Luck is dead, long live variance.

Back in the olden days there was a thing called luck. You could have good luck and bad luck. If you brought a lottery ticket and won that was good luck. If you got married to a princess that turned into a moaner, but not in a nice way, that was called bad luck.

It was pretty simple and easy to understand, and, you could blame everything that went wrong with a betting proposition on luck. Then came televised poker and that all changed. In came a new goddess called ‘variance’.

Variance was a completely new beast. It had legitimacy as it was based on mathematics and told the story of how good play could be undone by variance. It was equivalent to say a football team like Manchester United or Barcelona, will not go for years unbeaten even though they are one of the top 10 teams in Europe. Eventually a team of this quality will get beaten because it’s 11 men against 11 men and therefore there can be lucky goals or saves, which can alter the game, as long as the rules are fairly administered. 

The same thing applies to poker and this will explain why at the top of the food chain there will be great players but they will not win every year because of variance. They will win a lot until they begin to lose the ability to read a game, which all players seem to do after a while just as footballers lose pace and strength as they get old.

When our favourite US commentator Cousin Dobber (check out his videos in the sections T.V 2012 and 2011), argued that poker along with pool and the ‘quadathlon’ should be part of the Olympics 2012 since they are sports which need skill, stamina, speed of thought and strength. His reasoning has validity since no one can play the games on the off chance that they may win. They may do well for a time but in the end they will be beaten.

So why has the notion of ‘luck’ gone out of fashion. Well since poker has been on television, all the ‘know alls’ and wannabees now have a lexicon to use when they think they are brilliant and everyone else is rubbish. They use variance to explain their bad play or bad luck and they re-affirm their great play was due to skill and not variance when they win!

Variance is used to explain why going all in with king jack suited (44% chance of winning) is brilliant play against ace ten off suit (55% chance of wining). Yes it is a race but the maths tell you that the ace ten will win most of the time. So it is bad luck if you lose. But if you are the guy that had the king jack suited it was variance that made you lose??? This argument was strenuously argued for about an hour yesterday and I still could not get it into the guys head that he was wrong. 

Variance only apply when you are in the best position and you lose. Variance cannot be applied to bad play. Well it can, but it is not sensible to argue that point. Over time and with the rules fairly and justly followed variance will even out amongst all players.

You can apply variance to things such as roulette, but it will not be called variance it will once again become luck. The only time luck can be beaten is when you have the situation such as Casino 770 giving all poker and pool players £25 to play at their online casino for free. All winnings the new registered player can keep.

Now that is the time to pray to the gambling gods to let you have some luck as there are some serious prize money to be won and you’ve got £25 to win it! Don’t forget the bonus code EPA

If that does not do it for you then get back to a bit of grinding on the poker tables and if you’re like me winning the lottery never really happens but grinding maybe be boring but it does pay off. 

Casino 770

PoolKnave Women's Banner

As the spring weather takes over from the dark and nasty days of winter, it is good that we can give away free money to those who would like to have a bet but want to see what the website is like first. So Casino 770 has decided that any new players who sign up to Casino 770 and use the bonus code EPA will get £25 to play with!

Well you’ve got to admit that betting £25 on some casino games with the potential to win loads is…well, like living as a banker. Bet red and it comes up red you win, bet red and it comes up black you don’t lose, brilliant!

Obviously since this is primarily aimed at pool players, you should at least have played some sort of pool. If like me you play pool but are not very good at it then we will keep that secret to ourselves.

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Signing up takes only 10 minutes and and you can win big bucks. So why not spend 10 minutes instead of watching Emmerdale or Wigan Athletic v Aston Villa play out a boring 0 – 0 draw and get free £25 to try and make a million….that’s complete no brainer really, isn’t?

Don’t miss out like Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo did! 

Ronaldo tried his best with Rooney , but he missed out again!

Casino770 / bonus code: EPA = £25 free no deposit required.

Go all in with 7 - 2...why not?

I hate the tournament format of re-buy-ins. It is the ultimate bingo poker without any redeeming qualities what so ever.

It seems the whole point of re-buys is to ruin your bank balance and hope to get lucky with a period of all in’s until you have enough stack to then go all in again and hopefully win the prize.

I played in on tournament and got bored with folding while all sorts of idiots were going all in with rubbish hand and winning. So down to my last 1000 chips I decided to go to a bar and have a drink and the excuse I needed came up 7-2 suited. Guess what I won!  This then made my mind up that I was going to go all in until I lost all my chips.

Yes I broke the first rule of poker ‘mind your bank’ but I could not care less and went into every hand with gusto. Surprisingly I was in good shape, but, my mind was set I was going to play like a complete moron and see what happens. In the end I crashed out trying to bluff i guy who had two pair.

Once I had my 4 pints of black velvet (Guinness and cider mixed) I made a promise that if I play another re-buy, please put me out of my misery and shoot me in the face – thank you very much.

Yesterday night I officiated over the maddest game of poker ever! I have talked about ‘Bingo Poker’ as a legitimate armoury in a players game as it helps facilitate doubt in the oppositions mind. However I never thought I would witness a game played by a drunk who could not stop winning in fact it has scarred me for life.

The game started as normal in a pub with the regular lads who are working away from home and saw this as a way of passing the boredom of Monday night watching Newcastle United v West Brom, while they pined for their families 350 miles away. They were then joined by the scraggy ends of a funeral wake who needed some kicks after drinking for 8 hours solid, and, decided to participate in a couple of rounds of poker – so far, so good. More players more prize money.

