. Lots of weak players, you stay, lots of good players, you leave, that's the purist theory. Be sure to check the rules from room to room with regards to this if it is an issue for you.

So what? the novice might say, there are only four kings out of the 52 pocker cards. True enough, there are only four of them - but their strength means that these cards are very likely to be held in someone's hand. What I believe to be viable is to have enough ammunition to win the battle at hand. I have plenty of stories that have come out of my first few ventures into online pocker, but the biggest and most obvious is the almost ridiculous ease with which one's mouse can be coaxed into throwing chips into a pot. Hold'em will usually be played as a structured limit of $2-$4 or $3-$6.

Usually I won about 10% of these pocker tournaments. You're sitting in your favorite comfortable chair (at least, it's that way if you spend much time at your computer), you can drink or smoke whatever you like - all the comforts of home. Perhaps the smallest limit will be $4-$8. In either event, he will see to it that you get the chip denomination that works best for your game.

One of the most interesting hands, and one of the most important to break away from category thinking on is, I think, Ace-Queen. McClelland is certainly tournament pocker's all-time greatest director, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone else you'd consider putting ahead of Reno's Dave Lamb. Unless we put together some sort of incredible financial package, we felt it would be difficult to lure dealers out of Las Vegas to come to Tunica. I had always played until everyone else quit.