I haven’t played poker online for awhile, but I just visited Paradise and was thrilled to see that they’ve recently (?) started a sit-and-go no-limit tournament called “Cooler.” If you finish in the top five, you double your buy-in (minus the maximum 10% rake). Since many online players are cliff-divers and action junkies, this is a very good (and quick!) game for a patient player. 1500 starting chips and eight minute blinds is so much better than the dreaded “Speed” (five minute blinds) and absurd “Turbo” (three !!! minute blinds) tournaments, which really lure the nutty gamblers.

As you can see, they have some pretty high stakes games (100-500 euros), but it’s tough to fill a table with those buy-ins. On the other hand, I’ve never had to wait more than a few minutes to get a table at 10 euros or lower. Check it out if you’re a fellow poker player.

A Profile of David Einhorn:

“An accomplished bridge player who has played against Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns fame, he took up poker on a lark and finished 18th at the 2006 World Series of Poker. He donated the $660,000 in prize money to charity.

‘Texas hold ’em is all about folding and waiting for that time that comes up every hour or two where you actually have an advantage and you can press it,’ he says. ‘I had a couple of advantages over the group. Number one, I probably cared less. This was the event of the year for them. We make bigger bets every day. There’s more at risk in what happens in Microsoft than I could ever bet on a poker table. Two, I keep a reasonably decent poker face.’”

– via kedrosky.com –

They’ve changed the interface at Paradise Poker: this rattled me. They’ve eliminated the virtual booze and cigarettes: this annoyed me. I also can’t find any “Quickie” games — maybe they got rid of them? This means that a tournament takes quite awhile to finish, so I’m probably going to play a lot less than I used to: I can spare an hour from time to time but not three hours.

Click to enlarge

Catching up on my Wall Street Journal and Barron’s reading… one thing comes to mind: Rupert Murdoch is nuts to offer $60 for DJ and the Bancrofts are fools for not leaping to accept that “noneconomic” price. Anyway, there was an article called Harvard Ponders Just What It Takes To Excel at Poker where I learned that:

“Under U.S. common law, games that are predominantly chance are considered gambling, while those that are mainly skill are not.”

It’s kind of a strange definition, isn’t it? How can you precisely quantify the split of chance versus skill in a game as complex as poker? And they’re using that faulty thinking to make laws? Of course I support the lifting of the credit card ban on online wagering (not that it has affected me; I continue to play poker online all the time using a massive cash balance left over from the old days, lol).

Aside: It’s also kind of strange that state governments have no problem monopolizing and profiting obscenely from those card games that require an extremely skillful scratching of sticky silver gunk, but I digress.

Anyway, I can say as someone who has finished in the money in dozens (hundreds?) of no-limit Texas Hold’em tournaments that poker is predominantly (the key word) a game of chance. Skill matters of course (maybe ~30%) but luck matters more (maybe ~70%), and you’d be hard pressed to find a professional (or professional amateur) poker player who would say otherwise.

If I remember clearly, even the great Dan Harrington devotes a chapter in his first book, using an AK hand he chose to fold as an example, where one (lucky) decision made all the difference in one of his WSOP wins. Writing this post makes me want to go try my luck, er skill, in a $5 Quickie right now. ;-)