Passing Poker Strange

Poker games have been a very popular for Hollywood movies. Most poker movies however do not end up being very good in terms of content, storyline, and are often guilty of showing poker in a bad light. However, if you love watching poker games played on the silver screen, you will love these amazing poker movies. .

The Sting

The Sting was a famous Hollywood movie, which was directed by George Roy Hill in 1973. This movie does not focus on poker per se but instead focuses on card sharking aspects. In The Sting, Paul Newman plays a sophisticated, suave and yet extremely shrewd con artist. He acts as a mentor par excellence to a very young Robert Redford by teaching him how to trick people by conning them through card games.

Cincinnati Kid

The Cincinnati Kid is a poker movie and is based on the stud poker game variant. It is one of the classic films of Hollywood and is best known for the final quote and final hand. In this poker movie, you have a young and dashing Steve McQueen playing the part of an amateur poker player who is referred to as The Kid. He continually battles against a seasoned poker player called The Man and this character is played by yet another Hollywood great, Edward G. Robinson. The entire poker game and the storyline are set against the Great Depression in New Orleans, and the movie has some amazing poker action in it. The Cincinnati Kid is also very famous for the quote:”Gets down to what it’s all about, doesn’t it? Making the wrong move at the wrong time”.

California Split

California Split is a famous Hollywood movie about two poker players at absolutepoker.net and their daily messy lives. The two poker players are played by Elliott Gould and George Segal. The direction is by Robert Altman and the film released during 1974. The ending of the poker movie is not very happy and narrative not straight but nevertheless, it showcases the real experience between two poker players, one of which sells all his belongings and possessions to play in the big game.

Rounders

Rounders is one of the few poker movies to highlight the underground high stakes poker en ligne scene. Directed by John Dahl and released in 1998, Rounders is a lengthy poker marathon between Edward Norton and Matt Damon. This movie was a cult hit of sorts and in the story, both poker players try to earn huge money in an intense poker game. In the movie, you also find Johnny Chan making a special appearance.

Maverick

Maverick is one of those light-hearted entertaining poker movies, which does not really focus on the game but on the story. Mel Gibson plays the part of a maverick poker player who wants to make sufficient money to play in a major poker tournament. The movie focuses first on his travels, where he tries to con and make money to cover his tournament entry fee.

Many online casinos offer a very simple side bet, although elusive (only seen it or heard of it being played in a handful of casinos state-side), and one that yields very favorable house odds is called Field of Gold. The side bet is a fixed amount, and since it’s tallying up card value, Aces are always counted as one here. And that’s really it, there are no wacky wheels or anything on this one, it’s just straight payout based on the value of your first two cards. Here’s the rundown:

The highest payout is Ace/Jack suited, which bring in 25:1. Don’t stop reading yet, I know 25:1 on a blackjack side bet isn’t the greatest “high-end” payout, but when you see the overall odds and potential combinations for victory, you’ll become a believer. Anyway, the odds of getting this in your hand are just under 0.3%. in a standard, six-deck game. This leaves you with a 7.4% return if it hits.

Next is a pair of bullets, which wins 10:1 on your bet, and carries a 0.57 percent chance of occurring. So, doing the math again, there’s a 5.7% average return on this part of the side bet.

The rest of the returns are minimal, but so plentiful that it significantly helps your return odds for each hand.

A total hand value of 3 or 4 pays off 3:1, and has a 3% chance of hitting. A value of 9 or 10 pays 2:1, with a favorable 10% chance. A straight blackjack wins 1.5:1 (sounds familiar), and the odds of that (which you already should know) are about 4.4%. And finally an 11 or 12 value wins 1:1, and carries a percentage of 13.5.

How does that all boil down? Let’s break it up by deck. The overall house edge in a one-deck casino game here is 6.6%, which is extremely favorable for a one-deck side bet. And as the decks increase, your odds improve. Two decks is 6%, four decks is 5.75%, five decks is 5.7%, six decks is 5.66%, and an eight-deck game brings the house edge down to 5.62%.

So, if you can locate this side bet at any of the US online casinos, it’s well worth the gamble for any number of decks. It also forces you to count your value each time, which isn’t a bad habit to work into your blackjack discipline anyway.

Full Tilt, the second largest internet poker room in the world, saw a great deal of action this weekend as it hosted its most lucrative, regularly scheduled events. One of these notable tournaments, the $250k GTD Sunday Brawl, saw high enough participation to boost the purse to a massive $346,800.

A field of 1,734 took to the tables at 2:00 pm ET, posting the $240+$16 buy-in to compete in the knockout event. $200 of each buy-in went to the prize pool, while another $40 was placed on the head of each participant.

