New Home for Signature “Legends of Poker™” Tournament is Elegant, State-of-the-Art, Grand Poker Ballroom

 

 

 

The world-famous Bicycle Casino (thebike.com) just 10-minutes south of downtown Los Angeles, will unveil the country’s newest and most lavish poker ballroom on Wednesday, July 29th , as it celebrates its silver anniversary in sumptuous grand fashion.

 

The spectacular new Bicycle Casino Event Center was the joint-vision of both Managing Partner, Haig Kelegian and CEO, Hashem Minaiy, two industry visionaries whose desire to provide Los Angeles-area card players with the ultimate gaming experience has culminated in this exquisite showplace. The Bike is also unveiling their newest restaurant, the Legends Deli & Grill, where guests will have a choice of a quick meal on the run or a more relaxing opportunity to dine.

 

The festivities begin at 3pm with the “Celebrity-Media Invitational Poker Tournament”, when Hollywood celebrities, sports stars, and Los Angeles-area media personalities and staff will play No-Limit Holdem for $5,000 … with the cash prize to be divided between the winner and their favorite charity.

 

As of July 8th, celebrities already confirmed to play in the inaugural tournament include Camryn Manheim, Cheryl Hines, Phillip Palmer, Ken Davitian, Budd Friedman, Willie Garson, Kelli Gates, Annie Duke, Joseph Reitman, Tony Denison, Mike Lansford, Yancey Arias, Steve Mittleman, Sara Rue, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Van Nguyen, Amir Vahedi, Karri Turner, Damion Marzett, Keishon Johnson, and Dwight Stones, Ant, Kathleen Madigan, Michael Collier and Norby Walters.

 

The red carpet Cocktail Party and Grand Opening Ceremonies are scheduled for 4-6pm with some brief speeches and a ribbon-cutting ceremony. This spectacular new facility will then be open to the public at 6:45pm for a $100,000 Guaranteed prize pool tournament ($335 total entry fee), beginning at 7pm.

 

“We’ve already had an amazing poker facility here for a long time”, said Bicycle Casino Director of Marketing, Kelley O’Hara, “but with this newly-expanded and luxurious Event Center, we now step to the head of the class for not only Southern California, but the country. This grand Event Center will be the future home of our Legends of Poker tournament, our WPT (World Poker Tour) televised events, and numerous other first-class, large-scale poker tournaments and special events held here throughout the year.”

 

The Bicycle Casino’s prestigious month-long signature event, The Legends of Poker, runs from July 28th – August 30th and officially inaugurates the new Event Center. Under the new and expert guidance of Poker Operations management, Zaven Esmaili and Eveliene Dullaart, this renowned event has become famous around the globe in just a few short years. With individual guaranteed cash prize pools of up to $300,000, the Legends of Poker series has firmly entrenched The Bicycle Casino as the home of top-notch, world-class poker action.

 

Other events coming up on The Bike’s Legends of Poker summer schedule for this new facility include:

 

The Lips Tour is hosting their annual event on August 2nd, letting women know how important they are at The Bike. Go to Lipstour.com to sign up. All are welcome.

 

On August 20th, the annual Laker-famed Mariani/Buss No Limit Hold’em Charity Poker Tournament supporting the Laker Youth Foundation takes place at 7PM

 

WORLD POKER TOUR NO LIMIT HOLD’EM CHAMPIONSHIP — First day begins Saturday, August 22nd at 3PM. The best of the best will be at The Bike, battling it out for their chance to play elbow to elbow with this year’s top 6 at the WPT Final Table, airing on Fox Sports Net. Watch the action live as the final table filming is on Wednesday, August 26th at 4PM.

 

And finally, Bicycle Casino players can enter the “Win your seat into the Sports Legends Challenge” event being held at the spectacular Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas from Sept 14th – 17th, 2009. Local players will have a special once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to compete for a $10,000 seat and spending money, and culminates with winners taking a trip to this colossal poker event to compete with and against personalities such as Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Annie Duke, Joe Namath, Reggie Jackson, Phil Hellmuth, Troy Aikman, Richard Petty, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Ditka, Jamie Gold, Lafette Pincay, Antonio Esfandiari, Johnny Chan, and so many more. Attendees will compete for four days of non-stop action for up to $10,000,000 in cash prizes in poker, golf, blackjack and slot tournaments. The Bike is the exclusive west coast qualifier, and has created 2 opportunities for their winners to play with the stars:

 

* 1st way: Legends of Poker 2nd Chance Tournaments - Play in one or several 2nd chance events, and if you’re in the money, you’ll come back to play in the Sports Legends Challenge Championship for the $10,000 seat on Sept 4th, 2009.

 

* 2nd way: Enter the Sports Legends Challenge Free Roll – just text in the code “BIKE” to 53203″ and you’ll be directed to the sign up page on the Bike’s new cool website. Fill in all the info and you’re in. (May be limited to the first 600 registered).

 

For those players who simply can’t take the chance and just have to get to the tables in the Bahamas, Bike players receive special discounts up to 30% off if they sign up for their seats at Sports Legends Challenge and reference promo code 1143A or 1143B.

 

For further information on Bicycle Casino events, go to thebike.com or call the Welcome Center at (562) 806-4646 ext 545.

