March 2006 Newsletter

Editorial

It is hard to believe that we are already on our third newsletter! This has been a lot of fun and it is a nice way for us to do interviews once per month. There are many interesting folks in our community so we are looking forward to hearing their thoughts in more interviews. As many of you know, 21ace has been in Card Player Magazine. We might have some more good news with another magazine soon - stay tuned.

The 7th Card Flourish Contest was a success. All the videos we received were great. If you haven't seen them you can check them here: http://www.21ace.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=17 . The results are already up! The next contest will be up soon so be sure to check the site.

Online Poker: Basic Concepts

For as long as online poker has been around people have been claming they can’t beat it because in online poker you can not pick up “tells”. I think that anyone can beat online poker however they must want to beat the game. As I explain in the following text, poker is beatable in all aspects of the game, live or online play. I assume you already know how to play correct poker so I won’t go into details about this topic. I plan to make points on the following: Common myths of online poker, Tells, and why you suck at online poker.

As I get going I always like to start off with some of the most no bull statements I have heard people say and have seen in the table chat windows. My favorite has to be the common “Online poker is rigged!” I honestly want to slap people for saying this but I bit my lip because I know it’s probably because they play like a donkey if they think this. I have played over 100k hands of online poker, the math is correct, it is not rigged. I would have seen it by now, a creditable site such as party poker or poker stars would not risk their business to generate more rake, give me a break. Let's be honest with ourselves, stop placing blame and look into your game. I’ll say that again because it is important, look at your game and don’t place blame.

Another one of my favorites has to be “you can’t get reads on people online.” Again, this to me is giving an excuse why you can’t win at online poker. The line about not being able to get tells is just a dumb assessment plain and simple. You can get tells on online players, just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they don’t have tells. The first thing I do is look at beating patterns, do they like to slow play, do they fire all 3 barrels on a bluff or semi-bluff turned to pure bluff, something that is distinct and contestant with how they are beating a range of hands. My 999th post at 21ace found here: http://www.21ace.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3622 explains in detail about the various “types of poker players.” I could make an entire article on player's tells but there is a good book already out that does the job called “Caro’s Book of Poker Tells” by Mike Caro. My only goal in this section is to make the point there are tells online, one that hangs around is the weak is strong, strong is weak. Mr. Caro can explain that more to you when you read his book.

Why you suck at online poker is because you probably have one or more of the following misconceptions or leaks:

1. You think that the poker software is out to get you…
- The site makes money no matter which player wins unless you are playing Black Jack or something.

2. You think that you are just unlucky online.
- Denial is always the worst killer to your wallet - hate to tell you. You might be unlucky on a day to day basis but in the long term it is 90% that by playing correctly money follows into your wallet.

3. You don’t realize that you see more hands/hr online.
- On avg a 10 player table will see 60 hands/hr online and live the same table with a fast dealer sees a max of 40 hands/hr. this makes people win or lose more in an hour online so the variance of the game is increased.

4. You are emotionally unstable
- Can’t handle bad beats, people being aggressive towards you, people talking smack to tilt you, if you are prone to tilt factor at all because you’re playing online then you shouldn’t play online at all.

5. You don’t have patience and discipline
- Well, I guess you’ll be making my paycheck this week lol. In all seriousness you are a losing player no matter if you play live or online. However, live you’ll lose money slower and probably have a better time.

In conclusion to this point, online poker is not for the weak at heart. The players are often better than in live games, players are much more aggressive in betting, players are way ruder because they can’t see you, players have no morals online they will take every penny you have and your mortgage after that. If you can except the fact that online poker is like the wild west then play it, if not you might want to drive down to your local casino. Of course if you really wanted to become a good poker player I personally know of many great poker books, if you don’t want to go that route I do some poker coaching at limit Hold’em 3/6 and down, I also know other players that do poker coaching if you don't want to use me. The material is out there, you just have to have the motivation, will, patience, and discipline to make yourself a winning player. Just like a typical sport like North American football, it takes will to become good.

PokerFanatic

Interview with Eric!

1. What made you decide to create 21ace?
I was an Economics major in college but I got bored with accounting and switched to being a computer programmer early in my career. As the web started to take off I sought after projects that involved websites. Soon enough I knew enough to start several websites of my own including 21ace. I decided to start them because it was fun for me to put up information about the topics that are interesting to me.

2. Did you ever imagine it would be this big and popular?
I don't want to sound arrogant but no it does not surprise me that 21Ace is pretty popular. People say that if you do what you enjoy then good things will happen. I enjoy working on 21ace; in fact sometimes it doesn't even seem like work. Early on I received some great advice from some very intelligent people like Mike Lepore from the http://www.crimsonbird.com book review site. He said to write down everything you know and success will follow.

