Archive for the 'Funny Farm' Category

Personality Profile: Tight-Aggressive Players

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Tight-aggressive online poker players are dangerous opponents. They have a tendency to wait for the right online poker hands to play, and they’ll bet aggressively when they’ve got hands that they like. If you find an opponent who folds a lot of poker online hands, keep an eye out for when he decides to play. If he limps in and folds at the first sign of action, then he’s probably a tight-passive player, and you don’t have much to worry about from him-just try to buy up his blinds when he’s in the hand. If he raises into the pot and sticks around even when opponents bet against him, than you’ve got a tight-aggressive player that you need to be careful around. Tight aggressive players are dangerous because they have a habit of playing cards that have high expected values and aren’t easily chased out of hands. If you are in a hand with a tight-aggressive player, you’d better have a strong hand, because the odds are that you’re going to have to pay some money to make it to the showdown. Tight-aggressive players aren’t usually satisfied with checking unless they’re setting a trap for you, so don’t plan on playing any drawing hands against them, either.

Do You Need to Be Emotionless to Be a pro?

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

I have read a lot of different online poker guides that have tips on how to become a poker pro. While these internet tips range the gambit from the feasible to the laughable, they all seem to share one trait. Everywhere I look, being a professional player is represented as serious business. We are told that we need to spend all of our time at the table analyzing the other player’s moves and calculating the odds. We are told that we need to turn into poker robots if we ever want to even consider making a livelihood off of the game.

This sounds like good advice at first glance, but how many pros have you seen that are emotionless players? All of the ones that I have seen play seem to get into the game. After the pot is collected, you can see their emotions on their faces. They are definitely not emotionless robot online poker players. After watching the pros, I have decided that you do not need to be emotionless to be a professional poker player. As long as you can keep your emotions off of your face while the cards are actually active you should be fine. There is no need to turn into a robot to win a tournament.

WSOP 2009 Final Table: Suckout City!

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

This year’s final table of the World Series of Poker may have been one of the most volatile and surprising runs we’ve seen since Moneymaker’s landmark victory in 2003. In more poker online situations than I can remember in any other recent year, we saw hands that were the clear favorite getting in good (such as Shulman’s pocket jacks over pocket threes) only to see the inferior get upgraded and take it down time and time again. Literally both poker online players who made it to heads up got there only after a number of ridiculous draw outs, one after the other. It may have been exciting to watch, but the result seemed even more jumpy than usual. Still, it made for good poker TV. All of this brings to the front the important point that to win poker tournaments, especially ones as deep as the WSOP, sometimes you just have to get lucky. You might do well to get it in good every time, but eventually it’s going to come down to the numbers working in your favor. It’s a deep field, and somebody somewhere is always going to get hurt. Remember this, and proceeding with good attitude, such as Shulman did in the face of that beat, is key not only to your well being, but to the vitality and pleasure of the poker game.

Picking a Casino Based on Tournaments

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

There has been a lot of buzz in the online poker community lately about using satellite tournaments to get into the big stakes tournaments. This means that you only pay a small amount to enter a tournament where the grand prize is a ticket to a bigger poker tournament. This is a great idea in our current financial climate, so more and more people are rushing to join satellite tournaments. Trust me; casinos have picked up on this trend. You will probably notice that there are tons of tournaments now advertised on the major online casinos. Everyone seems to be using them as a lure to get more people through the digital doors. With all of these options available, is it a good idea to pick your poker online casino based on the satellite tournaments it offers? The answer to this is both a yes and a no. You should definitely sign up for interesting satellites to the big names if you don’t want to hand over the money for the buy in. But you should also consider these satellites as a special occurrence. You could even make a special account that you use only for satellites as not to confuse it with your normal bankroll. Make sure that your regular casino offers you an all around poker experience, not just good satellite tournaments.

Easy Steps to Making Mouth-Watering Chocolate Candy

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Tempering is the process by which you give shine and smoothness to chocolate, which is not their natural quality. Blooming is prevented and the chocolate breaks cleanly with tempering.

Improper tempering is the basic cause for formation of crystals and blotches on chocolate surfaces. The natural temper that is lost while heating the chocolate can be returned by tempering.

Cocoa butter, that is the basic ingredient of chocolate, has in it, large quantities of solids and these solids and the butter’s crystals get suspended during heating. But during melting, the crystals separate from the solids and rise to the surface separately.

Cocoa butter’s unique quality of re-crystallizing into six forms, and these six types of crystals behaving dominantly at six different temperatures make it necessary to closely monitor temperatures during tempering. Out of these six types of crystals, type V, gives snap and shine to chocolate.

Hence tempering is done to increase the quantity of type V crystals. Along with type V crystals, type IV is also formed and to eliminate it and retain type V crystals, reheating is done. For achieving the aim of strict maintenance of temperatures, you can use a digital laser thermometer.

