D’Amato Testifies; Relax at the Table; Pocket Rocket Killer
Alfonse D’Amato testifies before the House on online poker
by Staff & Wire Reports
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Former Senator Alfonse D’Amato, Chairman of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), the leading poker grassroots advocacy group with more than one million members nationwide, today testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade on the importance of licensing and regulating online poker to protect American consumers.
“With so many issues before Congress, we are encouraged that ensuring player protections for online poker was raised for consideration by this committee,” said, Chairman D’Amato. “Clearly Congress is hearing the voices of the thousands of poker players across the country who have expressed their frustration at the government’s actions to restrict their personal freedom to play this great game.”
In his testimony, Senator D’Amato noted that millions of Americans have been playing poker on the Internet for almost 10 years, and events like the DOJ indictments on April 15, 2011, otherwise known as “Black Friday”, have only served to fuel players’ frustration over this infringement of their rights. Since Black Friday, players have sent over 80,000 letters and emails and have engaged in countless more social network and personal contacts directly to members of Congress asking for a licensed and regulated U.S. online poker industry. Not only would this create a safe environment for consumers, it would also create a pathway for tens of thousands of U.S. jobs and tens of billions of dollars in federal and state revenue at a time when the U.S. economy needs it most.
D’Amato continued, “The grassroots outreach efforts undertaken by our members has been phenomenal and is a key force in keeping this debate alive. We are now entering our seventh month since the DOJ’s actions and, if anything, our voice is only growing stronger. This truly speaks to the dedication of average Americans across the country to ensuring their personal freedoms are restored.”
In addition to direct outreach to Congress, players have taken to social media outlets such as Twitter and various poker forums to voice their support of licensing and regulating online poker. Players recently asked so many poker-related questions for President Obama’s Twitter Town Hall that it became one of the most prominently raised issues, as reflected in the resulting Associated Press coverage. In addition, the White House’s “We the People” petition site had over 8,000 signatures to license and regulate online poker, far exceeding the necessary 5,000 signatures to ensure review by the Administration.
In concluding his testimony, D’Amato urged that Congress stop the outsourcing of consumer protections, jobs and revenue to foreign countries and instead create a safe, regulated environment for Americans to play this time honored game of skill, while contributing to our nation’s economy.
A full copy of the testimony can be found at www.theppa.org.
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Ways to exercise your body at the poker table
by George Epstein
Want more from George “The Engineer” Epstein? You can find him at geps222@msn.com or www.gamingtoday.com
Just proves that great minds think alike…
Max Shapiro’s fascinating poker book, Read’em and Laugh, has a chapter devoted to getting exercise for your body while sitting “motionless” at the poker table.
Just so happens, my first book, The Greatest Book of Poker for WINNERS! (see Chapter 8), deals with “How to Live Longer and Healthier” by playing poker, including your physical as well as mental health.
Max and I were on the same pathway when suggesting there are ways to actually exercise your body for better physical health while playing poker. Few (if any) poker players practice this at the table – other than those we see on TV who often leap from the table to get our attention.
In his chapter on “Casino Calisthenics,” Max suggests several isometric and aerobic exercises that “can be performed unobtrusively at the table.” He lists several eye-catching opportunities, such as the ominous “Table-Lift Chip Dump” where you “get back” at the “gleeful” opponent who has piled his fast-growing chip stacks into two towering turrets.
Simply brace your upper legs under the table, lift it as high as you can (good isometric for front thigh muscles), and then suddenly drop it! Imagine your opponent’s reaction when his chip towers come tumbling down!!!
What follows is the “Three-Lap Casino Run” when your opponent discovers you’re to blame for the collapse of his chip towers, and chases you around the card room (builds lung capacity).
Max’s “Neck-Stretching Hole Card Peep” can limber up your sore neck muscles. Start by rotating your head a few times then stretch your neck slowly from side to side. While easing your neck stiffness and strengthening the neck muscles if your timing is right, you may get a glimpse of your opponent’s hole cards. Hmm…
For the “Server-Summons Spring,” simply swing your arms above your head clapping your hands together while you shout aloud “Service! Service!” Max explains, “that way you’ll seem no different from hundreds of other players… futilely trying to summon a food server.” (I tried it the other night. I did enjoy the exercise but did not succeed in getting food service until over an hour. My voice was hoarse the next day.)
Exercises described in my own book do not match the keen imagination of Max’s offerings, but they achieve the same goal: To exercise parts of your body while playing poker.
One I often use is to grab the sturdy railing of the poker table and simultaneously press my feet against the base of the table; pull my hands backward while pushing my legs forward, sucking in my stomach at the same time. Try it! (Note: Don’t worry about disturbing the poker table; it’s quite sturdy and won’t move.)
