It's advice that I've heard many times, but I've been asked the question so often recently I thought I'd post my personal answer here.

Q: How much should I buy in with at such and such limit game?
A: I recommend buying in for 20x the big bet, and carry another 20x the big bet in your wallet. 20x is a big enough amount that if you bust out, there is a very good chance that it is not because of natural variance but because you're a weaker player than the rest of the field. It's also a big enough amount that even if you're a fairly weak player it should last you long enough to read the table. If you do lose your first 20x, you need to ask yourself whether you busted because you got unlucky, or because you got outplayed. If you really believe you can beat the table, re-buy with your next 20x. If you don't believe you can beat the table, find another table. If you're on tilt, take a break, or go to sleep.

20x is also an amount that if you're playing at the limit right for you, a 20x BB loss is not highly injurious to your bankroll, but 40x is a loss you can feel. I really think you need to be playing at that level. So if you're playing $8-16 at the Bellagio, you should be able to roll past a $320 loss, but a $640 loss stings a little. If $320 is too big to endure, you should move down a notch or two. If $640 ain't no thing, move up to $15-30 or above.

This advice isn't as scientific as a Sklansky bankroll analysis, but it's advice that I've personally followed for a long time and really think "feels" right. If you have your own tuppence to add, feel free to chime in.

Today is International Poker History Day here at loveandcasinowar.com.

CJ over at Up For Poker wrote an article about his recent Omaha experiences over the weekend. As an aside, he questions the origins of Omaha, and if there indeed was a Nebraska connection with the game.

I was curious about the topic myself, so did a little digging and found what sounds like a fairly consistent story. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with Nebraska, and it's still not clear to me how or when the game's name came to be "Omaha". This post from Alan Bostick to rec.gambling.poker from several years ago has the clearest summary I've seen:

From: Alan Bostick
Subject: Re: Does anyone know when 7cs/holdem/omaha were invented?
Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker
Date: 1999/10/21

In article <7uhfvd$1qd$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Wallace wrote:
> I'm trying to put together a timieline of poker history, starting about
> 1860 when draw and 5-stud were invented. I can find no indication in
> any book I have access to which gives an approximate date for the
> invention of 7cs, holdem or omaha. Has anyone got any information on
> those questions?

I can't answer about 7-stud or Texas hold'em.

But I've heard a clear, coherent story about the origin of Omaha from Tad Perry. (Damn, I wish he were still posting.)

There Tad says, was a particular home game in Seattle or vicinity in the late seventies or early eighties that was populated by otherwise good players who liked lots of action. It was a rammin' jammin' group and they liked rammin' jammin' games. Somewhere along the line they invented what they called "four-card hold'em", basically Texas hold'em played with four cards, you used exactly two to make a hand, etc. etc. Right. It was pretty close to what we recognize today as Omaha high.

Curtain rises at the Golden Nugget during the time of the WSOP in (if I'm remembering what Tad told me correctly) 1982. A bunch of players from this Seattle home game are in something like a $10-$20 hold'em game, and rammin' and jammin' and having a good ol' time, and because they're used to playing against each other in that sort of game and because the locals don't, eventually they win all the money, and keep playing. "Hey," says one of them, "can we play four-card hold'em?" "You can play whatever you want to," says the dealer, "as long as everyone at the table agrees." They all went for it, and started playing, and the game goes on for a while. Some locals sit down again, some get their clocks cleaned, others win a bit, and the game continues.

Eventually Bill Boyd comes over to the table to watch what's going. The game looks interesting to him, he sees that it's an action game, and that it seems to have legs. He decides to try to spread it again another night. But instead of calling it four-card hold'em ,he calls it "Omaha hold'em". The rest is history.

I can't vouch for the truth of this, but it has the ring of truth to me. (At this point, all the alt.folklore.urban veterans who post or lurk on r.g.p. join in a chorus of "MOTTO!") Tad told me he played regularly with some of the regulars in that old home game, even playing in the house where "four-card hold'em" was invented, so he says. There are probably enough hooks to the truth in this story that an enterprising researcher (i.e. one with more enterprise than me) could straighten it out where I've gotten it wrong, fill in the gaps, and so on.

