Daily Archives: March 21, 2021

Live poker has been essentially shut down for the last year due to COVID, but casinos in many parts of the world are starting to re-open. Here are three tips that will give you the best chance for success when you return to the live arena.

Take Advantage Of Opponent Mistakes

Whenever poker has a lot of hype surrounding it either because a major tournament series is in town or because everyone is getting to play for the first time in a year, local recreational players flock to the casino to test their luck and hope to turn a little money into a lot. This results in the games being much softer than normal because there are proportionally more recreational players in the field.

You make money when your opponents make mistakes that you adjust to take advantage of. While many players see their opponents making mistakes, they forget to take advantage of them.

For example, suppose you raise with A J from middle position and a loose, passive calling station calls from the big blind. The flop comes J 9 6. Your opponent checks, you bet, and your opponent calls. The turn is the 2. Your opponent checks, you bet, and your opponent calls. The river is the Q. Your opponent checks.

While the Queen is certainly not a great river for you, you should make another small value bet, expecting your calling station opponent to call with worse jacks, nines, and perhaps even some worse made hands. If your opponent raises your river bet, make the disciplined fold unless they are known to check-raise bluff the river.

Embrace Variance

When playing against lots of recreational players, you will see all sorts of interesting plays. Recreational players will frequently make erratic moves. They may even get lucky on you. Instead of being disgruntled when this happens, realize that every time they make a mistake, their equity goes straight into your pocket.

Suppose you raise with A A from middle position and the big blind calls. The flop comes A 7 6. Your opponent checks, you bet, and your opponent calls. The turn is the 2. Your opponent checks, you bet, and your opponent goes all-in. You call with the nuts and your opponent turns up 9 8 for an open-ended straight draw.

Whether you win or lose, your opponent just tried to give their stack to you. When you happen to lose, realize that if the bad players never won, they would quickly quit playing, making the game unprofitable. In exchange for them getting to win from time to time, the game of poker gets to thrive forever.

One helpful way to view bad beats is to consider how the casino feels when someone gets lucky and hits their number on the roulette wheel a few times in a row. When someone gets lucky against the casino, they celebrate them, comp them, and do everything they can to keep them playing/coming back in the future. They certainly do not get annoyed or berate them. The casino realizes that every time someone makes a bet, they are losing little bits of equity.

When someone plays poorly against you, they are losing little bits of equity to you. Sometimes they are going to beat you, but in the long run, if you play better than your opponents, you will win all the money.

Enjoy Yourself

Poker is a game, and games are supposed to be fun. While I fully understand that tensions are high right now, make a point to enjoy yourself. It is always amazing to me how after a few days of losing, most people look completely worn down. They walk the casino like zombies. Instead of being sad and depressed about standard variance, remember the great opportunity that you have to play the awesome game of poker.

If you find that your mind wanders to a dark place when you are on a downswing, do not forget that you came into this world with nothing. If you have the ability to play poker (or read this article) then you are one of the most fortunate humans to ever live. It is all about perspective!

Good luck in your games, and stay safe!

Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT champion with more than $7 million in live tournament earnings, best-selling author of 15 educational poker books, and 2019 GPI Poker Personality of the Year. If you want to increase your poker skills and learn to crush the games, check out his training site at PokerCoaching.com/cardplayer.

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Poker Strategy With Jonathan Little: Three Tips For Crushing Live Poker - Poker News - CardPlayer.com

By Ben Hamill - March 21 2021

A Poker world literally starving for news and entertainment resulting from the big hiatus on every form of live action that was 2020 has resulted in the rise of a strange and peculiar set of circumstances. And among those at the very top of the list ranks something of a Poker pantomime: the heads-up grudge match.

It isn't as if all of that has been in any way devoid of entertainment value, either. Who will forget Andy Beal taking on The Corporation? Or Doug Polk bashing out keyboard threats about having to back up his truck to Daniel Negreanu's backdoor to load up the Canadian's fortune?

The message soon became clear: heads-up grudging was back in vogue.

Read More...Polk Celebrates Grudge Match Win

Much of what's been happening on the heads-up grudge scene originated from a different kind of Poker era one not yet embraced out of need. One such grudge match was Beal taking on The Corporation back in 2001.

