The news that Isildur1 is back on the high stakes online poker table at Full Tilt, has got the hearts and mind of the blogosphere all a twitter. Who is he or her? What is he? Where does he get his money from?

Well I can tell you from my observations and reading between the lines that:

a) Its more thaan 1 person.

2) Its a marketing ploy.

You may find my first asumption quite real but the second a bit contentious. Well the reason why it is or I should say a marketing ploy is that having major big games online will eventually lead to the ‘whales’ finally giving up playing live casino - where they can be recognise, and, start to play online casino where they can remain anonymous.

You can tell that online casino is the big thing for online betting because there is no restriction to the hours and frequency of visits. A visit to a online casino can happen while a person is using the toilet, on a train journey etc. The thing that scares people from online casino is whether it is fixed!

At the moment online casino is seen as very dodgy, so the need for great publicity is paramount. In the UK we have betting offices, shops where you can go and place a bet on horses, football etc. In these shops they have machines called fixed odds betting terminals or fobts’. These machines are online casino machines, and, are like crack cocaine for gamblers.

 Instead of waiting 10 - 15 minutes for the next race etc, you can have a bet every 10 - 15 seconds! The most popular game on these fobts’ is cartoon roulette and they are just massive cash generators which can have automatic re-load so you can play the same number/s again and again without going through the rigmarole of physically putting chips on. 

A friend who is a betting office manager said to me that if his bosses had their way they would get rid of betting on football etc and have the shop filled up with these fobts’. Now imagine a world where you can have your own personal fobt? Yes we have them now but you can tell by the bonuses that are offered that people are not rushing to join them. Yes the are making money but the competition for casino players is tough.

Can you imagine if those whales got onto online casino losing 3% profit per spin every 20 - 30 seconds - happy days for the online casino owner!

Hence my supposition that isildur1 is a marketing move because as soon as this gets into the main stream media - which it hasn’t as yet - then there will be media frenzy to know and plau against this person. Onviously the more the online poker sites can keep the real name/s out of the public arena the better.

Who is isildur1? Who cares, as long as we don’t know the better for the online casino brands.

If you can successfully grind out a winning position in freeroll competition it is a good signal that you can consistently win at playing poker.

Consistently winning is the key to the game. Obviously first you pair of Aces, then your pair of Kings, Queen and Jacks get busted by some random hand will eventually whittle away stack and then bust you.

We are looking for poker players who want to play online poker for free and earn money to boot. If you have dodgy ratings due to lack of volume or unlucky situations, show us at AWHpoker.com  at our very own tournament.

Unfortunately this is freeroll not open to US players (altough being a grinder for the stable is open to US players - you just cannot win a share of €50  at the special tourney on the 21st of March, this time), and, once you have joined contact me for the special invitation code.

Also not allowed in getting staked by our backer is using your 8 year old nephew playing for you because he is a gaming genius. Or if you do get your 8 year old gaming genius nephew playing for you and winning! Do not tell anyone and just send us our cut and everything will be cool - trust me this is the best policy and stuff the publicity.

An 8 year old in India wins $500,000+ while using his uncle’s online poker account.

Questions:

1. What right has a uncle in using his nephew for child labour?

2. Why make this public so the poker website and the other punters can claim that the money was won illegally?

3. Can the uncle be sued for criminal activity?

4. Wiil the child become addicted to gambling?

5. I thought gambling was illegal in India, hence, are those responsible risking jail?

6.  Why didn’t the family keep there mouth shut and spend the cash like it was going out of fashion?

This story is going to run and run, if true…

For all those who want to show that they can grind out a win in any scenario, here is your chance? Our friends at A-Winning-Hand have given us another freeroll. It may not be loads, but free money is good money.

The great thing about AWHpoker is that the place is full of fish and where there is fish there is trim. So let us see how you go fishing in a online tournament.

Hey, I should know about fish as I am probably the biggest fish around these parts. So if you want to get staked lets see how you play when the chips are down - and it aint gonna cost you a cent, penny, drachma or yen!

If you want more details on becoming a staked online poker player send us a message.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Still looking for the next poker superstar. Have you got the techniques and the ability to be that person?

Imagine the scene, you are losing heavily, the tournament organisers have been cutting back on expenses. Another internet player has called your bet with a pair of Tens and you have 3 6’s and the ‘turn’ and ‘river’ gives your opponent a flush therefore kicking you out of the game. What would you do?

Well I must admit that I am surprised that this type of robbery has never happened before. When I started playing poker it was very illegal and the sorts of people who played poker or more correctly 3 card brag, at the time, were the sorts of people you had a row with over spilt beer. If you had the temerity to try and steal some money you ran the risk of being stabbed, glassed or both.

Nowadays the game seems to be populated by computer nerds and geeks who see it as the height of fashion to look like an extra in one of those numerously depressing vampire films. So why not steal 800,000 Euros from the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Germany, which is lying around in a bog standard hotel, being looked after by security guards straight from a temporary staffing agency.

So there you go a backdrop to Germany’s very own Oceans Eleven and its funny how life and art looks so different. Fair play to the robbers, probably some desperate East German gambler with a larger criminal plan in mind.

Do you sometimes have one of those weeks when you wonder if you are living in some parallel universe where everything is not exactly in the right place? Well my friends I have had one of those and my head feels like a punch bag in Mike Tyson’s gym.

It didn’t start well, I got a call from my Manchester squeeze telling me that my good friend Eddie has only a few weeks to live and if I want to have somewhere to stay when I go to the funeral then I better be nice to her or my squeeze will make my life living hell.

I bit below the belt but it is what I expect from her since she left her husband and expected me to move in with her. It ain’t going to happen because I got things to do and moving into a flat with neurotic women is not on the agenda by a long shot. So I will have to be absent until the death or make other arrangements - it is always good to have a plan B.

