The Lucky Donut

I thought it was time that I got myself a couple more readers and double the readership.  I have been posting regularly for four months now, so that should be plenty to get myself listed in some blog directories.

If you find this page from a random search or a link on a directory, drop me a line or post a comment!  If you have a blog of your own and want to exchange links let me know too.

I asked whether it was in fact OK for casinos to bump up the rake, and if so whether there was an upper limit.

At Leicester Gala the £20+£2 tournament on Wednesday is now a £20+£7.

That's a 26% rake!

Well, no it's not. That would be illegal. Instead, there's a £5 "session fee" that you have to pay before you can register for the tournament. And apparently they not only have the backing of the Gaming Board to do this, Gala is piloting the scheme for them to see if works well enough to use at casinos across the country.

The fee does cover you for as much as you want to play that night, however. Whoopy doo. If you're very unlucky you could perhaps fit in two sit-and-goes (I have no idea if that's the correct way to pluralise it) but if you do well, or have no intention of playing anything else after you bust it's another five quid on top of a twenty quid tournament.  You effectively get taxed more when you win, than when you keep on losing.

The terrible thing is that people are already paying this. Even worse is that last night those people included me. Well, I'd driven an hour to get there and if I'm prepared to drive a 140 mile round trip to play in that game it does seem a little on the stubborn side to go straight home once I'm there. Won't be going again though.  Numbers were down, with 40 runners compared to the usual sell-out 56, but the night before they'd still managed to fill the room for the, effectively, £10+£6 tournament.  If they owned up to what the charge really was, that would be a 38% rake.

Las Vegas Advisor maintains a list of the poker tournaments in town with their respective percentage paybacks.  Only Sunset Station and Sams Town are this greedy, which actually surprised me a little.  Even the quick and nasty tourist tournaments on the strip are 80-85% payback.

Geoff and I spoke to cardroom manager Steve, who was obviously disappointed that he had to do this, knowing that it would drive away many of the regular players.  However this seems to be exactly what those higher up are trying to achieve.  You see, the Play and Party Poker Zone is not really a cardroom.  The casino is not interested in developing poker players or creating loyalty, because they do not generate any profits until they are either paying their 10% on three-figure buy-in tournaments or generating hourly seat charges in cash games.  And whilst a £100 tournament would attract a handful of gamblers who fancy a shot at a big prize, it's something that takes more effort to promote than a regular game, and not something you can do every night in a provincial casino.  So it's quantity over quality, and they just want to get as many players through the door as possible hoping that if you throw enough suckers in the direction of a roulette table then some will stick.

So why am I so upset about this?  I guess mostly because of the stealthy and semi-legal way in which it's been done.  The Gambling Commission's Guidelines for the Casino Industry document states that a registration fee may be no more than 10% or £50, whichever is greater.  Simply calling the charge a "session fee" doesn't cut it, and I just can't see how this is legal.

The casinos who have put pressure on the Gambling Commission to take action against borderline-illegal clubs - who take a "service charge" out of every pot, don't anyone dare say the word "rake" - are hypocrites.  Now is a time when poker desparately needs a new way of being regulated to protect the player from an inevitable undesirable element.  If indeed the GC are behind this scheme, as Steve suggested, all they have managed to come up with is a way to allow the regulated venues to charge an unlimited rake and legally fleece their players.  Well, I guess that's what casinos have been doing for years, just not quite so blatently.  Meantime the clubs that do cater for those that just want to play some cards (there's no blackjack, no roulette, just a 10% rake - let's call a spade a spade here) are still waiting to hear whether they will get shut down.

It's time for Party Poker's occasional, but always welcome, $100 deposit bonus. I played this in almost exactly the same way to the last one, so let's see how it compares, shall we?

Hands played:  1474 (for 1000 raked hands)
Hours played:  20.1 (approx 10 hours, playing 2 tables)
Rake paid:     $54.75
Amount won:    $35.87 (1.22 BB per 100 hands)
Win rate:      $3.59/hr
Bonus awarded: $100
Rate w/ bonus: $13.59/hr

Always good to see Party Poker losing money. They lost $45.25 here.

My win rate is almost half what it was last time, but I had three horrendous beats which I copied the hand histories of, determined to write up into a ranty blog entry. But then I thought better of it, you'll be glad to hear. Each time I lost with a very strong, but still second best, hand and for such monster vs monster situations to happen three times so close together was unusual. If I look back and think there might be something worth talking about, other than just my rotten luck, I may still post them. The poorer win rate shows just how much bonuses rock though - overall I only dropped from $15.98/hr to $13.59/hr - so not huge bucks but nothing to be sneezed at when I can be doing it at the same time as clearing the crud from my email inbox, or coordinating a server reboot.

Non-geeks may look no further.

Vol. Put $ In Pot:       15.94%
Pre-flop Raise:           9.90%
Post-flop Aggression:     2.93
Won $ When Saw Flop:     37.97%
Went to Showdown:        29.70%
Won $ At Showdown:       50.63%
Folded SB to Steal:      92.31%
Folded BB to Steal:      62.50%
Attempt to Steal Blinds: 35.62%

So compared to last time, I saw slightly more showdowns (29.70% vs 26.35%) but won at showdown quite a lot less (50.63% vs 63.01%).  Last time I noted that I may not be paying enough river bets, but my win rate was much better then.  Maybe this was just the cards - nothing can be proved from a 1500 hand sample size.  I don't really even know why I post these stats... maybe somebody finds them interesting!

So America can't play poker online any more.

That's not strictly true.  As I understand it, and to be honest I haven't done extensive research to work out which versions I've read are the complete truth, it's going to become an offence to fund gambling transactions through a US-based financial institution.  The bill - which has still not become law - does not make it any less legal than it currently is for Americans to play online poker.

