At first he was sued for half his winnings and now he is accused of colluding. The Jamie Gold soap opera continues. The winner of the World Series of Poker main event is supposed to be an ambassador of poker, doing the talk shows, traveling the world, and in general showing poker at its best. Well, well in my opinion I can’t see why this has to be the case, I mean most people thought that Monemaker sucked when he became world champion 2003. Why does the WSOP champions have to represent poker, winning a tournament with over 8,000 players is a lottery, let great players like Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and others do it instead.

Ironically it does not look like this years WSOP winner is going to represent poker in a very positive manner, already accused of braking deals and colluding, he is not the same clean cut ambassador as Joseph Hachem or Greg Raymer. And it does not help that most of the poker community seem to think that the guy is a pompous prick.

I don’t know if he was colluding or not, but he has admitted himself, in an interview with Bluff Magazine, that he made agreements with other players at the table that allowed him to tell them how to act. So either he is telling the truth - then he is a cheat or he is lying, which means he is just plain stupid. I am sure we will hear more about this mess soon enough and I will definitely keep you posted.

Hi all,
Keep mailing me interesting questions. Here is one from Michel in Austria.

I sometimes find it hard to play overpairs in no limit holdem. Let’s say I have QQ and make a normal bet of about 4 times the big blind and get two callers. The flop is low and I bet about 2/3 of the pot. One player folds, but the other, sitting on the button calls. The turn is another low card, but there are no straights or flushes out. I bet between half and 2/3 of the pot and the button calls. The river is something like an ace. What should I do?
/Jeff
Playing over pairs can be tricky. I find my self in similar situations to the one you describe pretty often. You play your over pair aggressively and someone calls you down and a scare card hits on the river. I would want to have more details in this hand. Were there any busted draws etc? But let’s assume that we have at least a busted flush draw out there. In order to know how to act here we have to put our opponent on some kind of hand. If he is an ok player, there are two kinds of hands I would say are more likely than others. Either he might have a lower over pair or a flush draw with two over cards. If the later is correct the ace might be a very bad card. Most players tend to have the nut flush draw if they chase the flush in a situation like this, and in that case the ace is very bad news. But there are definitely other possible hands that you can beat; worse flush draws, lower over pairs, or even busted straight draws. What I would do here is to make a check-call. It is good for two reasons: you do not risk a re-raise if you are beat and you might induce a bluff. So just check and call any reasonable raise your opponent might make.

Good luck at the tables,
/Mike

I had a virus attack on my mail box recently and unfortunately lost a lot of e-mails. So I want to apologize to all of you that I haven’t been able to get back to. But now the mail is up and running again and I got this one from Tom, which I thought I should share with you all.

“Hi Mike,

I am mostly playing 1-2 and 2-4 No Limit Holdem, and there is one particular move that seem to have become a lot more common online recently – the over bet.  Players that bet considerably more than the pot. My question is, how should I handle over bets from others and when is a good time to use it?

Regards,
Tom”

This is an interesting question. I also see more and more players over bet when I play online. There is no patented way to handle this, and it is off course hard for me to say what you should do in a particular situation. But in general I would say that in order to call an over bet you either need a very strong hand or a really good read on your opponent. What you have to ask yourself when faced with an over bet is: what does my opponent want to achieve with this bet?

Poor players tend to over bet when they are bluffing, because they feel that their bluff is more powerful when they bet a lot.  They might also do it when they have the nuts. But I would say that it is more common that they bluff, because when they have strong hands they are usually scared that the opponents will fold if they bet too much and therefore bet less. So when faced with an over bet from a bad player you have to ask yourself do I believe he has it or not? In order to call an over bet you should be pretty sure that you have the best hand, because your pot odds will usually not be that good. You will risk a lot, but you also have the chance to win a big pot.

If you are up against strong, hyper aggressive players, playing a Doyle Brunson type of poker, I only have one advice to give you: wait until you have a very strong hand before you call. There is no point risking your whole stack with weak hands against players like this. Be patient and get your money in the middle when you have the goods.

The same goes when you are up against a maniac that over bets almost every hand. This is one of my favorite types of opponents. There is no reason to take unnecessary risks against players like this either. Just keep cool, play solid hands, and you will get their money in the end. (You could push more hands against players like this with the chance of winning a lot of money, but remember that your swings will be a lot bigger too.)

When is a good tome to make an over bet? I like to make over bets with strong hands against poor players. This move will lots of time induce a call, because they think your bet is fishy and won’t give you credit for a hand. I also like to over bet the nuts, when the board holds a very strong hand. If there is a full house or a straight on the table and I have a higher straight or a better full house I like to make a substantial bet, pretending I am trying to steal the pot, in the hope that someone will call. The nice thing is that you don’t need to get called nearly every time in order for this bet to be profitable, because when you do you will win a very large pot. I rarely use over bets to bluff, and when I do I usually do it against weak players that I am sure will fold to a substantial bet.

Over bets are hard to handle and it is not easy to say how you should act in a given situation. But as I said, when faced with over bets proceed carefully and usually avoid calling without a strong hand or a very good read of the situation.

The online casino and poker room Golden Palace is always looking for new ways to promote themselves. I mean they have paid a woman to tattoo their logo on her forehead, bought a car belonging to the old pope, and William Shatner’s kidney stones, among many, many other things. Read more about their doings here. The latest publicity stunt involves German b-movie director Uwe Boll.

