Poker Guru Blog

Move over, Terminator; it’s time for the robots to terminate the online poker world! Or at least, this is what people think in Indiana, where they have announced the First Annual Poker Bots Only Tournament. The tournament is set to kick off in August, and the only thing that will set the competition apart  will be the sophistication of software programming.

Organized for the undergraduates of the Indiana University, the game played will be Limit Hold’em and first prize is set at $200. This is a great way for the students to test their creative programming abilities to outwit each other. All poker bots are required to be programmed beforehand and once the tournaments starts, the decision-making is left solely to the bot.

In this video Victory Poker showcases some of the hottest women that can be found on Earth. These models are not just sexy, but they also love to play poker. Check out the Victory Poker girls, a group of some of the nicest, sexiest women in the world! Sara Jean Underwood, Jessica Burciaga, Jessa Lynn Hinton, Natalie Marie, Jesse Preston and Emma Glover.

The Swiss poker scene joins that of the ongoing American gambling restrictions, with the Swiss Supreme Court ruling this month that poker is a game of chance and should only be played at a casino. The Court reviewed opinions by experts from both sides of the arguments, but made its final decision to ban land-based and online poker, with the only exception being casinos and private homes.

The ones pushing for the ban were suggesting that poker is a game of luck and that strategy, position and bluffing play no part in winnings. On the other hand, poker supporters, experts and fans tried their best to prove that poker does not depend on sheer luck, but is more a game of skill and supplied several examples to back their statements.

Dutch poker pro Joran van der Sloot has made a nice living out of playing poker and has travelled most of the world using his poker skills to pay for his way. But the 23-year-old Dutch man has more than just poker on his mind, though: police considers him as the main suspect of kidnapping the American teenager Natalee Holloway in 2005 and killing Stephany Flores on the May 9, 2010, on the same day of Natalee’s disappearance five years earlier.

Joran van der Sloot and his brothers were first arrested on June 9, 2005, as suspects in the disappearance of American Natalee Holloway. Van der Sloot and his brothers were released on September 3, 2005, due to lack of evidence.  Natalee’s disappearance has frustrated authorities and garnered wide attention on television and in newspapers in the United States and Europe.

Joran van der Sloot and Natalee Holloway

Joran van der Sloot was arrested in Chile, four days after fleeing from Peru following the discovery of the body of 21-year-old Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramírez, who was beaten and stabbed to death in the Hotel Tac Sac in Lima, Peru. The room in which her body was found was coincidentally rented out under the name Joran van der Sloot. On top of that, witnesses claim to have seen the couple enter the room together and police also have video footage of Joran and Stephany at the Atlantic Casino the day before the murder.

As I have already mentioned in a previous post, Phil ’Unabomber’ Laak is attempting to break the world record in playing non-stop poker for eighty hours to beat the current 74-hour record, held by Paul Zimber.

Phil Laak

Paul set the previous record at the time and venue of the WSOP Europe last year. Playing heads-up for more than 74 hours straight, he managed to beat 102 opponents out of 183.

Phil has now embarked on his mission to break this record, which started on the 2nd June in the Bellagio and can be watched through the live stream video on the American poker player’s website.

CardPlayer Magazine is also closely following this special event. They have just recently checked on Phil's progress in a video interview which can be viewed below. 

Absolute Poker is looking to its players to demonstrate their creative side in its two separate promotions the Craziest Last Longer Bet (CLLB) and the Table Skin Design Contest (TSDC). Both of these contests started on the 10th of May and will finish on the 8th of June and competitors will be judged on their creativeness.

In the Craziest Last Longer Bet, Absolute Poker is seeking for players to make a YouTube video of a bet against a friend. If you believe you can outlast your friend in the WSOP $1,000 NLH Event #54 challenge him with a bet. Of course Absolute Poker will be looking for the most creative and mind-blowing bet and will send the winner and his mate to Las Vegas to challenge it out at the WSOP. The winner and the loser of the two friends will be judged by who last the longest in the WSOP $1,000 NLH Event #54.

Here is just one of the many bets so far:

On the 6th of June the world's biggest online poker room, PokerStars launches a brand new poker league on Twitter. If you're a fan of Twitter and play on PokerStars this league is for you.

PokerStars is asking Twitter users to express their joy in a 140 characters or less (make sure you tag each tweet with #tpoker) and they will be looking for the best tournament tweets. It is not clear yet if your tweets will count towards your Twitter Poker League listings.

There is an official Twitter Poker League website, which can be reached via this link.

