Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Christian Slater, the heartthrob actor best known for his performance in movies like Broken Arrow, Untamed Heart, Bed of Roses and Interview with the Vampire, will now be taking on a poker movie, much to the delight of poker enthusiasts and Slater fans everywhere.

This poker movie scheduled to be released next year, will be called “Guns, Girls and Gambling” and will feature Slater, Megan Park, Gary Oldman, Helena Mattsson and stand up comedian Dane Cook, who will play the sheriff in the movie. Based on a poker game gone horribly wrong, “Guns, Girls and Gambling” is sure to give poker fans a lot of action to watch on the big screen.

IMDB also known as the Internet Movie Database has this movie pegged as follows: “The story throws Elvis impersonators, Indians, modern cowboys, a six-foot-tall blond assassin, a frat boy, a corrupt sheriff and a prostitute into a chase for a priceless American Indian artifact stolen during a poker game at an Indian casino.” Slater fans may be surprised to note that their star will be playing an Elvis Impersonator for a small portion of the film.

Slater will play the role of John Smith while Megan Park will act as the character of Cindy. The script for the film has been written by Michael Winnick, who will also direct the film.

Poker and gambling movies appear to be becoming very popular as was evident from movies like Blackjack, Lucky You and The Grand. Guns, Girls and Gambling will be an action movie and has been described a ‘stylized crime thriller.’

The movie is currently being filmed in Utah, in the desert areas of the state to provide that Wild West look to the film. The film is set to be released in the US and in Europe in 2011, although the date has not yet been confirmed.

The news online has been abuzz with claims that poker rooms are sometimes frequented by robots. Let’s set the record straight. First of all, they’re called bots, not robots. To be a robot, it would have to be more than just a computer program. It would have to be an actual computerized piece of equipment capable of movement. Second, to create a bot to play poker at a commercial online poker room is more than a little complex.

The code, or the inner workings of the poker room software isn’t available for everyone to see, so it’s not easy to make another computer program interact with that program. It’s not impossible. There are people who can do it, but it isn’t easy. The next part is more complicated, though. Once you’ve somehow connected an automatic poker-player bot to poker software, you need to program that poker player bot.

There are some excellent poker tutorial programs out there, but very few allow you to plug in the cards and the actions of the other players. Almost all require you to play their own games. If you do find one that allows you to plug in the action on the board, though, it can only make moves defined by the type of player it has been programmed to play. That is, it can be a tight-agressive player, a loose-agressive player, a tight-passive, or a loose-passive. If you don’t change it frequently, it’s easy for the other players at the table to catch on and predict the player’s every move.

Bots cannot control a bankroll the way that a real player can. Bots might win, meaning that the bankroll is not a problem, but if they lose too much, they’ll simply bust without any way to reload.

There’s another thing to consider here, too. Most players in the low to medium stakes rooms are mostly in it for the challenge and the fun. There is very little fun in leaving a bot to play your game.

If you do think you’re playing against a bot, though, say hello. If they answer, it’s probably a real person.

The WSOP is in full-swing, and Tony G isn’t seeing the kind of results he’d been hoping for. The Lithuanian born poker player known for telling his opponents to “get on the bike” talked big and expected to get some serious action at the tables at the WSOP. He even hinted that this was going to be his year to take home a bracelet, something he hasn’t achieved despite over $400K in cashes at WSOP events. It doesn’t look like that’s in the cards, though. He keeps busting out of events. In the $5K no-limit, he said “was good pre-flop and ran into bad endings that killed me.” He explained that he is experiencing burnout and is no longer having fun.

He was also highly disappointed at losing out on the opportunity to play for a spot at the the Tournament of Champions competition. In his blog, he wrote that he feels the WSOP is unfair in their way of choosing the competitors for this final spot. Annie Duke suggested that it should only be open to bracelet winners, perhaps the next nine players on the list after those selected by the voters. That would create a fair wild-card spot. Tony G commented that “I feel some of the choices are good ones, others are just wrong, and I would like to know who made the choices and why they made them. The WSOP is being unfair with this decision…”

Tony G is now back in London and says “I am really glad to have some time off and away from the WSOP.” In response to those criticizing his leaving the WSOP, he says “I play when I enjoy playing and I do my best. I don’t have to play on their schedule or on their idea of how I should react.” Despite earlier writings to the contrary, he plans to be back at the WSOP for the main event.

If you’re popping a dose of your little brother’s Ritalin when you head online to play poker, you’re probably not the only one. In fact, in a recent survey performed by a team of researchers from Nova Southeastern University in Florida, fully eighty percent of those poker players surveyed admitted to using some type of performance enhancer beyond a regular cup of coffee or an energy drink.

It makes perfect sense, folks, to have a cup of coffee or even a whole pot of it brewed if you’re heading into a big tournament, but seriously people, researchers interviewed poker players in Vegas who said they took everything from marijuana to cocaine to amphetamines, not to mention prescription medications like Valium, Adderal, and Ritalin. Three quarters of the users said they’re looking for a way to focus and concentrate. The others are looking for ways to calm their nerves, stay awake, and keep their memories sharper.