As we age, many of us develop arthritis in some of our joints. Here’s an exercise that was recommended by my therapist: Press the arthritic finger in one hand against the palm of the opposite hand; release it, and then press it to form a tight fist.
Better yet is to use a “Magic Dani” that my granddaughter Danielle Elizabeth Epstein (now a college student) created for me some years ago. It resembles a wine-bottle cork.
Periodically (while not taking notes at the poker table), I take my Magic Dani out of my pocket, unobtrusively place the flat surfaces at the ends between one of my fingers and my thumb at the opposite end, and squeeze hard. This may be why I rarely suffer pain from my arthritic fingers.
I am pleased that Max and I think along the same path: Take steps to gain physical as well as mental exercise while playing poker. More on Max’s poker axioms next week. Check his website (Readenlaff@aol.com) concerning his book.
Comments? George “The Engineer” Epstein can be contacted at geps222@msn.com
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Pocket Rockets Killer?
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By Dan Katz – Check out more great advice from Dan at the fabulous poker website www.pokernewsdaily.com
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Imagine the following scenario: you are on the bubble in the World Series of Poker Main Event and, for some reason, you let your chip stack get so low that you are now all-in in the big blind. If you are eliminated right now, you go home with nothing. Win the hand and you will almost assuredly outlast one more player to make the money and pocket at least $20,000. Everybody folds to the small blind, who, for the puny cost of one more small blind, officially puts your tournament life on the line. Your heart sinks as he flips over pocket Aces. You haven’t looked at your cards yet.
What do you want your hole cards to be?
The absolute novice would probably think for a tenth of a second and say, “Pocket Kings!” After all, that is the next best hand to Aces. But after a moment of thought, most any person who has played the slightest bit of poker would realize that this is the wrong answer, as Kings only have two direct outs to beat Aces (I say direct because, of course, the Kings could still turn into a straight or flush with the right four cards on the board).
Let’s move on, as I have spent way too long on a clearly incorrect hole card choice. Without much more analysis, most players should eventually come to the realization that suited connectors, while still a big underdog to Aces, would be a good hand to hold. With suited connectors, you can make straights and flushes that could beat the Aces, even if your opponent hits a set. Of course, you also have a chance to hit two pair, three-of-a-kind, and other winning hands. But which connectors? K-Q sounds reasonable at first, since they are high cards, but in reality, the Aces take away straight possibilities from that hand and other cards that would help (T-J-Q-K) could also help the Aces make a straight (this is also why there are smaller pairs that would have a better chance than Kings to beat Aces).
So, we’ve narrowed it down to middle or small suited connectors – the ones that are the least dependent and least affected by the two Aces that are gone. Everything from 5-6 through 9-T is fairly similar, with each pair of hole cards giving you approximately 22% equity against pocket Aces, when rounded to the nearest percent. When we look further, it turns out that 5-6 suited just barely nudges out 6-7 for the best hand to have against pocket Aces.
The difference is negligible, and for all intents and purposes, virtually non-existent, but it’s there. After running the hands through a simulator over one billion times, we find that both will beat pocket Aces 22.29% of the time. Technically, 6-7 will win slightly more often, about .0023% more, because the two Aces that are already used take away straight outs from the 5-6, but this difference is so small it’s silly. The real difference, and remember, this is still a minute difference, is in the tie percentages. 5-6 suited has a .21% chance to tie A-A, while 6-7 suited “only” has a .18% chance. Therefore, because the gap between ties for the two hands is significantly greater than the gap between wins, 5-6 suited has the better chance of surviving the all-in confrontation with Aces. In the end, 5-6 suited has 22.499% equity against A-A, all-in pre-flop, with no other players in the hand.
But why does 5-6 tie more often than 6-7? Because of the straight combinations. There are seven combinations of five community cards that would put a straight on the board and result in a chopped pot between 5-6 and A-A: 2-3-4-5-6, 3-4-5-6-7, and so on, through 8-9-T-J-Q. All of these would also result in a chop between 6-7 and A-A except for 2-3-4-5-6, because that board would give you, with 6-7, a higher straight than your opponent. Because there are only six straight board combinations for 6-7, compared to seven for 5-6, the probability is lower that 6-7 will chop with A-A than it is for 5-6.
Additionally, amongst the straight boards that the 5-6 and 6-7 have in common, two of them (6-7-8-9-T and 7-8-9-T-J) are less likely to occur for the 6-7 hand because either one or both of the cards required have already been dealt. Thus, the chances of chopping with 6-7 are further reduced.
So what does this all mean? It means that you should definitely go all-in with 5-6 suited against pocket Aces! Just kidding. You will still be a huge underdog, with just over a 22% chance to survive the confrontation. But if you knew you were against only one player, that player had Aces, you had to put all your chips on the line pre-flop, and could choose any two hole cards you wanted, 5-6 suited would be the hand of choice.
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