January 2006 Newsletter

Editorial

Hello,

you are now reading our first 21ace newsletter. Things you do for the first time are usually exciting and difficult at the same time. I can tell you that this newsletter was no exception. We have been trying to implement the idea of having a newsletter since November 2005. The first ideas appeared even earlier. I would like to thank everyone who helped.

As you can see the de sing of the first issue is really simple. But this will change in the next issue. Another thing you can be looking forward to in the next issue is that one of our valued members who is really experienced in card cheating techniques will likely be posting his lectures in our newsletter.

I don't want to disturb you from reading the rest of the newsletter so enjoy reading! If you have any questions or suggestions to the newsletter visit our forum at http://www.21ace.com/phpBB2 .

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Newbie Factor

For me; magic came into my life from the age of about 5, when I saw a clown doing magic tricks at a party. I was fascinated and it wasn't long until my first 'Magic Set' arrived as a Christmas present. Fast forward 15 years and I've realized that I'm only now beginning to scratch the surface of the magic world and all it has to offer. A few years ago magic was a much more difficult arena to get into. You could buy children's magic sets and scour the library for books but the only real way to get into the world was by finding a magic store that never seemed to be open and hanging around it long enough until a kindly magician took you under his wing and showed you what you were missing. The internet changed all that and now magic is for sale worldwide to anyone with the money and patience to see it through. This has in turn brought huge numbers of new members to the magic community which has evolved due to this explosion. Many of these new people (myself included) found a world of new language, new rules and some harsh lessons to be learned. I can still remember registering for the Ellusionist forums and wondering what the hell exposure was and why it wasn't allowed. After some time I discovered just what a resource forums could be with like minded people coming together to encourage and discuss their passion. So I plucked up the courage to post only to be shot down in flames by someone who was (in his opinion anyway) a grandmaster and therefore had the right to batter me online.

Just remember the internet is a great place for people to be bullies because they can create false persona's and abuse people with their perceived power in that arena. Once even they were a newbie and were just as scared as everyone else. We were all newbie's once and in real terms we are all beginners in one form or another because no one has ever mastered all forms and magic and probably never will. So next time someone new posts a stupid question or violates an etiquette they probably didn't even know existed. Remember that at some point it was you sitting there trying to delve into the wonderful world of magic and you really did just want to learn.

Jonjo

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deal me in.

There is a first time for everything. For that reason I should probably introduce myself a little. My name is Jeremy aka PokerFanatic. I'll be writing a poker articles in this newsletter each month I figure I'd start out with why I think poker is such a big game and why I started playing In the first place. So let's deal it baby…

I played 5 card draw with my family when I was a little, same with blackjack. I basically grew up with a deck of cards in my hands. Around the very beginning or maybe a little before the first event of the 2003 WSOP hit ESPN, is when I started to play Hold'em. I was the typical player thought I knew more about the game than I really did, thank god it was enough to win the home games I played in. Then I was a bit flaky with playing through that year and when the 2004 WSOP hit TVs poker exploded and that's the moment I realized I could make money at this game called poker.

I'll be honest, the first time I tried online poker I had been destroying my home games, and thought "oh I can beat on-line", wow was I way wrong. I deposited $200 and left with $50 in one night of $25NL… That hurt my poker confidence pretty badly. However, all it did was push me to play better, and actually I wanted to try limit too since no limit didn't go over well at all. So since I'm a computer guy, given my major is computer engineering, I did some computer work for one of my buddies. I would consider him to be in the top 20 online MTT players in the world, and he gave me 1% of his next big win for the computer work. It turns out a week later he is asking me for my stars account because he owes me $75, yea 1% came to $75, or a $7.5k win. I then thought about cashing it out to pay some of my bills, but with a lot of thought started to play 0.05/0.10 Limit, at this point I had done my homework, read many books, read different poker boards and I was ready for round two. As it turns out I made around $60 at that game, I was playing so well I got a stake to play 0.5/1. I played that for awhile getting 50% of winnings and bonuses, which made my roll to $300 which was a lot for me back then.
I've been playing limit ever since and profiting at it, currently my roll is about 1.7k . Since I started making real money, enough to pay off my bills and such, I have been passionate about becoming one of the best poker players in the world. One of my career goals is to play the big game at the Bellagio which is a 4000/8000 limit game; at the very least I want to be playing 1k/2k.

My goal in these articles is to cover many topics related to poker. We will look at general poker strategies and concepts, stories and other poker related subjects such as supplies for your home poker games. Hopefully, you'll learn something and I'll see YOU across the table from me.

Pokerfanatic01

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hobby or Obsession?

It all started about two years ago. My friend and I were watching poker on the television. We were unfamiliar with the rules, yet it was attracting none the less.
As we watched the broadcast, we got to know the game a bit. Apparently this was called Texas Hold 'Em No-Limit. Basically this meant you get 2 cards in the hand 5 on table and then you try and get all the chips with the best hand or the best bluff.
It seemed very easy to learn, so we dug up some rules on the internet and started to try...

The first time I played poker was online. I had a set of rules printed out next to me and just played. And believe it or not, I won too.
This was the start of my "hobby". I picked up on the game very quickly and started to make fewer beginners mistakes.

It was time for my very own Poker chip set. I ordered a set of the cheapest chips I could find. Which in this case were just plastic ones. But it did the trick. When I got them, I went and looked around the net for a site which could teach me different chip tricks...