Hope this helps.

-- Alan Bostick

Alan's story is mostly confirmed from this message from Tad Perry from mid-last year:

I've talked to Gwen about this before. She called it "9-card holdem" when introduced to Boyd, and she says what you say: he changed the name.

As RGP'ers know, in Vegas, they will deal you anything you want to play if you can describe it to them. (See "Chowaha.")

According to Gwen, the game was being played a lot in an underground Seattle game, and when a large group of players from that game descended on Vegas for the WSOP that year, they found 5 or 6 of themselves all at a holdem table at the Nugget. She says at one point only Seattle area players were seated (others were walking) and so they asked for "9-card Holdem" and Gwen taught the dealers how to deal it.

There were observers on the rail and a lot of interest. When the walkers returned they decided to try it. Gwen says she went to her room to sleep and when she came back, it already had been given the new name, and essentially became Boyd's "invention."

However, RGP is here to set the record straight.

tvp

The Poker Babe actually credits Robert "Chip Burner" Turner with taking the game to Bill Boyd on this page, but also says that at the Golden Nugget, where it started in Vegas, it was called "Nugget Holdem". This is corroborated by Robert Turner's interview over at Poker Plus:

RT: Probably the most memorable run that I had occurred at the Super Bowl of Poker at Caesars Palace. In the first four events, I had two firsts and two seconds back to back. But back to my job at the Nugget, in 1983 I asked Mr. Boyd to start spreading Omaha. I had been talking to a player from Seattle and told her than in the South, we played four-card poker. "I run a game in Washington," she answered, "and we play a lot of four-card poker there." So, Mr. Boyd cleared it with the Nevada Gaming Board and we started our first Omaha game four-handed at $5-$10 limits. Although everybody there knew how to play the game, it was slow and boring at those limits so we raised them to $10-$20. The game started around 2:00 that afternoon and by 6:30 that night we had changed it to pot-limit. For 30 days the game went around the clock without breaking up. The World Series had started at Binion's and a lot of players were crossing the street to the Nugget to play in our pot-limit Omaha game. When the Series was over, Mr. Boyd put Omaha on the regular schedule as a $2-$4 limit game, calling it "Nugget Hold'em." That game never broke up either -- when the Nugget's poker room closed, the game moved to the Horseshoe where it is still being played today at $4-$8 limits.

So it seems likely that the Golden Nugget was not responsible for the name change to "Omaha", but I'm not sure who is.

Ciaffone's book Omaha Holdem Poker: The Action Game apparently contains a few pages on the origins of Omaha, but I have not read it. If anybody has and would like to post what Ciaffone has to say, I'd appreciate it.

Yet another Texas game just got busted, this time in Addison, outside of Dallas. The Scrolldown has the report. Link (thanks, Dan!)

I've mentioned free promotional poker tournaments here, and had a few requests to post what I know is going in Austin.

Mother Egan's has periodic zero buyin hold'em tournaments. Their next one is tomorrow, Thursday April 22, 2004 7-10pm, and after that Wednesday April 28, 2004, 7-10pm. I heard they stop play at 10pm regardless of the state of the tournament.

Fado has a hold'em tournament every Monday night.

G-Cue billiards has a big tournament every few months or so. This Saturday, April 24, 2004, is their next one. Pre-registration is encouraged as I heard they already had 150 entrants.

Crimson Restaurant does a cards night once a month, generally on Tuesday nights. I often post the event notice here.

Sugar's strip club was having a weekly free tournament for a while, but I don't believe they still are.

That's all I know about, if you know of any other free, legal poker events in Austin, feel free to post them here!

Hot on the heels of the Austin Red Men club getting raided for running poker games, the Corpus Christi Red Men club got raided this past weekend.

The facility had mostly poker-related games, officials said.

"They called it a non-profit organization," Alvarado said. "But they were taking a cut, which is illegal."

Link (thanks, Mike!)

Coincidentally, yesterday in Alabama a small poker room was also raided. See here for the article, which includes a great photo of the local sheriff proudly displaying the spoils of the bust.