Each variety of chocolate has specific heating and cooling temperatures. General tempering methods are tabliering and seeding by hand and the microwave method. Of course, chocolate tempering machines can make tempering easier, but chocolate makers will immensely benefit if they learn tempering by hand.

Tabliering starts with cutting a mass of chocolate into small strips. These strips are melted by heating to a specific temperature on a double boiler. The melted chocolate is divided into two and the first half is poured on a marble surface and worked upon to obtain smoothness and shine; then it is cooled to a specific temperature. After working on the other half, the entire mass is mixed to distribute temperatures evenly. Then come the dipping and molding of your candies. The mass of chocolate should not lose its shine and smoothness and not harden also.

Similar is the seeding process except that a “seed” or an already-tempered chunk is used to “inoculate” the melted chocolate. This enables type V crystals to dominate the crystallization process. Temperature maintenance is a must in this method also.

Microwave method also requires strict adherence to fixed parameters over variables like wattage of the oven, the level of cocoa butter in the raw chocolate and the quantity of chocolate added to the bowl for melting purpose.

The hassles in chocolate tempering arise due to not maintaining the required temperature, over-mixing and under-mixing and due to humid weather conditions. Even experienced chocolate makers face the brunt of humidity in weather.

It is true that the tempering process in chocolate making is a tough one but it is worth the pleasure you get when you gift your chocolates to others; it becomes more than the difficulties you face in chocolate making.

Bubble Playthings

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Too many online poker players these days will play very well in the opening rounds of the poker online tournament, only to find themselves on the edge of the bubble; the bubble being, of course, the money or payout. But when they get to that point they start playing tight, weak, scared poker online . And to quote the acclaimed rapper Ludacris, “scared money don’t make none!” So what do you do when you get in that position of just outside the money, do you get passive and hope someone goes out before your, or to you turn the pressure up? Well the industry gold standard says go for it. Play it hard just like you were in the beginning. Keep up your aggressive play, because if you don’t (especially near the end of the tournament) the blinds will eat up your stack before you have a chance to blink. And don’t forget the power of the open raise, or even opening all in. You have two ways to win here, either all the other players will fold to you, or you’ll win anyway if you’re doing it with smart hands. Remember a lot of other players are tightening up here, so some of your more marginal hands will be much more powerful considering the psychology of the table. Finally, learn the tight players and exploit the hell out of them. You’ll find several players who don’t play well anyway, and just try to fold their way into the money and these are soon to be your best friends. If you keep the pressure on these rocks, you’ll be stealing blinds left and right, which means their blinds will run out faster than you. Amazing how counterintuitive these things are, but you’re aggression here will not pop your bubble; in fact it will probably push a few more of those weaker players out of that bubble you’d have to share otherwise.

Small Poker Pairs

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Some poker en ligne hands are no-brainers-pocket Aces are eminently playable, while an 8-2 off-suit just doesn’t look as promising. If you get poker online hands like these, the decision is made for you. Complications arise when you get hands that look risky, but oddly playable. When you get hands like small pairs, you need to consider all the factors around you before you decide to play or fold. Small pocket pairs are risky because they need to hit huge on the flop for them to pay off, and if you get raised before the flop, it can get pretty expensive to see such a small-percentage hand. On the other (poker) hand, if you’ve got pocket 2’s and the flop comes 2-2-Ace, no one’s going to suspect that you flopped quad 2’s.

If you get a small pocket pair, don’t fold them without a thought-take a look at the table around you. If the big blind won’t cripple your stack, it’s worth a look at the flop, as long as you don’t have to pay any more. Make sure that you won’t get raised before you get to see how the flop treats you-look around and check for any aggressive players acting after you before you pay the blind.

Stuck with Big Slick in Poker

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

Premium pokern hands are hard to come by, and when a big starter hand comes your way, it is hard to resist aggressive betting, and even harder to lay down when the flop does nothing to bolster your cards.

One classic poker hand – an Ace and King, better known as Big Slick – can be a real hazard despite its handsome look at first glance. Because these are the two highest cards in the deck, if the flop matches either of them, then most likely you are holding top pair.

But that is also the problem with Big Slick. It is not a made hand, but a drawing hand dependent on the flop bringing a matching card or straightening possibilities. Because it looks so strong initially, players get too attached to this hand, believing it is invincible, when in fact, if the flop misses Big Slick, it’s probably a loser. You must fold it to any bets after the flop when your Ace-King has been orphaned without pairing up or lots of outs to a flush or straight.

Big Slick can become a big leak to your poker game if you can’t lay it down. Remember, you’ve gotten and won with this hand before, and will again. When the flop misses your Big Slick, don’t let wishful thinking get you stuck betting with a losing hand.