We have a great community here at 21ace so it doesn't surprise me that the site continues to grow. Shadow is always coming up with exciting new ideas so no, nothing surprises me.

3. What was the main idea for the site? Did you originally want it to be just a forum or a general poker site?
I wasn't sure what I wanted as the main idea at first. Basically I just wrote about things that interested me. At first the site was mainly about blackjack and poker but things started to change when I began writing about some of the poker chip tricks that I knew. Once I started writing about these tricks a lot more people started finding the site through the search engines.

4. What was the hardest thing about creating the site?
One of the hardest things was and is getting other sites to link to 21ace. The most successful sites exchange links with other sites, even competitors. Unfortunately many sites out there are hesitant to exchange links for one reason or another. Some sites out there refuse to link to "gambling" related sites so that makes things challenging.

5. Have you ever thought about calling it quits?
No, I've never thought about calling it quits because I enjoy it too much. Looking at this past week as an example, we took a vacation to Lake Tahoe where I didn't have internet access. It was great for a few days but by the end of the trip I was excited to get home and get back on the computer. I feel like there are so many cool things happening at 21ace right now that it is very depressing when I can't connect to the internet and check out the latest developments.

6. Do you think you’ll ever retire your position as Admin and hand over the reins to someone else?
Over the years Shadow has been doing more and more of the Admin type functions and that will probably continue. Now that we have the private council and the newsletter we also have other members who are starting to do some Admin-type projects.

7. You’ve seen members come and go, have any stuck in your mind?
It is always sad to see folks go but this is something that happens all over the web and in real live, not just at 21ace.com. I like to focus on the members that come and stay. It is impossible to name all the cool members individually but I feel fortunate that we have so many active members. Obviously the forum would not have grown the way it did if Shadow hadn't joined early on.

8. What are your plans for the future? Both related to 21ace and other.
We need to improve our position in the search engines with the "card tricks" phrase. We have a great deal of information to offer people in this area yet it is hard for people to find us. We also need to do more on the poker chip tricks side including more discussions on poker tables and other poker supplies. I just bought a pool table so I want to do more with pool trick shots too. The forum already seems to be doing pretty well; hopefully we'll get to 50,000 posts in 2006. Hopefully the blogs and newsletter will continue to grow as well.

9. Does magic play a big part of your life? Or is it mainly chips?
I enjoy poker, chip flourishes, card flourishes and magic. Another person who shares these same interests is Antonio the Magician. He is a successful poker pro who has a magic background and is great with poker chip tricks. I am proven with poker chip tricks but I have some work to do with poker, card flourishes and magic. My game is solid at low stakes but it would be nice to step it up and play some high stakes games. As for card flourishes and magic, I enjoy reading about them but I haven't put in the time to be as good as many of the artists on 21ace. I have a deep interest in flourishes and magic in part because many of the chip flourishes we see today came about because of coin flourishes which have ties to magic. Recently I've been carrying playing cards around in my pockets the way I carry poker chips so I am excited about getting better with card flourishes in the future.

10. How long have you been into chip tricks?
I've always enjoyed getting big pots and then manipulating the chips in front of me. However, only in the last few years have I started carrying chips with me for tricks away from the Poker Table.

11. Does it go hand in hand with playing poker?
Yes and no. I used to do them all the time but now I am more selective. The more you do during the game the easier it is for folks to pick up tells on you. Now I mainly do tricks when I am not involved in hands.

12. Are you a big poker player?
It is something I enjoy but unfortunately I don't have time to play as often as I would like. I am not a big player in terms of stakes because I mainly play low buy-in games. However I don't like to label myself or limit myself because I don't know what the future holds. It wouldn't surprise me if I start playing at higher stakes very soon.

13. Lastly, is there anything you would like to say to the 21ace community?
I'd like to thank everyone for keeping things interesting. It is fun to have conversations with folks who share similar hobbies and interests and I feel fortunate that we have such a nice community here. One of the things I like about 21ace is that it is truly a world-wide web site. In other words, there are some sites on the www where the members are from one particular area. However, with 21ace we have active members from all over the world. Take the newsletter for example, I am in the United States, Shadow is in the Czech Republic, fatty is in Australia and BaZ is in the UK. I like the fact that we are all able to communicate in the forum and put this newsletter together for everyone to enjoy. Talking with people from other parts of the world is a lot of fun for me; I wasn't able to do it when I was younger because the internet was not what it is today. I'd like to tell the 21ace community to keep doing what you're doing to make 2006 another great year.

