Casinos and online gambling sites have one golden rule, thou salt not tolerate an empty table. Empty tables mean no players, mean no money coming in, mean no PROFIT (what? You thought they opened up just for our benefit).

The typical definition of a prop player is someone  who gets paid an hourly rate to start poker games or to keep them  active. Prop players are not Shills. Shills are people who play poker with the Casinos (or online Poker sites) money. Props still play with their own money but they also pick up an hourly wage.

Many Online Poker sites advertise for Prop players, it seems to be a win / win scenario as they websites get tables up and running an should (theoretically) never have a situation where someone wants to sit and play poker but can’t see anyone else at a table so clicks off elsewhere, while the Prop gets paid a bonus for every hour they do something that they were planning on doing anyway. Result!

Poker not being a 9 – 5 job means that a prop can work any hours of the day or night, and depending on the time of day, a prop may work anywhere from one to twenty games. If you start early in a session, you may be requested (by your bosses) to leave your place when there’s a queue for the table. Plus as you can’t play poker on your own (how would you bluff?) sometimes there can be as many as four props in a game early on because customers aren’t there (dragging their feet to the table). In cases like this the Props leave one at a time depending on their position against the blind, so games should end up Prop free when they’re full of “real” players. Playing online, with a lot more tables available bosses won’t expect their props to give up their seats.  Don’t expect to make a great pot of cash if you’re a prop the hourly wage won’t make you rich (even of you play 24-7) but it’s a very useful “bonus” to bulk your bankroll, but the real money is made off of your winnings.

If it’s not for the money, what’s the big advantage of being a prop? Well you get plenty of practice (at a reduced rate) also as you’re a prop and therefore “working” it instils a sense of discipline into your game. You should never get drink when you’re a prop, and as you represent the casino you should be well up on your poker etiquette and the customs of the game.

Playing poker means also meet plenty of characters, unfortunately some of them resent the Prop, they think as you’re an employee you get special treatment (as if) and they seem to forget that the chips you lose are still your chips. Also if you’re a Prop you don’t get to pick your games, if your boss calls on you to Play Omaha a when all you want is hold ‘em, I don’t matter ‘cos they’re paying your salary.

Online poker props are usually paid to play in games where the house wants them to play and sometimes get moved from great games to terrible ones, just when they get ripe. The big difference is that casino props are paid by the hour, while online props are paid in a variety of ways, like by the hand or depending on the amount of action at their table. Some online poker cardrooms let you be a “temporary prop” and offer players a bonus to join a specific game for a set number of hands.

If you fancy being a prop (for whatever reason) don’t forget that a job is a job, even when your being payed for playing.

Sit n Gos have a huge amount of strategy involved, which makes it a cool game for intermediately players.  There are many features that you can control to increase your chances of moneying or even winning the tournaments.

A sprint or a marathon?

Sit And Go isn’t all about winning the most dollars, it’s about being the last man standing. There is a difference. Beware the wild “poker joker” who goes all in on the opening hand, more popular on Sit n Gos for some reason. I tend to leave them to it as on  the one hand going all in on two cards insults my intelligence, we’ve all seen AA beaten by a 2 when the centre cards say 3, 4 8 Q & 2. The gods of poker don’t respect these players either.

The golden rule with Sit n Go is to play tight and aggressive, they sometimes can be a short game. You should play tighter especially early on (so play fewer but solider hands). In later positions you can loosen up a little and play more hands. This is because you are last (or later) to act and have the benefit of seeing what the other are doing. Golden rule #2 is learn and trust solid pre-flop hands that’s because (as opposed to ring games) sit and Goes  are more consistent this means it also offers less swings, thrills  and drama than playing Multi Table tournaments, and if that isn’t enough for you, Regular SnG play is a great way to improve your game. Try and restrict your play to premium hands in the early stages, then play more starting hands in later position as the number of players at the table drop. And then bring out the big guns and killer tactical play towards the end of the game.

