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Taking Action
July 16, 2008Today's post is on a somewhat personal level, but it should definately benefit others as well. Before I started playing poker on a constant and almost daily basis (on-line that is) I was a very avid bingo player, sometimes frequenting the local bingo halls for or 5 days a week, however with rheumatoid arthritis, the long constant sitting in bingo halls for 4 to 5 hours each night began to get to me, which is how I began playing poker on-line, I was able to sit at home on the comfort of my own couch or in my bed (laptop) and play. So last night after I went to bingo (hadn't been in a few weeks), I just got angry, because for the money I had spent I probably could have went on line and won more that what I had at bingo, if it weren't for the fact that I didn't feel I was that good of a player. So at this point I had made a decision and that decision was that before I spent another dime anywhere on line to play poker I would put just as much effort into practicing and studying poker, so that when I did decide to play more money games on line I would have a better advantage and be a more skilled player. Even if that meant playing 6 or 7 freeroll tournaments a day, going into the pokerrooms on Pokerstars and watching the pro's play and reading every book that I could find to increase my advantage in the pokerroom, that is what I would do. It isn't that bingo isn't a very entertaining game, because it is, however there is no skill involved, it is purely based on luck, you can't out play or out buy the next player to win, so as I drove home that night I started to take action, I tossed all bingo dabbers out the window, once I got home I logged on to amazon.com to order more poker books, I went into the poker rooms on pokerstars.com and watched as Humberto Brenes, Chris Moneymaker and Joe Hachem played, just watching in silence and not disturbing them so that I could get the best benefit from it. Then I remembered that I had gotten an e-mail from something called the PPA, urging me to join, so I read it again and people I was shocked to learn that the game I had come to enjoy so much I may one day not even be able to play, because my government is trying to ban it here in the US, with and including threats to lock people up if they won cash from playing poker on line, and I thought "WHAT KINDA CRAP IS THAT!!!", you mean to tell me that If after I do all this studing and all this practicing to actually win some real money playing poker you may at one point pass some stupendous law where I could get locked up. The governments basic reasoning is, is that it could cause such a financial strain on people that it would effect the economy, because people could loose their houses and jobs due to overspending ( which honestly folks with gas a 4.15 a pop, I know people who can barely afford to drive to work to make the 4 dollars to put in their tanks), I won't go into politcs but come on. While I believe that any form of internet activity that involves money should be regulated to protect consumers from some site that would possibly be looking to scam someone, should be in effect, I do not believe that we should stop people from being able to spend their money anyway they like to for their entertainment. Especially when people walk into strip clubs and bars, street casino's and riverboat casinos and liquor stores to purchase $600 in lottery tickets are not being stopped from spending that same money from loosing their houses trying to get rich are not being regulated from doing that. The thing is people that you can actually take steps on-line to limit yourself from going broke and maybe that is what you have to do, such as on pokerstars, I have my own enacted deposit limit, I can not spend anymore on poker in that week, if I want to increase that level I have to send an e-mail to support and request and increase and then wait an extra day to get that increase, I regulated myself, and to tell you the truth I worry less about being cheated on-line in a poker room than I did at a bingo hall (trust me I have seen more acts of colusion and cheating there than I have ever witnessed on-line), and yes I do know what the governments real issue is but I won't go political with it but I will say this start taking action and protect your rights where ever it is that you live, whether your in the US or not, but wherever it is that you have to go to in your country to protect your right to play poker on-line then please do so. Here in the US you can go to pokerplayersalliance.org and sign up for free and they will send the necessary letters to your congressmen and senators for you and it was so easy to do, that folks you just have to do it. Now as for as regulating yourself , as I said that is simple as well. Poker is a game of skill if your loosing money at it maybe it's time to take a reassessment like I did, one of the things I did was type in my username in google and low and behold there were sites that were actually keep track of my play, including how much I had spent and where I was strong and weak at (hard to believe but true) which is when I decided ok sweetie you need to pick up more books and dvd's and get better at this before you start spending $215 to enter a freeroll tournament and get picked off before you've even seen the flop, and like my daddy always said "if you don't read anything but the back of a cereal box read something". So that's what I have been doing, I also said (with the exception of some tourney's I want to play in this weekend, that I would not put anymore money into my on-line account until I had won first place in at least 6 freeroll tournaments. Because people and I am being honest here when I say this, I want to be one of the women next year that go to the WSOP, and be like Tiffany Michelle (almost made it but that's ok there is next year) and I want to be such a good player that I want to be sitting at the final table, but I know that the only way to do that is practice, practice, practice and more practice and a heck of a lot of studying, and if that's what you have to do so that your not on your way to loosing your house or car or something else then please do so. Trust me I started reading my book actually about 2 weeks ago and I can actually tell the differnce in the way I play and now I can not wait until my next shipment of books arrives in the mail, I'm actually really happy about it. I also took action in another area this week and that was starting to learn and play the other poker games such as Razz and Omaha and Horse, because folks I don't want to be a one trick pony either and I am happy to tell you that I really like Omaha and am good at it to boot. So until next time if anyone is actually reading this blog, good luck to you on your next tournament.
