Poker Winner Blog

LUXOR

A vast 30-storey pyramid encloses the world’s largest atrium, measuring 820,000m³ (29 million cu ft). From its summit, the world’s brightest beam of light reaches 16km (10 miles) into space. Attractions include the Ra nightclub; Lasting Impressions - a show starring Bill Acosta; a replica of Tutankhamen’s tomb, discovered by Howard Carter in 1922; Luxor Live, a simulated talk show with hologram characters; and an Imax cinema. Read the rest of this entry »

Slot machines are always popular because they pay out potentially huge jackpots for small stakes. A Las Vegas woman won the world’s biggest slot machine jackpot in January 2000 at the Desert Inn on The Strip. After staking just US$27, she won nearly $35 million on the Nevada Megabucks slot machine. The jackpot is paid out to winners over a 25-year period and shortly after winning she received her first instalment Read the rest of this entry »

BALLY World Famous Casino

Hollywood movie stars Cary Grant and Raquel Welch performed the opening ceremony when Ballys was built in 1973, at a cost of $100 million.

In 1981 a second tower was added and the hotel was expanded to over 2800 rooms. Now owned and operated by Park Place Entertainment, the Art Deco interior recently had a $72 million restoration. The complex includes restaurants and a shopping arcade. Read the rest of this entry »

BINION‘S HORSESHOE

Situated in the Horseshoe Hotel on Fremont Street in downtown Vegas, Binion’s gives a taste of how gambling used to be in the Old West. Opened in 1951 by Benny Binion, a former Texas bootlegger and gambler, the casino evokes the atmosphere of a traditional gambling hall — no shows, no music, just gambling. Minimum stakes are $2 on blackjack and $1 on craps. The poker tables are not for beginners though, as many professional players make their living here. Read the rest of this entry »

Many casinos form part of hotel and leisure complexes located in tourist destinations, such as Sun City in South Africa and Atlantis in the Bahamas. However there is nowhere else that embraces the gambling culture quite like Las Vegas. Over the years, it has grown from a desert oasis into an international resort and holiday destination, offering round-the-clock gaming and top-quality entertainment in outstanding, Read the rest of this entry »

Another Englishman who had success on the roulette tables at Monte Carlo was Joseph Hobson Jaggers, a worker at a textile mill in Bradford. With his experience of the textile industry, he knew that wooden spindles were subject to wear and tear. On a visit to Monte Carlo in 1873, Jaggers was interested in the mechanics of roulette wheels. He realised that if the spindles of the roulette wheels were worn, the wheels would not be perfectly balanced. This would mean that some numbers would come up more often than others. He theorized that if he could find such a wheel, he could develop a system for winning. Read the rest of this entry »

Subliminal Practices

Casinos use a variety of subliminal practices to ensure they get the maximum amount of money from visitors before they get anywhere near a gaming table.

Casino design is no accident. Almost every feature is built in with profit in mind. Exteriors are lavish and use every marketing trick to get players to walk through the door. This is taken to the extreme in Las Vegas, where shows put on outside the casinos get people to stop and watch, and, hopefully, go inside. Read the rest of this entry »

At one point Ungar raised seven hands in a row. No one called. Was he bluffing? Of course he was — some of the time. Everyone knew that. But no one knew when. Every contestant hoped one of his opponents would be eliminated first. It didn’t matter which one. Every time someone was knocked out, the surviving players climbed another rung on the pay ladder. Ungar knew that.

Ungar’s mastery of the table seemed palpable. He was a shark among a school of fish, and he sensed blood in the water. Bao, short on chips the entire day, was the first to fall — eliminated by Judah. By 1:30 p.m. Ungar had more chips than his remaining four opponents combined. Read the rest of this entry »

The main event is what draws the crowds to Las Vegas, and the 1997 and 1998 World Series of Poker were more dramatic than most. One event is the thrilling yet ultimately sad tale of an incredible comeback, the other a quintessential American success story.

Stu Ungar: The Comeback Kid

A dozen former world champs competed in the 1997 event, including two- time winners Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Stu Ungar, along with 27-yearold defending champion Huck Seed. Formerly an engineering student at Cal Tech, Seed took a year’s sabbatical to play poker and never returned. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some general pieces of advice that you should take to heart when playing video poker:

Play intelligently: Learn to recognize and play only the better games, and learn an accurate strategy for each game you play. To do otherwise is just donating your money to the casino.

Look for competitive casinos: Nevada regulations set the minimum payback for slot machines at 75 percent, but statewide statistics show average paybacks in the 90 percent to 98 percent range. Read the rest of this entry »

Phil Hellmuth, Jr.

The self-described “poker brat” is one of poker’s most intriguing, yet controversial players. At times, he demonstrates a level of ingenuity that is rare, even among high-stakes poker players. On other occasions, Hellmuth admittedly plays so poorly he probably couldn’t beat a small-stakes game. Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, Heilmuth is the son of a university dean. He started playing poker seriously while enrolled at the University of Wisconsin and soon discovered he was far more interested in playing poker than studying. Read the rest of this entry »

Benny Binion

One of Las Vegas’s last true patriarchs, Benny Binion started out by running illegal bootlegging and gambling rackets in Dallas during the 1930s. Binion arrived in Las Vegas in 1946 (some insist to evade murder charges back in Texas) and bought the dilapidated Eldorado Casino. He renamed it Binion’s Horseshoe, and it soon became the epicenter of gambling activity. The Horseshoe wasn’t really built for common tourists; it was a place for real gamblers.

For more than four decades, Binion had a standing public offer: He would accept a wager of any size, from anyone who walked into his casino. More than a few eccentrics were entranced by Binion’s willingness to take the ultimate gamble, and there are many stories in Binion’s folklore (all true) of high- rollers with suitcases full of money riding on a single roll at the craps table. But Binion’s first love was poker. Read the rest of this entry »

Poker is the only popular game of skillful human interaction where it’s possible on any given day to play against the world’s best players. At any of the hundreds of major poker tournaments held in the United States or Europe every year, you could find yourself face-to-face against former world champions such as Scotty Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth, Jr., or Huck Seed. Ever heard of them? How about T. A. Preston? Name sound familiar? He’s better known as “Amarillo Slim.” If No-Limit Texas Hold’em is your game, you might get raised by none other than Johnny Chan, who appeared in the film, Rounders. Chan won two World Series of Poker titles back to back! Read the rest of this entry »

To most recreational poker players the idea of playing professionally seems like a dream. Get up when you want to, work when and where you choose, and ply your trade almost anywhere. From London to Las Vegas and California to Costa Rica, casino poker awaits you there. So what’s stopping you? Only the answer to this critical question, “Can I make a living as a poker player?”

Poker Isn‘t Like Most Jobs

For one thing, if you’re a poker player, you won’t have a steady salary coming in. Even commissioned salespeople don’t lose money if they fail to make a sale. But poker players do lose money whenever they have a bad day. It’s one of the few jobs where you can go to work and lose money. Imagine that. An entire day of poker — under stressful conditions — and all you’ve got to show for it is less money than you started out with. Not a pretty picture, is it? Read the rest of this entry »