Sweden rapidly growing market for online gambling industry

It is emerging that in Sweden, the online gambling momentum is gathering, with thousands of Swedes now indulging in the activity in their evenings. Current estimations are that up to six thousand players hit the web every night in Sweden, and are on the most popular gambling sites simultaneously. A spokesperson of Swedish owned company Expect, Michael Holmberg, also revealed that profits in Sweden based in this sector are estimated to rise by 27 percent a month, as the online gambling pursuit starts to become a craze. Representatives from other companies including Betsson, Unibet and Ladbrokes have confirmed the prediction, by stating that they are also witnessing a similar trend, with revenues spent from their Swedish members increasing at a rate comparable to that claimed by Holmberg. One factor that may be contributing to the significant rise in activity, is the success of Scandinavian players, particularly in the realm of poker. Recently Martin de Kniif won the World Poker Tour in Las Vegas, winning himself the equivalent of 21 million Swedish crowns. Success stories such as these often prove to be inspirational to others, and seems to be having a distinctive knock on effect in Sweden, whose population is now logging on to gaming sites more than ever before.

Online Poker Is Fun

Online Poker Is Fun Oct 05, 2004 Bradpitts sits on the edge of his wooden chair, shirtless, yelling at his computer screen. Two guys in blue togas, breaking between parties, stand behind him giving advice as each card is turned by an invisible hand. Bradpitts gets a full house and knocks swodog28 out of the game. He jumps a little in his chair, making his long blonde hair swing up. “Ha ha, sucker,” he said. “I’m on a hot streak.” It’s 11:30 p.m. Saturday. Before the night is through, Bradpitts will win the 10-person, $10 buy-in, no limit Texas Hold ’Em tournament, and the tournament’s $40 prize. Bradpitts is one of many KU students who partake in one of the fastest growing pastimes on the Internet: virtual poker. He asked that his online alias be used in place of his name because online poker is illegal by federal law. The Federal Wire Wager Act, amended in 1994, prohibited betting over any “wire wagering facility,” including the Internet, according to the Kansas Gaming Commission. However, it is against the law for someone in the United States to wager on any site, regardless of the site’s location, unless he is in a place where gambling is permitted, such as Las Vegas. Playing cards for money has a long tradition on college campuses, dating long before the Internet. David Hodges, who graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1949, said he used to play the game Pitch with friends at a local college hangout. Since ESPN’s broadcast of the World Series of Poker gained unprecedented popularity last year, attracting more than one million viewing households, the sport’s popularity has increased among the ESPN demographic, mostly young adult males. Other television stations sought to capitalize on ESPN’s success by broadcasting other poker tournaments, including the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel and Celebrity Poker on Bravo. Cole Robinson, Overland Park junior, said his favorite game when playing with his buddies is Texas Hold ’Em, the game usually played on television. “It’s the most exciting form of poker,” he said. “In Hold ’Em, luck and skill have a nice balance. It makes for really entertaining poker.” Because getting a game together is not always easy, many poker players are turning to the Internet, where tables are available at any time.