Today my mailbox started filling up with newsletters from various affiliate programs reacting to the news.  Interestingly, I've not yet had anything from a poker site directed towards me as a player, only as an affiliate.  A few statements have been issued, with a handful of sites claiming it's business as usual (well done particularly to Absolute Poker, whose shirt I am wearing inadvertently today, but had I realised the significance it would be with pride) and the rest saying, well, really we don't know what to do yet.

Here are some excerpts from the emails I received today:

"As of today Betfred have stopped taking business from US customers in the wake of recent prohibitive legislation by the US government. To clarify, this means that US residents and/or US citizens will not be able to use Betfred at all for telephone betting, online sports betting, casino or poker."

"Our software and ECash provider for Sunpoker.com, The Sands and Omni Casino, CryptoLogic and ECashDirect, have made the decision to no longer service US registered accounts.  Consequently, all accounts with US based addresses will no longer be able to play in the casino or poker room as of 12PM EST today October 3rd.  Our sister casino 49er Casino uses a different provider, Real Time Gaming (RTG) who has not announced any changes due to these new regulations."

These two seem to be simply overreacting however the legislation may have given them the final push to block access to US players.  It's unlikely that this is the real reason for kneejerk.  Last week William Hill already decided to dump their US players, probably in light of the Peter Dicks and David Carruthers arrests.  It makes sense that Betfred would follow suit, and the tone of SunPoker's email suggests that they wouldn't care if they still had a payment provider that hadn't jumped ship.

"(InterPoker) regret to inform you that from 11am EST on 3rd October 2006, we will be closing all US gaming accounts. Player’s balances, minus uncleared bonuses, will be returned to players  within the next 3 - 4 weeks by check and you will cease to earn revenue share from these players in the future."

InterPoker also use EcashDirect and Cryptologic, so I guess their hands are tied too.  However this is quite drastic.  Less than three hours after this email was sent, all their US accounts are being automaticaly closed.  However they are going to take nearly a month to send those guys their money back.  The final statement is somewhat redundant - how could you earn revenue from a closed account anyway?  Or do they mean they're just going to keep that commission anyway?  This is what started me thinking... and then...

"PartyGaming will no longer accept wagers from US customers once the act becomes law. Customers resident in the United States, or accessing us from the USA will no longer be able to access our real money gaming services. ... Percentage Plan revenues from US customers will continue until the point those customers are unable to play for real i.e. until the legislation becomes law."

This is huge.  Party's stock price has plunged by over half since Friday, and understandably so when they have reacted so dramatically so quickly.  Almost all of the other major operators' statements have been undecided until they work out how the new law will actually affect them.  Party - the largest on the net - have immediately said that they will block access to US customers.

My cynical mind sees a problem here.  Firstly, their play money servers will remain available to US players.  Whilst play money poker is clearly not illegal, why would they bother keeping the servers open?  PartyPoker.net only exists as a decaf version of the real thing to give new players a taste for the action.  And it works.  So if there is any possible loophole to exploit, Party will be back in the market.  Whilst Ecash is solely a gaming transaction provider, Party would be able to carry on using Neteller at least - a European company that has already stated that the US law cannot touch them.  I just don't believe they really mean this.

The statement about affiliate revenue makes me very suspicious.  Even if it becomes difficult to play poker online, some players will be serious enough and make enough money to carry on despite the hurdles they have to overcome.  The biggest players are those likely to have an illegal rakeback agreement, and even if they don't many will have been referred via an affiliate bonus code.  Party already has a history of closing down affiliates who give a share of commission back to their players - so here is an ideal opportunity to sever those affiliate ties and take back the 25% of the rake they are paying out.

You have to wonder just how much that affiliate commission amounts to and whether it is comparable to the amount of business Party stand to lose if they had simply issued an "undecided" statement.

Last weekend I impulse-bought an iPod nano.  This is actually the first thing made by Apple I ever bought.  I've had a portable MP3 player of some kind before the word (?) iPod was invented, harking back to a 6Gb Creative DAP that was as big as a CD player.  I did have one coat that it would fit in the pocket of, but it wasn't exactly portable.  The Creative Zen I replaced it with three years ago was the tinyest thing you'd eveer seen at the time.  It's about three times the size of a standard iPod now, let alone making the nano look like like an ickle tiny baby.

My move to the white side has been on the cards for some time, but amazingly I've shown enough discipline to actually wait until the new 8Gb version came out.  I didn't quite have the discipline to go through with my plan of actually getting something useful with my PokerStars FPPs though.  I just checked this, and they do have it in stock, and I actually do have enough points, dammit.  Hey if anyone wants to buy an iPod let me know :)  Otherwise I guess I could order a few dozen stress stars...

So of course now I have to use iTunes to get my CD collection back onto the thing.  Which is pretty nifty - I particularly like that it will find album artwork automatically (When Claire got her iPod last year this wasn't a feature and she spent days downloading pictures...!).  And I'm impressed at just how much of my music finds a match straight away.  With the exception of Radiohead (who are clearly too good to be downloaded) and a few early Saint Etienne albums, I think it's all there.

I knew getting everything I wanted into 8Gb would be a squeeze but I hadn't quite prepared myself for how long it would take to rip all this stuff again. After a marathon session last night (after dumping out of the Poker Dome satellite in unspectacular fashion, and trying to clear $750 in stacked up bonuses on PokerRoom.com) which it had to tell me resulted in 1006 tracks being transferred, I twice thought I'd cracked all my regular CDs leaving only some dodgy MP3 downloads and whatever compilations I want to chuck on there.  Apparently not, and I've still found yet more.

Maybe I'm going overboard - it tells me I already have about five days worth of music to listen to already (why tell me that?!)  But it's not over yet.  Must ... keep ... ripping.