December 2006 Newsletter

Editorial

Hi Everybody,

As 2006 comes to a close we need to thank all the people who make 21ace what it is. A special thanks goes out to Shadow for staying on top of the forums and other important parts of the site. The things Shadow, DeadPeopleAllOver, TheEMan and all the moderators do to make the community a better place have made a big difference and we are grateful for that. Fatty really helped get the newsletter started earlier this year and we appreciate all the work he has put into it. All the folks who have taken the time to write newsletter articles this year deserve thanks as well. Additionally, all the active forum members who keep us entertained with current discussions deserve a pat on the back.

We've been busier than ever at 21ace this month. There are some new developments that have capped off a memorable year.

I'd like to introduce you to our new Member Upload Area: http://www.21ace.com/video-pictures/index.php
This is the spot for forum members to share poker chip pictures, card flourish videos and other media with the community. We're hoping that this new section will be the next big thing in 2007. In the past we've been frustrated when our videos on other sites like putfile could no longer be found after some time. In fact this happened with some of our very own contest entries! Now that we have this new media section we plan to keep all contest entries in this area as well as all kinds of other goodies.

Our 9th card flourish contest is underway...can't wait to see all the entries. Again, having the contest entries in the new media section should make a big difference. Since the media section is integrated with the forums people will be able to post comments using their forum name. We're hoping to see more entries than we had in the last contest because we know the tablet is there. It looks like we'll have at least 6 entries for this card contest so keep an eye on things as we get closer to the deadline.

We've added some excellent new trick shot interviews including one with Dr Cue: http://www.21ace.com/Tom-Rossman.php
In fact we've added a trick shot forum to discuss all the elements of artistic pool: http://www.21ace.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=34

2006 has been a great year and I want to take this opportunity to wish you and your family Happy Holidays!  :)

Eric

TELLS: Poker and Sunglasses for offense and defense

It is illegal and immoral to use marked cards while gambling in private or casino games. Do not cheat in poker or other games of chance. Some players purchase Luminous Enhancing Sunglasses and Juice Enhancing Sunglasses because they think they are being cheated in local poker games. Since sunglasses are a good defense against tells, wearers of sunglasses will not attract attention.

Trends: You may have noticed that it is VERY common to see people wearing sunglasses and sometimes even baseball caps while playing poker.

Why: There are several reasons why people commonly wear sunglasses while playing poker:

1. Sunglasses are great if you plan on concealing information about your hand or playing strategy.
2. Sunglasses hide a lot of visual "tells" (ie. Pupil dilation (people have no control over pupil dilation), raised eyebrows, squinting, facial expressions,  etc.)
3. People can't see where you are looking
4. The wearer of sunglasses seems intimidating, in control and has authority (Other players will not play as many "mind games" against you.)
5. You can start by wearing regular sunglasses and even lay them on the table so people can see they are normal and un-gimmicked. Then, you can easily switch the regular sunglasses for a pair of matching "Luminous Enhancing Sunglasses". This will allow you to detect if luminous marked cards are being used against you.
6. In addition, "Juice Enhancing Sunglasses" may be used to make reading Juice marks easier for the beginner.

NOTE: Do not be overconfident that you will be able to detect ALL luminous marked cards using Luminous Enhancing Sunglasses or Juiced cards using Juice Enhancing Sunglasses. Sure, letters and numbers can be read easily, but, they are also more obvious and harder to conceal.  Detecting custom marking patterns which use light and subtle Juice and/or luminous marks will make the cards extremely deceptive, even for those people who are "in the know".

Jeff

Ten Questions with Dave Harber from HomePokerChips.com

1)  21Ace:  When did you first get involved with chips?
DH:  I started collecting casino chips when I first moved to Las Vegas in 1986.  I actually traveled all over the state of Nevada visiting casinos and saving a chip from each one.  Of course now I wish I picked up a few extras since the value of some of the old chips from long gone places like the Landmark, Dunes and Sands have skyrocketed!  I was also a craps (dice) dealer back then so I got to "play" with chips for 40 hours a week since they were a tool of the trade.
   