After typing the word "chip trick" in the search machine, I got a few pointless sites. But then I found a site that would change my life. A site called www.21ace.com and I found it very interesting and decided to join.

At this time, my second poker set was to arrive; I ordered some composite chips this time, just to step it up a notch.
I practiced the tricks I learnt off the forum like crazy and organized poker tournaments at my home. Slowly yet steady poker was taking over.
I spent at least an hour a day visiting the forums. And also of course I made a deal I had to play at least 100 hands of online/real-time poker before I could go to bed.

Then when I was at school playing poker with my classmates in the break, I realized something was wrong. I had already bought my 3rd Poker set, with coin inlay chips. But none the less I just knew this wasn't right.
At this time I was playing more poker then I did school, for Christ sakes, I was doing more poker then I slept. I now knew poker was no longer a hobby it was an Obsession.

I watched almost every poker movie that existed (for you fans out there here are some good ones:

Shade (2004), Rounders (1998),Aces and Eights(19??),Croupier (1998),Maverick(1994),California Split (1974),The Big Blind (1999),Four dogs playing poker (2000), Poker (2001)

I have cut down on my poker time. It is now down to visiting the forums on a daily basis and a poker tourney on Friday, the casino on Saturday and sometimes some online poker. But by far not as much as it could be.

I think poker is a game that is VERY addictive, but fun too. I can see why it turns into an obsession while it first started as a hobby. Luckily I was able too stop before it cost me big time money. But some of the players out there aren't that lucky...

So that was pretty much my poker story. I hope you all like it and maybe till a next time!

~The End~

Sreename

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How The Mess Started.

I could always handle cards pretty well. Like many people, I liked to play cards. I could do a standard riffle shuffle, even a one-handed cut (known as the Charlier cut, but I sure as hell didn't know that it had a specific name). I was good enough at handling cards to the point where if I saw someone botch a shuffle, I could confidently call that person a giant putz.

Even with my outstanding standard riffle shuffle and Charlier skills, I couldn't tell you what the hell a card flourish was. I figured any card skills that didn't involve sleights were; a few one-handed cuts, a couple of shuffles, and that "spring thing" that sounds like a fart.

Anyway, about one year ago, I finally found a few people to play poker with. OK, so most of them were old enough to be my father or grandfather, but they were pretty serious poker players. One poker night, these two guys were cutting cards for $100 a pop… WTF? So once every few weeks we would have this poker night, and it would moderately satisfy my gambling appetite.

A few months later, while watching poker on television, I decided it would be pretty neat to learn how to shuffle poker chips, as well as some other chip tricks. Hey, if I can't impress women, I guess the next best thing would be to impress the old men at poker night. Then I remembered reading about a one-handed shuffle a long time ago. So now I'm searching all over the internet for information on this one-handed shuffle. After poking around a little, I found Ian Kendall's website. He had a tutorial on the one-handed shuffle, as well as some tutorials on chip flourishes. The following week, I did nothing but practice the goddamn one-handed shuffle. Like an idiot, I practiced with plastic casino cards, as opposed to paper cards like Bicycles. I could've saved myself from many finger blisters as well as days of frustration, had I used normal paper cards, but I didn't. Anyway, after one week, I could perform the one-handed shuffle with both hands, even with the goddamn plastic cards. At this point, with my new shuffling skills, I was pretty much thinking that my "shit don't stink".

Not too long after learning the one-handed shuffle, I stumble upon Superhandz.com . And, like many other people who have seen the website for the first time, I pretty much soiled my pants and thought: "What the hell is all this?" One handed shuffles, behind their back? Holy shit! Arm spreads? I can't even spread cards on a table, let alone on my glistening guns. I quickly conceded that the king cobra cut was "slightly" better than the Charlier cut I had learned years ago.

The Superhandz website was filled with freakish videos. Hot shot cuts, cards on fire, some dude shuffling cards with his feet, overhead springs, and many other ridiculous things. Also this thing called card fans? Who knew that fanning a deck of cards would look so sweet? Hell, I could barely spread the cards in my hand when I played rummy (yes, I really have played rummy before).

I immediately forked over the cash for Jerry Cestkowski's Encyclopaedia of Playing Card Flourishes. It is still regarded as the best source for learning card flourishes in existence, and for good reasons, too. That's when my flourishing career began. Fast-forward to 8 months later, and card flourishes still dominate my spare time. Somewhere along the line I found 21ace.com, made a few videos, and might've even helped a person or two with their flourishes. I'm not fantastic, by any means. But once in awhile I might raise an eyebrow or two.

But no matter how much I progress at card flourishes, I'll never shuffle cards with my feet.

DeadPeopleAllOver

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ian's interview

1) What's the difference between being a hobbyist magician and being a professional?
The most obvious distinction is being paid for what you do, but there's a lot more to it than that. The biggest thing you need is an attitude to work; dress appropriately, make sure that you have a good, saleable show, be reliable. This may sound like common sense, but I've known several people who didn't get very far because they showed up late, or messed up shows or let down their employers in other ways. I suppose in that respect it's not unlike any other job; if you turn up to the office always late and looking like shit you won't have that job for long.
Also, you need to be good at what you do. Magic is a skilled profession, and despite what you might hear about 'all you need to do is entertain', you still need to be able to do that to a very high standard.