What a lot of poker players like about Playing in single table tournaments get a lot of bang for your buck, you pay in and get a stack of chips (but all you can really lose is your original stake) so even if you’re up $10,000 (in chips) at one point you might only ever be losing $50.

Also Sit and go can be a very profitable game, if there’s say nine to a table you can finish in the money if you’re smart enough to last longer than six others (although rules vary). And importantly S&Gs have a pre-defined risk (ie. you only stand to lose the buy-in). Sit and Go poker tournaments tend to run for about an hour (they up the blind either whenever a player is eliminated or after a qualified amount of time) but, (As with all games of poker) patience isn’t just a virtue but an essential aspect. Other games require patience too, but with Sit and Go once you’re out … your out.

The worst of those night I’d been playing smart, I’d made plenty of beautifully timed bets, used the right cards (at the right times), slipped in a tidy check-raise or two and even a couple of sneaky bluffs just to keep the fun ticking along. My stack of chips is high the field is thinning the clock says it’s late and maybe the calendar says it’s already tomorrow, but I own this table and I can read these cards. Around this time my mind would drift to spending my winnings or maybe if I should bet the pot once or twice, shake these guys up a little.

Less than an hour later I’m out. What just happened?

I didn’t know and yet I should have known cos I was right there when it was happening, but I can’t remember just when the tide turned, sure I can remember the couple of daft moves and those two bad beats, but I was chipped-up and rolling. Those things shouldn’t have upset the flow. And it wasn’t them that cost me, it’s a usual thing three or four hours into the online poker tournament, (with the big last win in my grasp) it was all me.

When it happens to you (and it will) try and remember the hand when things went bad, if you can’t remember it EXACTLY how it happened then you lost focus. You want proof? You’d remember it if you hadn’t lost focus, that’s your proof. If you can remember it might play out something like this: it’s a cheap and easy flop, nothing to get excited about, maybe you’re thinking of fixing grabbing a bite to eat or a swift refreshing drink once  you’ve won this hand, and to make it a little saucy a couple of other guys stick around and add to the pot, that’s no problem, (maybe a sandwich, or a coffee) the turn makes no real difference to anything and we’re in (mm a steak sandwich perhaps, with that nice mustard, I’m not a Blind on the next hand so what the hell I’ll either fold…but if I get the nuts I might bet the limit) and there’s the river, yeah I’m in (yeah a bit hungry) and sure re-raise, and feeling bit tired too – I wonder how long  till I win this thing, and what….? I just lost…on a stupid hand! What a mug! How did I get so far in this game playing like this rube.

The answer is I didn’t. The mistake I just made wasn’t the sport of stupid play I was making three hours ago when I sat down to play poker. I’ll start by blaming fatigue, I’ll blame the stack of chips for spoiling me, but whatever (or whoever) I might blame it all boils down to focus, or rather the lack thereof. Even if you don’t “accidently” go all in a bad beat when your brain is wandering, it often leads to panic betting and chip haemorrhaging.

Stay focussed, you’re responsible for your own chips and your own money, good cards aren’t a god given right, and you have to work at getting lucky. The simple fact is that the longer you can stay in (by keeping focused and concentrating) the better chance of you hitting the sweet spot. A great hand can pop up at any time, respect the gods of poker by paying attention to the game and they will reward your concentration.

Randy Couture

Randy Couture, the Ultimate Fighting (UFC) Legend and poker ambassador, is hosting a Charity Poker Run by motorcycle to raise money and awareness  for the veterans of America’s armed forces.

In aid of his own Xtreme Couture GI Foundation, the fighter will lead the “Motorcycle Charity Poker Run” on Saturday, 7th May and has sent out an open invitation to riders to meet up at O School Choppers in Las Vegas to then ride alongside him and several other celebrities.

Jason Statham and Mickey Rourke are amongst the celebrities who are rumoured to attend, as well as actor Kevin James, NFL reporter Jay Glazer and magician Chris Angel. As at his other charity events, Couture is expected is to invite numerous UFC and Mix Martial Arts (MMA) stars.

