February 2007 Newsletter

Editorial

Hi Everybody, we have some exciting developments in the area of pen spinning. Currently the first ever 21ace pen spinning contest is being setup and I can't wait to see the videos!

We had a nice contest in the yow pool forums to see who the biggest posters were for the month of January...the results will be posted soon. :)

Be sure to check the home page from time to time...we've made yet another improvement. The recent videos section now shows the latest videos uploaded in our Member Uploads section. It is always fun checking out the latest videos whether they involve chip tricks, card tricks, pool trick shots, pen spinning or magic.

I've been spending a lot of time snowboarding this season and it has been a blast! In fact I just returned from hitting the slopes yesterday. Hopefully I'll be able to upload some photos/videos on one of my next trips.

Enjoy the newsletter and really listen to what is being said. The article by pokerfanatic contains some valuable lessons and I think everybody should take it seriously. Remember with Drey's article that card manipulation should be used for magic only...not in any real money gambling situations.

Professional play

Well I have been in and out of poker over the last 3 or 4 months, it’s been rough for me. I’m not going to sit here and lie, playing poker as a professional isn’t fun whatsoever. It added a lot of stress to my life on top of school, and general life issues. It truly affected my thinking and my personality. Losing made me a very unhappy person, I always blamed the many losses I had on a day to day basis on myself. I was constantly and continually hard on myself. I put a lot of pressure on myself to win and in return I tried forcing action and not sticking to my game plan. This sent me on the worse down swing over all I have experienced and that many people I know have heard of. In the end it taught me one valuable lesson, don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t think that you have to win every day to make you bills at the end of the month.

I made that mistake and it turned my poker playing ability into a 2 or 3 times as big a losing player than if I had just stuck to my game. When down money don’t feel you MUST get that money back in that session. I cannot stress this enough, base if you should continue to play on how well you are actually playing. If you are getting upset at bad beats then my suggestion is to sit out immediately. If it bothers you that someone made a horrible play to beat you then you are looking at it way wrong and probably have a slight bit of tilt in there. Tilt will blind your perception of your play, I have been there. Every player goes though it at one point or another.

I have heard the saying “knowing how to play the cards when you are running good or average doesn’t make a great player… playing the cards when they are against you effectively makes the greats who they are…” This is very accurate, because many players when they start losing adjust there game when they should stick to the over all strategy. I was a victim of this. I know fundamentals, how the game should be played, I have proven that to myself and other people in the past. But I got to a level of poker where I mentally collapsed. Ask any great poker player if they have gone bust at one point during there carrier and a vast majority of them will tell you they have. I didn’t go bust, I walked away from the game for a straight 2.5 months. My mind needed time to forget about how it was playing before and relearn ABC game. I’m here to tell you today from my experiences that ABC works still.

To further illustrate my point, I was playing 10/20 6m about 4 or 5 months ago, now I’m playing 1/2 6m again! Yea that is one nasty drop. I lost around $15k over a period of a couple months. And with bills it left me crippled. It shattered any confidence I had. I was no longer the poker player I once was. This is yet another lesson in poker for me though, as shitty as it may seem to you and I alike, it’s not as bad as it seems. I made a huge mistake, I just needed to admit that to myself and not make the same one twice.

So here I stand back down to low limit levels with my head held high and knowing that I can beat the game, I have done it before. It will just take pure discipline and time. There is no rush in this game. I forced myself to move up stakes when I had the bare min to move up, I think this is a poor idea. A better idea is to set up something like 50k or 100k hands at each level to see where you are. If you’re not ready to move up even if you have the bankroll then wait...play another chunk of hands. Don’t hesitate to wait to have way more than enough money to move up. I suggest to aspiring poker pros playing limit (which limit is bit deader at higher levels so you might look into NL as well after building a roll) 1000bb min plus 6 months living expenses. Make it to where you feel there is no possible way for you to go broke. This reduces your stress about winning all the time.

I made a lot of mistakes that have told me a lot about myself as a poker player and a person. I honestly think that for an 18 year old that is playing poker and trying to make it as a pro, I wouldn’t bother. Focus on your school work first, have a social life, have fun and when you get to be about 21 to 25 and still want to try then look into it more. I strongly advise against underage gambling practices, it can and will get you in deep trouble financially and in your personal life. Whatever you do don’t bet with money that you can’t afforded to lose, I know you hear this a lot from people, but I’m being serious. If your mind is fragile poker could put you over the edge and make you do stupid things. To be a great poker player you have to accept it’s gambling and that you will not come out ahead every time you play. If you cannot accept that losing $1k in a day at 10/20 is not abnormal then don’t play, find yourself a job that pays like $8 an hour, get yourself a girlfriend or boyfriend and enjoy yourself. Don’t let poker make you a depressed, boring person like it did me. Looking back at how I was, I feel like an idiot. I wish I could have back so many things that I said or did, but I can’t. All I can do is tell you my stories from my experiences and hope that I don’t have to hear about how someone that read this went down the same path as I.

Keep gambling as entertainment as much as possible but still play solid poker and accept it as a 2nd income. Even better..look at it as “fun money” money that you normally wouldn’t have if you are a winning player, and buy things that you normally couldn’t afford, such as a nice outfit, or take your significant other out to a really nice diner. I think you see my point, guys if you have a woman that doesn’t really like gambling then buy her something really nice. She can find out later you made the money to pay for it though poker

Best of regards everyone, Jeremy aka PokerFanatic

Any Hand Named

This is not the most elegant handling, it is simple, deceptive, and effective…but it is also not the most elegant handling, certainly not what master card workers are seeking, then again, such a secret might be worth keeping.

