On the surface it looks like a regular poker table.  Hidden inside is a system of hi-tech RFID (Radio-frequency identification) electronics that tracks the movement of playing cards, and superimposes that information on a live video feed.  The cutting edge technology, identifies exactly what cards have been dealt and replaces any need for hole cameras.

Genting Poker in England announced in June, 2011 that it was testing  the first RFID poker table at the Circus Casino Liverpool ahead of the live streaming of the 2011 Genting Poker Players Championship. 

The MSPT will be the first to debut the table here in the United States, the table is being shipped from overseas and we’re hopeful it will arrive just in time for the MSPT at Grand Casino Mille Lacs event November 12-20, 2011.  If not, expect the table to be unveiled at the MSPT at Canterbury Park December 7-12, 2011.

Dan Michalski of Pokerati is quoted as saying, “This technology seems to be wow-level – with the potential to change the dynamic of the “televised” game”.

The plastic cards contain flat embedded RFID transmitter chips.  These modified cards can be shuffled, dealt and bent like normal cards and do not differ in appearance.  RFID cards transmit their face value and suit, such as Ace of Spades, to RFID readers milled into the wood and communicating with the software.  The software then generates the card graphics known from sports television.  In order to prevent any interception of the exchange of data between table and software, communication is encrypted using a powerful AES algorithm.

The feature table at MSPT events will be streamed on a 15-minute delay throughout each tournament, showing viewers the hole cards and the flop, along with the percentage chance of the winning hand.  Just like the World Series of Poker broadcasts on ESPN. 

Not only will viewers be able to see the hole cards, the MSPT is upgrading the webcams for the final table.  There will now be two cameras – one on each end of the table – that can be switched back-and-forth to provide a better view of the action.  The expectation is also that these new cameras will provide better quality than previously used webcams.

As always, viewers will be able to access the LIVE stream on www.msptpoker.com or www.mnpokermag.com.

This past Saturday in Verndale, MN, the River Rat Poker League held their 2^nd annual bounty tournament where they bring in several recognizable names in Minnesota poker as bounties.

An outstanding field of 101 players on 10 tables packed Mike & Jody’s home (yes you heard that right – 101 players in their home!), surpassing last year’s record of 82 players!

There were 10 bounties in all – 4 of them were worth $100 cash and 6 bounties were worth a $250 MSPT qualifier seat.  The bounty prizes were sealed tight in envelopes so not even the bounties themselves knew what the price was on their head.  This year’s bounties included MSPT champions Matt Hyland, Tom Stambaugh and Stingray Bendijo as well as Heidi Roggenkamp, Bryan Mileski, Tom Sharp, Paul Schroeder, Dave Mandt, Valkyrie Quarterback Jocelyn Bendijo and Showdown Poker Gear’s Erik Jensen.

After 13 hours of play, John Schornack and Mark Fraki came out on top, each with a $1,100 MSPT main event seat.  The total prize pool for this event included TWO-$1,100 main event seats, TWELVE-$250 qualifier seats and FIVE-$100 cash prizes!  The losers got to eat more candy corn, it was really good.

Photo:  Bounty Tournament Final Table

The Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) website – www.msptpoker.com – now has Player Profiles available for all players who have previously cashed.

You can click on a specific player’s name to view that player’s historical MSPT cashes as well as MSPT Career Earnings, Final Tables and total number of MSPT cashes.

To view the Player database and profiles, visit:  www.msptpoker.com/Players/

I love Fall Poker Classic time at Canterbury Park.  My love, however, has nothing to do with the tournaments themselves.  I didn’t play in a single one.  I’m a perfectly average no-limit hold’em tournament player, and would rather leave that expensive pursuit to the professionals.  Rather, I make my money at the limit hold’em live games, and there’s no better time to make that money than during the Fall Poker Classic.

The reason this time of year is so profitable is simple: The typical player seems to play more poorly than usual.  Many of these players will be from out of town, though that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the quality of their poker game.  Notice that I differentiate playing bad poker from being a bad poker player.  Most of the players who come from outside the Twin Cities to participate in the Fall Poker Classic are very skilled, intelligent and thoughtful players.  But they may not be in their comfort zone and they may not be playing during ideal times.  Let me explain my two-fold theory.

