Posts Tagged ‘online poker’

As “The Poker Philosopher”, and in honor of one of my favorite non-poker blogs, I occasionally consider the ethical dimensions of a high-profile controversy in the poker community. In this edition, I address a long-standing controversy in the online poker world, in response to a question about Heads-Up Displays (HUD’s) posed in a recent comment. Older editions of The Poker Ethicist are available in the archives.

In response to a recent post I made about using a HUD, commenter “Elmer Fudd” asked,

“I would like you to comment on the ethics of using a HUD in the first place. It most certainly gives you an edge over players that don’t use such software and provides you with stats that you couldn’t readily obtain during a live game. I guess I’m an old-fashioned poker purist, but anything that gives you a slight edge over other players is cheating. “

I would say anything that gives you an unfair edge is cheating. Sleeping and eating better than my opponents gives me an edge. Reading more books than they do gives me an edge. Using a second monitor gives me an edge over opponents attempting to multi-table on a single monitor. Yet none of these is unfair, because my opponents have equal opportunity to take advantage of them.  Read the complete post...

A few weeks ago, I hinted at a big announcement. It got delayed by a few weeks, but today I am proud to announce that I will be a member of Poker Stars Team Online this year.

I can honestly say that it an honor to represent Poker Stars. Not only do they offer the best games and the best customer service of any site I’ve ever played on, but they are by far the most trustworthy and upstanding. To the Poker Ethicist, that stuff is important.

When I see Poker Stars reps soliciting players’ opinions on poker forums or talking about recent game changes on the Two Plus Two Pokercast, I am always impressed by the level of thoughtfulness that goes into their decisions. Even when there are changes that don’t benefit me personally, it is reassuring to see that they are not made arbitrarily. There are people who understand poker and look out for the interests of all of their players, not just those who play high stakes or high volume, calling the shots, and the result is the best online poker site on the internet.

So if you see me at the tables (soon to be sporting a headshot of yours truly as my avatar), be sure to say hi- I’m now contractually obligated to talk to you!

This Op-Ed by Michelle Minton in today’s Washington Times is probably the single most favorable piece to online poker that I’ve seen in any mainstream media outlet ever. After profiling a few very sympathetic professional or semi-professional online players, she concludes,

Limiting online poker or banning it altogether will not stop the problem gamblers, who will continue to find ways to gamble – legally or illegally. But it will hurt the honest professionals who rely on their poker earnings to supplement their incomes. It is time for Congress to reverse the damage done by UIGEA and fully legalize online poker. More important, it is high time that lawmakers respect and protect individuals’ right to spend their time, money and careers as they choose.

Minton also does a nice job of providing an argument for poker-as-skill-game that ought to be clear and compelling to a general audience:

A 2009 study by Cigital, a leading software-security consulting firm, analyzed 103 million cash-game hands from an online card room and found that the best cards won just 12.5 percent of the time. That means the other 87.5 percent of the time, a better card player got players holding better cards to fold. This clearly demonstrates that the “luck of the draw” has little to do with a player’s ability to win.  Read the complete post...

The Harrington on Hold ‘Em series introduced important but largely unknown concepts to a wide audience and fundamentally changed the way tournament poker was played. The Harrington on Cash Games series may have helped some people get started in no-limit hold ‘em (NLHE) cash games, but it fell far short of the bar set by its predecessor. In particular, many online cash game players felt that the book didn’t speak to the aggressive, short-handed games in which they play.

When 2+2 Publishing announced Harrington on Online Cash Games (HOCG), a book meant to address specifically 6-handed online NLHE games, there was understandable skepticism. Harrington’s refusal to disclose the screenames under which he plays, and thus his results in online cash games, led some to question whether he was even qualified to write such a book.

Personally, I can understand the desire to see his results, but I believe that a good book is a good book. If his arguments, reasoning, and math are sound, then his results are not terribly important.

That said, it would be hard to come away from HOCG convinced that authors Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie are inexperienced at online play. Their book is an excellent introduction to the games, covering not only strategy but also important aspects of the online game such as site selection, rakeback, and using Heads-Up Display (HUD).  Read the complete post...

I was telling my girlfriend about the latest online poker gossip/scandal involving an alleged chatlog in which Thorladen and Imperium discuss multi-accounting with the help of services like GoToMyPC that allow you to access other computers remotely from a different computer anywhere in the world. The basic idea, and something that has surely happened dozens of times whether these two actually did it or not, is for a very good tournament player to stake several decent but less-good tournament players in super-profitable online events like the WCOOP or the FTOPS. Should one of the horses start to get deep in the tournament, the better player can take over for the decisions that will have the biggest impact on the team’s EV.

“They’re like poker fluffers,” she quipped without missing a beat. “They get it started, and then the pro comes in to finish it off. You’d have to be a pretty big tool to agree to something like that, not just ethically but like… as a matter of personal respect.”

I agree, though I’m sure plenty of people care a lot more about getting backed for these tournaments by any means necessary, not to mention getting to take credit for the win on sites like Pocket 5′s, than they do about stuff like ethics and personal respect. Anyway, I think “Poker Fluffers” is a brilliant names for these clowns, and I encourage you all to do your part to make it stick!

I recently made another appearance on Cardplayer’s “Run It Twice” feature, discussing a hand that regular blog readers will recognize:

“I just don’t think he’s telling a consistent story on the turn and the river. On the river, now, all of a sudden he wants me to believe that he does have a monster hand and he wants to put all of the money in, so much so that he’s willing to bet more than the pot. So, on the river, all of a sudden he’s saying, “I want to play a huge pot,” and that’s not at all what he was saying on the turn.”

It’s just a transcript of a phone conversation, so it reads kinda rambly, but other than that I think I came out pretty well.

Small Stakes No-Limit Hold ‘em
by Ed Miller, Sunny Mehta, and Matt Flynn

Professional No Limit Hold ‘Em, Volume 1 (PNLHE) is one of my all-time favorite poker books and the one that I recommend to anyone looking to get started to the game. I eagerly awaited the publication of Volume 2, which was rumored to deal with short-handed games and more advanced concepts, and mourned its loss when its authors parted ways with Two Plus Two Publishing.

Ed Miller, Sunny Mehta, and Matt Flynn ultimately self-published the book now known as Small Stakes No-Limit Hold ‘Em (SSNL), and it’s even better than I’d hoped.

Read the full review including my “Two-Minute Recommendation” in the Book Reviews Section of the site.

Read the full review

One of my students asked me about this hand today, and I thought it was pretty interesting. My first instinct was that the check-raise was thin but good. Q8 is pretty much the top of Hero’s range here, and this looks like such a weird line that I doubt Villain folds anything he was betting for value.

The question, then, is how many worse hands Villain plays like this for value. After discussing the hand for a while, we decided there actually weren’t many. AT+ mostly 3-bets pre-flop, 98 and 68 probably aren’t betting the turn, 96 needs to be discounted for lack of a flop raise, and does A7 go for two streets of value? I think it ought to, but most players probably chicken out and check the river or bet smaller.

So I think this is a shove against really good value betters but a call against pretty much any 2/4 player.

No-Limit Hold’em, $4.00 BB (4 handed) – Hold’em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($620.90)
Hero (SB) ($458.70)
BB ($440)
UTG ($359)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, 8
2 folds, Hero bets $10, BB calls $8

Flop: ($24) 9, A, 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $16, BB calls $16

Turn: ($56) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $40, Hero calls $40  Read the complete post...