POKER TV SHOWS PULLED (Update)
2011-04-19
Another side effect on 'those' indictments
Among the many sad aftershocks of the US federal indictments against executives of leading online poker companies is a report that two popular poker television shows, the “PokerStars Big Game” and the “PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge,” have both been pulled from Fox TV.
Early reports indicate that the cancellation was agreed by both Pokerstars and Fox following the unsealing of the federal indictments last Friday.
The Pokerstars Big Game was hosted by Amanda Leatherman and featured many of the top pros on the international poker scene.
It is not yet known whether the next series of the show will be prepared and presented elsewhere.
In the Pokerstars Million Dollar Challenge, celebrities and online qualified players faced off in four heads up matches of NLHE. Those players who won against their celebrity opponents went on to play professional poker players on the Pokerstars roster - again highly respected names on the international poker circuit.
Winners of this second round then faced Daniel 'Kid Poker' Negreanu heads-up for a chance at $1 million.
ESPN announced earlier this week that it has canned the PokerStars-sponsored “Inside Deal” show, although it appears that another sponsor has been found for future issues of the program.
More bad news is that the indictments and reduction in US activity has reportedly resulted in lower prize pool guarantees on Sunday's tourneys by the leading internet poker companies - some slashed by almost fifty percent.
Poker News Daily reports that PokerStars cut the guaranteed prize pool of its Sunday Million by $500 000 to $1 million, and chopped its Sunday Warm-Up down by a third to $500 000. The guarantee on the Sunday 500 was reduced to $250 000 and the Sunday Second Chance was cut to $125 000.
The impact of the US situation was felt in lower entry fields, although the guarantees were all passed.
For example, 6 475 players entered for the Sunday Million, a significant drop from the previous week's 8 200.
At Full Tilt Poker the guarantee on the first event in the XX FTOPS sank from $3 million to $1 million, but almost 7 000 players still entered for the event. The Sunday Brawl also suffered, with its guarantee slashed by half, and the Sunday Mulligan was cut from $200 000 to $50 000.
UB.com, also involved in the indictment debacle, cut its $200 000 guaranteed tourney to $75 000, a number that was just topped by player buy-ins of $87 000.
It appears that the indicted companies were the only ones to reduce guarantees; reports indicate that Party Poker, Titan Poker and Bodog maintained the values of Sunday competitions.
The independent online poker monitor Pokerscout has been keeping a careful watch on traffic developments since the indictments were publicised last Friday, and according to its latest assessment on April 18 the global online poker market shrank by 23 percent in the wake of Black Friday.
The site informs that PokerStars traffic is 25 percent down; Full Tilt Poker 48 percent and the Cereus Network 39 percent.
Non-indicted but US-facing networks that have benefitted from the decline of the three main operators include Merge - up 23 percent; Bodog - up 26 percent; Cake - up 19 percent and the small Everleaf network, up 8 percent.
Non-US facing sites in Europe also saw improved traffic, with Party Poker rising by 9 percent; iPoker Network up 4 percent, PKR up 21 percent and 888 Poker up 5 percent. Ongame reported no change.
On a lighter note, one of the 11 persons indicted, Chad Elie has something to take his mind off his troubles.
Shortly after he was released on bail, the news surfaced that he had celebrated his release by marrying former Playboy Playmate Destiny Davis in Las Vegas.
Elie was one of the first of the indicted managers to be arrested and stands accused of facilitating financial transactions and other banking and financially oriented offences.
Federal officials claim that Elie and others worked with the poker companies to disguise money received from US gamblers "as payments to hundreds of non-existent online merchants purporting to sell merchandise such as jewellery and golf balls". He faces up to 30 years in jail on charges of bank fraud.
An ‘Out’ in poker refers to a card that could appear on the turn or river that will improve your hand, for example a card that would make you a flush or a straight. Understanding outs is a key skill in Holdem as it will allow you to make ‘good’ decisions based on your chances of improving to the best hand and the odds being offered. This article looks at how to effectively calculate outs in different situations and use this information to your advantage at the tables in online poker.
