Archive for Lucky Charm’s Table

To all you No-Limit Texas Holdem fans, there’s a great show you should be watching on GSN at 9pm on Monday nights. Now in its third season from Las Vegas, there’s a show called High Stakes Poker.

Some of the greatest poker players in the world compete against each other in a cash game, every one who competes puts up a 100,000 dollars of their own money. What makes the show so interesting is they’re not playing tournament style poker, but this is also strictly a cash game. Pots can go up to hundreds of thousands of dollars at any given time.

All your favorite players are involved.  Just to name a few:   there’s Daniel Negranu, the godfather of poker Doyle Brunson, Allan Gold, and many more.

Good luck! And I hope to see you at the tables 

Lucky Charm

Hey!

I hope everybody is winning a lot of money. I just came back from Atlantic City. I would like to share my experiences at the casinos, I stood at the Taj Mahal, they just finished renovating a new area for Paigow poker – not my game but people seem to love it.

The Taj is also trying to keep up with the Showboat, who has the whole House of Blues thing going on, with a live DJ on Saturday nights and adding different groups headlining on the weekends they did an excellent job appealing to a younger crowd. To find out what performers are performing in AC and Vegas pick up a copy of Casino Player magazine those back pages are golden.  The Taj renovated an area and put in a new bar.  It’s no Showboat but they did a good job with the big screen TV’s and the decor is nice.  It’s located right behind all the table games.

People, I’m sorry I have to do this, but this is what we do here at CasinoandSportschat.com – we Inform you not only from where to play and where to stay, but what eating establishments to stay away from, Please, Please, stay away from the Bombay Cafe at the Taj.  The food is absolutely horrible, the Donald should be ashamed of himself  for associating his name with that food. I would not feed there breakfast to my Dog!

As far as the Gambling thing goes myself and Pops held our own. We played Craps, Blackjack, Let it Ride, we fooled around with the slot machines and the video poker machines.  we came back from this trip up $450 dollars.  On the first day I got destroyed with craps, and we DO practice dice control, which I will get into at another time. I lost my whole spending limit.  That’s right, people, you will never have any kind of success gambling unless you have a set spending limit in your head and in your pocket.  DO NOT GO OVER YOUR SPENDING LIMIT! If its $100 dollars a day or $5000 dollars a day, PLAY SMART.

The second day we got even and then some at the Blackjack tables, and yes card counting DOES work. But most times a basic strategy card will do just fine.  It cuts the casino edge almost in half.  Let it Ride is fun, but we were just wasting our money. I will keep trying to get that Royal Flush – the bonus bet on Let it Ride is a suckers bet.  I will be listing all the sucker bets that the casinos have to offer – so stay tuned.

If you lose out on the Royal Flush Bonus of $ 25,000 dollars you will jump off a bridge. You do what you want, but I break my own rule on this suckers bet and I cough up the dollar for the bonus bet.

Just a quick comment on the new Wheel of Fortune game the casinos are offering…

I found it at Resorts, The Taj and the Showboat, and I’m sure its linked to the rest of the casinos in AC.  There’s a replica of a giant wheel of fortune wheel that’s about 10ft wide.  There are double benches that are seated around the wheel and people are actually cheering in the casinos as this giant wheel spins. All connected to the video slot terminal in front of you.  By the way it is a nickel slot terminal, progression.  The current jackpot was over 1.6 million dollars – thats alot of money

That’s it for today. Good Luck, and I hope to see you at the tables.

Lucky Charm

I don’t know about you guys, but I am sick and tired of Bill Bellecheck and the New England Patriots making it deep into the playoffs and to the Super bowl. You have to give them credit, they find away to keep it close until the forth quarter and then they rip your heart out. Like they did to the AFC team I picked to go to the Super bowl, the Chargers.

Well I still have my NFC team left, go Saints, Guys you know I’m a Jet fan and I love that we have Mangini as A coach, but Belleheck is the best coach in the NFL,  period. Believe me it kills me to say it, and I will be rooting for the Colts this weekend, but nobody prepares a team to play a game like Bellecheck.

Let me know who you think the best coach is in the NFL today.

See you at the tables…

Lucky Charm

Lets talk about what a tell is in poker terms. Tells are little things that poker players do that gives away the strength of their hand. Things like a nervous twitch of your hand or a tapping of your foot, or let’s say you start humming when your hand is strong or you start rubbing your hand on your face when it’s weak. This is the type of reaction the experienced or even pro poker players look for in their opponents. A little tip to remember, usually when your opponent acts like he has a strong hand its usually weak, and when he acts meek he usually has a monster hand. This is what I have noticed against people who haven’t been playing poker too long.

Always remember, play at one speed – not too fast, but not too slow. Even if you know what your decision is going to be, if you’re going to fold or bet, let your opponent sweat a little bit.  This may payoff during the game. Wearing Sunglasses is a good idea during a game of poker – you can see into a man’s soul through his eyes. (sorry I got carried away
Sometimes a new players eyes will open really wide when he has a good hand.

These are the types of tells the experienced players look for, so remember to just play calm, try not to show much emotion if you have a good hand OR a shitty one.

And I hope to see you at the tables 

Lucky Charm

No limit Texas Holdem is a great game that has gained great notoriety since 2003.  Thanks to a guy named Chris Moneymaker (no joke!) who won the World Series of poker, the game has sky rocketed to new heights.  By the way, the cost to enter a World Series event is $10,000 dollars. It cost Moneymaker $25.00 dollars – he entered a satellite poker game on a poker web site and won a 10,000 dollar seat.

Now, that’s a great story.

