High Hand of the Day

Harrah's in AC has a High Hand of the Day prize. I'm at Harrah's enjoying the WSOP Circuit event. Today my first hand of the day made the High hand of the Day - I had quad 6's with a King. It didn't last; a straight flush became the new high hand a bit later.

In the Harrah's poker room the prize for the best hand of the day is 20,000 Reward Credits, which is $200 to spend on your Total Rewards card.

IRS Tournament Reporting Requirements

The IRS has made changes to the reporting requirements for poker tournaments. From what I can tell it seems that the IRS is not requiring the casinos to issue W-4G forms on your winnings as long as the casino keeps internal records of your winnings and does yearly reporting to the IRS.

If the casino does not have your taxpayer ID number on file and does not submit records to the IRS then they must issue w-4G forms to all tournament winners.

IRS Bulletinn: Poker Tournament Winnings Must be Reported to the IRS

Doyle's Room is back

Doyle's Room is back in the U.S. From what I can tell, they must have switched to Microgaming's software and are now taking U.S. based customers. I went to the site and entered my old information and got my account back, including my old balance. I have money still there.

Give it a try. Sign up for Doyle's Room.

Absolute Poker Bad Beat Jackpot

Congratulations to RHH9302 on hitting Absolute Poker’s $288,914.70 Bad Beat Jackpot and taking home $93,897.29 in cash. Hit the Bad Beat tables for your shot at instant riches.

Your Avatar can help you score $100 - check their website promotions page for details.

Transfer funds between poker rooms - Now you can move your money between Absolute Poker and UltimateBet all for free.

There's been another pay rise! Sunday's Guaranteed is NOW $75,000. Every Sunday at 20.00 ET! That's $225,000 Guaranteed EVERY weekend.

Absolute Poker is not responsible for deals made between players at our tables. We urge you to exercise extreme caution when chatting online or offline.

Clocking in and out

Each Casino has a method for keeping track of comps. I've only worked out the details for a few of them. But here is some information that might be of interest.

At Harrah's and Showboat they require you to clock in and clock out at the front desk. If you do not clock out then they throw away your comp points. If you clock in in the morning and clock out at night then if you play in a tournament in the middle you risk having all your points thrown out if there is only one table of players remaining because of the tournament and it breaks down due to lack of players. If they run out of players they sometimes throw out all the cards they track points on.

The Tropicana handles tracking for you by scanning each person's poker club card each hour. As long as your card is at the table, whether you are or not, you will get credit for comp points. At the Trop, poker comp points are on a different computer system than the Diamond card points for the slot machines. (Comps on table gains like blackjack are actually done by a third system and at the discretion of the pit boss)

At Caesars while they ask you to clock in and clock out, they apparently go to each table and collect cards ever three or four hours and rescan all the cards because the clock everyone out automatically. So apparently you can pick up an extra hour or two here and there by not clocking out.

No W-2's in Casinos?

Tammy from Showboat told me they were doing away with W-2 reporting of tournament wins.

Whenever I have won a poker tournament in Atlantic City they give me and make me sign a tax form. It's either a W-2 or something very similar to a W-2.

I spoke today with Alan from the poker room at Showboat and he tells me that there was a change in the federal law and all casinos are no longer doing tax reporting on tournament winnings.

Showboat Poker Tournament Sat. 9/8/07

Showboat in Atlantic City has announced a Texas Hold'em Poker Tournament to be Held on Saturday, September 9, 2007. It is a $20,000 guaranteed tournament. The buy-in is $225.

For $225 they need 89 people to make the tournament. It does not sound like they are risking much, but it does sound like they want to make a splash a big tournament location in AC. Oh, I missed that 1st place alone gets $20K, not the total pot.

THE POKER TOURNAMENT

Hosted by Alicia Lee, Philly's Hottest Sports Calendar Pinup and Poker Player. Saturday, September 15 starting at 11 a.m. First Place wins $20,000- Guaranteed! Tournament is in the New Orleans Ballroom and tournament play begins at 11 a.m. Register at the Showboat Poker Room now to September 14. You won't want to miss this tournament, and seats are limited.