A simple bottom deal

This month I decided I’d offer somewhat of a change, though it will likely be to the distress of the editors as, when you include photographs, the description is going to get long.

The following is what I refer to as a description of a simple bottom deal, since it is nothing too sophisticated, it isn’t a method I use to combined seconds, Greeks and centres, but it is very deceptive, and given the number of people who work on bottom dealing and encounter little problems, I thought this would be appropriate.

*Descriptions based on right-handed action.

You begin with the deck in a master’s grip, with your thumb curled back so the tip is just left of the centre point.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, the master’s grip is much like a deep mechanic’s grip (there is a good description in Seconds, Centres & Bottoms, and I’ll have a detailed overview of the grip and related deals in a future e-book), the key is the position of the forefinger at the upper right corner of the deck applying pressure into the crotch of the hand.  This should be such that you can let go with all the other fingers and easily hold the deck in place.  The last three fingers of your hand run along the right side of the deck.  In the case of this deal there are two areas of concern.  First, you want the tips of those last three fingers to rise just slightly above the edge of the deck.  Second, you want your middle finger to be slightly closer to your forefinger than it should be.  Meaning that you’re leaving a gap between the middle finger and ring finger wide enough to insert the middle finger of your right hand into the space.  (See figure 1).

 
Figure 1.

Now your thumb pushes the top card on the deck directly against the tips of the last three fingers of the left hand, forcing the fingers open.  You push the card over somewhere between a third and half the width of the card.  At this point, your right hand comes in for the take.  The right middle finger extends fully into the gap between the middle and ring fingers of the left hand.  Your forefinger meanwhile is also mostly extended, but somewhat higher so it runs along the front edge of the deck, roughly following the downward curve of the left hand forefinger in order to naturally accommodate the initial wrist position.  Meanwhile your last two fingers of the right hand curl in slightly so they don’t interfere with the dealing process, and the thumb moves to the upper right corner of the side jogged card.  (See figure 2 from above, figure 3 from the front and figure 4 from below.)

 
Figure 2.

 
Figure 3.

 
Figure 4.

Now, there are two points I want to emphasize for you at this stage, namely, the wrist action, and the method in which you will deal tops.  Understand that in most cases, you don’t give away false deals by performing the false deal, you give it away by mixing false deals and tops because the disparities become visible.  With that in mind, pay special attention now, first to the wrist and make sure the action is identical for the tops as it is for the bottoms.  When you reach for the card to perform the take and your middle finger reaches slightly under the deck (and you will perform this action every time, not just when you deal bottoms, but also when you deal tops, contrary to what Marlo sometimes did), your reach should naturally be under.  This occurs because, as you reach from the previous deal to the deck, you are going to rotate your wrist clockwise.  Note how when you rotate your wrist clockwise and extend the fingers as described previously, you are naturally reaching under the deck.  There is something very important about this and it’s something people often screw up.  When you perform a top deal and you reach the point described earlier, you go through a motion that isn’t what you might initially do if you were performing tops, but it makes the bottoms blend in flawlessly.

Take note now of the timing, because it is timing that really separates a good false deal from a poor one in my opinion.  What you are going to do is the difference between a strike, and a take.  When performing the top you’ll recall we placed our thumb on the upper right corner of the jogged card.  Your thumb is going to remain fixed in position as your wrist rotates back counter clockwise.  Notice that when you do this, it naturally draws your middle finger out from under the bottom of the deck and draws your forefinger up along the tip of your left forefinger.  You want to rotate the wrist until the jogged card (this is assuming you’re dealing tops) is lightly pinched between the joint of the middle finger that is closest to the tip of the finger and the thumb.  Incidentally, this should also be the point at which, if you dragged a card from the bottom of the deck with the middle finger as you rotated the deck, the right edge of the two cards would become aligned.  I highly recommend you practice just holding the top card in place and dragging the bottom card out to see how they line up.  Special attention should also be given to your right forefinger, which should still overlap with your left forefinger and run along the front edge of the jogged card high enough that it conceals the edge of the card, but low enough that it also conceals the edge of the bottom card should you choose to drag it out during the wrist turn action.  I should perhaps point out that because the forefinger started lower and moves slightly higher as the wrist turn draws it away from the left hand, it will naturally follow the movement of the bottom card when you choose to perform a bottom deal.  You’ll notice that during the initial stage I described earlier where the forefinger was angled slightly, the front edge of the jogged card was visible, it only becomes concealed as the wrist rotates counter clockwise, which is an important point when it comes to the convincing nature of the deal.  (See figure 5 for a view from above and figure 6 for a view from the front.)

 
Figure 5.

