Another Poker Player Was Created

Thanks to Deb for sharing his personal experience with me. This is one of her great time experience while playing poker. Here is the whole incidence :

We were in the Sahara, my daughter, Starla and I. I had been playing blackjack and had won 155 dollars. All from a lone twenty. A good win indeed.

We were on our way out to the side door to the parking garage when suddenly fate stepped in. A most charming man took a few small steps from the poker room area and said " Good evening ladies, how about a little poker tonight? I have seats open."

Well now, I had never played poker in a casino, had never even thought about it. At Thanksgiving we always had a fun poker game with pennies and nickels. I couldn't play a lick, didn't hardly know what beat what.

But here I was in one of my manic the-world-is-my-oyster states. So I thought "Why not?" Before I knew it I was in a plush poker chair, Starla in the same sitting behind me. The game is 3 to 6 dollars 7 card stud. I had to have been crazy.

The cards were in the air. I was in the game. Wow!

A cocktail waitress appeared and I ordered a whisky and water, Starla a coke with lots of ice. Drinking at the poker table is something you should never do. Not ever. I can imagine today how happy the "sharks" were to see me drinking. They had a real "fish" with a 100 dollars on the green felt. And brand-new to the game, a "fish" ready to be eaten alive. Happy days were here again.

The drinks kept coming. The cards were in the air, I played every hand, every card clear to the river. I was riding' high. I won hand after hand: two pairs, straights, flushes, full houses. I could do no wrong. The Jacks and Kings were smiling and winking at me. Some of the pros ceased to be so friendly and they started cussing and throwing cards at the dealer. One man was laughing his head off.

That fantastic night I won 365 dollars at that poker table. Old Sahara dealers still talk about it. I was hooked for life. Some say the "Poker God" wanted to create another player that night. He made two. Starla went on to become a professional player and holds two world titles.

Sometimes fate "deals out strange cards" into our lives.

Interesting Stories About Poker

Stephen ‘Stevie444′ Chidwick is an online poker player that decided to try and win a WSOP Main Event package in the 2008 series. He did a little better than that, winning exactly 101 main event packages. What was interesting about the fact he won all of these packages was that he was under 21 and could therefore not play in the World Series! 

Former American President “Tricky Dicky” Richard Nixon reportedly financed his first political campaign with money he won playing poker in the U.S. Navy during World War II. The winnings helped pay for his successful U.S. Congress run in 1946. He decided poker was not good for Public Relations and gave up playing poker in 1952. 

Poker is responsible for one of the most common foods in the world, the sandwich. In the 1700’s the Earl of Sandwich, John Montague, was so keen not to leave a card game to eat he ordered a servant to bring him a piece of meat in between two slices of bread so he could eat one handed, and play cards with the other hand.

Three times WSOP Main Event champion Stu Ungar was an amazing card player, but had a long history of drugs and sports betting addictions. He is said to have been broke, become a millionaire, and gone broke again around 20 times during his poker career, before his passing in 1998. Ungar was regarded as the best Gin Rummy player of all time, beating out the best player of the time when he was only 11 years old. ( I already post an article about this great poker player )

A poker player at the World Series was involved in a hand early in the main event a few years ago and was talking to his friend about a hand he had played in a local game, excitedly going through the action. He shouted to his friend, “I decided to just shove and said, All In!” Unfortunately for him it was his turn to act and he had not looked at his cards. As verbal bets are binding, he immediately looked terrified and fell silent to see if anyone called his bet. Fortunately for him everyone folded the hand. He mucked his hand without ever seeing what he held during this unwitting shove, which could have seen him eliminated and his $10,000 buy-in wasted.

Poker pro Howard Lederer started out as a semi professional chess player, moving to New York to focus on his chess game. At the infamous Mayfair club he started to learn poker after taking an interest in the game. He did not immediately crush the games. On his own website he comments that 9 out of 10 nights he used to go home completely broke and only kept a poker bankroll by running errands for more successful poker players. His hard work paid off later and he is now one of the most respected poker players in the world.

TexasLimitlKing is a well-known online poker name from around two to three years ago. The player crushed the online games causing many players to accuse him of cheating. What is unique about TLK is that when he was up by around 2 million dollars he simply walked away from the game and stopped playing. This fuelled the rumours about him. He has been recently seen playing $10 tournaments but never revisited the high stakes games where he had so much success. It is rumoured he is a young Swedish player who invested in a factory after giving up poker; his name still conjuring mass debate on the poker forums.

Links between poker machines and crime… true or falls !!

Report reveals links between poker machines and crime. A study commissioned by the state govt. concluded that there is a significant relationship between spending time on poker machines and crime in Victoria.

Researchers say that they have found a solid evidence of a link between spending on pokies and the incidence of ''income-generating'' crimes such as theft, robbery, fraud and handling stolen goods. These findings were posted on the Department of Justice website.

The researchers sought to segregate the ''poker-machine effect'' from other influences on crimes using complex statistical methods to evaluate police data from different geographic zones. They concluded that only drug offences had a stronger link to crime than poker machines and it also suggests gaming expenditure is causing changes in crime rates, and not the other way round.

Researchers from the University of South Australia studied figures from 1996, 2001 and 2006 and found evidence of a positive link between gaming expenditure and crime

The report's lead author, Sarah Wheeler said that the link between pokies and crime was a causal one and this report adds to anecdotal evidence from criminal cases on the impact of poker machines.

Charles Livingstone of the Health Social Science Department at Monash University said the findings of the researchers were unflattering and it is clear that providing lots of poker machines adds to numerous social problems.

The findings of Alfred hospital emergency department in April reveal that almost one in five suicidal patients seen is a problem gambler.

In 2006, a County Court judge condemned the widespread availability of poker machines when jailing Kate Jamieson, a mother of two who stole more than $3.5 million from her bank employer to fund her addiction to poker machines.

Judge Roland Williams put forth his view as to how a civilized society allows the mindless operation of poker machines to stupid members of the public under the euphemism of gaming and entertainment

Rebecca Harrison, spokeswoman for Gaming Minister Tony Robinson, said the new report indicating the relationship between crime and gambling was complex and the report details a range of significant influences on crime.

Interesting Poker Facts - you will surprise to know !!

Age of youngest player to win the World Series of Poker main event: 24
Age of oldest player to win a World Series of Poker bracelet:  80
Dollar amount of first place finish from the 2005 WSOP main event: $7.500,000
Estimated dollar amount for 2006:  $10,000,000
Total number of possible poker hands in a 52-card deck: 2,598,960
Total number of possible royal flush hands in a a 52-card deck: 4
Odds of making a royal flush:  649,740 to 1
Odds given to Phil Ivey at BetUS to win the 2006 World Series of Poker: 150 to 1
Number of players to win back-to-back World Series of Poker main events: 3
Number of players to win back-to-back World Series of Poker main events with the same hand:1
Number of events at the 1970 World Series of Poker: 42
Number of events at the 2005 World Series of Poker: 34
Approximate number of Americans who regularly play poker: 80 million
Number of online poker rooms in 1998: 1
Number of online poker rooms in 2006: 128
Number of Las Vegas casinos legally obligated to pay off their gambling debts: 0
Number of possible 2 card combinations a player can start with from a standard 52-card deck:1326