2)  21Ace:  How did your chip business start?
H:  In 1993 I left the casino business and went back to school (UNLV) to get my degree in computer science.  I had a programming language class where we had a weekend assignment to design a five page web site to become familiar with HTML, the code used to write web pages.  Not knowing what subject to use, I put my chip collection online.  Back then getting listed on the search engines was very easy.  Before I knew it, other chip collectors found the site and started asking me to pick chips up Las Vegas chips for them.  We were the first chip brokerage on the Internet and quite unexpectedly we had a successful business within just a few months.
   
3)  21Ace:  So you started selling collectible casino chips, how did the whole custom chips come to be?
DH: In 1998 our daughter was about to be born.  We were in a stationary store looking at birth announcements when the idea hit me.  We should make a chip to announce her birth.  We made 402 of her chip because she was born on April 2nd.  I thought that the mintage was so clever that I never really thought ahead to realize that we only had about 30 friends/family members to send it to.  Not knowing what to do with the other 370 we gave them out to our chip collecting customers and a new part of our business was born when other collectors wanted their own custom chip made.
   
4)  21Ace:  Why did you pick Chipco to make your daughter's birth announcement chip?
DH:  As soon as I got back to my office after having my "ah-ha" moment in the stationary store I contacted the three largest chip manufacturers:  Bud Jones, PaulSon and Chipco.  No one wanted to help me.  I had met the president of Chipco, John Kendall, at a collectible chip trade show previously so I decided to bypass the sales office that had just shot me down and contact him directly.  Luckily he remembered me and allowed me to make the chip.  When others also wanted custom Chipco chips he gave me his blessing to continue on. 
   
5)  21Ace:  So you've been working with Chipco International since 1998?
DH:  Yes, over eight years now.  Way before the poker boom of the past few years.  In that time we have made close to a million chips with Chipco and have become one of, if not their largest customer.  It is actually less expensive to order a set of Chipco chips from us than from Chipco directly.  People often wonder how this is possible.  Quite frankly Chipco doesn't want to deal with these small orders, they want to concentrate on selling chips to casinos.  They'd rather a company like ours prepare the art, give it to them in a format that they can plug right into their machinery, handle all the accounting and deal with all the customer service issues.  We take away a lot of their headaches which is why we can offer the exact same Chipco Pro-Tech® chip for less than they charge.
   
6)  21Ace:  What makes Chipco such a good chip?
DH:  Not only does Chipco make a great chip but Chipco International is a fantastic company that's been making chips since the mid-80's.  When their ceramic Pro-Tech® chip hit the market it was revolutionary.  The gaming industry had never seen anything like it before.  They were the first chip manufacturer that emphasized the collectibility of their product which gave casinos a huge revenue stream in that a collector would pay face value for a chip and never redeem it.  Some of the advantages of the Chipco chip is the full edge-to-edge graphics, the ability to print on the rolling edge of the chip and the security that their non-counterfeitable chip offers.  The thing that I especially love about Chipco is that they are very ethical and customer service is most important to them.  It makes it real easy to represent and stand behind them and their great product.  
   
7)  21Ace:  What makes the Chipco Pro-Tech® chip different from other ceramic chips?
DH:  For close to two decades Chipco stood alone however now there are now over a half dozen other ceramic manufacturers.  Every one of them compares themselves to Chipco and as far as I know none of them hold a license in any gaming jurisdiction to make chips for actual casinos.  It's very easy to become a "Chipco-knockoff" business now as there is a company in China that will sell you the ceramic blanks and there is a printer that is marketed to specifically print onto poker chips.  However, don't be fooled.  Just because a chip looks similar to a Chipco Pro-Tech® chip, all ceramic chips are definitely not equal.  All you have to do is put the chips side by side and you can immediately see and feel the difference.  Chipco Pro-Tech® chips are made differently, last longer and don't scratch nearly as easy as some of the others out there.
    