Boll is constantly slaughtered by the critics when he releases a new movie. But he has decided to get back at his critics by kicking their asses. September 23 Boll enters the ring in Vancouver, facing four of his fiercest critics. He will also fight a Spanish movie critic in Malaga, Spain, but the date is not set yet. Will Boll get back at his antagonists? I will keep you posted.

Well, this years Worlds Series of Poker has finally come to an end. It has been an exciting year with more players attending than ever before. The question is how big can it get? Close to 9,000 players attended the main event and many of the other events were packed.

$12 million, the first price of the big one, is an awful lot of money. The winner doesn’t only get the fame and glory and a considerable amount of money, he gets fantasy “quit your job and never look back” kind of money. And the money seems to be the big issue this year. Jamie Gold, this year’s champion, did not even managed get the cash from Rio before he was sued for half of it.

He is accused of promising half of the price money to Los Angeles television development executive Bruce Crispin Leyser. And Leyser has got a court order that prevents Gold from getting the money before the matter is settled in court. The argument Leyser uses is that Gold is a gambler and that he therefore cannot be trusted with the money, and we all off course know that gamblers are unreliable. But what is the case all about? Well, Leyser claims that he helped Gold to recruit celebrities to wear Bodog clothing during the WSOP and for that they got one seat to the main event. What then happened, according to Leyser, was that they agreed that Gold should take the seat, and the rest is as we say history.

We have to wait and see what happens; the matter will be settled in court in September. But one thing is for sure; when there is big money involved people are prepared to go a long way in order to get their hands on some.

Ok folks, we do not have to wait much longer; soon we all know who is the new World Champion of Poker. Yes, I know, the World Series of Poker main event is huger and ever and the chance of winning it is about as big as getting a ticket to the moon, but it is still the big one that all poker players dream about winning. With close to 9,000 entrants there is no coincidence that most of the well known pros already are eliminated from the contest.

When Umberto Brennes went the same way today there is only one person left in the tourney to hope for them who wants an established pro to win again. This has not happened since Carlos Mortensen won the prestigious title in 2001. In thirteenth place, still in good shape, we have one of my favorite players, Allen Cunningham. For those of you who do not know him I can tell you he already has three WSOP bracelets and have been voted best all-round poker player by his peers.

So maybe Cunningham is our guy, maybe the pros will reign the main event again, a well known name winning the big one will maybe give some flair back to this huge event. Hang in there Allen, you can do it.

I am not a person that is easily impressed, but one person has really been extraordinary in this year’s World Series of Poker. And no, I am not talking about Phil Hellmuth winning his tenth WSOP bracelet, sorry Phil. No I am talking about a kid winning his second bracelet this weekend. Well many players have two bracelets, what’s the fuzz about you wonder.

Let me tell you…Jeff Madsen, he won his first bracelet a little bit more than a week ago, being the youngest player ever to win one, and this Saturday he got his second title! This kid is really something special, he scraped together $9,500 and headed of for Vegas and in two weeks he managed to become a millionaire, winning two events and coming in third in one. I can’t really see how any one can top this and I am sure that we will get to see a lot more of this young California wiz-kid.

World Series of Poker is at full swing with several events already finished. Some of the poker greats are stepping up to the challenge. Phil Hellmuth was close to making history when he had the chance to win his tenth WSOP bracelet in a heads up battle against new comer, 22 year old Jeff Cabanillas. But in the end the youngster won in the end after a hard fight. Cooler than ever David Williams took home the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event, and his first bracelet. And an other well known face, fast talker Sam Farha, won the $5,000 Omaha Eight event. The stars are showing class in it will be really interesting to see how this year’s WSOP will progress. I can hardly wait for the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E event were we will truly find out who got game and who doesn’t.

I want to recommend a great article in the latest issue of CardPlayer. Almost anyone can become a winning player by playing tight and follow my advice here at Top Texas Hold’em, but to become truly great you need to be able to vary your game. Or as Steve Zolotow writes in his great article ‘Should You Be Loose or Tight?’:
“Why should you learn to play loose if you can be a consistent winner by playing tight? Being a successful loose player is much harder than being a successful tight player. You are playing a lot of marginal hands, and thus your poker skills must be a lot stronger. You must squeeze every drop of profit out of your winners, while holding the losses on your frequent losing hands to a minimum.”

Check out this article and start loosing up.

Are you one of those players who base all your decisions at the poker table on mathematical calculations? Well you shouldn’t. Math isn’t as important as one might believe when it comes to poker, or to use the words of “The Mad Genius” – Mike Caro: “In poker, math is meaningless and psychology is paramount. There, I finally said it … and I’m glad. Each time I got close to uttering those words, I lost courage and choked back the sounds. Out came silence, only silence. What made me afraid to speak the truth? Oh, I guess it was mainly a couple poker people to whom mathematics is sacred. If you dare define the real power of psychology in poker or point out the limited role of mathematics in the heat of poker combat, they lash out publicly, insanely, desperately. They hate to hear it.”

Off course you need to know the basic math to become a good poker player, but to become truly great takes a lot of practice and a deep understanding of your opponents.
Read the whole Mike Caro article here