Meet Mike Sexton

Mike Sexton will be 62 In September of this year as he was born in September 1947.  His birth state makes him a Hoosier although he and his brother went to the University of Ohio on a gymnast full scholarship.  He has been playing card games since he was a youth and his skill at the games was evident early in his adult life.  He played in college and even more when he finished a two-year hitch in the Army as Fort Bragg.  His after service job was as a Dance Instructor and working with a friend in a company the friend started.  The company sold articles to bases in North and South Carolina.  Along with his work he spent many hours playing variations of poker in the local card rooms.  His marriage ended and he lost the job, so he stepped up his poker playing for a few years and then he headed for Vegas to try his hand as a professional poker player.  One of the players that was his good friend growing up, and a player he learned from, later became a world-class seven-card stud player.  His friend from his youth was Danny Robinson. [Read][more...]

Winter Weather and Live Poker

With spring just around the corner, live poker rooms and casinos are waiting for the players that have been holed up at home to come out and play.  The players have had a belly full of the bad weather and being stuck playing in front of a computer are getting restless and ready to play in a live game.  The difference in a live game and one on a poker screen are like honey is to vinegar.  There is no comparison for players that like the feel of a real table and reading players that is part of poker in a live game.  The winter months have kept them stuck playing in the virtual world where there is no sound or smell or anything remotely like the game over a felt table.

Each year as the snow melts these computer poker players come out to see if the real game of poker still exists in a real poker room or a real casino.  As they soon learn, the real game is alive and well.  The poker room managers have been waiting for winter to unleash their missing players that were captives of the computer world.  [Read][more...]

The Economy and Poker

For many years the economy was never a bad factor for gambling when the economy was in the dumpster.  A bad economy was always a reason fro people to gamble.  In the thirties the horse racing handles and illegal bookmaking prospered as people tried to supplement their income or lack of it.  Gaming, as we know it now did not exist and the only legal gaming in the United States was the thoroughbred racing industry and the betting pools at the racetrack.  The bad economy of those days was a catalyst that pushed people to gamble.

This is not true with our current economic situation.  The live casinos in many of the big gaming centers are having a tough time keeping their revenue up and this is a distinct change in the usual situation when gaming and the poor economic conditions meet.

Poker is the one area of gambling that seems to continue to grow.  The tournaments all over Europe and the United States are full of not only the pros, but also the satellite-winning amateurs. The prize money continues to grow and the player count in the torments seems to continue to grow or at least not lose players. [Read][more...]

A Round Up of Poker Ferguson Michigan Poker and a Mish Mash

Chris Ferguson held the chip lead in the LA Classic until the end of the day yesterday.  He started the day with 1.7 million in chips and the lead.  He ended the day in sixth place and a chip stack of 1.5 million and the low stack at the final table.  The chip leader, Chris Karagulleyan, begins today with a stack totalling 4.0 million chips.  Ferguson got off to a very bad beat at the beginning of the round and dropped 500,000 in chips in one hand.  His round was a roller coaster ride, which saw him drop as low as just over half a million in chips and then recover to over 2.2 million only to go back down to the ending balance of 1.5 million.  This is his second final table at a WPT event.

Michigan may be going through a tough economic time, but Poker is still alive at the new poker room at the Turtle Creek Casino that just opened in its new location in June 2008.  The poker room has enjoyed a full table experience since it open.  Leslie Vancamp the poker room manager stated that the Poker Room had been booming from day one of its grand opening. [Read][more...]

Third Way to Poker Tournaments and The Satellite game

There have been two ways to get into poker tournaments up to now.  A player could pay the full price and enter the tournament of their choice.  The other way was to win a seat in a satellite tournament that you paid an entry fee of say $100 and won first prize in a tournament which was an entry fee of $10,000.  This has been the only way a player could get into a tournament up until now.

The third way is to pay the high bid for a seat in the auction that is being held at www.WebMoneyAuction.com.  A player can get a seat in some very desirable tournaments according to the release for the auctions that start on Feb 28.  If this works out for the website and the players who win the auctions this could be a way for some non-moneyed players to buy their way into a tournament.  The promoters of this idea say that they expect some of these auctions to go for as little as 5% of the tournament entry fee.  If this comes down this way, the winners of these auctions could have one extremely good parlay if they end up winning the tournament in question.  The promoters are also going to auction off poker chips for some online poker rooms and other valuable entries to lower poker games. [Read][more...]

Tags: online poker, poker, poker players, poker rooms, poker tournaments, WSOP