First of all, let’s examine when these tournament players typically sit down at a live limit hold’em cash game.  Immediately after they’re eliminated from the tournament, right?  Imagine (as if it’s difficult) that you’re playing in a tournament after driving six hours to get there, and eighteen minutes into play some asshole cracks your Q-Q with K-9.  It’s 12:20pm on a Wednesday afternoon, and there won’t be another tournament for twenty-four hours.  Back to the hotel to watch Ricki Lake?  Of course not!  There’s a poker room fifty feet away; let’s play!

The problem, of course, is that before you’ve even been dealt a card, you’re on tilt!  You’re not playing smart methodical poker; rather, you’re playing to kill time and to take revenge on the poker world that screwed you out of an early-round double up.  I can’t tell you how many dudes at the limit hold’em table over the last few weeks were complaining about their last tournament hand.  Nobody cares, first of all; but secondly, you’d better put that out of your mind if you hope to be profitable here.  These players get caught up on tournament losses and, as such, are usually destined to lose more at the live games.

The second factor contributing to my Fall Poker Classic prosperity is the specific skill-set of the new players.  As I said, most of the people swarming to Canterbury in early October are there, obviously, to play in tournaments.  And these players are very good at tournaments!  People don’t drive hundreds of miles and set up shop for a week while spending thousands of dollars on entry fees without having some confidence in their abilities.  But tournament poker exercises a very different muscle than does live limit hold’em.  And when a player who excels at tournament poker is busted from the tournament, not only is he on aggravated tilt, but he’s flexing an irrelevant poker muscle.  He’s worried about increased blinds and bubbles and stack sizes.  None of that shit matters at the limit hold’em games.  It isn’t that tournament players are incapable of adjusting.  They certainly are.  But I saw it time and time again at the 8-16 table this month: a player I’ve never seen sits down with $600 and begins three-betting with hands like 7-5 suited or 2-2.  I suppose he doesn’t intellectualize the fact that a “re-raise” in limit hold’em amounts to an additional… eight dollars.  Here, you can’t really push people around with a big stack.  Pots are almost always multi-way, and bluffing is utilized far differently.  Players who treat the limit hold’em table similarly to a no-limit hold’em tournament usually just end up getting themselves in trouble.

So, those are my own non-statistical based theories.  They’re probably wrong.

I’VE DECIDED TO JOIN TWITTER.  I CANNOT PROMISE TO BE THE LEAST BIT ENTERTAINING, THOUGH I DO PLAN ON TWEETING IRRITATION DURING POKER SESSIONS.  PLEASE, FOLLOW ME, SO I FEEL VALIDATED IN MY SELF-INDULGENCE:

@JayMindPoker

RF Moeller is the best jeweler in the Twin Cities, they are the designer and creator of the custom MSPT Championship Diamond Bracelet that we all love!  “LIKE” RF Moeller Jeweler on Facebook by clicking here:  http://www.facebook.com/#!/rfmoellerjeweler

The Fall Poker Classic is now complete and there was no shortage of excitement or points related to the Player of the Year race during the series.  John Alexander managed to escape the Classic with the lead.  Nathan Fair had temporarily taken the top spot with his FPC Event #6 win but Johnny A. responded with a win in Event #11.

Blake Bohn and Paul Schroeder also had a solid FPC series and put themselves in contention for POY.  Bohn jumped to #3 and Schroeder to #4.

John Olson (pictured) cashed 4 times in the FPC, his first 4 POY cashes this year.  His multiple deep runs in deep fields earned him 129 points in 2 weeks, good enough for 9th place.

I’ve done some research on the statistics of my poker-playing career and I’d like to share with you the results.  During the course of my life, I have folded the winning hand 28,176 times.  I did this the majority of the time pre-flop, with 17,045 occurrences.  I folded on the flop 6,982 times, 3,088 times on the turn, 1,057 times on the river, and even four awfully stupid showdown mucks, when I, in fact, was the winner.  Understandably, you may be skeptical that I’ve pinpointed these numbers with such accuracy.  Your skepticism is founded.  I’m completely making it up.  But I think the point is a valid one.  And the point is this:  Nobody gives a shit.

Everybody folds cards that will turn into gold!  It happens several times during every session.  Why, then, do your tablemates find this completely uninteresting fact to be so fascinating?  There is always at least one guy at the table who informs you every single time he mucks a winner.  “Oh, man, dude!  I totally folded 9-3 there!  Do you see that?  I would’ve had a pair of nines!”  Does anybody care about that?  Even you, sir, the man who held the cards, shouldn’t give a shit about that enough to lend it eight seconds thought, let alone forcing this excruciating knowledge on your disinterested opponents.