The Charity Poker Run will involve the participants riding to different checkpoints where they will draw a card at each. The riders must attempt to make the best five-card poker hand they can in order to win. The prize pool will include cash, signed memorabilia, Xtreme Couture clothing and and Affliction leather Jacket, amongst other goodies.

Xtreme Couture GI Foundation was founded by Couture to honor for the veterans of America’s armed forces. The foundation was especially formed to raise money and awareness for those wounded in action and their families. To date, more than 24,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in the war against terrorism, which doesn’t include the many more suffering the mental effects. Many of the injuries are traumatic amputations, gunshot wounds, burns and blast injuries that will retire these brave men and woman from the armed forces. Even though some of these men and woman are severely injured, they have the courage, strength and determination to win this battle.Foundation’s aims to help these vets fulfil any of their unmet needs as they return back to civilian life.

Poker Riders can sign up for the event on the day (May 7) at the start point, O School Choppers, Las Vegas. Registration starts at 9 a.m. that morning, will costs $25 per rider and $10 per passenger.

Zynga Poker

The largest poker site in the world is not PokerStars or Full Tilt but Facebook-based Zynga Poker that has 38 million registered users; 500 of them bought tickets to bring their play money skills to the real world in Las Vegas last week.

The inaugural Zynga PokerCon was held at the Palms Casino from the 18th to 19th of March and was the company’s first foray into organizing tournaments offline and could be the start of a major trend. Considering that 7.6 million players participate in Zynga-based action every day, the opportunities are endless for a global brand that is based on the ease and visit-length statistics that users give to Facebook applications.

Lo Toney, Zynga Poker’s general manager commented: “So many fans are so passionate about Zynga Poker and we wanted to reward them and give something back to their community … [It's a way to] have our fans meet and interact with us; interact with each other. A lot of our fans are serious poker players, but for a lot of people, this is new.” UK-based 3-D poker site, PKR.com, has also created a series of events of this type, proving Toney pretty much wrong in this respect.

PokerCon featured a tournament with $125 buy-in tickets online and a $100,000 prize pool. The price of the tickets included a poker clinic led by Annie Duke, a party with pros Mike Sexton and David Williams and a star-studded party.

“Our first focus is to provide the best experience as we have the largest audience,” remarked Toney. “Give back to the fans, get feedback and … incorporate their feedback into the game. [PokerCon is a] great way for Zynga Poker to reach out and embrace the poker community. Many people who have played against each other [online] haven’t had the opportunity to meet. This will be an opportunity for them to meet in person at [the tables] and some of our exclusive parties.”

Zynga offered satellites online for PokerCon and most of the winners got free entry into the event with one lucky champion earning a spot that meant he flew past the early action and sat right down at the final table. .

“We created an environment that is very welcoming, not intimidating, fun and social,” said Toney. “We have a lot of people playing who don’t have to feel that they need to know that much about poker. All the other sites are intimidating. … It’s really important for us that we keep our games social and fun. That’s what keeps people coming back. That’s retention, the ability to retain our users and come back to the game.”

Aaron Alawen from Phoenix won the event and waltzed home with the $15,000 first prize after negotiating a pact with four other final table players.

Viktor Blom

It took Viktor “Isildur1” Blom less than four hours and only 1,500 hands to relieve Daniel “KidPoker” Negreanu of $150,000 in the latest SuperStar Showdown.

The online, over-hyped challenge that was the meeting of the old and the new of world poker, the face-off between Blom and Negreanu that took place last Sunday night, was not the epic battle most expected, or hoped, it would be.

The series of Showdowns that are organized online by these two players’ sponsor, PokerStars, usually consists of a heads-up match consisting of a single session of 2,500 hands that is played across four tables of No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha with high stakes – at stakes no lower than $50/$100. The winner is the player that shows either a profit after 2,500 hands, or wins all of their opponent’s match bankroll. The Blom-Negreanu affair is to be played across two occasions, presumably for maximum exposure for the ‘site.