The double-stacked No Limit Hold’em event lasted nearly 8-1/2 hours into the night before a victor emerged. At the final table, “PJSNEAKS” and “Volker_Racho” went down and dirty into heads-up competition after sending “CHI01” to the virtual rails in 3rd place with about $35k.

It wasn’t long before the immaculate skills of “PJSNEAKS” overwhelmed “Volker_Racho”. The cards simply were not in his favor this day as Racho’s stack was forced into submission, earning him $47,164 for the 2nd place finish.

PJSNEAKS collected the heftiest prize of the day, $71,440 as the 1st place winner of the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawl.

Interestingly enough, the $750k GTD held later that day at Full Tilt Poker did not receive enough entries to cover its prize pool, while the FullTilt Poker.com Sunday Brawl was trumped by more than 1/3 of the expected guarantee. Of course, it takes a lot more numbers to cover a $750k purse, but the immense popularity of knockout style tournaments like the Sunday Brawl takes a lot of the credit. One does not need to finish in the money bubble to even make a profit at such online poker tournaments, as simply ousting 7 other players will earn back your entire buy-in, plus fee, and grant a small $24 profit.

Full Tilt Poker $250k GTD Sunday Brawl Final Table Results
1st – PJSNEAKS ($71,441)
2nd – Volker_Racho ($47,165)
3rd – CHI01 ($35,027)
4th – rUsure420 ($27,397)
5th – sebbau ($20,461)
6th – Grazza No1 ($14,219)
7th – tassen1 ($8,670)
8th – dany1989 ($5,896)
9th – JesusLizzard ($4,162)

The World Series of Poker recently announced that the public will now be able to nominate poker players to be inducted in this year’s Poker Hall of Fame. The public can log on to the WSOP website and nominate who they would like to see inducted by registering the players name and a small paragraph on why they believe they should be nominated. Shortly after the WSOP announced this decision Party Poker came out stating they would like to see Mike Sexton nominated.

Sexton recently signed with Party Poker to serve as their ambassador and they want to see their newly appointed poker pro showered with the honor of being the newest member in the Poker Hall of Fame. The poker room is encouraging others to nominate Sexton as well.

A spokesman for Party Poker stated: “We encourage the poker community to vote online for Mike Sexton’s induction into poker’s hall of fame.” Mike famously said that poker takes five minutes to learn and a lifetime to master- it takes five minutes to vote and mark the lifetime achievement of the master! Mike meets all the criteria and deserves to be top of the list when the process gets to the Hall of Fame Committee.”

Nominees must have played poker against acknowledged top players as well as played for high stakes and played on a consistent basis to gain the respect of their peers and stood the test of time in the industry.

One poker pro who has said she will vote for Mike Sexton is Annette Obrestad. Young and new to the poker scene, Obrestad has shown her skill in the game of poker and has a bright future ahead of her in the game. Obrestad commented: “I may be from a different generation of poker players to Mike, but in my mind he deserves induction into poker’s hall of fame this year.”

Here’s another side bet with a few nice payoffs but a rather uninspired name, called Lucky Lucky. Don’t ask me where that came from, but one indication might be that the game is commonly found more in Canada than the U.S. (kidding).

In this one, like many others, the online blackjack payoff is based on the combination of your first two up cards and the dealer’s first up card. Like a stingy slot machine, your best payoff in this one is in the form of three sevens. Let’s go through some of the statistics. I do have to say, after taking all of them into account, the overall house edge is an extremely favorable 2.6%, making this one of the best side bets to try your hand at…if you can find it.

The top payoff gives you back 200:1 on your original bet, and it hits if the combination of the three cards is three suited sevens. The odds are 0.0016% of this coming up, though, with only 80 possible combinations in the decks. Next on the list is a 100:1 payoff for getting 6,7,8 in a row, suited. The odds on this one actually climb proportionately to the payoff, and land at 0.017 percent.

The next two are the same as the first two, only without the suited requirement. The 777 one pays off 50:1, with a probability of hitting at 0.03 percent. The 678 pays 30:1, and will hit 0.26% of the time.

Now, here’s where you actually start to see where the 2.6% house edge comes into play. The rest of these strategy blackjack payoffs make the entire side bet extremely favorable to the player, as you’re getting paid off much of the time, whether it’s those high odds or just enough to keep you coming back.

A suited 21 pays off 15:1, with the odds of hitting at 0.53 percent. Even an unsuited 21 pays 3:1, and you’ll see those a nice 8.1 percent of the time.

Rounding out the bottom are any combination of 20, and any combination of 19, both paying the player 2:1 on their bet. The 20 has a 7.5 percent chance of coming up, while the 19 is slightly lower at 7.2 percent.

Overall, this is a very winnable and sustainable side bet, and a nice compliment to regular play.