Of the fabricated 28,176 times I’ve mucked a winner, I probably have shared my misfortune on 103 occasions.  These rare verbalizations, however, are reserved for special circumstances.  Maybe you mucked what would’ve been a straight flush or quads!  Perhaps that information is worth discussing.  But once you’ve mucked J-5 off-suit, you’re not allowed to complain to me about the two-pair you would’ve rivered.  That’s poker, homie.

The worst manifestation of this disease is the man who tells you all about the great hand he mucked right after you just lost a showdown.  You’ll bet your top-pair on the river, and your opponent will call you.  You turn over your cards, and he flips up the two-pair hand he rivered to beat you.  You’re understandably a little annoyed.  But your clear disgust and quiet brooding is certainly no deterrent for the uninvolved jerk-off next to you who simply must tell you all about his hand.  He leans toward you, and although you’re making it abundantly clear you’re not in the mood for a little chat, he says, “You know, I would’ve turned a flush on that hand!”  Oh, really?  That’s fantastic!  Yes, the first thing I want to hear after being rivered is that some other fool at the table would also have beaten my meager holding.  And why, why, why does he think I care about this right now?  Is he honestly expecting sympathy or understanding from me?  Who loses a hand and immediately wants to listen to another player’s unfortunate lost opportunity?

I simply can’t fathom what makes these people think anybody else is interested in the minutiae of their poker session.  It’s as if they don’t recognize that others don’t care about their wins as much as they do.  They never talk about the 7-4 they mucked that turned out to be… seven-high!  Perhaps that’s equally worthy of discussion.  In fact, these people should probably just play every single hand.  That way, they’ll never muck a winner.  And, far more importantly, I’ll never have to hear their monotonous blather again.

I’VE DECIDED TO JOIN TWITTER.  I CANNOT PROMISE TO BE THE LEAST BIT ENTERTAINING, THOUGH I DO PLAN ON TWEETING IRRITATION DURING POKER SESSIONS.  PLEASE, FOLLOW ME, SO I FEEL VALIDATED IN MY SELF-INDULGENCE:

@JayMindPoker

By:  The PokerOffice Expert (www.pokeroffice.com)

Here is an idea of what kind of statistics a winning poker player should be showing:

In my previous articles I’ve explained what a few key statistics such as VP$IP%, PFR% and 3bet% mean and how to understand what specific numbers mean. I’d like to continue by giving you some guidelines as to what your own numbers should look like.

Let me first emphasize that there isn’t a set formula to what your stats should look like for you to be a winner; some players play a loose aggressive winning style of poker; some players play a tight aggressive winning style of poker. The goal with this article is that you will be able to realize if you’re playing too loose, too tight or too passive to be a solid winner at poker.

Below you will find a few tables showing the average big blinds won per 100 hands for players based on preflop statistics. The averages are based on the statistics of about 2000 players playing 6-max at stakes between NL100 – NL600.

Voluntarily put money into the pot

What we notice when looking at the above table is that it’s very rare to have a VPIP of above 25% and still be a winning player, so should your own VPIP be above this you should definitely try to tighten your starting hands requirement quite a bit. I recommend a VPIP of around 17 – 20 for inexperienced players since you will be faced with much less tricky spots by playing a tight preflop game.

Preflop raise %

The preflop raise % table clearly shows that it pays off to be aggressive and take the initiative when you do chose to play a hand. Should your own PFR % be too low you should focus on raising more often preflop. Maybe you’re limping too often when others have done so before you or maybe you’re not raising enough in late position when you’re first to act?

3-Bet %

Exactly as with the preflop raise % table we can see that it’s important to be 3-betting preflop fairly often preflop. Many players are only 3-betting their very strong hands, but this generally is not a great strategy since your opponents will then easier figure out what you have when you finally do re-raise.

Should your 3-bet be too low, focus on trying to add a few hands to your range; should a loose player raise in late position, then go ahead and 3-bet more hands than only the very best ones; in the blinds, put in a 3-bet when a very active player tries to steal your blind. By taking the initiative with a 3-bet you will often win the pot preflop or on the flop by making a reasonable continuation bet.

Remember to not make your 3-bets too small since this will result in too many calls from your opponents. Try making your 3-bets at least three times as big as the original raise.