Buy-in is $225+$25
Start with a $10,000 chip stack
Blinds start at 25/50

From what I have seen posted, you must register by the day before the tournament. I called the poker room (609-343-4686) and asked about this and Kellie said she had been getting a lot of this question and yes, you can register the day of the tournament, but it is limited to 423 players by fire code regulations.

General information on poker at Showboat, Harrah's. Caesers, and Ballys can be found at
http://www.harrahs.com/atlantic-city-poker.html

New Name for Bodog

Bodog.com has gone off the air. The site has been replaced by newbodog.com as part of a domain name dispute.

It seems that Bodog was sued for patent infringement related to its software. Apparently Bodog did not respond to the lawsuit and 1st Technology LLC was awarded a default judgement that allowed them to take possession of the Bodog domain names.

Bodog claims it is business as usual and they are fighting to get their original domain names back.

Absolute Poker’s Bad Beat Jackpot Approaches $700,000

The recently announced bad beat jackpot at Absolute poker keeps growing back every time it gets taken down by someone.

The online poker tables at Absolute Poker are filling up faster than ever after the popular online poker site reported that their current Bad Beat Jackpot is quickly approaching $700,000.

By 9am ET on Monday, the jackpot of Absolute Poker’s popular Bad Beat Jackpot Texas Hold'em game had reached $667,000. With $0.50 collected from each qualifying hand at designated Bad Beat Jackpot tables, that number is growing by an average of $2,000 per hour.

The larger-than-life jackpot eclipses Absolute Poker’s own record of $464,652.03. What’s more, the Absolute jackpot is nearly twice as big as Party Poker’s (a site not open to US players).

The next player to lose a hand holding four 8s or anything better will win a large piece of the jackpot. The participants in the bad beat hand will also share in the jackpot.

Full details can be found at Absolute Poker.

Bad Beat Jackpot at Absolute Poker

Miami, FL (PRWeb) June 26, 2007 – Within one day of releasing its new Bad Beat Jackpot game, Absolute Poker doled out nearly $78,000 to five lucky Absolute Poker players after the very first jackpot was hit.

Less than 48 hours later, it was déjà vu for players of the new online poker game as the jackpot bells tolled once again.

“This is proof that Absolute Poker has taken the lead in making online poker more lucrative,” stated David Clainer, senior vice president for Absolute Poker. “When you can lose a hand and walk away with tens of thousands of dollars, it’s pretty amazing.”

The first Bad Beat Jackpot was won early Saturday morning by CGA11 who lost quad tens to NEDKELLY’s straight flush. In traditional Texas Hold’em, CGA11 would have walked away from the table with nothing but a whole lot of anger. However, at a Bad Beat Jackpot table, when a player loses a hand holding four eights (8888) or anything better, they win the largest piece of the Bad Beat Jackpot. In CGA11’s case, that meant nearly $40,000 for his losing hand. All players who were seated at the table where the bad beat occurred also shared in the jackpot.

History repeated itself early Monday morning when MARKM3451 lost four of a kind to WHITETAIL0’s king high straight flush, losing the hand but winning nearly $13,000 by hitting the jackpot.

Absolute Poker is the only online poker site open to U.S. players to feature Bad Beat Jackpot tables. Full details on the latest addition to Absolute Poker’s suite of poker games can be found at www.absolutepoker.com/badbeatpoker/.

Online Poker Room - Absolute Poker - launches a Bad Beat Jackpot, adding a new spin to their Texas Hold'em poker game.

Miami, June 24 2007.- Absolute Poker today announced the launch of Bad Beat Jackpot - a new spin on Texas Hold'em that lets players walk away with a hefty profit after hitting a 'bad beat' at the online poker tables.

"We're taking away the pain delivered by bad beats by throwing money at their victims," stated David Clainer, senior vice president for Absolute Poker. "Who knew losing big could feel so good?"

In poker, the term 'bad beat' refers to losing a hand that is clearly favored to win. But at the Bad Beat Jackpot tables, losing a seemingly unbeatable hand just got more lucrative.