 
Figure 6.

Something I failed to mention earlier, but should point out is the angle of tilt in the left hand.  Your left hand should begin with only a slight tilt, but as the hand pushes the top card to the right, you should increase the tilt just slightly, enough so that the top of the deck is no longer visible to those across or around the table from you, but little enough that it barely disappears.

Back to the take action, I cannot emphasize to you enough that the take really occurs largely as a result of this wrist turn.  When the turn becomes such that there is pressure between the thumb and joint of the middle finger, if you continue to rotate, it will draw the top card farther sideways.  I should qualify this though.  If you rotate your wrist far enough and keep the thumb rigid, it will apply some pressure on that top card, drawing it out by pinching it between the thumb and middle finger.  To make this very clear, the thumb becomes rigid and starts this action at the point where the joint of the middle finger makes contact with the right edge of the jogged card.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  The moment that the joint of the middle finger contacts the edge of the jogged card, your left thumb is going to slide back across the top of the deck to its starting position.

Timing here is critical.  In the same moment that the thumb moves back (and I would like to point out that because of the pressure from the right thumb, the left thumb can physically glide across the top of the card without being raised and thus avoiding a further tip off), the left hand will begin rotating just slightly clockwise and pull back to the left slightly.  This wrist turn should be perhaps, at most, thirty degrees and the hand should withdraw, at most, six inches.  At the same time as all of this is occurring, the right hand should continue it’s rotation, the right thumb and middle finger should pinch together, the right forefinger should assume station along the front of the jogged card and the right hand should move right.  All of these actions serve to remove the top card from the deck.  As the top card is withdrawn from the deck, the last three fingers of the left hand should also curl back to their original positions on the right side of the deck.  (See figure 7 from above and figure 8 from the front.)

 
Figure 7.

 
Figure 8.

The action of the right hand should continue naturally moving from the deck to whatever direction is appropriate and to the table (you’ll notice the deal to the table flows naturally out of the wrist movement).

That effectively covers most of the details.  Now, if you wish to deal bottoms rather than tops, there are only two changes that must be made, along with a couple subtleties to examine.  First, during the initial counter clockwise wrist rotation of the right hand, the middle finger should drag the bottom card of the deck out with it.  (See figure 9 for a view from below at the same stage as figure 5 and figure 6.)

 
Figure 9.

Take special note of the middle finger position on the bottom card.  Namely, the first joint from the top of the finger lines up perfectly with the right edge of the bottom card, this ensures that it lines up with the top card appropriately as I described earlier.  Second, be very careful that you draw out the card parallel to the deck, if the card skewers one of the corners or edges may flash at the front of the deck and give away the false deal.  It also makes the later portion of the deal more difficult.  Third, note that while the left hand fingers are extended, they are not extended entirely; rather, they make very light contact with the bottom of the jogged card.  This is good, but it also creates a potential problem.  It is good because it means when the cards align, the right edge of the bottom card will be at the same altitude as the right edge of the top card, thus helping to greatly reduce the common tip off of noticing an altitude difference between the cards on a bottom deal.  The problem, is that the pressure of these fingers, in fact the pressures involved could cause the back of the bottom card to rub on the lower right edge of the deck as you draw it out, thus creating unwanted sound.  To avoid this, relax the last three fingers of the left hand at the first joint from the hand, thereby creating some space and allowing the card to pass out undisrupted.  I should offer you two notes of caution on this point.  First, you are not relaxing as you perform the take, you want them constantly relaxed so you never encounter this problem and also don’t create any action or disparity while performing the bottom deal.  Second, you want the relaxation to be very slight, so the card doesn’t have a tendency to tilt excessively as you draw it out, since there will be a pivot action on the card due to one sided pressure.

Of course, if you’ve followed my earlier advice and looked closely at the pictures, you’ll notice that the combination of the left forefinger and middle finger positions, combined with the dynamic right hand forefinger position cover the front edge of the bottom card as it is drawn from the bottom of the deck.