Although his brother, Robert Mizrachi started the final table of the Event #2 ahead of Michael, it was Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi who ended winning the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship. The final table show down saw The Grinder go up against the Russian Vladimir Schmelev in a heads-up match, who he outwitted, to win his first WSOP bracelet and the $1,559,046 cash prize.

The winning of over a million and half dollars came to Michael as a blessing in time of need considering he was almost bankrupt. In a previously posted article we looked how Michael was in serious financial trouble and even facing losing his house because of his unwise spending sprees and a huge tax bill. This latest win will pull Michael into the green enabling him to pay his tax bill of $339,711 which has been hunting him.

Considering Michael was broke, I hope he did not to sell too much part of his action.

A little more than a month after Cole South said his farewells and left CardRunners, Brian Townsend is now also throwing in the towel announcing his exit from the most known coaching site. Full Tilt Poker wasted no time in their announcement that they will be immediately dropping Brians unique avatar and withdrawing his sponsorship deal which was tied to his CardRunners instructor status.

Brian told in his blog on the 2nd of June that his resonation came because he felt he has been tied down to the company for too long and would like to concentrate more on playing poker. Although Full Tilt Poker has taken away Brian’s playing nick name and unique avatar which held “red pro” status. He will continue to play a Full Tilt Poker but under his old nickname “sbrugby” once again. Brian will not leave CardRunners completely and will continue to participate on the website’s forum, but not as an official instructor.

I’m sure most of you have already seen the 1994 film titled Maverick, but I still feel like it needs to be mentioned. It is an all-time classic, and despite my feelings that this movie has about as much to do with poker as I do with ballet, it is still definintely worth a watch.

Believe it or not, I have only just seen this film last week. I made four attempts to sit through the whole film, and on my fourth day I finally succeeded and made it to the end. I always wondered why the film was considered the ultimate poker movie. I personally think it doesn’t live up to these expectations and for the people who believe it does, I suggest they take a look at the film Rounders, they’ll come out quite surprised.

Overall, I would have to say this film is boring. Not a bit, but a lot. It also tries to be funny, but most of the time the humour feels pushed and becomes rather irritating than hilarious. It’s like when you go to see a movie at a cinema and the film is so bad that you sink in your chair, hoping no one sees you watching it. This movie gives you a similar feeling. But luckily, it is on dvd and in the safety of your own home you can easily switch it off, just like I did for four days in a row.
To mention one positive to come out of the film to help bear the two hours would have to be Jodie Foster (Annabelle Bransford), who is so glamorous and beautiful that it sends your brain into a trance just seeing her walking around.

The 10k Poker Challenge is a blog written by the player named 10kHero who has set the goal to make $10,000 out of playing poker online. 10kHero started the challenge with only $40 in his bankroll and has been playing no limit holdem cash game online to achieve this goal.

10kHero has carefully planned and calculated how to hit the $10,000 target. According to his plan he will play between NL2 and NL200 over the time spand of a year. You can view the full breakdown of his plan in the chart and graph below.

All progress that has been made will also be made visible through his blog postings. 10kHero also applies a good bankroll management in order to keep his bankroll safe.

We’ve already got used to the fact that rich guys even use their Lamborghini to go to the corner store to grab more toilet paper, but what happens should they wish to get on water? Of course, you can drive your luxury Gallardo to the docks, but that’s as far as it’ll take you. No need to stress, though, because the new Lamborghini yacht has arrived.

Project Natal which is the code name for the new sensor for the Xbox 360 enables full-body motion to be used as a controller. Designed by Microsoft, Project Natal will be an add-on peripheral for the Xbox 360 and is said to not require any additional hardware upgrades to existing 360 consoles.

The German police arrested a man named Mohammed Abou-C, who is said to be the mastermind behind the EPT Berlin robbery.

Mohamed Abou-C playing some poker

The thieves got away with €242,000 after storming into the Grand Hyatt Hotel which was hosting the EPT in Berlin. It was an easy target for the bandits, because the organizers did not pay attention to adequately protect the money which was on display in the lobby. The robbers would have stole even more if a hotel employee had not grabbed one of the bags of loot which allegedly contained over €500,000.

As most of you know already the online poker website PokerStars.com sponsors some of the best poker professionals in the business. But it’s sponsorship of professionals does not stop at poker. In order to get its name out there, PokerStars has an initiative way in finding events or celebrities that could boost their reputation. One of their most recent signings included Gianluigi ’Gigi’ Buffon, the professional goalkeeper for the Italian national soccer team. As PokerStars widens it’s net in looking to add to their line-up of sporting stars and celebrities, they stumbled across two brothers Damien and Willie Benegas who are seek to conquer Mount Everest (this will be Willie’s 10th trip to the summit).

Willie Benegas on the top of Mount Everest in a past climb