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Hey all,

I’ve updated my pages and have the full details on the upcoming West Coast Poker Championships at the Edgewater Casino in downtown Vancouver.

This is the first running of this tournament, and while it has many positives, there are some areas for improvement, in my opinion.

The Pluses:

• The blind structure is good and allows for skill to prevail over luck
• The main event is split up into two “day 1′s”
• They’ve managed to convince full tilt pro Mike “The Mouth” Matusow to come down and teach a class in poker!
• There is a reasonable variety of game types and buy-ins

The Minuses:

• Some of the events are on week days in the middle of the day
• The PLO/PLH event seems very specialised
• There are no limit events

I suppose I’m nit picking seeing as I’m not going to play in either of the events listed in the “minuses”, but I credit myself with being a fairly observant guy – I think that these facts may result in some low fields.

I’ve played at every card room in Vancouver and there’s one thing going either as strong as, or stronger than no limit – and it’s limit. In my opinion it wouldn’t have hurt to had another $200-$300 limit event to pick up some of the low-hanging fruit (so to speak).

Anyways, just me chiming in – I’m going to register for the $300 No Limit event now – I’ll post my results when I have them! In the meantime – you guessed it. I’m practicing tourneys on pokerstars.

Cheers,
~Addict

According to Albert Einstein “You cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it.” Obviously Albert never played roulette topless and beside a generous high-rolling Asian gentleman who will fork over $2,000 to you for “good karma.” (This actually worked for said gentleman as he bet $80 on red 36 and won)

This was the scene for radio host Captain Scotty earlier this morning on the Jeff O’Neil show on CFOX as he tried to turn $500 into $1,000 for the BC Children’s hospital. While unsuccessful at their betting, an anonymous gambler who caught wind of what he was trying to accomplish donated $2,000 and then another $2,100 (after hitting his number). With that donation and the $1,000 added by the River Rock Casino, he succeeded in raising $5,100.

Scotty’s betting strategy (betting on single number) though apparently resulted in some phone calls from professional gamblers who said to basically put the money on red or black. Now i in no way consider myself to be a professional gambler… at least not yet, but I believe I can give some insight as to why this was suggested.

At the poker table, good cash players will frequently and quickly be able to calculate the “expected value” to determine whether or not a move is profitable. Expected value is simply the money you would gain by winning minus the money you would lose by losing.

In the case of betting on a single number, we can break down the expected value of a $100 bet like this: (Note that there is no positive expected value bet possible in roulette and also note that I am not factoring in karma donations, or toplessness )

We will lose $100 for 37 out of the 38 possible places the ball could land
(-$100 X 37 / 38) = $(-97.37)
We will gain $3,500 for 1 out of the 38 possible places the ball could land
($3,500 x 1 / 38) = $92.11
We can now determine our expected value of the $100 bet on a single number over a long period of time
$(-97.37) + $92.11= $(-5.26)

Now, lets analyze the same $100 bet on red, black, even or odd… all of which have the same winning probability.

We will lose $100 for 20 out of the 38 possible places the ball could land
(-$100 X 20 / 38) = $(-52.63)
We will gain $100 for 18 out of the 38 possible places the ball could land
($100 x 18 / 38) = $47.37
We can now determine our expected value of the $100 bet on a red, black, even or odd over a long period of time
$(-52.63) + $47.37= $(-5.26)

Low and behold with each $100 bet, Scotty is expecting to lose $5.26 no matter where he places it! You would think that either of the two choices would be equally as good, however Scotty is only looking to double up to $1000. With the specific goal of only going from $500 to $1000, the choice here should now become a bit easier to make.

Why?

Here are our options from a more simple perspective:
A 47.37% chance to turn $500 into $1000
A 13.16% chance to turn $500 into $3500

Easy choice here. That was until Jeff had said to “Go for $3,500″

Given that our goal has now change, which is the correct choice?
Betting on a single number, or on a red/black/even/odd?

Well as it turns out, either has same probability of occurring so really there is no better choice. One choice we get it all at once @13.16%, the other we have to double up several times @47.37% each try (this essentially requires three wins in a row, I’m about 99% sure that this will work out to 13.16% too).

Anyways, props to the Jeff O’Neil Show for making this a heck of a lot more interesting than my roulette sessions, for raising money for a good cause, and for giving me inspiration to do a detailed mathematical overview of roulette on a friday afternoon =)

Cheers,
~Addict

First off Happy Birthday to my buddy Chris… he ended up throwing a pretty good party and I ended up leaving a lot later that I’d originally planned. SO at around 12:30 or so, I stroll into the casino and buy in to a 4/8 kill table.

The FIRST hand I sit down to witness before I’m even bought in is absolutely insane… I was thinking before I’d arrived at the casino that I was too late for any sweet action, however I was vastly wrong. Seriously, action like this is why is practice so much online at Pokerstars.

So the kill is on (meaning it’s 8/16 for this hand) and someone has straddled to $32. With four people in the hand they all CAP… that’s $64 x 4 preflop, one of which has done so BLIND. So preflop we’re already well over $200. After seeing betting raising and capped streets all the way down, the winner is a regular named “Cowboy” sporting a very convincing Doyle Brunson look who has a queen high flush… his hole cards were Q4 of spades… (Hardly profitable playing this capped pre-flop)

My mouth was watering so much at this point that I posted my blind in late position (I usually wait for the BB). In this hand I pick up AJ off-suit. It’s raised to me and I 3bet it and unsurprisingly the guy who played his hand blind on a capped kill game caps it. 5 people including myself call.

Flop is Ah – Ad – 4d (love it)

By the time it gets around to me things are already capped, so I make the easy call.

Turn is an 8h.

This time around there’s only one bet ahead of me, so I raise it and end up heads up with the bettor.

River is a Ks.

He checks, I bet.. he pauses and says “You have the ace don’t you”…. and calls. I say “Yup, of course I have the ace” and pick up a pot of about $200 on my first hand at the table.

I’d like to say that was the hand of the night for me, but it wasn’t (Gotta love running hot). My hand of the night went down like this about an hour later:

I pick up 7h 7d and am first to act. The kill is off, so I raise it to 8 and get 3 callers including a very loose agro guy on the button. the blinds fold.

Flop comes down: 7c 5d 7s (Yes, I just flopped quads!)

Normally, because I’ve just flopped the stone cold nuts I should check, however since I was the preflop aggressor, it would look very suspicious if I checked (and could also lose some value in this hand) so I bet it… 1 caller, 1 fold, and the loose agro guy on the button raises me (yes!). I (pretend to) think about it and 3bet it. The other caller folds and the button caps it. I of course call.

Turn is a brick (they’re pretty much all bricks at this point)

I check, button bets and I raise. At this point he slows down and just calls.
As the river is being dealt, he checks blind and out of turn (never seen this move before)

The river brick hits the felt, I bet and he calls. I show quads taking down another monster pot.

I played at this table for another hour so or… as it was like 2:30 am we started losing players and the action eventually came to a halt. Despite an hour long downswing, I walked away from the table up about $200 (Yay bankroll!).

Good times at the River Rock… going to try to get down there a litter earlier next time though so I’m not just playing against aggressive regulars.

Anyways, I’m off for the weekend. I’ll be hitting the River Rock again soon, so more poker fun to come!

Cheers
~Addict