Counting Cards

On my way out of Harrah's casino in Atlantic City the much too friendly security guard gave me a deck of used cards. These are Aristocrat brand made by the U.S. Playing card company. These appear to be paper cards, which is odd because in the poker room they use plastic cards made by Gemanco.

The is a hole drilled in them slightly off center. If you ever get a chance to buy used casino cards, get corner cut, not drilled cards. The drilled hole cause the edges to raise and makes it hard to shuffle the cards. I'm a collector of junk, especially swag junk, so I've made these into my practice cards for counting cards for black jack.

A single deck will have a full count of zero. When I received these cards, I had never managed to properly count a deck to get zero. I'm always off by one or two. So now a week later I'm getting a count of zero on better than half of my attempts. As I have read, counting cards is harder than it looks.

I now count a deck in about one minute, twenty seconds with reasonable accuracy. I sometimes can count the deck in one minute nine seconds. My goal is to count the deck in 25 seconds. Once I can correctly count the deck 50 times in 25 seconds, I'll feel I'm ready for the next step in training.

For now, I'll stick to poker.

Robert Goes All-In

Just outside of Washington, D.C. in Northern Virginia, the Nova Poker Championship was held. In Virginia, home poker tournaments are legal and many homes are filed each week with groups of poker players playing cash games and participating in Texas Hold'em Poker Tournaments. One of the larger gatherings is the Nova Poker Championship which this year boasted a $150K prize.

The two day event ended when Robert went all-in against his opponent to finish first in the two day tournament.

For the winning hand Robert was dealt 10d 4d, suited. His opponent had As Ks, a powerful hand also known as Big Slick. The flop came out Ad 10h 4c. This gave Robert's opponent a pair of Aces, top pair, with a King kicker, top kicker. Top pair with top kicker bet, Robert raised with his two pair, was re-raised all-in and Robert called to win the tournament with two pair.

Rep. Jim Moran Goes All-in for Poker

Congressman Jim Moran (D) from Arlington, VA met with poker greats Annie Duke, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Victor Ramdin, and Robert Costner to discuss pending poker legislation in the wake of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that was passed last year.

The UIGEA was passed last year as part of the Port Security Bill. While poker has absolutely nothing to do with port security, the UIGEA was added at two in the morning to a bill that had to be passed. This meant that the bill was passed without debate or review.

The UIGEA would not have passed as a stand alone bill, but was snuck into the Port Act in the middle of the night on the last day of the session. Concerned about how this circumvented the normal legislative procedures, Rep. Moran said "Anyone would be concerned about the process."
Jim mentioned that his granddaughter's favorite poker player is Annie Duke, who was present for the meeting. Jim expressed his support to allow American Poker players to participate in their favorite game online. Said Robert Costner, who is from the Arlington area, "I can have any number of people come to my house and play poker legally for $20 or $20,000 dollars. But as soon as everyone leaves and I go online to play poker the federal government wants to oversee the situation."

Several poker friendly bills are currently in congress. These include the bill introduced by Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2046), Rep. Wexler's Skill Game Protection Act (H.R. 2610), and Rep. McDermott's Internet Gambling Tax Act (H.R. 2607). Rep. Jim Moran pledged to co-sponsor all three.

Robert Costner and Andy Bloch visit The Hill

Famous Poker players Robert Costner and Andy Bloch visited the Hill to talk to congressmen about online poker legislation.

Last year's passage of the UIGEA has caused a lot of confusion by putting online poker in a grey area. There is no existing law that criminalizes the playing of online poker. While technically the bill did nothing to create new crimes, many online cardrooms and financial institutions have shut out U.S. players. Others, such as Doyle's Room have first left the U.S. market then re-entered with new software.

Robert and Andy were visiting with congressmen and staffers to encourage congress to solve this problem by clarifying through legislation that poker is a game of skill and should be be exempt from the UIGEA.

You can join in this effort by asking your congressman to co-sponsor the Wexler bill the Skill Game Protection Act, H.R. 2610.

September Bounty Tournament

Everyone has been so happy with the bounty tournament that the Red, White, and Blue Poker League has decided to continue the bounty tournaments for every Wednesday in September. That means there is a $50 bounty on Robert's head each week for the Wednesday game. Mondays will continue to be non bounty days.

Texas Hold'em poker tournaments are played each week on Mondays and Wednesdays at Addy's in Manassas, Virginia at 7:00 and 9:30. Knock Robert out of the tourney on Wednesday and along with his last chips get $50 cash.

This past week Robert went all in five times and survived four of the all-ins. On the fifth all-in Faith called him and she beat his pair with a straight. Typically Robert survives 85% of all all-in calls and wins first place in 40% of the tournaments.

Come join us for the fun!

Bounty Tournament

Last night at Addy's we had our first Bounty Tournament. Robert played in the tournament and there was a $50 bounty on him in addition to the regular first and second place prizes. This means that for the person who knocked Robert out of the tournament they got $50 cash.

Robert was moved from table to table during the game so that everyone had a chance to sit with him. Starting with 4,000 in chips, at one point Robert got down to 600 in chips and then built his chip stack back up.

Robert's final hand he went all in with pocket Kings against a 7-10 suited. A seven came out on the flop giving Matt a pair of sevens. Then another seven on the turn giving Matt a set and knocking Robert out of the tournament.

We'll have another bounty tournament next Wednesday at Addy's in Manassass.

Alzheimer Memory Walk

The Alzheimer Memory Walk is coming up. This is a good charity and is supported by Harrah's Foundation (the WSOP people). Harrah's Foundation will be matching all donations up to a total of one million dollars.

I've created a Memory Walk donation page on the official website. Your donation can be entered on the web directly and I never have to mess with it. I set a goal of $500. I'm curious about how civic minded we are.

Please take a look, and please give.

http://alz.kintera.org/nationalwalk/rcostner