Now, when seated at a Bad Beat Jackpot table, if a player loses a hand holding four twos (2222) or anything better, they'll win a piece of the Bad Beat Jackpot.

To kick off the new online poker game, Absolute Poker is putting $100,000 into the jackpot. To help it build, $0.50 will be collected from qualifying hands at Bad Beat Jackpot tables. The jackpot will keep growing until someone hits a qualifying bad beat, at which time a large percentage of it will be distributed among the bad beat victim and the players at the online poker table where the bad beat occurred (a small fraction of the jackpot will remain in the pot and another minuscule piece of it will be dedicated to administration costs).

Bad Beat Jackpot tables will be noted with the word "jackpot" written in brackets after the table name and will be categorized in red text. Complete details on Absolute Poker's Bad Beat Jackpot.

Visit Absolute Poker for more information.

Winning By Not Playing

As a joke I started a new strategy in online poker. And to my surprise, it is working. What I do is not play. By not playing I get more chips.

Specifically, I enter single table tournaments then mark the "away next hand" box. I sit there and get blinded out, but otherwise I lose nothing. Well, I gain nothing as well. But surprisingly, I end up winning more chips on average than I pay in buy-ins.

So what makes this happen? At first I jokingly came up with the idea that If I did not play, and play badly so as to lose chips, I would have more chips if I just came to the table late. One way to achieve this online is to start the tourney, then walk away. In fact right now I am (not) playing in a STT while I type this message. The game runs in the background. I saw my hand get dealt AQ, so I quickly hit the "I am back" button and went on to win 4,000 in chips in one hand. Then I left the table again.

There is no way to win first place using this strategy, unless I actually play in the game. But it seems I almost always make it to the money. STT's pay the top three and since I have essentially no time invested in this any win is a good win. On the abandoned game I am playing right now I am the chip leader of five payers based on the one hand I won. With the big blind at $30, my $4,320 in chips will not be blinded out anytime soon.

I have foudn that once it gets to two or thress players, I am in the money and can then go on to actually play and often win if I want. Since I have already made my goal of being in the money I can play very agressive against tight players who think they were there to win. I'm just there to get in the bubble.

So why does this work? A friend suggested that maybe online players are just bad poker players. I don't think so. I think online players are agressive. Too agressive for their own good. So an ultra passive player will tend to beat the average online player. How much more passive can you get than "away from the table"?

Caesars Galdiator Games

At Caesars Atlantic City, their poker tournaments are called Gladiator Games. They have a points system for the tournaments that will award a free entry in the WSOP Circuit event to be held at Caesars. You earn one point for entering a tournament, then you get another point for every position they pay out in the tournament.

For instance with a 40 person tournament and paying out five people, if you get 1st place you get 6 points. I don't have all of the details, but they schedule a free roll tournament for the top points people, maybe inviting 100 people of which 60 might show up. It might require you have 16 or 17 points to get into the freeroll. Then they "payout" the top finishers with vouchers for entry into the local WSOP Circuit event.

Northern Virginia's Top Poker Winner Announced

For the NOVA Poker Group's spring 2007 quarter, Robert Costner has emerged as the player to win the most tournaments. This makes Robert one of the best poker players in Northern Virginia and the Washington, D.C. area. Robert has placed first in 40% of all money tournaments he has played for the quarter.

The question is often asked, is poker a game of skill or a game of chance? To repeatedly win two out of five of every multi-table tournaments played, Robert shows that it is skill, not just luck that makes a poker win. The alternative is to suggest that Robert is the luckiest poker player in Northern Virginia.

The NOVA Poker group (NPG) is a group of amateur poker players who host weekly home games. NOVA stands for Northern Virginia. Home poker tournaments without a rake, such as those held by NPG, are 100% legal in Virginia. NPG holds a tournament every Tuesday night and also holds tournaments each weekend, usually on a Friday or Saturday.