Posted: July 22nd, 2009 under Poker.
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Focus and Discipline

By Tony Guerrera

When asked about the philosophy I take to the tables, I recently put forth the following two aphorisms: 1.) Embrace the process, and have no attachment to outcomes 2.) In general, don’t generalize

I didn’t put focus and discipline on this list because they didn’t even cross my mind. I’ve always assumed that focus and discipline are part of who I am. But after a recent edition of Killer Poker Analysis (in which Todd Brunson emphasized the importance of focus and discipline) and a careful look at my own game, I realize that focus and discipline can never be taken for granted.

Since landing my deal for Killer Poker By The Numbers back in the fall of 2005, I’ve been a writing machine. Add coaching and some random consulting here and there, and well, 2006 and 2007 weren’t exactly spent playing a lot of poker. Now we’re in 2008. I’m still writing, coaching, and consulting, but I’m also putting in some serious online playing time.

My old stomping ground, Party Poker, is no longer a possibility for me. After some serious scouting, I decided to adopt Cake Poker as my new home. Their rakeback deal is excellent, and the competition on Cake is easier than average. I don’t know exactly why it’s easier, but one hunch of mine is that it’s because they don’t allow the use of player tracking software and heads-up displays (HUDs); the hoards of HUD-using multitablers on Poker Stars and Full Tilt aren’t at Cake.

Of course, this means that I myself can no longer be a HUD-using multitabler. Luckily for me, I was multitabling before HUDs. But in those days, I was playing 4 tables at most. The beginning of 2008 has been all about honing my 6-max no-limit hold’em multitabling chops to where I can play 8-10 tables without a HUD. 6-tabling seems quite comfortable. 8- and 10-tabling territory has been tough. Observing opponents when not involved in a hand is difficult, as is typing player notes (I’m currently working on a system of note-taking acronyms to help in this department). Fatigue is also a factor (both mentally and physically). And leaving tough games can be a hassle especially when it comes to navigating through the lobby to find a new game to sit in.

Unfortunately, the difference between success and disaster is slight. If you have KK preflop, and you’re facing a preflop reraise from a very tight reraiser, is he on {AA, KK, AK} or {AA,KK}? Is a suspicious looking bet on the river coming from a known floater or a straightforward, hit-to-win player? The difference between my big wins and my big losses at Cake (well, big in terms of big blinds anyway) has been subtle, almost undetectable shifts in judgment. Focus and discipline are the keys to reigning in these shifts.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers and coauthor of Killer Poker Shorthanded (with John Vorhaus). Visit him at Killer Poker by the Numbers: Poker Math, Strategy, Coaching, News, Online Deposit Bonuses and More, by Tony Guerrera | Home.

Posted: March 7th, 2008 under Online Poker.
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The G-Spot: Pleasure Your Poker Playing Profits

By By Tony Guerrera

Boost Your Single Table Tournament Results

 

Online poker has popularized the single table tournament (STT). STT’s are a very unique form of poker. If you’re using multitable tournament strategies to navigate through STTs, you’re costing yourself some serious money. This article talks about handling 9-10 player STTs where 1st pays 50 per cent, 2nd pays 30 per cent, and 3rd pays 20 per cent.

I write a bit about being capable of breaking away from straightforward tight-aggressive play. But when it comes to the early stages of single table tournaments, tight is right. In early position, you should play pretty much nothing. AA-KK and AK is about on target. If your table is really loose passive, you can limp with any pocket pair. And if your postflop play is superb, you can toss AQ into the early position mix.

In late position, you can come in with a slightly wider mix in unraised pots (hands like AJ, KQ and KJ). But in raised pots, keep it simple and stay really tight. When you do enter a pot with an unpaired hand like AK, either limp or raise small for value. If you raise preflop and get only one opponent, continuation betting is a play you shouldn’t be excited about.

Play hands that play themselves post-flop, you want to be able to play confidently for stacks if you hit postflop because the starting stacks in STTs don’t give you much room for probe bets.

Once the blinds have increased, it’s jam or fold time. And now, tight is far from right. especially when it comes to aggressing on the bubble. When you have 4-8 big blinds, you have opponents who’ll only call you with something like AA-55, AK-A9, and you’re in the cutoff or later, push all-in no matter what two cards you have when you’re first to enter the pot. Your opponents will fold a huge percentage of the time, and you’ll never be a prohibitive underdog the times that you’re called (32o wins 24% of the time against AA-55, AK-A9). When the bubble has burst, and opponents widen their calling distributions, you’ll need to tighten up a tad, but hyper-aggressive shoving will still be par for the course when you have 4-8 big blinds.

When it comes to calling all-ins, you should typically be somewhat tight because you can always fall back on your jamming edge. And with the 50/30/20 payout, survival and just getting in the money is important. But you shouldn’t take it to the extreme where you’re only calling all-ins with super-premium hands. With the size of the blinds, you should be willing to get your chips in whenever your hand is a little bit better than 50% against a jammer’s distribution.

Times may exist where you can profitably stray from the generic battle plan outlined here. But generally, “Tight and snug early; loose-aggressive late” is the successful STTer’s creed.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers and coauthor of Killer Poker Shorthanded (with John Vorhaus). Visit him at www.killerev.com.

Visit Holdem Poker Forums for more in depth poker strategy and the best USA poker sites.

Posted: February 7th, 2008 under Online Poker.
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Posted: February 4th, 2008 under Online Poker.
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