We will start by looking at how to work out the number of outs you have in some common situations, covering the importance of not double-counting certain cards. Next the chances of improving based on outs as a proportion of unseen cards will be covered. Finally, a simple rule of thumb for calculating your chances of improving with one or two cards still to come is introduced.
The most common situation in which you will need to calculate outs is when you have a flush or straight draw on the flop. For example where you hold two spades and two more appear on the flop, here any additional spade has a good probability of making you the best hand in online poker.
To work out your outs you need to know how many of the unseen cards left in the deck will help your hand. In the flush example there were 13 spades to begin with and you have seen 4 of these (2 in your hand and 2 on the board), leaving 9 spades in the deck. With an open ended straight draw, for example you hold J-10 on a board of 2-K-Q then any 9 or Ace is considered to be an out – in this case there are 4 of each among the unseen cards, giving you a total of 8 outs.
Beginning players often make the mistake of double counting outs when holding a combination of draws on the flop. Take the example where you hold J-10 of diamonds on a flop of 2 (diamonds)-Q (diamonds) – K (spades). This is an excellent situation where you have outs to both a straight and a flush. Any of the 9 remaining diamonds are outs in this situation – along with the 9’s and aces. However, you have already counted the 9 of diamonds and ace of diamonds in your flush outs. This means there are only 3 * 9’s and 3* aces as additional outs to your straight, giving you a total of 15 outs.
Calculating whether to call a bet based on your outs involves knowing how many cards improve your hand as a proportion of the unseen cards in the deck. After the flop in Holdem you will have seen a total of 5 cards of the initial 52, the 2 in your hand plus the 3 on the board. This leaves a total of 47 unseen cards after the flop and 46 after the turn. Working out your chances of improving involves dividing the number out outs by the total of unseen cards. In the straight + flush draw example you have 15 outs. 15/47 means you will improve almost one time in three.
There is a simple rule that experienced players use to calculate the number of outs with one and two cards to come. This is called the ‘rule of 4’ and simply multiplies the number of outs by 4 for two remaining cards. For example if you have 10 outs with 2 cards to come then your chance of improving is approximately 40%, with just one card to come you can halve this to 20%.
To summarize, an ‘out’ in Holdem a card in the as yet unseen deck that will improve your hand. The most common examples are cards that will make you a straight or a flush on the turn or river. Calculating your chances of actually improving involve dividing your total outs (being careful not to double count) by the total of unseen cards. The ‘rule of 4’ will give you an approximation of this chance which is good for most Holdem situations in online poker.
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Owner Gaming Media Group has appointed advisers on the future
The Poker Heaven and Poker Channel interests of UK online gambling company Gaming Media Group could be up for sale, opines the Telegraph newspaper, noting that Management has hired Cavendish Corporate Finance to advise on options for the future.
The move to explore a sale comes after the company received several unsolicited approaches from trade buyers, the newspaper reveals.
Founded by entrepreneurs Crispin Nieboer – a former NM Rothschild banker and BSkyB executive and Shaun Barron in 2005 with the backing of private venture capitalists, the Poker Channel should generate earnings of GBP 349 000 on revenues of GBP 1.5 million this year.
The television based channel provides specialist poker programming that includes branded tutorial shows, player interviews, cash games, online event coverage, daily news updates and live coverage of international events.
Meanwhile sister company Poker Heaven has developed into a successful Europe-facing online poker operation that predicts revenues of GBP 11.3 million and earnings of GBP 1.5 million this financial year.
The Telegraph speculates that there could be plenty of interested buyers, including major operators known to be interesting in acquisitions such as Party Gaming and 888, along with gambling groups like Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and Full Tilt Poker.
Paul Herman, the partner at Cavendish managing the sale, refused to be drawn on the identity of the bidders, but did confirm that considerable interest has been seen from Asia and overseas.