May we recommend some green tea to calm your nerves, some coffee to stay awake, and for crying out loud, if you want to sharpen your memory, stay off the weed! Sure, these tourneys are physically grueling. Some of them go on for hours. If you want your mind to stay sharp, though, you need to keep your body clean of toxins. Get a good night’s sleep before the tournament. Drink plenty of water. Try green tea to soothe your nerves. If you’re having trouble staying calm, learn to meditate.

Poker’s already been termed a sport in some countries. It’s only a matter of time before they start testing players for drugs and performance enhancers. Be ready to play using your own brain power. Don’t let illegal drug use now burn you out for future play. Remember that some of these drugs affect your mind in ways that are not fully understood by scientists and doctors. You may be causing permanent damage, maybe to the very parts of your brain that you need to be the best poker player out there.

Long has been the debate over poker bots; what they mean, their benefits
and drawbacks and weather or not they’re cheating.  Of course, if you
were to take a look at any of the TOS of any major poker site, it’s
written plain as day that they are strictly not allowed, and that if you
are found using one your “winnings” would be confiscated immediately
and i’m sure a ban of some kind would be imposed.  That not
withstanding, they are a very real threat to the on line player.  If you
play on line poker, you have likely played against at least one, and
probably many poker bots.  There are even allegations out there that
some of the “big” poker rooms use bots to fill their tables during
“slow” times.

A few months back, during a regular home game, my
friends and i were discussing if we would use a poker bot were it
delivered to us and set up on our machine.  One guys view was that it
was “an easy way to make money.”  Another thought it was a low risk
thing to do, and to only set it up on one table while you were multi
tabling; strictly to see “how it did” compared to a real live player.

Well,
i stumbled upon an “Academic” poker bot.  This is a bot that was
created by the owner of Robotpoker.org (i didn’t catch his name..).
What does having an “Academic” Pokerbot mean?  Well, here is a quote
from his website…

PokerPirate successfully beat single
table, no limit, Texas Hold’em tournaments. These are better known as
sit-and-go’s. PokerPirate played the $5 tournaments on Royal Vegas Poker
(RVP). After recouping my losses from the development process, I
decided to turn the bot off. I am now releasing the source code and
using it as a case study in artificial intelligence and software
engineering.

So, this guy (and i’m not trying to vilify him
here, i think what he’s done is pretty awesome) has developed a bot that
has successfully BEATEN poker games at the low level.  People take
years to master the skills necessary to accomplish this feat, and most
of them aren’t very consistent.  If you want to read more about
PokerPirate, head on over to his blog. (full disclosure: i don’t know
him, have no affiliation to him, have never talked to him..i just think
that what he’s created is pretty cool) Right now he’s soliciting info on
what people want to hear about, so check it out and vote for what
you’re interested in.

Now, on to my real question.  Here is a
poker bot, and with a little googling, and ninja computer skills, you
could download and run it fairly easily.  Easy source of income? Social
Experiment? Would you install and use it, if you were 99% sure that no
one would know, and you could make $50 bucks a day leaving it on?

Here
is the download link.

Today the International Mind sport Association (IMSA) announced that it
has officially recognized poker as a mind sport, or a game of skill. 
It has put poker on par with games like Chess and Bridge.  IFP
(International Federation of Poker) President embraced “a major
milestone in our campaign to have poker accepted throughout the world
as a game of strategic skill.”  One year ago yesterday (April 29th) the
IFP was founded for the purpose of having poker accepted as a “mind
sport.”  Poker now has a place at the IMSA’s World Mind Sports Games,
which will be held in 2012 concurrently with the London Olympic Games.

The next step for poker is for the IFP to secure membership to SportAccord (formerly the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF))
to maintain it’s IMSA status.  This will not happen until the 2011
SportsAccord conference, however it’s still a positive and necessary
step; one that will entrench poker as a mind game for as long as people
are playing poker.  SportsAccord is the organization that manages and
unites all of the recognized sports on a global scale (this includes
soccer (FIFA),Go (IGF), Chess(FIDE).  To read more about SportsAccord
click here. 

What does this mean for poker?  According to Doyle Brunson “The
IFP deserves our thanks and congratulations, I believe that history
will show this was a key moment for poker. All over the world the game
has been faced with governmental controls and other obstacles. Yet it
is obvious it calls for qualities and skills that go far beyond a
capacity just to take a chance.”

Next year IFP
will be launching poker’s first annual world championships, both team
and individual, as well as participation in regular IMSA events.  I
wonder what this will mean for all the already major poker tournaments
out there.  Will the WSOP still be the defining “Best in the World”
competition for poker, or will the new, internationally recognized IFP
be spearheading a whole new world order as it applies to poker?