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Women and Poker and The reasons You don't see a lot of Women Playing
July 14, 2008First I'd like to start by giving a shout out to Tiffany Michelle, and trust me I am praying and hoping that you become the first woman to take home that all too coveted bracelet from the Wsop main event this year. As I was reading the post on her today, I thought about another post ( I believe that was written by Daniel Negranue) about why you don't see more women playing at the Wsop. Well I decided today to write my own blog in response to that, that will hopefully encourage more women to participate, in this fantastic sport and game.
As a young black girl growing up in Indianapolis, I can remember sitting in my fathers lap during his weekend games of Dad or Spades or Tonk, whatever the card game they were playing, it was always a bunch of men and a lot of drinking and smoking going on, and I'm quite sure that this went on in a lot of households where young women were growing up, where no matter what the card game was that was being played, you generally saw little or no women but lots of men, and that's generally because these games were considered gambling and according to my mom women shouldn't gamble it's not lady like (although she played cards she didn't gamble).
However here is the cold hard facts, and trust me I am no expert but garnering on much experience as a mother and a woman. Ladies we gamble every single day. The reason I say this is because the definition of gambling is to wager money or assets to obtain money or additional assets. Guess what ladies isn't that what we do everyday from the boardroom to the bedroom, from bills to children to even our own bodies we risk an asset in some sort of way to gain an additional asset or to obtain additional monies. Please allow me to expound on this before you become offended. How many of you have ever quit a job, where you were comfortable, you knew the people in your work place, and you knew you were secure, for a new job, where you didn't know anyone, you didn't know if it was secure, for more money, well if you have that's a gamble, for all you knew in a week you could have been fired, or the company went belly up, but you took that chance that gamble for more. How about relationships where most of us are the queens of the All-IN move, and knowing flaws and all, knowing that some men or commitment phobes, we did it anyway and either it worked in your favor or it didn't. Let's talk bills and money, I know as a single parent there were a few occasions where I had to decide which peter or paul I was going to rob that week and either pay bills or buy food or clothing, knowing that the outcome could possibly be either I was going to get a disconnect notice or I was going to flat out be disconnected while I continually prayed that it would all work out in the wash. And you want to know something we are damn good at it and no offense gentlement but when it comes down to actually taking a risk or gambling, we are better at it then most men, now why I say this is because women are very very resilliant, we can take the bad beats and suck outs and let downs that come with this life and often very often fight back to succeed, fighting our way back to the top of the game of life, why shouldn't or can't we apply that same zeal to a poker table or poker game. I'm telling you that if we did there would be a lot more Tiffany Michelles at the table and fellows sorry, but then we would really give you all a run for your money.
As for the gambling aspect of poker, yes it is however you can play for real money or play money on most every on-line site, it's an entertaining game, that actually involves a lot of thought and concentration and discipline to play, it is not however a slot machine, where your continually throwing money into and hoping to get something back out of, with poker your participation is definately required. Also I will not lie to you at times it can be quite frustrating or extremely relaxing, and a definate way to release pent up frustrations that comes from the times when you are ready to, beat your kids, kill your husband or go on a tirade at work, because your boss and fellow employees have gotten on your very last nerve, take it from me go on-line to a pokerroom or play at home with your signifigant other and whip their tails in a good game of poker and you will have never felt better.
As for women like my mother or other women, who talk about you gambling and it being bad, just tell them quess what mom, grandma, auntie, I learned how to gamble from you.
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Online Poker and its bouts of racism
July 12, 2008The only thing that I really hate about online poker is that on occasion you will find people out there who probably would only use racist and derogatory remarks about a person of color or another minority is online, knowing that if they did it out in "the real world" they would probably get the crap knocked out of them. Here's my thing is that no matter what race color or creed a person is it shouldn't determine their level of play or entitle another person to make a remark about them becaue they took a beat on a hand, I have beaten people in play with good and donk hands as well as I have taken a few beatings with those same hands do I get angry of course but I also am enough of a player to realize that I had something to do with getting beat on that hand, whether it was not reading the board or taking hand probabilities or possiblities into account or just flat out not paying attention so I don't rant or rave or use some derogatory remark or call a person a fish or donk just because I got beat. As far as minorities or peoples of other nations do these bigoted people not realize that a lot of the pro's in this game are not all american or white, they all come from different backgrounds, countries an nations and are both male and female, black, white, hispanic, european, australian, canadian etc etc, which is why it's such a great game to play because you don't have to be six foot nine or big and burly or male or specifically female to play it, it is truely an everyperson game, no matter who you are or where you live, if you practice study do whatever to make the game work for you it can and will work for you, but just like the pro's take bad beats so will the regular people on line sometimes to pro's and sometimes to rookies, but it shouldn't allow you or anyone else to make a racist remark about another person.