8)  21Ace:  What are some of the other markets that you sell your chips to?
DH:  We sell custom sets and bounty chips to poker players.  Wedding favor chips to engaged couples.  Business card chips, coupon chips and gift certificate chips to business owners. Birth announcement chips to expecting parents.  We have a magic trick featuring custom chips that we sell to mentalists and magicians.  We are also in four or five other markets that would probably surprise you.  You'd be amazed at the different applications we have found for custom chips.
    
9)  21Ace:  You've made chips for the rich & famous.  Who are some of your clients that we might recognize?
DH:  Let's see... we made a great looking set of "Jay and Silent Bob" chips for director/actor Kevin Smith.  Dallas Mavericks owner and "The Benefactor" Mark Cuban has a set of our chips.  We've made chips for actor Toby McGuire and adult starlet Jenna Jameson.  Professional athletes like Cincinnati Red's Eddie Guardado, Toronto Blue Jays Ken Huckaby and Seattle Seahawks Grant Winstrom have all ordered chips from us.  We've also made chips for prominent professional poker players, for famous venture capitalists and for high profile business owners.

10)  21Ace:  We had our 21Ace chips made by Chipco through your business.  What kind of deal can you give our 21Ace newsletter readers?
DH:  Right now we are offering FREE artwork for our 12 stock artworks (http://www.homepokerchips.com/stock.php).  You can customize your chips with any text, with any denomination and in any of our 80-colors.  The 21Ace chip is our "Lucky Lady" style.  Your readers can have this same stock artwork free with a minimum 300 chip order.  We also offer a free 300 or 500 chip aluminum case to anyone who mentions "21Ace" when they order their chips.

21Ace:  That's quite an offer.  We certainly like our Chipco chips and totally recommend your business as the place to go to for high quality chips.  Thanks for your time Dave.
DH:  You're very welcome.  Happy Holidays to you and your readers.

Heads up no-limit holdem

In heads up, you have to adjust your game to not only the type of player
your going against, but to situations you normally don't see and to the fact
you have to be winning around half the pots.  Who ever steals more has the
advantage.  For example,  Dutch Boyd this year won his first bracelet in
short handed holdem.  But he was going up against Joe Hachem, Hachem was on
fire too.  But the one flaw about Hachem's game is, they wouldn't show this
on TV though, he wasn't taking as many small pots as Boyd did through out
the whole heads up match and final table.  Boyd in fact was playing very
aggressive poker the whole tourney long.  Hachem only won huge hands when he
was all-in.  Sure thats when it matters the most, but Boyd had a very
intresting point and strategy.  "I've put him all-in so many times, he can't
be that lucky...."  Even if he has a great hand all of the time, luck isn't
always going to on your side.

When I play heads-up 5-20 dollar buy-in games, the first thing I like to do
is test the waters.  I come out firing.  No lie.  Even with 2 7 off suit.
I'm really looking to see the game that my opponent is bringing.  If he
folds, it's my game to win.  I already know because he probably is a tight
or solid player.  So i bring my aggressive game and he will lose.  Of course
you can't really tell this just on the first hand.  I mean they could just
have a horrible hand.  Now if he calls, I'm betting the flop.  If you don't
know $%!@ about heads-up, then here is the first thing I'm going to teach
you.  BET AND RAISE.  Position doesn't matter.  In heads up, the odds are
against your opponent flopping a decent pair.  Really the best way to even
tell if he has anything from the flop is what he does pre-flop.  But
seriously, more then 50% of the time you are going to win it here or set
yourself up so you can win it on the turn or the river.