Effect: A deck of cards is handed to the spectators who begin shuffling it, as they do, the performer asks five different spectators to each name any random card, each of which is written down on a slip of paper (none may be duplicated). When the audience is satisfied that the deck is well shuffled, the performer takes it back and states that he will deal the five cards from the deck to a particular player or series of players in a mock poker game. The spectators are asked to name how many hands are in the game and, if the performer chooses, who shall receive which card. The performer begins dealing rounds of poker and amazingly, the five named cards turn up in the selected hand.

Preparation: You require two decks of cards, each matching, one that should begin in your lap and remain unknown to the audience. You want it in a fixed order, I use new deck order, but use whatever works best for you. The second deck sits on the table.

Method: Hand out the tabled deck of cards and relax. (Note, I think it is very important for effects like this that the cards are named after you’ve handed the deck out to be shuffled, not before since that provides an opportunity for you to steal the cards from the deck prior to handing the deck out).

At this point, I use the relaxation to facilitate what will occur. I turn sideways so my right side is facing the table much more than my left, my right arm resting on the table. This naturally allows me to drop my left hand to my lap or thigh etc. so I can retrieve the deck in my lap, but the body language seems natural. (I should mention that you need to control the audience positions for this effect, generally simply having them across a table from you is fine).

I take the lapped deck in my left hand mechanic’s grip with the faces of the cards pointed away from the palm of the hand so I can riffle through the cards at the upper left corner with my left thumb and glance the indexes. At this point as the atmosphere is relaxed and the deck is being shuffled, I ask the first spectator to name a card, any card. Once it is name, I allow them to change and then have someone write it down. As they do, I riffle through the cards in my left hand (below the table’s edge) until I locate the card in question. Since I know the relative location of the card this is quite easy and quick and you can accomplish it without burning the deck in your left hand.

When I come to the card in question, I use my left thumb to pivot it out of the deck so it is in a jogged condition and then use my thumb to pivot it onto the top of the face up deck and I maintain a break. Notice that this reverses the card so it is now face down. (See figure 1, figure 2 and figure 3 for the basic procedure.)

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Status check, you now have a face down named card with a break held below it and then a face up deck in a known order. While I do all of this I give other instructions, something like “pass the deck to her so she can shuffle it”, etc. Basically, you’re just filling time and space, pattering, remaining casual etc. You repeat this process as many times as you like, five is a nice poker hand, but I like four in some regards, which I’ll describe later; the whole thing is up to you. Each time, you add the card face up to the top of the deck while maintaining your original break.

When they’ve named and written down each of the cards in question (writing them down is just to ensure no one forgets), and they are satisfied the deck is well mixed (you can even have them look through the deck if they like to ensure their named cards are there), you will turn back towards the table. In this action several things occur. First, you pivot all the cards above your break slightly so you can grip them, I use my forefinger, but many methods will work. Then, you dump all the cards below your break into your lap and transfer the face down cards into gambler’s cop. (This last part really isn’t necessary, but it makes it more difficult to be caught).

As you reach to take the deck with your right hand, your left hand comes up above the table. Your right hand places the deck into the left hand (or you can just sweep the deck off the table into the waiting left hand) and the named cards (duplicates) are automatically added to the bottom of the deck.

You’ll now patter about how you’re going to demonstrate the most incredible skill in a gambler’s repertoire, the ability to deal any named hand from a random deck. (You can use whatever patter you like, but I prefer a gambling patter for this effect.) The spectators can then decide how many hands you’ll deal out in this mock poker game and the type of game it is. If you like, you can let them dictate who gets what cards, divide the cards between the various hands etc. but I prefer not to complicate it like that. I don’t feel it adds anything to the effect, in fact I feel it weakens the clarity, and also makes the clean up more difficult.

Regarding the type of game, I prefer stud, and this is where I prefer having four cards named rather than five. I like to deal the first card face down as a hole card, then deal the next three face up and get the last one wrong. Of course everyone suspects the outcome, but it builds the suspense/tension/anticipation and gives a nice ending reaction when you ask what the last card was and turn over the hole card to reveal you got them all right. (This is what works for me based on a lot of testing with gambling effects like this; if you get better results some other way, by all means go for it).

At this point, the process is simple, you deal regularly from the top, face down in all cases for those cards (you don’t want to flash the duplicate), and then deal bottoms for the named cards, which, you’ll notice, automatically come off in the order they were named.

You get a great reaction, the difficulty of the effect is obvious and so long as you present it well it makes a great gambling climax. I use it as the last phase of a routine, generally an instructional routine of continually increasing difficulty and this makes a very nice caper, and no one will ever want to play cards with you.

Finally, there is the question of clean up, which is very simple. I deal all the selections to a particular hand, meaning they are all together when the rest of the deck is separate. Usually, I’ll deal all the other cards into a single pile, say dealing off six indifferent cards in a particular direction or into a pile and then simply dealing the named cards out in front of me. It’s simply a matter then of gathering all the cards up, adding these to the bottom of the deck and stealing them off or lapping them, leaving you with a clean deck at the end. Something that works better though, in my view if you can manage it, is to leave those selections in view and gather up the original deck, when perform a deck switch, switching it with the lapped deck, and spread the deck face up on the table, showing that there are no duplicates. The problem with this is that you can’t use a deck in new deck order, you either need to shuffle it secretly or you need to use some stack that looks random.

Anyway, that is quite a simple solution to a complex problem and offers one of my favourite endings to a very impressive problem. I find the handling is extremely economical, so I hope you like it.

Drey

New member welcome

New members are the spice of every forum. They bring new ideas and fun to the community. We would like to welcome members who have made 2 or more posts this month.

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Credits

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

Eric and Shadow – Technical Support.

Fattyonadiet – Editor.

Drey, Pokerfanatic – Authors