LACO is spinning off WPT Enterprises in an IPO, through which they hope to raise $32 million. Not bad if they can get it, based on these figures:

Lakes is headed by Minnesota businessman Lyle Berman and reported 2003 revenue of $4.3 million with a net loss for the year of $4 million.

Link

Thanks to Neil for a link to a good article on the perils of 6:5 single deck blackjack:

In the new single-deck version, a player blackjack now pays 6:5 rather than the usual 3:2. In other words, if you bet $10, make blackjack, and win, you get only $12, not $15. Thus, where the house edge against the perfect basic strategy player in the typical single-deck game is a paltry 0.15%, the house edge is now 1.45% -- about three times that of a six-deck game.

Here's the problem: Under the guise of giving gamblers the classic game that they want, these casinos are offering a game that's almost 10 times worse. And this is no innocent mistake, nor is Harrah's the only culprit.

Link

Michael had a chance to play in the tournament at Jake's this week, and writes:

Just wanted to let you know that I actually got a chance to play in the tournament at Jake's last night and the thing is a smashing success to say the least. Sign up was at 11:00 AM, I showed up at 5 after 11:00 and was 9th on the alternate list ( for a field of 60). They're adding two more tables next week. The game is run pretty well, nice tables, real chips and a "floorperson" to settle any disputes. Also, another bar in town, the Copper Caboose is now starting to do the same thing on Wed. and Thurs. nights. No entry free, and I think they're paying out top 3 places. It's a good sign for poker, at least in Lubbock and apparently the DA here is not getting in their way.

Thanks Michael, that's great news! Sounds like the free tournament concept is exploding in Lubbock.

From Grubby: "it's a good thing I can play poker because I have no luck at all." I laughed out loud when I read that.

There's a new article up at Stephen Elliott's Poker Report, the incredibly intermittent but always entertaining column about low-rolling home games written in the style of The New Yorker with a dash of Hunter S. Thompson.

It's an important lesson to learn, that it's not enough just to make your hand, you still have to win. And you shouldn't go for a hand that's not going to take it. Because if you make your hand you'll come in second place and that's worse than losing. Most of life can be compared to the difference between a king-nine and an ace-ten. It's the difference between writing a short story and putting together an advertising portfolio, except in poker you're supposed to play it safe.

Link

For those of you who use a newsreader, and enjoy board games, BoardGameGeek has a pretty nice collection of RSS feeds for their site. Link (via Gameblog)

I came across an interesting collection of trivia about playing cards and their history, covering such interesting topics as why the king of hearts does not have a moustache, and why the ace of spades is fancy. Actually pretty interesting stuff if you like this type of histrivia. Link

Previously mentioned here, Ashley Revell, the guy who sold everything he owned so he could bet it on one spin of the roulette wheel to double up, won.

Ashley Revell, a 32-year-old Londoner, sold all his possessions in March, took $135,300 to the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, did some low stakes gambling and then placed everything he had left on "Red."

Link

Of course, we all know that if he had really wanted to gamble he would have thrown it into a pot holding AKo against QQ :)

The power at the Bellagio has been almost completely out since 2:30am yesterday, and is not expected to be back up until tonight. Not all that unusual for a regular hotel, but this is huge news for one of the nicest casinos in the world!

The source of the outage, which caused brief power lapses at Paris Las Vegas and Monte Carlo, was a mystery Sunday, though a story was circulating among guests that it was caused by a semi-truck accident on Interstate 15.

Link (thanks, Joshua!)

Update: according to VeganPoker, the outage was caused by a truck hitting a transformer, but according to Andy in the comments below, it was caused by a power surge. I'm sure we'll hear more soon...

Thanks to the WPT and WSOP coverage, interest in no-limit hold'em is generating a huge influx of new players who want to play no-limit. Cardrooms across the US are starting to spread low-limit no-limit games that a year or two ago were virtually unheard of in most casinos. Alan Bostick writes about a 3-blind $1-2-4 no-limit game at Lucky Chances, a cardroom I had pleasant experiences in about a year ago (Update: see first comment below; Alan corrects that there are blinds of $1 and $2, and $1 on the button, with an opening bet of $4).

