This isn’t normally a news aggregation site, but I feel this particular item is important enough to post about. There’s an excellent summary that collects all the evidence about cheating at AP and UB over at 2+2. It’s hair-raising stuff.
There are a lot of silly rumors floating around about what this year’s WSOP main event is going to look like. All we really know at this point is that it’s going to be a poker-free circus with a high probability of the winner being a total assclown, just like the last two years. That’s what ESPN wants, of course, so that’s what Harrah’s wants. Of course, it could be fixed if someone really wanted to. Maybe if the enough name players demanded it, something would happen. Here are the major problems as I see them:
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I normally don’t comment on current events or news items, but this one dovetails nicely with some things I’ve been meaning to write about, so here goes. There is now high quality evidence that there has been cheating going on at one of the major poker sites, Absolute Poker, for the last 2 months or so in the high stakes limit and NL games. While this evidence is not 100% conclusive, in my opinion it’s at least 99.9% conclusive. My opinion is based is based both on the evidence presented and the people it came from. There’s an excellent summary of all the evidence here on 2+2:
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I’ve just returned from Vegas, and spent a lot of time in poker rooms. This resulted in some inevitable comparisons on how they were run, and the effect it had on the rooms. So here’s some (admittedly player-centric) advice on how to run a good room.
I believe that the tables a poker room installs have a lot more to do with the room’s success or failure than most people think. Poker tables are definitely not created equal in terms of the comfort they afford the players and dealers. While professional players (and of course the the dealers) are unlikely to quit a game simply because the table is uncomfortable, recreational players will. And if the recreational players stop playing, a game eventually dies. Here are my thoughts on what makes a good and bad table.
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I’ve just returned from Vegas, and spent a lot of time in poker rooms. This resulted in some inevitable comparisons on how they were run, and the effect it had on the rooms. So here’s some (admittedly player-centric) advice on how to run a good room.
For those not familiar, the “board” is the system a poker room uses to keep track of what games are running, assign people to games, maintain waiting lists and seat change lists, and decide if new games should be started. A well run board provides numerous benefits to both players and the room by:
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