The billionaire banker had agreed to play against not only one or two Poker champions of the day, but against an entire collective of Poker masters of the day. The money was in the kitty, the entertainment value lacked absolutely nothing, and it soon became clear that that it was a winning combination and all that was really needed to grab the world's attention.

It would be difficult to beat or even recreate that type of showdown. It was Beal against the likes of Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, Tod Brunson, Jennifer Harmon, and Lyle Berman. And even though Beal would eventually be forced to throw in a $16 million towel, kudos to him for having stuck it out for as long as he did.

Cut to 2020, and it would be Phil Helmuth strutting his stuff in very much the same way as what Beal did way back. Granted, he'd be up against a single contender only, but then again, that contender was Antonio Esfandiari, one of the biggest names in modern Poker.

Plus, it would effectively set the spread for what would have to be the grudge match of all time: Doug Polk vs Daniel Negreanu. 25,000 hands of grudge-style action, live streaming of the proceedings via Twitch and YouTube, and the ultimate finish few would have seen coming, Polk taking the beloved Kid Poker for a rough-and-tumble $1.2 million.

And best of all, especially since we've now all developed an appetite for ultimate grudge Poker, is that Negreanu and Phil Helmuth will be going at it next.

March 31 is D-Day.

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2021 Heralds The Return Of Grudge Poker - Gaming Post

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Wall Street hasnt been this bullish about lithium in years.Investors are betting on a comeback in the metal key to rechargeable batteries as the worlds biggest automakers ratchet up their electric-vehicle lines. Miners once shunned amid supply overhangs have raised almost $3.4 billion in equity offerings in the Americas this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Thats seven times the total amount raised from 2018 to 2020.The change breathes new life into an industry that saw prices of its main product plunge by more than half from a record high reached in 2018. It also highlights a bullish wager thats still available on the EV frenzy as sentiment toward electric-vehicle stocks, which surged last year, sours.Talks with investors and discussions on potential supply agreements with automotive-equipment and battery manufacturers which were only in my dreams a year ago are now filling my calendar, Robert Mintak, chief executive officer of Vancouver-based Standard Lithium Ltd., said by phone.Interest in the industry is resurgent as electric-vehicle targets set by big automakers and a change in the U.S. administration signal that a battery boom is finally gathering momentum. After the punishing three-year sell-off, prices of the soft silvery-white metal have started to rebound, and analysts including those at BloombergNEF expect further gains on rising demand and tight supplies of battery-grade lithium.A lithium price index compiled by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence jumped 32% this year through February, after plunging 59% from mid-2018 to mid-2020. The metal reached an all-time high in May 2018.Bigger PoolThe investor pool is expanded to technology investors and others, said Mintak, as major automakers determination to deploy hundreds of billions of dollars to electrify their fleets gives investors that safety that theres going to be a supply pinch.The majority of the financing has been done by the worlds top two lithium miners -- Albemarle Corp. and SQM, or Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile SA, as its known formally -- as they took advantage of their recent stock surges. Albemarle completed a larger-than-planned equity offering of $1.5 billion in early February, while Santiago-based SQM raised $1.1 billion in January.Junior miners, most of which have yet to produce substantial amount of lithium, are also attracting strong interest from investors. Take the case of Standard Lithium, which opened its first direct lithium extraction plant in El Dorado, Arkansas, in September, with the facility using a new technology that allows for a 90% lithium recovery rate. It raised C$34.53 million ($27.6 million) in an over-subscribed share offering in December. Investor interest was so strong that it had to turn away offers for more, said CEO Mintak.Lithium Americas Corp., which is developing the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada, raised a total of $500 million through two primary share offerings in October and January, respectively.Turning TideThe tide is finally turning, and much faster than I thought, Chris Berry, president of House Mountain Partners, an industry consultant, who said Wall Street hasnt been this bullish on the lithium industry since 2017. You see that with Lithium Americas being able to raise a total of half a billion dollars recently. This is for a pre-revenue company regarding lithium.Sigma Lithium Resources Corp., which is developing a hard-rock lithium project in Brazil, had to upsize its private placement and increase offering price, which says a lot about investor demand for lithium exposure, that asset, and that companys vision, said Berry.Junior lithium miners raised $529 million this year, Bloomberg data showed. Thats about $63 million more than the total amount raised from 2018 to 2020.Ford Motor Co. announced last month that its passenger-vehicle range will be all-electric in Europe by 2030. General Motors Co. plans to sell only zero-emission models by 2035. Volkswagen AG went further, announcing plans this week to build six battery factories in Europe and invest globally in charging stations, as ensuring scaling battery production has become a key in the EV race.Batteries make up about 30% of an electric cars cost. And automakers around the world look to pivot to EVs, with hopes to get batteries at the cheapest price possible but also secure enough supply to meet those ambitions.Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to build back the economy after the devastation of Covid-19 with cleaner energy and a lower carbon footprint. The administration said in late February it would conduct a government review of U.S. supply chains to seek to end the countrys reliance on China and other adversaries for crucial goods.The election of Biden is a very favorable signal to investors as it boosted confidence that the switch to clean energy will accelerate, which along with existing favorable subsidies and regulations in Europe and China bodes well for raw materials needed for that energy transition, said Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar Inc. The U.S. is the second-largest EV market, after China.Andrew Bowering, a director at Vancouver-based American Lithium Corp., called the U.S. review on supply chains huge for the lithium industry as it shows the governments realization that in order to meet clean-energy goals, its important for the U.S. to have a security of supply of raw materials such as lithium.All of a sudden, after three years of downturn, youve got the price of the commodity starting to go up again and a change in the administration in the U.S. thats pushing a green new deal and support big money going into the green automobile industry, said Bowering. That leads investors into the space.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Join the St Patricks Day celebrations at Intertops Poker today - Yahoo Finance