One particular gentlemen , who had a gigantic ‘Mars Bar’ (cockney rhyme and slang for ‘scar’) across his face decided that since he did not have a clue about poker he was going to play blind, i.e. not even look at his cards in the hole, but raise and re-raise as and when he felt like it! Normally any half decent player will think great, keep out of his way until you have a very good hand.

The plan didn’t work because when ‘Scarface’ needed a card to get out of trouble, he got it. In one hand he went all in and got King7 in the hole pairing the 7 on the board while the other player had Queen7 and consequently lost.

In another hand a player had Ace paired while drunken mourner with a strip across his cheek managed to get trips of 2′s on the turn and river – amazing scenes!

He then won another tournament when he actually looked at his cards and got a King flush while the other guy had Jack flush by the turn only to be rivered by our hero.

Scarface did lose a couple of games and then whined and moaned that he wanted to buy in although he was told that the tournament was a freeze out tournament. The other guest at the funeral wake found this highly amusing as did moi, yours truly. The other lads took it in good humour as they could see that this was the ultimate fish and very rarely do you get ultimate fishes.

I myself felt two types of feeling obviously you want to help relieve the gentleman from his chips but you do run the risk of getting caught and being made to look like a complete idiot. When I did finally get a game I only ran up against a shop lifting troglodyte (honest he made his living stealing from shops) who telegraphed his hand like a pilot fish but then get lucky on the river when his king 2′s gave him two pairs beating my paired Aces – such is life.

In the end you have to humour these types of players because they help to keep the poker industry alive and sloshed with money. They are basically 3 Card Brag rejects who think poker is a game of chance and will play accordingly. The fact the Scarface and Troglodyte made some money should be seen as charitable work for the needy and the clinically insane. They may come back, they may not. If they come back happy days if they don’t I have given the poker gods a pair of sacrificial lambs and hopefully the honour will be returned.

Jeanie working on her next project

I alluded to some strange behavior in the last couple of days, It began when I was looking forward to the festive season and actually like the idea of mixing with the other sad and deluded folks buying stuff to give away.

I even gave stuff away to charity, street beggars and carol singers/Salvation Army types etc. Listening to some nice middle aged woman banging on about this that or other church was willing and able to help me when I feel suicidal was quite comforting.

I try to keep my expenses down when it comes to charity because I am a bit of a lefty when it comes to charity and welfare I think it should come out of taxes. OK the subject of politics has reared its ugly head but its my view and thats that.

Another reason why I am not a big charity giver is that you get put on a idiots list   where other ‘charities’ buy and sell this information, bombarding you with heartfelt stories about little Mina or tiny Pedro who needs food/house/school/operation (delete where applicable). A lot of the times they Will be a deluge about some donkey sanctuary/wildlife reserve/bird habitat (delete where applicable) who are moments from destruction and need my money now. Hence my argument for government intervention and support or these areas.

Now after having your pair of jacks cracked by a nice but annoying poker buddy does not automatically make you a bleeding heart charity worker, however, my thought when it happened was that £10 could have gone to some poor kid or even a lonesome rattle snake. So I am now looking to send some dosh to a worthwhile cause every time I make stupid decisions like play bingo poker for anything more than £5! Why gamble when you do not have too? Being a gambler means being mean, why give suckers an even break?

It is not pretty and it is not nice but the world is not nice or pretty although it would be nice if it was. Which brings me to the topic of nice people doing nice thing and one of these people is Poker Totty Jeanie who has been working on her new project of helping poor and desperate children. For this she is having her foundation do a special event with some of her fellow models. More details to come but I for one will be looking forward to it as it is the period to do such things.

Anyway, Boxing Day is the day or gambling and drinking. who decided these things I do not know but it is a very good idea and I shall indulge completely and utterly. Watch out or more Poker Totty news…

bingo

Come on who hasn’t done it? you know what I mean played so reckless you might as well played bingo. Some times I really enjoy going into full tilt because you sometimes win and win I win I like to wind up my opponents by typing in the dialogue box BINGO!!!! or HOUSE!!!! just to emphasise mine or someone else’s extreme luck.

Inevitably it can go the other way and I get caught and get caught badly losing all my chips on the river, but hey that’s poker! The trick with bingo poker is to realise what you are doing and to get out of that mode pretty quickly. But I must admit if my lunatic behaviour is winding someone up or really upsetting their mind then I may just go all the way and continue on full tilt pausing every now and then to play normal.

Its great when the keyboard warriors start threatening violence and calling names. I love the perverse sense of power you get when you have brought someone down to your debased level.  You can imagine them screaming blue murder at the screen and slowly getting more and more twisted with rage.

Obviously there is a down side in fact it is a massive down side – losing your money. I dont care so much as losing face or being thought of as a idiot it’s losing money that hurts. Losing the one thing that represents the skill level you are at, the one thing that represents anything of value in your game hurts and hurts hard. So trying not to have a ‘Benny’ is the way to go.

Truth is those online poker sites rely on punters losing their heads and paying like a crazy person because it helps keep those who haven’t gone mad to stay on site. It has always intrigued my interest in conspiracy to wonder if poker sites did not have the odd bot to go and play like a guy in full tilt? Just a complete irrational thought on my behalf but you can see how it would make sense.

Another reason why bingo poker makes sense sometimes online is the very nature of being online you dont know who or what you are playing against. Therefore you lose the ability to see if someone called you had a tell on you. OK there are ways of ‘knowing’ what a person does by their betting patterns or their timing, bit in the end by playing irrationally you can mess up a bot quite easily.

So lets hear it for bingo poker a needed and essential side of online poker. 8 of diamonds and 4 of hearts ALL IN and BINGO I win!