The next change lies on the top of the deck.  I mentioned earlier drawing back the left thumb and emphasized timing.  That timing reaches its zenith here.  Darwin Ortiz once commented that pulling back the top card too early ruins the illusion and that’s what we’re watching here.  Normally, when performing tops, you pull back your thumb, but when you’re performing bottoms, you pull back the top card with the thumb.  Notice how perfect this illusion is.  The natural time to pull back the top card is at the exact moment when you begin removing the bottom card so it comes farther out to the right than the top card did to begin with; this is precisely what we are achieving here with the timing I mentioned earlier.  And so, when the two cards align, your left thumb pulls back the top card and instead of taking the top card, your right hand in that continuing rotation takes the bottom card instead.  The collective action of the right and left hands in opposite directions maximize the economy of motion and there is total consistency between the top deal and the bottom deal.  (I’d also point out that because you never lifted your thumb when you drew it back on the top deal, it makes perfect sense that you don’t with the bottom deal, thereby allowing you to draw back the top card without any trouble, the only difference is the level of pressure, which is so subtle that no one will be able to detect).  I have a final word of caution for you where the pull back of the top card is concerned.  Be very careful that the card remains parallel to the deck.  It is easy to allow the card to skewer since you are controlling it off centre and this may cause part of the card to crest the front edge of the deck, thereby ruining the illusion.  Don’t do this.

This brings me to the final point.  Obviously, the fingers of the left hand have to close and I used to have the problem where, because the bottom card was in the way, the fingers stayed open a fraction of a second longer on the bottom deal than on the top.  This is why we inserted the slight clockwise wrist turn of the left hand.  I normally don’t really like such wrist turns because, while they look good from the front, they tend to expose something to anyone sitting on your right.  But the issue is that if you turn your wrist as you close your fingers, you are able to close them while still getting the bottom card out (remember earlier I mentioned how the card was pivoting slightly at an angle?).  I highly recommend you practice just this action both dealing tops and bottoms very slowly to get the timing right, as, if you close your fingers too fast, you run the risk of pinching the bottom card too much.  If you close the fingers too slowly, it won’t seem natural.

But I did raise a concern that I’d like to address, namely, the view of anyone sitting to your right.  Admittedly, this is a small concern and I recommend you sit strategically to begin with.  However, this is another beauty of the right-handed counter clockwise wrist turn.  You’ll notice that it raises the body of the hand and that the body of the hand acts to obstruct any view one might have of the top of the deck.  Now, the illusion isn’t perfect, your main concern is the left border on the top card of the deck (the one you’re pulling back).  In order to help deal with this problem I suggest you work with a few simple ideas.  First, drop your left hand slightly (this is actually good anyway because it further diminishes any disparity in the altitude of the cards (top or bottom) when dealing).  Second, raise your right hand slightly and move it forward as you take the card from the deck (this makes sense anyway, because the people you’re dealing to will be away from you).  Third, be aware of the angle, sit yourself accordingly and deal accordingly.  In other words, since you’re likely to turn slightly as you deal, if you can get away with it, perform the false deals to someone more on your right so you can do more to turn and face them, thereby eliminating the angle.  If you have a partner, get them to sit on your right.  Finally, keep in mind; apply all these points not only to the bottom deals, but to the tops as well.

With that I’ll conclude this brief description and hope it was helpful to my devoted readers.  I recommend you practice very slowly working out all the subtleties.  One beauty of this technique is that it is so near perfect that from most angles I can deal extremely slowly and can’t tell myself, let alone have someone else tell, whether the deals are real or false.  Work on it.

Drey

New Members Welcome

Welcome new members who have posted at least once. Congratulations to dstreit who has the most posts form all new members - 12!

dstreit Posts:12 MagicWorldOnline Posts:1 KillSPAMers Posts:1 MadeInDetroit Posts:3 Halfhoff Posts:6 nebraus222 Posts:1 outis Posts:1 cools Posts:6 2_hotty Posts:3 sigma Posts:3 poker display Posts:4 nmcvideo Posts:1 Nexttime Posts:1 KC Posts:3 tomaster Posts:5 Air_N_Sun Posts:1

TinyMiss20 Posts:1 mccoldm Posts:6 200 Motels Posts:6 mikee_j Posts:1 Paul150 Posts:10 Murdadont Posts:1 porker Posts:1 rerdtas Posts:1 ABC Posts:3 DorisAxline Posts:1 chukkitty Posts:1 supershark Posts:1 woodchopper88 Posts:1 CWaters425 Posts:4 alfysh Posts:1 zazworsky Posts:1

dizzzcomspor Posts:1 nroptoh Posts:1 lkzmytauturd Posts:1 bookerbo Posts:1 cnams333 Posts:1 tito_fuente Posts:2 ryan_magicman Posts:1 PJStyles Posts:1 gookin Posts:2 bboyhemi Posts:1 mt_hah1954 Posts:2 dboot Posts:1 tudla1 Posts:1 Patejl Posts:4 Ace Maduski Posts:3 tinkerbell Posts:2

CREDITS

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

Eric and Shadow – Technical Support.

Baz and Fattyonadiet – Editors.

Pokerfanatic and Drey – Authors.

Plus, Eric for allowing us to interview him and giving us such insight into 21ace.