Next came the ongoing saga over my broadband which is becoming as bore and will eventually lead me to smashing the damn thing and stuff the bill or more sensibly telling Three and Hewlett Packard to take their crappy machinery and sort it out or I will commit justified homicide on their technicians in India and South Africa and trust me I will fly out to those places and shove my date of birth, postal code and product serial number down their procedural throats. It is maddening while you are short stack with a chance of making it to the payday when your computer just freezes up!

Then came the news that a kid I knew committed suicide! He wasn’t an angel but he was only sixteen and somehow you do think that he deserved better than what he got in his short and tragic life. Some say he was bad news but I can only speak as I find, and, he was never disrespectful to me.

In fact I was having one of my sensible moments when he asked me some advice on why people hated him? I sat down and told him that you cannot expect to upset people one minute and then expect them to like you the next. If you do upset people, expect some comeback in whatever form it comes. This is what happens and when you go down that road, you basically leave a bad feeling. He did listen to me and I truly believe he took it onboard what I said to him, but, I fell out with his grandmother over a promise she made on a business matter and that was the last time I spoke to him.

When you hear bad news like that I find it easier to divert attention to objects rather than feelings, and, I decided to play poker as a ‘horse‘. A horse is a player who plays poker for a backer and gets a percentage of the winnings. My reason for this is that I wanted to get into the mind of a stacked player. The result of this exercise is that my ratings is that of a person on ’Super Tilt’. Never really heard the term before but it basically means you have played 8 tournaments and not won a bean and therefore I am rubbish and should try some other method of investing my money.

I then decided to punt heavily on Birmingham City not to lose to Portsmouth in the English Football Association Cup - which is the oldest soccer competition in the world and I have had a decent bet on Birmingham City winning the competition at 33/1! Now Portsmouth is a club in turmoil and Birmingham are not.

Portsmouth is in administration which means they are nearly bankrupt. They have the remarkable distinction of having a Russian oligarch, and, an Arabian sheik as owners’ who didn’t have any money! Birmingham City on the other hand are financially viable, absolutely sae from relegation and are hard to beat. Therefore I pumped heavily that they would not get beaten - Birmingham City lost 2 - 0!

I again decide to play some more online poker. This time I decided to right the wrong of my stats and definitely make the money. Playing Omaha which means I will play super tight and all was going well when I suddenly found myself in position 25 out of 2000+ people, I am about to make the money position when I get silly for some god forsaken and decided to play up my AA 66 which were both suited I lost to a flush and was booted out. I played Texas Hold Em, being a bit erratic but I am OK. Then my Queens was in a race against AK suited, and, AK suited gets his Ace.

So here I am on a Saturday night with a large glass of whiskey in mental anguish when I suddenly read an article that some Mickey Mouse university in Canada states that online poker relieves stress! McGill University must have some dubious research department to come out with this gem of a concept. Now I have searched everywhere for this paper and I am sure it’s out there but it is well hidden and I am now of the opinion that it was sponsored by internetonlinepoker4you.com!

Not wishing to disparage the scientist but when you hear continuous blurb about its conclusion yet no easy access to the actual research paper, alarm bells ring in my head. If I am wrong and the papers are there for all to see - fair play to them. Put if you spend an hour looking for the paper and it still not available but the headline story is everywhere it makes you think, hmmmmm!

Now that I have had my therapeutic whinge I am about to plunge into the relaxing world of suck outs, lose of money and drunkenness - happy days!

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

This title is not entirely true as I have been trying my hand at badugi a game which low rainbow hands win. So in my case just playing my normal Texas Hold Em game and I should clean up.

Anyway here is a video to laugh at. It features a soldier at Windsor Castle, who has clearly had a massive night out and is suffering with the excess alcohol in his body. He manages to (ahem) soldier on, but, just cannot manage to keep the liquid contents in his stomach and does a chunder in front of a load of surprised tourist.

Enjoy if this is the right words to say when someone is being sick…

It has been brought to my attention again and again, that there is a lack of male Poker Tottys. All I can say is that I have tried to source hot looking men who have an interest in poker, but, there does not seem to be many around.

Maybe it is that good looking guys do not play poker or good looking guys who play poker are naturally reserved and do not eel the need to let the world know about their career? Who knows, I certainly don’t?

So I will put out the appeal again if any men out there who wish to be a Poker Totty please contact yours truly and we will feature you.

There you go Samantha and Lizzy I have done it so you cannot say I didn’t try.

A donkey playing poker

Now that I am looking for the next poker superstar I decided to play like a horse for a stable and experience the feeling of gambling like a professional grinder. The only problem I had is that i went into tournaments that had loads of money guaranteed with some even having re-buys. I hate re-buys because it becomes bingo poker for nut cases and that is not a good idea if you want to win by being irrational and random.

So there I am trying to be sensible while all around me the poker world as i can see it is going doolally. I lost and after battling 4000+ players i felt like I had just been in a fight with Liberace and lost. I felt completely defeated and just wanted to drink some strong liquor.

I then had a game of low limit pub tourney as an antidote to the numerous beating and losing of money which was not mine. in the game which is so loose that a baby with attention deficiency syndrome could win with it’s eyes shut, i felt at home. While in the big blind I called and received a pair of Aces and a pair of eights with a random 2. I bet minimum bet got raised and I re-raised - happy days! The next card was a jack and my opponent went all in. I called and when the cards were shown I had two pairs Ace and Eights and nutuob had a pair of 2’s. Obviously the river returned another 2, giving madman 3 of a kind. He thought i was bluffing?

Being a horse is great if you are good and patient. I am neither of these, especially online but. I bet there are players out there who will make serious money for their stable. Hopefully we wil find the next superstar, but somehow I can tell that it wont be me.