Blom only needed 1,500 hands to walk away with Negreanu’s $150,000 in the first session and never really let the old guard warrior get any headway in the match. The Swede dominated the confrontation, taking no prisoners with a number of huge hands and an even larger number of “sick” (in his words) hands that ran all the way to the river or threw him help on the turn. All who witnessed it, including Blom himself, had to admit that Negreanu ran a very bad line during the match.

The bad news for Daniel Negreanu is that he has agreed to return to the same spot this coming Sunday in the second and final round of this special face-off between the two high-stakes pros. The 1,439 hands the first sit-down took made up the shortest of these Showdowns to date. Blom lost the first to Isaac Haxton but then defeated Tony G, Daniel Cates and Eugene Katchalov before accepting Negreanu’s challenge.

Negreanu practised extensively his multi-tabling skills against some of these former Blom oppenents but his online training didn’t count for much.

Forget the big scores they’ll come along on time but if you want to be there for when they arrive you have to play the long game, and that means obey the three Ds Discipline, Discipline and Discipline. Don’t fret and don’t worry about fancy plays, just start with solid sensible poker and take advantage of the cards you’re dealt.
Discipline #1 don’t play every hand, obvious enough but as an example don’t play every hand you get just cos it’s got an Ace in it. Single aces with small kickers will often leave you chasing leprechauns, by that I mean going after something that doesn’t exist. Play like a grown up, this IS NOT high school you are not after some king of cool nickname; you are here to play cards. If you have a strong hand played it in a straightforward manner with raises and re-raises, don’t bother with tricky play, slow-playing or cheap theatrics. Leave this to the final tables.

Remember you need a reason to call, as in “is your hand good enough” – but a great early tip is if our hand is good enough to call, ask yourself is it good enough to raise. Either your hand is tough enough for a raise or it is not played at all. This discipline very swiftly separates the men from the boys.

Grow balls early (this is similar to the aggressive tip above), make continuation bets. By that I mean raised pre-flop, it scares off those players trawling for good hands and protects any bluffs you’ll make later. Learn to bounce back, and by that I certainly don’t mean fly all in on the very next hand. It’s true that tha takes heart but show me a cardsman who was nothing but heart and I’ll show you a man waiting for a beating. Be sensible, after you’ve lost a big pot wait for something with showdown value, something worth playing. Best piece of advice I ever heard was when a man said to me, “Going all in after a bad beat, you might as well be throwing in a towel. Those players are looking for an excuse to be beat”. Look a little harder for your excuse; make your beating work a little harder.

Come back soon for more tips from Grandpa.

The Internet gaming bill, that would allow residents and non-residents to play online poker, has been presented by Assembly Majority Whip William Horne, D-Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Review reports that this action was performed at the request of former Speaker Richard Perkins who was hired by PokerStars to lobby for the company.

The recent approval, by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, of the partnership between Caesars Entertainment and online giant 888 Holdings, is more evidence that local opinion, as well as federal leanings, may be focusing on eliminating online gambling prohibition.

The bill in question outlines strong criteria in relation to age, fraud, cheating and the license and fee-structure for operators.

Legislation of this type in Nevada would provide a benchmark for the sector due to Las Vegas’s reputation a world leader in the gambling industry. It would potentially permit players in other states to play on Nevada-based sites and this in turn who incur a further fee structure for operators: namely: “the licensee shall pay the license fee based on gross revenue at the rate of 4 percent on the gross revenue resulting from the play of players located in such other jurisdictions.” Nevada Gaming Commission has the power to adopt regulations in amendment to the provisions of the act, on or before 31 December, 2011.

It is believed that the legislation is aimed to aid Nevada casinos after losing a record $3.4 billion last year.

John Racener

John Racener, the runner-up in last year’s WSOP Main Event, has revealed more details and also retracted some of the more personal aspects of an alleged cheating scandal that surrounds Sorel Mizzi in a telephone interview released  by Marco Valerio of QuadJacks.com.

The incident first came to light after PokerStars Caribbean Adventure held last January. Racener gave permission to Shaun Deeb, seemingly a one-man sounding board for scandals on forum central, TwoPlusTwo.com, to publish the story of the incident back then in January.