Now there are positives to playing aggressive, but at the same time, so many
negatives.  For instance, once your caught bluffing or seen down to the
river, you lose a decent portion of your stack if you played it aggressive.
This normally can happen against aggressive players, chasers, and fish.
Solid players and tight players will almost make you know if your behind or
not.  When you lose a hand, it takes about 4 hands of stealing to make back
that money, if you put a decent amount of money in.  This is how variation
in play works.  For example:  My friend said when I was heads up that I
check whenever I have a hand and bet when I don't.  So, while I played a
pretty aggressive player, I raised pre-flop and I had 3 5 off.  The flop
came 7, 10, J and I checked the flop.  He bet into me and, I immediantly put
him on second pair because, sometimes when people flop top pair and they are
aggressive, they slow play it.  And bottom pair is not a hand you would bet
into the pre-flop raiser with.  And since I was the person that raised
pre-flop, he would check if he didn't have anything  I called, playing it
like I had a big hand or on a draw.  The turn came a Queen, which is a
incredibly dangerous card.  I mean, think of the possiblilities now.  If I
had queen king, I made top pair.  If I had big slick (AK) or king 9, I made
a straight.  Ace queen, top pair, top kicker.  Or I could have 89 and I
decided to finally bet before my straight gets counterfieted (a King or a
Nine would do that).  So on this one I check again, with intentions of
raising.  He bets the same he did on the flop.  This kinda tells me
sub-consiously, in a way, that he wants his hand to be as good as it was on
the flop, but it isn't.  I raise and he mucks.

Another way to vary your game is that, when you get a good hand and you
still play aggressive, keep betting but bet the same you do as your bluff.
Like if you raised pre-flop with 2s and hit a 2 on the flop, bet about
pot-sized, he either is not going to believe you, or fold.  If he folds,
chances are he had nothing anyways and he wouldn't even call a minimum bet.
If he calls, keep betting, or even check the turn to give him the thought he
might have the best hand.  If he raises, push it in.

Now the last thing I'm going to talk about is "long waiting re-raises".  And
what I mean by this is, your playing a heads up game and about 20 minutes of
playing normal game (or about 10 hands), pulling off a huge re-raise bluff
if he bets into you.  Sometimes this is suicidal.  But sometimes its so
incredibly ridiculous, no one would think of it, like Chris Moneymaker's
bluff on Sam Farha in the main event.  Although this could sometimes cripple
you, it could also put your opponent on a horrible tilt when you show the
bluff and you in a great spot to win.

chip magnet

Rich Ferguson News and History

The news

Official Poker, Inc has released the perfect gift idea for all ages and
skill levels. With card games, poker and magic at an all time interest,
there is finally a DVD series that teaches everyday people everything
imaginable with chips and cards. The Official Poker Chip and Card
Handling DVD Series is now available in a "Special Players Edition" Box
Set.

Viewers will learn endless techniques from every way to shuffle cards
and roll poker chips to making card spin and fly in the air. Also, they
will learn all those flashy ways of revealing cards and looking "pro"
at their next card game. For those serious about cards, there are many
advanced techniques as well.

The Official Poker DVDs do not teach gambling or cheating, only
exciting skills with cards and chips. The series is packed with over
170 lessons for kids or adults of any interest and skill levels.
Already a best selling series, watchers will be pleasantly surprised
with superb filming, overhead shots, close-ups, multiple angles, star
rating difficulty system, interactive menus and more. The DVDs are
hosted by award winning magician, A-list entertainer, poker columnist
and spokesperson, Rich Ferguson. (More about Rich at
http://www.richferguson.com)

Just in time for the holidays, the Box Set is half the price of the
individual DVDs. At only $39.99, the four DVDs are a fantastic deal for
all and available in stores worldwide or directly through
http://www.OfficialPokerInc.com for $39.99 for the full Four DVD Set.

The Making of the DVDs:

Many years ago, I foresaw the insane explosion of poker and magic.Gigs
were good and poker inquiries where common.In the year or two to
follow, people all over made a profit from poker books, videos, poker
tables and poker chips sets.Years ticked by and I always kicked myself
for not getting a business plan together to capitalize on selling poker
chips and products.The market had become far too saturated and I
learned a lesson. Heck, you can't even go to a gas station without
seeing some poker related nick-knack for sale. But wait! Was there
still room for one more sort of niche product? I pitched a Chip Tricks
DVD to Ventura, Sony, Warner and others.With a quick production and
test of a Chip Tricks DVD, it was clear that the only substantial
market, if there was one at all, would be what is called
"mainstream"(Not geared to the smaller market of highly skilled
magicians, etc.).After nearly two years the series is out and finally
tweaked to include techniques for all ages and skill levels.I would
have never imagined how difficult distribution channels, international
compatibility, editing, voice over and translations, invoicing,
reproduction, packaging with other products, regulations, contracts,
royalties, copyrights, fraud and copying, shipping, billing,
accounting, wholesale, resale, inventory, licensing, lawyers, shopping
carts, MSRP, UPC's, call centers, exclusives, etc. would have been!I
had always had it easy with items for sale online in the past.Now that
we have been going into all levels of stores, online markets,
international markets and more, I have been humbled by the insane
infrastructure and work that goes into any product I see on a shelf.
Even at the level we have achieved with this series so far, there
really is just too much saturation from a business standpoint to make
it big like it could have been several years ago.From a mainstream
market standpoint, we were first to market and I can only hope the DVDs
are enjoyed by many worldwide and they help people bridge the gap
between poker, cards, magic and entertainment.There is a lot of hidden
value, fun and knowledge in this collection.

Rich's as a Magician and Entertainer:

My start to magic is quite unusual.I never was "into" magic (so I
thought) and, in fact, only first stepped foot into a magic shop after
being a professional magician and entertainer for several years! Let me
explain.

My upbringing was quite unusual. I will not spend time here talking
about that but if you are interested there is a Telly Award Winning
documentary of my childhood on my website. The main turning point and
realization of my unique talents is as follows. At19 years old, a good
friend of mine asked me to "mess with" his guests at his wedding
reception. It was weird for me because doing pranks, stunts, mind games
and effects as a kid and teenager was reserved for merely amusing
myself. My "effects" had not been done for entertaining others.That
evening I was hooked and realized that my best gift is the interaction
and improvisational edge to my magical skills. Before that evening,
equating all my pick pocketing and mind games as magic did not
exist.However, as it was, people would call my made up stuff magic and
ask to see another "magic trick".It turns out that, like someone who
can play music by ear, I was able to create "magic" and "mentalism" by
feel.So, at 20 years old I got a business license to run my
entertainment company and there rest is history. I became a member of
the Magic Castle, finally stepped into a magic shop or two and have met
tons of incredible entertainers and craftsman all around the world.

As far as the "type" of magic I pursue, it is anything that allows me
to interact. I have dabbled in many disciplines like stage magic,
parlour, tradeshows, street magic, close-up, etc.I find that what
works best for me is interacting within a guests personal space so I
can do effects like write on them, pick pocketing, put pocketing, make
eye contact and read body language well and get away with more.My
natural skills don't fit well on a stage or within the scope of an act.
I am more of an up-close, interactive, improv entertainer than classic
magician I guess.

In my opinion, magic should be flexible. Still today, more than 15
years into my professional career, my style is mostly improvisational.
I have slowly picked up several classic routines that you have all
probably read in books.I am sure I have reinvented the wheel far too
many times… but the process of creating concepts is what I love so
much.Additionally , my strength is engaging people with whatever it
takes, be it magic, mentalism, comedy or demonstrations of body
language. Maybe someday I'll put something on the market containing the
real nitty gritty of my inner workings.Unlike the more mainstream and
larger scope approach to the Poker DVDs, a series on creating magic,
improv, mentalism would be very rewarding. For now, I hope someone is
inspired by my approach and sees that magic is whatever you want it to
be. Learning a sleight or trick is one thing, getting away with it and
making it entertaining or amazing to others is another thing. I think
the real magic is the approach to how you do your tricks and not the
tricks themselves. It is great there are forums like this to share,
pursue and preserve the art of magic.

Check out some fun, internet tricks at www.richferguson.com and see all
the details and previews for the DVDs at www.OfficialPokerInc.com.

Good luck and may you all find all the magic life has to offer!

Rich Ferguson

Credits

The people that contributed to the making of this newsletter include:

Eric and Shadow – Technical Support.

Fattyonadiet – Editor.

Jeff, chip magnet and Rich Ferguson – Authors

Also; a big thanks goes to Dave from HomePokerChips.com for allowing us to interview him.