Robert Costner is an Arlington, Virginia resident who plays in or runs about 500 Texas Hold'em poker tournaments per year. Robert has won in bar games, home games, internet tournaments, and casino tournaments. He can be found playing at casinos such as Showboat and Harrah's in Atlantic City, as well as various bars and restaurants in the local northern Virginia area.

For more information, contact Jim Slade at (703) 531-1995.

MyBorgata Website Registration

How do I register on the MyBorgata website? Wht does the website say my card number birthdate combination is incorrect?

After my first visit to the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City, I tried several times to register on the website. My registration failed every time. I asked at the My Borgata desk, but they said they had no infomration about the website. I called customer support a couple of weeks later and it turns out that if you enter the id number from you Red Label card it will not work. You have to enter your number, but leave off the leading zeros.

Since I only play poker I only had seven dollars of comps, one dollar for each hour I had played $1/$2 no limt poker. The iste said I needed 1,000 more points to get a Black Label card. But I have seven points. Why don't I need 993 points? Why do I still need 1,000 points when I already have seven points?

For that question I got the answer from a Casino Host. Yes, I do get one point for every hour I play poker. While it is displyed on the website as comp dollars, it is not subtracted from my points needed to get the Black Label card. At least not on the web site. If I were to actually qualify for the Black Label card then a human woudl manually resolve the point problem.

Showboat throwing away Rewards points

According to Carolyn George who was running the poker room at Showboat, she threw away my comp points I earned that day because I went to the bathroom. In general I want points because this is how the casino rates me and why Harrah's gave me six free room nights each month for the last two months.

I drove up to Showboat on Tuesday morning and started playing $1/$2 no limit at 10:20 in the morning. I'm trying to learn how the points work so as Carolyn clocked me into the poker room I asked some questions about the points. Then shortly after the 11:00 tournament started I moved to the other side of the room to play there.

Apparently I can't win 1st place in every tournament and I busted out after about an hour and a half. So I went back to the desk and asked for a no limit table. At this point Carolyn, perhaps with a gleem in her eye, or perhaps with a bit of anger in her voice told me that I would have to clock in again because she had thrown out my card and because of that I had not received any points. She went on to tell me that she did this because I had left the poker room. She seemd a bit pleased with herself and at the same time angry with me as she told me that I had lost my points for the day.

Well, I did leave the poker room but only to go to the men's room and I came back so quickly that I didn't even miss the next hand that was dealt in the tournament.

This was a surprise to me. I was told I was supposed to have clocked out. Since she had disposed of my points only about an hour ago, I asked her if we could resolve the problem. She said no way, it was not possible. My points were lost forever.

I left the casino and went to the Tropicana to play.

Atlantic City Poker Wins

I've decided to start playing in casinos in Atlantic City. I've just finished my third week of trips to AC to play in Texas Hold'em poker tournaments. The first week I won the 1st place at Showboat in the Friday lunch tournament, for $1,600. The second week I won $3,060.00 for first place in the Harrah's Friday night tournament. The buy-ins were about $65 - $100 each.

The third week I did not win, but I did get quad Aces in one of the hands. I am trying to stick with the Harrah's family of casinos for now, but I did go over to the Borgata and won about $300 in six hours of $1/$2 no limit.

Cashout Problems at Doyle's Room

Admittedly, I do think Doyle's Room is doing the best they can do. But that does not mean I am getting my money.

I'm an affiliate and I took a partial cashout shortly after they withdrew from the US market. According to their records, the funds were withdrawn from my account on 2/22/07. A week later, on 3/1/07 I recieved an email that no check had been sent and they wanted my ACH information. Well, I prefer ACH over cashier's check, so that is fine with me.

I sent the information in to them and got a reply back that I cannot have a partial cashout, but must withdraw everything or they will send my money to Full Tilt. This sound increadibly unreasonable on several fronts, including that I don't have an dealings with Full Tilt or have any sort of account with them.

After some email discussion they decided they might be able to send me my money. But they said that I need to talk to the affiliate department and run it by them.

Since they are in the process of cashing out tens of thousands of US players and I'm in the front I can't blame them for not knowing fully how they are going to handle this. But we will see what happens.