I am told that they began to spread the game last Wednesday (April 7). On Friday night, the game was lively and spirited, with a significant list of players waiting to get in. The quality of play was about what you might expect, i.e. terrible – not quite as bad as you'd find in the dime-and-quarter-blind games on PokerStars, but still pretty easy to beat over time. Be prepared to weather some outrageous beats, but on the whole and overall solid play is going to win the money.

I have no clue whether or not the game is going to be sustainable. No-limit poker is notorious for the ease with which the better players can take the poorer players' money. The game might burn out its player base really quickly. On the other hand, if no-limit hold'em on television continues to attract new players into cardrooms, this game might turn out to be sustainable over the long haul.

Link

Alan has raised what is the ultimate question for these games -- will they be sustainable? Based on the influx of out-of-towners I saw playing in the 2-4 NLH game at the Bellagio when I was out there, I think that game will be sustainable. Whether NLH is sustainable in regional cardrooms is a bigger question though.

Nice little article from the LV Mercury on some of the positive changes in Binion's Horseshoe since it's reopening last week:

The verdict on Binion's from the locals and regulars: so far, so good. The changes are small: a roomier feel, a few banks of slot machines removed to make the place easier to navigate. The snack bar at the west end of the building is still a snack bar (and not the vaunted deli) and the $1 million display is God knows where, but the cosmetic changes hint at a possible return to the property's jeans-and-big buckle vibe.

Link

I look forward to checking it out when I'm out there for the WSOP in a few weeks, and I'll post my thoughts on how it's changed.

Joe (aka Poker Prof) writes:

I just finished building a web friendly copy of Robert's Rules of Poker. I am hoping it will be an easy to use on-line copy for the thousands of new poker players entering the scene (like myself) to know the "offical" rules.

It's at http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/poker/rules.php

I consider RRP a must-read for anyone who is running a home game, and highly recommended reading for anyone who plays poker. Good work Joe!

There's an interesting profile of Johanna Pönniö, "the only woman in Finland - and probably in Europe - who plays poker professionally."

"My partner says that I am gifted and lazy", Johanna Pönniö laughs. "I admit that I am. For instance, I have read only one poker book, although there are hundreds available. I should play more, but I am a girl, and I like shopping and hanging around in cafés."

Link

This is great. Jake's sports bar in Lubbock, TX, which I previously wrote about finally held their poker tournament. This time the DA didn't touch it -- because they didn't charge an entry fee. They offered a $125 first prize, zero entry fee, and got 60 players.

"Are you allowed to bet on the side?," NewsChannel 11 asked one player. "No, there's no side bets, they said absolutely no cash on the table or no talking of cash or anything like that, so, the DA would definitely shut 'em down, I heard," said player Gabe Hogan.

Link

Expect to see a lot more setups like this happen around the US in states where no-money poker is legal. There are already a bunch of free-entry tournaments in Austin bars and restaurants. If each player generates a few bucks of revenue for the venue, it's a positive expectation proposition.

Update: Todd says: "There would have been more there but seating was limited to the first 60 to sign up starting at noon the day of the game!" Thanks Todd. It sounds like the interest out there is overwhelming!

The University of California at Irvine now has a poker club! They are having their first meeting on Wednesday night, and already have a tournament scheduled. They're following the payout model that has worked at other college campuses, with a zero entry fee, and a sponsorship from pokerroom.com for $2,000 in cash prizes. Link

Casino Windsor in Ontario shut down Friday after a work dispute resulted in a worker strike. It has not yet re-opened.

Keith Andrews is a spokesman for Casino Windsor. He says it will remain closed until an agreement is reached and then ratified by the employees. Negotiations in the dispute broke off Last Sunday. No new talks are planned.

Link (thanks, Jules!)

If you watch the World Poker Tour, you no doubt have see the ads for Howard Lederer's poker video. "Heaven C" has posted a review of it over at LiveJournal. I'm not crazy about educational videos, mainly because I think books are usually a much better value, but he has some good things to say about the video. Link

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