Poker should be honest even if the players ain't

I've been a long time fan of poker starting somewhere at the beginning of this century when we had this ring of Scandinavian Stud (Sökö) players getting together once a month (on payday). It was poker at it's friendliest level. With a random entry fee, everybody was allowed to eat and drink for free, and everything that was leftover was in the pot. Winner takes it all, but the winner had to pay the cab to the first pub and buy around for everyone involved in the game. As you can guess, the winner was the one who lost the least amount of money during the night.

Few years later I got into Texas Hold Em, and afterwards I went on to games like Omaha, Courchevel, Eight-game, Seven-deuce, Crazy Pineapple, Lime and all kinds of variants. My favourite is Dealer's choice, where you basically play the form of poker that the dealer (The player on the button) decides.

Today I was reading Irish Poker Boards, and found a link to David Kilmartin's aka Lappin's latest blog post "Poker players are liars". There he starts with the so called "show one, show all"-rule, which means that if a player shows his/her cards to another player, he/she is bound to show the cards to the all players. This rule is commonly mistaken to mean that if you show one card before mocking, you are required to show the other one as well (assuming you are playing Texas Hold Em, and of course you are, because you don't know any other forms outside 5-card draw poker commonly know as the Strip Poker).

He goes on talking about politics, and the life outside of poker. The main thing I noticed is that, even though poker players might occasionally bluff (100% bluff rate in the long term is de facto impossible), we shouldn't assume anything about poker players outside the set of rules. It is game of misleading, and one of the hardest forms of game theories as everyone has to make their decisions without having all the knowledge.

This takes me to an important lesson I once taught to my girlfriend when she was starting out. She registered to Full Tilt Poker, and started playing sit'n'go's (tournament which starts when a preset amount of players have been registered). Then she moved on to more challenging tournaments. We used to play poker at the same time with our own laptops in the same room. Once we were in the same tournament, and ended up in the same table. She was already saying that we should play against other players.

She was basically suggesting that we collude against other players. Which is basically cheating. She showed her hand (pair of kings), and I instantly turned my screen away from her informing my disgust against cheating, and also saw a change to teach an important lesson.

I was bound to act after her in the table and I had a pair of fives. The flop came with Ace, ten and a five. I made a set, but also the whole flop was coloured with spades. She checked, and I bet 1/3 of the pot. She looked at me, and was like what are you doing? I said that I won't tell you. She was probably afraid of the ace, but she also had the king of spades, which would give her the nut flush (the best possible flush). Turn card was a three (diamonds I think, anyways, not spades). She checked and I bet, and she was like "What am I doing? Do you have the ace?". "Guess?", I asked her. I think she thought I was playing some kind of mind game with her, and she was partially right. River card was the lucky three of spades, completing her flush, and giving me the full house. She checked, and I bet a full pot against her. And she was like "You know my cards, why are you betting?". She pondered for a while and decided to call to see the bad news.

She was pissed off. I did explain to her that she gave me all the information, and she should be lucky that I only bet 1/3 of the pot on the flop. There was a longer tutorial against cheating in poker, and so on, but to my knowledge she has never cheated after that. And she does pretty decent on poker tables.

What was the lesson then? Well, as I see, Poker is a game of luck, deception, and skill. Poker is also a game of rules, and we should feel compelled to them at all times. I like to think poker is a gentleman's game even though it is not represented with such class in TV, and even less in the corner tables of pubs. In the long term, I would like to think, every time somebody cheats in Poker, one to-be poker player gets another reason not to get involved, so in the end, all poker players lose.

Preparing for IPO

It seems Poker is alive and kicking in Ireland with several casinos and pubs arranging games. I've been mostly attending games that are handled by Dublin poker nights. Usually it's on thursday at The Bell. Thursday is a good day to go out, because most people get their weekly paycheck on thursday. Today's event is as followed:

"€110 added and double league points tonight by Dublin poker nights tonight @ The Bell Pub Blanchardstown. 8.30 start €40 freezeout plus €3 per player to €3000 DPN league. Complimentray Hot Food on the break. Cash table later. Dealers we play and deal if we cash it carries over to following week. Text or phone rob 0864046570 to book your seat"

 It seems I have already ranked in Poker night's league as 57th. 24 of the players will qualify for 3000 euro tournament and the winner gets an IPO ticket. I think that is bit faraway to reach, but it would be nice to improve my ranking.

Poker nights also arrange monthly deepstack tournament with East coast pub poker tour, and this month's tournament is set to start at 3 pm in Clarion hotel on saturday. Entry is 80 euroes including 15 euro registration fee. If there is any consistency the tournament will end at about 7 am next morning. So it doesn't just take skills to win, it also takes a stamina, which requires a goodnight sleep and a good breakfast.

There will also be a satellite tournament starting at 9 pm. Winners get tickets to annually IPO-tournament, which is said to be the Europe's biggest poker tournament when counting participants. Previous years attendance has been somewhere around 1500 players. That is the big event, which required me to use two of my holidays. I must post something about that event as it will be my biggest tournament ever.

According to Irish Poker Boards the deepstack event has already 70 pre-registered players. Promoters are expecting 150 players. Last month's attendance was more than 200. 220 if I remember correctly.

"1. Who is running the event. Dublin poker nights and East coast pub poker tour.
2. The purpose of the event. Commercial.
3. Date. 6th of October 2012.
4. Location. The Clarion Hotel, Dublin Airport.
5. Any guaranteed prize pool. €3000.
6. Registration and start time of event. 1.30pm game starts at 3pm.
7. Any prerequisites. None.
8. How can tickets be purched and is there a maxium number. On the Day.
9. Type of Tournament. NLH Freeze-out.
10. Cost of entry. €80.
11. How much of reg fee is made of registration fee. €15.
12. If a rebuy, cost of rebuy/top-up. N/a.
13. How many and what duration are rebuys available. N/a.
14. % of entry fee/rebuys/top-up going into prize fund. 100%.
15. How many places been paid. 10% of the feild.
16. Is any money from the prize pool held back for future tournaments. None.
17. Any tickets for future events given out as prizes. None.
18. Any additional prizes given out. None.
19. Starting chips. 25,000.
20. Re-buy and top up amounts. N/a.
21. Blind Levels.
25-50
50-100
75-150
100-200
150-300
150-300 ante 25
200-400 ante 50
300-600 ante 75
400-800 ante 75
500-1000 ante 100
600-1200 ante 200
800-1600 ante 200
1000-2000 ante 200
1500-3000 ante 300
2000-4000 ante 400
2500-5000 ante 500
3000-6000 ante 1000
4000-8000 ante 1000
5000-10,000 ante 1000
6000-12,000 ante 2000
8000-16,000 ante 2000
10,000-20,000 ante 2000
12,000-24,000 ante 2000
15,000-30,000 ante 3000
20,000-40,000 ante 4000
25,000-50.000 ante 5000

22. Blind time frames. 30 minutes.
23. Are there going to be dealers. Yes high skill.
24. Will there be a documented list of rules. Yes.
25. Is there a tournament director. Yes.
26. How are disputes handled. Tournament director has final say.
27. Are there cash tables on offer. Yes 5% capped at €15."