Played for a while with the brothers at a family gathering. We chose to mix the games up a bit, and play some PLO as well as some 2-7 triple draw. Holy cow. I’m really developing a taste for other games. I mean, hold ‘em is great and is largely responsible for poker being pretty much everywhere nowadays, but I’ve grown fond of all the options that come with having four little cards in front of you instead of two. I will say this though, as a brand new Omaha player, I’ve noticed quickly that you have to get really good at divorcing yourself from those purty hands that make you think you have something great when all you have is a hand that is easily squashed by a flush. Or worse yet, when your flopped straight sees a turn that pairs the board… oh the humanity!
In other news, I’ve been kicking around a few things in my head, one of which is the implications of the Washington state online gambling law. Since ‘unenforceable’ and ‘impossible to prosecute’ are not valid reasons for breaking the law, I need to think hard before depositing anymore money online. I think the state is being absolutely ridiculous, and as in most cases should just leave us the heck alone… but disobeying the law is still not justifiable. I’ll post more on this later.
The other thing I’m kicking around is putting together some sort of poker league, that tracks results over a period of time. We’ll start in the fall, and I think in conjunction with Monday Night Football (of the ESPN variety) is probably the way to go. I’ll keep you posted of all the details.
In the meantime, wish me luck in the Pokerstars blogger-championship-tournament-wsop thingy. There are over 2000 players, and the prize structure is pretty weak. Unless, you know, you win FIRST and all. Then the prize structure rocks the hizouse. Since I’m rather inexperienced at navigating such a large field, I’m hoping to crack the top 50%… top 1,000 players, and I’m happy. If I get there, and have a better than average chipstack, then I’ll just shoot for top 500. If stars align and the cards hit just right and I don’t do anything too stupid and end up top 500 with a better than average stack… well, I guess then I’m shooting for the top. But chances are, this will all be moot by 3pm on Sunday. Either way, it will be a fun experiment.
Conciously breaking the law is tough to justify to be sure. I’ll be interested in how you and your peers work through this.
Comment by cc — June 16, 2006 @ 7:22 am
What is the new Washington law? I live in Portland and haven’t heard anything about it…
We did some Monday night tourneys last season and it was a winner for everyone. Putting poker and football on one night is brilliant, and you’re only out one night of the week. It’s a family-first proposition, as I see it.
How’d you finish in the Pokerstars-blogger-championship-tournament-wsop thingy?
Comment by jsimmy — June 16, 2006 @ 1:44 pm
The tournament is this Sunday, 1pm. Based on my performance in a 45-player $1 SNG today, I’m not super optimistic about facing a field of 2000. But we’ll see what happens.
The Washington law is remarkably weird. It doesn’t change much, other than puts ‘online gambling’ (which is still a gray area, as it was written to cover sports betting long before online poker took hold) as a Class C Felony, which is the same class as child molestation. Yeah. Awesome, huh? They say it’s meant to stop ‘providers’ of online gambling, which there are all of zero poker providers online based in Washington, and that they won’t go after individual players. We’ll see. You can still bet horses online here though. And play the state lottery. AND… it was lobbied by guess who… the Indian casinos. Like I’m going to drive to Rochester to play a crappy game of $3/$6 for 3 hours because I can’t play $.05/$.10 anymore.
Poker and Football. Made for each other.
Comment by Jason — June 16, 2006 @ 2:31 pm