There were approximately 800 people entered in the world series of poker in 2003.  The total for people entered in 2006 was over 8000 people – some jump in attendance, right?  And the winners of the World Series of poker – Greg Raymer in 2004,  Joseph Hachem  in 2005 and Allan Gold in 2006, all won their seats from poker web sites. As a matter of fact, half the people entered in 2006 World Series of poker came from satellite tournaments won on line -  that’s over 4000 people.

Unfortunately, I’m expecting a drop in attendance in ’07 to the World Series event, and that’s because President Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 which prohibits people from the U.S. to gamble online.  If the banks get caught dealing with these gambling sites they will be fined and possibly face jail time. Listen, I’m sure people will come up with ingenious ways to still be able to play poker online  and win seats to all these World series events.

By the way, you can still play poker online, you just can’t play for money. Listen – tax it, regulate it,  police it -whatever.  But don’t ban it!  People are doing far worse things in this world than playing poker.

We’ll see what happens, in the mean time I hope to see you at the tables.

I know a way you can cut the casino’s edge almost in half at Blackjack…

That’s right – you’ll have almost a 50-50 chance at taking it to the casinos, and its called basic strategy.  A simple strategy card that you can purchase in most casino gift shops;  this card will teach you when to stand, hit, double down, or even surrender.  And the beauty part of this whole deal is you can use the card right at the Blackjack tables without any objection from the dealer or pit boss.

And you know why they won’t object?  Because the house or casino will still have less then a percentage point advantage over you. Remember I said almost 50-50, but its better then the one or two percent advantage the casino normally have if you play the game like a wild person.

Hey if you really want that one percent edge to swing your way its called card counting and it does work.

Well, I hope to see you at the tables.

Lucky Charm

Texas Holdem poker is without a doubt the most popular type of poker played online today. In fact, it is also the most popular form of poker played off-line as well! One of the things that makes Texas Holdem so popular is that anyone can play it, and you can play it almost anywhere – even from the comfort of your own home with friends and family. Nowadays places like Partypoker.net, Bodog.net, and Pokerstars.net offer free poker practice, and consequently the popularity of Texas Holdem has exploded. These websites allow you to download free software so that you can practice against other players online.

Rules of the game: Texas Holdem can be played with a minimum of two players and a maximum of 10. The object of the game in Texas Holdem is for each player to try to make the best possible five card poker hand, using the rules for standard poker hand rankings. For example, a royal flush is the highest hand you can get and a single high card is the lowest and you can get. The game is played with a single deck of cards. Each player is dealt two cards which are known as hold or poker cards. Once the players are dealt the cards the dealer places five cards face up in the middle of the table. These cards are known as the community cards and can be used by each player to create their five card hand. Each game, or round, has four stages called pre-flop, flop, turn, and the river. Players place their bets before and after each round. After each round, the winner of that hand receives the full pot of money that was wagered before the hand.

Here we’ll go into a little bit of detail on each stage of the game:

Pre-flop: Before the cards are dealt the two players to the left of the dealer post a blind bet, and once these bets are placed each player to table is dealt there to “pocket” cards. Once the pocket cards are dealt each player at the table is given the opportunity to either place their bets or fold.

Flop: In this stage the dealer places three community cards face up in the center of the table. These cards can be used by every player at the table to make the best hand possible. Once each player has the opportunity to see these three cards, betting proceeds clockwise around the table, and again each player is given the opportunity to either get or fold.

Turn: Now the dealer places a fourth community card face up in the center of the table. Once again, the community card can be used by each player to help make the best hand possible. Each of the remaining players gets a chance to bet or fold, depending on how good their hand is.

River: This is the last round. The dealer places one last community card face up in the middle of the table, and each active player can use the two cards they were dealt in addition to any three of the five cards in the middle of the table to make the best possible five card hand. After the River, there is one last round of betting before each remaining player shows their cards, and the winner is determined. Naturally, the winner is decided by the player that holds the best hand.

Conclusion:

Well, there you have it – a brief coverage of the basic rules of Texas Holdem. Of course, this was just a basic review of the rules of Texas Holdem for those who have never played or are just looking for a brief review. And don’t be fooled into thinking that Texas Holdem is just for hardened gamblers, and only for someone looking to gamble online – as mentioned at the beginning of this article you can even play at home if you keep it light and just play for fun with matchsticks, so even a youngster can get in on the fun! Keep an eye out for our Advanced Strategies Page,which will go beyond the basics and show you some of the nuances to the game, to help you decide when to hold and when to fold!

Lucky Charm

Casinos are popular all over the world. However, Las Vegas is considered the center of the casino world. The city, located in the state of Nevada, is the main gambling hub in the United States. Legalized gambling, easy availability of alcoholic beverages and several types of adult entertainment have earned Vegas the nickname “Sin City.”

In 1931, Nevada was the first independent state to legalize several types of gambling. These included slot machines, card games and a variety of games of chance. For a little more than four decades it remained this way, and these rules turned Vegas into a casino haven.

At present, Las Vegas is one of the fastest developing cities in the US and is home to nine of the ten largest hotels in the country. The entire city houses casinos. However, the most modern and extravagant casinos in Las Vegas are situated along the southern tip of Las Vegas Boulevard. This area is popularly known as “The Strip”. They are all easily accessible, since these are all located within a few miles of McCarran International Airport.

Modern casinos are enormous and some contain thousands of slot machines and hundreds of gaming tables. The casino experience is complete with large swimming pools, restaurants, entertainment venues and health spas. Over the past few years, it has been noted that millions of tourist visit Las Vegas just to be part of these casinos. Even if a person loses while playing, the sheer splendor of the casinos will make up for all the losses.

Lucky Charm