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Disclaimer: PPPoker does not provide any real-money gambling services. The respective tournament promoter solely and exclusively endorses any monetary value indicated in this promotional material. Participation in any tournament is at the players own risk. 18+.

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Become A Player Or Agent Of The Largest Online Poker Club In The World - Poker News - CardPlayer.com

Women in leading roles from Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, G2 Esports, and Dignitas, will square off against each other in a poker tournament organized by Poker Powher and Team Liquid to benefit charity. According to organizers, the event highlights the importance of female representation in esports and professional poker.

The tournament will feature Evil Geniuses CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson, Dignitas VP of Talent Heather SapphiRe Garozzo, Australian Twitch star and Team Liquid member Fasffy, and G2 Esports Head of Talent Britanni Johnson.

Women in positions of capital allocation who are empowered and skilled in making risk-assessment decisions are unfortunately scarcely in business leadership, LaPointe Jameson told The Esports Observer. Poker Powher flips the table by making these skills accessible through a social and competitive game, and is an important initiative to support both through this tournament and in EGs DEI initiatives.

The organizers behind this event, who are almost all women at Team Liquid, began planning it as part of our Womens History Month celebration because we wanted to do more than just recognize women in esports, said Cris Amaya, head of events at Team Liquid. We wanted to find a platform where we could unite women from across the biggest orgs, and showcase their influence on our industry. It was a natural fit for us to partner with Poker Powher, because poker and esports pros face the same challenge: the games we love and work in are often not welcome to us as women. While we cant change that by ourselves, we can start by joining together, supporting one another, and becoming a stronger voice than we have alone.

The two-day tournament will also feature commentary from professional poker veterans Melanie Weisner, Gillian Epp, Xuan Liu, and Alexandra Doc Chauran. An advanced player competition will take place on March 25 at 6 p.m. EST, while a beginners game will take place on March 26 at 1 p.m. EST. Both games will be streamed live on Poker Powhers Twitch channel.

Poker Powher is a company that advocates for teaching women the fundamentals of poker and the games transferable lessons to life and work through a global network of clubs, tournaments, and corporate events for women by women. Participants will be playing for a charity of their choice.

Everyone coming together for the Women in Esports Charity Poker Tournament knows that poker and esports are so much more than games: each hand or match requires critical thinking, determination, and skill, Erin Lydon, Managing Director & GM at Poker Powher tells TEO. At Poker Powher, we are on a mission to not only invite more women to the poker table, but also to educate our students on why this game is a game-changer for learning how to make better decisions in school and business and life.