A poker challenge between Racener and Mizzi during their stay in the Bahamas provides the background for the tale and is best-described by Deeb’s forum post version of Racener’s primary material: “Sorel and John during PCA were doing lots of gambling towards the end of the trip Sorel says let’s play Chinese and says we should also play with a joker. They also did some weird scoring when whoever won most pts/hands every 10 hands the winner gets $5k, Sorel had tried to bump up the stakes a few times as well to might higher. So, they are rotating the deal and the dealer gets the 14th card in 1 of their hands.”

The post continued, “Racener has played a ton of live poker, so he tends to know procedure and what to look for. He notices Sorel’s shuffling is leaving the 2 bottom cards in place they haven’t moved from the deck. As he starts to deal, he notices the first card he deals himself is the bottom card of the deck. He keeps watching Sorel and once he’s done dealing, John says he’s going take the hand with 14 cards in it Sorel goes into a tantrum saying it’s his hand his deal. … John says I know what you were doing picks up the 14 card pile and shows the bottom card, which is the joker. He tells Sorel he’s not paying him whatever amount he’s down $5-$20k and that he’s a scumbag etc.”

Mizzi, a player with a reputation oft-blighted by cheating scandals, later responded to the thread and negated his perceived role as cheater. Further mud had been slung in the aftermath as Racener is alleged to have claimed that Mizzi had initially blamed the incident on the effects of prescription drugs he had been taking after a death in the family. Racener has more recently played down this aspect of the “debate” but has revealed details of other occasions on which he believes Mizzi had played unfairly or looked for an exaggerated advantage.

“Since this episode, (Mizzi) cryingly begged me over phone calls and text messaging not to say anything… I just had no interest in hiding this. For him to continue doing it to other people is just unfair.” Wrote Racener.

The new approach to online poker gives users the chance to play against the pros at arranged times and “places”. PPN gives its users the opportunity to select one pro as your home poker room from from 35 different professionals. That pro will then be your link to invitations to private games and special events. Joining the the PPN main site also gives you access to all 35 pros.

Six-time World Series Of Poker (WSOP) bracelet-winner, T.J. Cloutier, a member of the Poker Hall of Fame is PPN’s most famous contracted professional. Ha has career earnings of over $4 million. PPN’s other professionals include Jennifer Leigh, James Worth, Charlie Marchese, Josh Brikis, Michael Schuerpf, Vincent “Diamond8” Gabel, Kevin “Civell” Vandermissen, Jonathan Tamayo, actress Jennifer Elise Cox, Matias Gabrenja, Young Phan, Chris “Fox” Wallace, Jena Delk, and WSOP bracelet-winner Chris Reslock.

At the time of writing, Argentine Matias Gabrenja was the online pro. Gabrenja has lifetime winnings of $419,027.47 that include one title: the $10,300 NL Hold’em High Roller $2M guaranteed event of the WCOOP-10 in 2009.
“We are proud to team with Cake Poker Network, a proven world class organization, to bring this unique PPN experience to the poker world. We have currently signed top online pro players, as well as brick-and-mortar pros, to play at the PPN. The allure of playing against the world’s best online poker players has already been proven. At PPN, we make it easy to interact with the PPN pro players of your choice on your schedule and within your budget.” Commented Chuck Kidd, CEO of Poker Pros Network, in a press release,

PPN has reached into its feminine side and hired Women in Poker Hall of Fame members Barbara Enright and Marsha Waggoner. Enright and Waggoner were inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of fame in 2008 – the inaugural year for the ladies’ version of the institution,

Since losing the business brought in by Doyle Brunson’s onlie poker room, Doyle’s Room, the Cake Network is anxious to push this new point of sale. “We are very excited to have the Poker Pros Network and their pros join the Cake Network. They are a great partner for us, as they bring a strong brand and continue to expand our growing network of professional online poker players who strive for online poker excellence.”  Gushed the press release quote in the name of Cake’s Marketing Director, Andrew Turner.