Poker Tells . Com - The Truth About Tells by Daniel Negreanu

Poker Tells . Com - The Truth About Tells by Daniel Negreanu: "The Truth About Tells by Daniel Negreanu" I’m going to let you in on a little secret here. If you believe that watching for a twitchy eye or a flared nostril is what poker is all about — you’re quite wrong. Many poker players (mainly those who are new to the game) are preoccupied with the notion that bluffing and the ability to discover tells are what it’s all about. I often hear someone say something like, “Oh, I could never be a good poker player. I have a terrible poker face.” Or, “I wouldn’t be very good at poker. I just can’t tell a lie, so I wouldn’t be able to bluff with a straight face.” Well, if you believe that, this column should be a pleasant awakening. While it is important to avoid giving away too much information with your body language, it’s nowhere near as important as learning the fundamentals of the game. In fact, I would bet that a world-class player could beat a low-limit game even if he told his opponents what he had on the turn every single time! Of course, that would work only if his opponents didn’t always believe him, but I think you get the idea. So, what is it, then? What is it that separates average and good players from the great ones? Well, obviously, tell recognition would be one factor, but it’s simply not the most significant. The answer is: hand-reading ability; the ability to process information that you’ve gathered from your opponent in the current hand and in past hands, and to use that information to narrow down your opponent’s holdings. Picking up on your opponents’ betting patterns and understanding what they are and aren’t capable of doing, makes this much easier. So, when you hear people talk about “reading people,” what it really comes down to is reading into your opponent’s mind what he is thinking at the moment, and trying to figure out how he would play various situations. It’s not about noticing that when Al has a flush draw, he eats an Oreo cookie without opening it up first, but when he has top pair, he licks out all the cream first. That would be one heck of a tell, but obvious tells like that are pretty much reserved for the movies. However, some pros would like you to believe that their biggest strength is their ability to “see through your soul”; that is, knowing what your holecards are just by looking at you. This might be true in cases in which players have exaggerated tells, but for the most part, a great player makes his read based on the actual betting that took place, not the facial tics. Now, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I will anyway. It’s simply a scare tactic used by many pros to make you feel uncomfortable. Think about it: When you make a bet (whether it’s a bluff or not) and your opponent throws his hand in immediately, or even calls immediately, is it intimidating? No, not really. Well, what if he takes extra time? He stares you down. He cuts his chips out to make it look like he wants to raise, and so on. Now, that might make you sweat a little bit, especially if you are indeed bluffing! If it doesn’t make you sweat, it at least might make you uncomfortable having a guy stare at you for so long. It’s all a ploy, as simple as that. Most often, a player knows exactly what he’s going to do within five seconds. You’ll see it on the World Poker Tour telecasts quite often, thanks to the hidden cameras. There was a hand at the World Poker Open tournament in which Dave “Devilfish” Ulliot made a play with the 5 2. The player he had raised moved all in, and David went into the tank (meaning he took a substantial amount of time pondering whether or not to call the bet)! Why did he do this? After all, he is an experienced pro, and knew full well that he wasn’t going to call the all-in raise, so why waste all that time? Well, there are a couple of possible answers to that question. He may have just wanted to save face in order to conceal the fact that he was raising with a trash hand, or, more likely, he was trying to make his opponent sweat a little bit. He wanted to make him nervous, and put him through three minutes of torment before finally releasing his hand. Many players in this situation would be so relieved that it’s finally over that they subconsciously might think to themselves, “Hmm, I better think twice about making any moves against that guy in the future.” Well, that’s just what the Devilfish wanted from him. He wanted to scare him. He wanted him to think that if he ever tried to bluff him, he would have to deal with a full five-minute stare-down. That’s more than the average guy wants to deal with at the table, so many of them will begin playing in a straightforward manner from that point on — thus making it even easier on our pro to control the table. Don’t be paranoid of or obsessed with tells. That’s not where your focus should lie. I remember a few years ago something that I thought was rather cute. There were a few aspiring pros in a $10-$20 game at the Mirage one night. They looked fresh and ready to play. For several hours I watched them. Their eyes were constantly fixated on the player who was next to act. They gave each and every player the stare-down — on every street, whether they were in the hand or not! I thought it was quite funny, actually. They were so obsessed with trying to figure out what people’s tells were that they completely neglected what was actually going on in the hands — who bet, who raised, and so on. Instead of watching the action of the game and studying betting patterns, they spent all of their time trying to figure out if Grandma Betty actually had a nervous twitch, and whether or not her twitch revealed something about her holecards! They clearly had a lot of passion and energy for the game, but they were wasting all of that energy exercising the wrong muscles. Having said all this, I should probably point out that what you say, or what you do with your eyes and hands, can be giveaways to the strength of your holding. Great players watch almost everything, and many do have an innate ability to read body language. You don’t ever want to dismiss tells from your poker repertoire, but you just might be better off putting less emphasis on their importance. I have a simple rule when I’m being stared down: The tougher my opponent, the less I’ll do. If I believe I’m up against an average or weak player, I may send out some false tells and basically try to manipulate his decision in my favor. I may even make a comment, it just depends on what I think I need to do to manipulate his mind. A great player can usually read through that act, though, so you don’t want to give him anything. If you give him nothing and he still tells you he can “see through your soul,” don’t sweat it; I assure you it’s just another scare tactic. To contact Daniel Negreanu, email daniel@fullcontactpoker.com. Essay added 10/12/2004

Texas Hold 'em is hot game these days

When one speaks of poker these days, it's usually a version known as Texas Hold 'em, often played in so-called "tournaments."

In Texas Hold 'em, each player receives two cards face-down (the "hole" cards), then the next five cards are all common cards dealt face-up, meaning any player can use any of the latter to make a hand.

Distribution of the common cards goes by colorful names such as the flop, the turn and the river.

Tournament play differs from the typical Friday night poker game or casino game in that every player buys a seat at a table for a fixed price and receives a predetermined amount of chips, i.e., the chips in play typically are just a means of keeping score. As players lose all their chips, they drop out of the tournament. The last player with all the chips wins a prize

-- Abe Aamidor

Bellagio Poker Tournaments - Five Diamond World Poker Classic

The Bellagio Hotel Las Vegas is one of the major stops on the World Poker Tour with the Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic, an annual poker tournament that takes place at the Bellagio in November and December. The Bellagio has one of the top poker rooms in Las Vegas and the Five Diamond World Poker Classic is a popular tournament as is the Bellagio Festa al Lago Poker Tournament in June and July, and the Bellagio Five Star World Poker Classic in April. The Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic begins at the end of November and includes about two weeks of daily poker tournaments culminating in a 3 day World Poker Tour no limit Texas Hold'em poker tournament with a $15,000 buy-in. The daily tournaments preceding the WPT poker tournament include no limit, limit, and pot limit Texas Hold'em as well as 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo, Omaha Hi-Lo, and Pot Limit Omaha. Tournament buy-ins are between $1,000 and $3,000. The 2004 Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic starts on November 29, with daily poker tournaments running through December 11. The $15,000 World Poker Tour tournament takes place from December 13 through 17. The winner of the $15,000 WPT tournament will receive an entry to the $25,000 World Poker Tour Championship which will be held at the Bellagio in April, 2005. Some of the other poker tournaments in the 2004 Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic will also award entries to the $25,000 World Poker Tour Championship in April (as long as the tournament prize pools reach $200,000). Those are the tournaments on November 29, December 4, December 6, and December 10. Bellagio will hold daily satellite tournaments beginning on November 27, and will hold a $1,000 buy-in Super Satellite tournament on December 12 that will award as many entries as possible to the $15,000 WPT poker tournament. Following is the schedule for the 2004 Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Call the Bellagio Poker Room for more information at (702) 693-7290. Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic Tournament Schedule - click here