Weisner, strategic adviser to Poker Powher and one of the commentators for the advanced players portion of the competition, explained why she wanted to be a part of this event: Poker is an incredibly exciting arena, but being a woman in it has come with its challenges. Often, Im the only woman at the poker table and have to deal with other players objectifying, patronizing, or dismissing me. Even though poker and esports only require your hands and mental skill, women are vastly underrepresented in both. Im incredibly proud to come together with women who have found a voice in gaming for this event and get more women at the poker table.

Editors note: An earlier iteration of this story listed Alienware Arena as a partner for this event. It is has been adjusted to correct that Team Liquid is the partner of note for this competition.

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Poker Powher to Host Charity Tournament Featuring Leading Women in Esports - The Esports Observer

March 20, 2021Will Shillibier

This weekend the PokerStars Sunday Million celebrates its 15th anniversary with a $12.5M GTD spectacular.

To mark the occasion, PokerNews caught up with PokerStars Ambassadors Arlie Shaban and Felix Schneiders to hear all of their Sunday Million memories, and how they are preparing ahead of this weekend.

Remember! There is still time for you to satellite into the Sunday Million Anniversary, just head to the PokerStars client for more details.

Want to stay up-to-date on all the latest PokerStars news right here on PokerNews? Why not try out the new PokerStars Hub!

PokerNews: Thanks for speaking with us Arlie and Felix. Its pretty crazy that the Sunday Million is 15 years old. When did you first play?

Arlie Shaban: I first played the Sunday Million about 10 years ago when I was very new to online poker.

Felix Schneiders: I think I first played the Sunday Million during a live training session for the PokerStars School together with the community in 2009.

PN: What was it like? What do you remember about it?

FS: It was lots of fun as we had everyone railing and being active in the chat of my PokerStars School Live Training class, which was really motivating.

AS: It feels amazing to be able to play for such a large prize pool without having to put up a large sum of money.

FS: When I first played I was a cash game grinder with almost no experience in tournament poker. I was set to play an all-nighter but the brutal reality was I busted pretty early.

PN: Why do you think the Sunday Million has become the iconic tournament it is today? What makes it special?

AS: The Sunday Million is a staple in the online poker world, its such an iconic game.

FS: Its the prestige. Just with the name alone. It allows recreational players to be able to compete for the dream of winning such a prestigious big field event without being a pro. I believe the Sunday Million is something that may even be known to people outside of poker due to its name and prestige.

PN: Are you looking forward to Sunday and jumping into the Sunday Million Anniversary yourself?

FS: For sure! The anniversary editions of the Sunday million are always special to me and my community. We have had deep runs from our community members, with two of my viewers scoring six-digit cashes! These years we are hanging out on Twitch, interacting in chat and through Discord while sweating each other during deep runs. It's great times for all of us!

PN: And Arlie, what would it mean to run deep or even make the final table of the Sunday Million Anniversary?

AS: Making the final table of this would be an absolute dream. The prize pool is MASSIVE and I cant wait to play. The satellites PokerStars is putting on are great.

PN: I know the satellites have been hugely successful, and it really gives the recreational players the opportunity to satellite in.

AS: Absolutely. It gives people off all bankroll sizes and change to play the game, and ensures that there will be a massive field.

FS: There are satellites for every bankroll and many different game types like Spin & Gos. I got my ticket through the $1 Neymar Jr satellite live on stream together with two other members of my community. Giving people with different bankrolls or even no bankroll at all the chance to play in such an event is just a great thing!

We asked Arlie and Felix for their top three Sunday Million tips! Be sure to keep them in mind if youre entering this huge tournament this weekend.

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PokerStars Ambassadors Excited Ahead of Sunday Million Anniversary - PokerNews.com

The non-profit organization Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) will host its own national poker tournament that will take place across the United States.The tournament's first round will be held in multiple locations such as Los Angeles, Virginia, New Jersey, Miami, Long Island, Maryland and Georgia.Participants in the event will include the famous Israeli poker legend Eli Elezra and sports commentator Jeff Platt.Elezra,a former officer in the IDF Golani Brigade, clearly knows how to play his cards right in the world of poker, having won four World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets, one World Poker Tour (WPT) championship, and almost $4 million in tournament winnings.As a former officer in the Golani Brigade, I have never forgotten the importance of serving my country, said Elezra. For years, I have been proud to support the IDF, and am grateful to have another opportunity to do so through the FIDF National Poker Tournament.I'm thrilled to have this opportunity to be involved with the FIDF National Poker Tournament, said Platt. I admire what the organization does for the IDF, and greatly look forward to broadcasting some poker in a virtual setting while we raise some money for our friends in Israel.The poker events will take from April 18 - May 2, with thefinal event of the tournament to be livestreamed on the last day via the premier poker site Faded Spade.

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FIDF to host its first-ever national poker tournament - The Jerusalem Post

There are few games as long-lasting and widely valued as poker. Its rules, history, and the professionals themselves all command a certain level of respect from amateur players, fans, and relative outsiders alike, and the place it holds in popular culture ensures that it will never fall back into obscurity, as so many games have done over the years.

To be sure, one of the most powerful forces that has been continuously driving it forward is the online gaming industry, which first took this seminal game into its clutches back in the 90s shortly after the advent of the world wide web and transformed it into what was, at the time, an incredibly futuristic and high-tech version of the game.

By todays standards, of course, those earliest digitalisations would seem incredibly primitive but that neednt matter, as the incredible popularity of the genre of online poker ensured that it never fell behind the forward thrust of the rest of the online gaming industry, and that it continues to impress and inspire both professionals and newcomers alike.

Still, the gaming industry does not stand still, and the coming years will no doubt see plenty more advancements in the realm of PC, console, and mobile game development. So, how can online Poker ensure that it weathers yet another storm of progress? Read more below.

Preserve the Ecosystem

Watching the professionals play their hands is, for many, an inspiration; being beaten time and time again by the professionals is an almost unanimous recipe for defeat and, eventually, relinquishment. A good poker site will not grow complacent over the divide between professional and amateur; instead, they will facilitate a healthy, sustainable ecosystem for all players.

The popular site GGPoker.com is paradigmatic of this; while they represent a home for many of the worlds most notable poker players, such as Daniel Negreanu and Fedor Holz, it also remains one of the most accessible and widely enjoyed sites in existence.

By prioritising pros who wish to see the industry grow, things naturally fall into place, and amateurs have the opportunity to be inspired and challenged by the professionals, rather than bullied away from the game altogether.

Follow the Rise of the Mobile

While much of the world of online poker remains distinct from the wider trends that exist within mainstream gaming, it cannot distance itself entirely from the ebb and flow of player movements. That is to say that, while players will continue to flock to online poker despite the changes occurring in the wider realm, the only way to ensure the continuity of the genres growth is by embracing player trends wherever possible.

The most notable example of this lies, of course, in the increasing significance of mobile gaming. Cloud-based streaming services and renewed interest in mobile app development owing, in all likelihood, to the new wave of power hungry, 5G ready devices making their way onto the shelves mean that more and more of us are going to be spending an increasing amount of time gaming on our phones.

This is a remarkable market to capture and, already, many of the worlds leading poker sites have embraced mobile development in order to stake their claim on it. A desire to keep improving, augmenting, and streamlining their mobile services will, however, prove integral to maintaining a pattern of growth over the coming years.

Continue to Prioritise Player Security

This one is relevant to the entire gaming industry, not just the genre of online poker. In recent years, some of the worlds most well-known and trusted companies have fallen prey to significant and costly cyber-attacks and the real victims of those attacks have been users who trusted these sites with their sensitive data.

As users grow increasingly wary of services vulnerabilities, then, one of the only ways the online poker industry can hope to sustain itself is by investing into stronger and more rigorous measures that protect the players, and ensure that the enjoyment of the game is not spoiled by concerns over their private lives.

Transparency, and the ability to go above and beyond the bare minimum, will remain the cornerstones for any successful online poker site in the coming years.

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Online Poker Must Evolve Alongside the Rest of the Gaming World, But How? - State-Journal.com