Don't Blame Third Base at Blackjack

Casino Players are an optimistic bunch. We know deep down that the casino has the edge on most games and the games we play have a negative expectation. This is a fancy way of saying that in the long run we will lose. But we also know that in the short run anything can happen. This means that players can and do win. Nobody would go to a casino if they knew they were gong to lose each and every time. Some players study the games and easy cards tricks make sure they are playing the best games with the lowest house edge. They take the time to learn the strategy for Blackjack, Video Poker and other games where their decisions can affect the outcome of the game.
Nobody likes to lose. Whether it is because of a competitive spirit or a quest for excellence, most of us have a burning desire to win. When some players lose they feel the need to blame their loss on something other than the mathematical reality of the game. They might blame bad luck, rotten cards, the dealer or even other players at the table. Other than at live poker, this happens the most at the Blackjack table.
At a Blackjack table the seat closest to the dealer that gets dealt to first is known as first Base. The seat of the player that receives the last cards before the dealer is known as third base. The other seats really are not designated in any way. The seat that concerns players the most is third base. This is because the player in this seat is the last to act before the dealer and the decisions that this player makes receive the most scrutiny.
Many Blackjack players who have learned basic strategy feel that since they took the time to learn it, everyone else at the table should also “know how to play.” If a player at third base makes a decision that goes against basic strategy, the other basic strategy players at the table get very upset. If the player takes a hit on a hand he should have stood on and takes the card that would have busted the dealer, and the dealer then wins the hand, watch out. The rest of the marked cards players at the table will blame the player at third base for their loss. I have seen some heated arguments, discussions, name calling or worse occur when this happens.
The reality is that the only player that can affect your game in the long run is the player sitting in YOUR seat. Players tend to have selective amnesia. They remember the times that the third base player takes a card which results in a loss, however they forget about all the times that the “mistake” by the third base player actually saves the table.
Another situation that the “Basic Strategy Experts” fail to consider is that the player at third base may indeed be a card counter. A card counter will make decisions that go against basic strategy based on the relationship of the high and low cards left in the deck. So what looks like an idiot play by the player at third base in the eyes of the basic strategy player, may actually be the correct play for somebody who is counting cards.
But the players have no way of knowing this and the card counter is surely not going to defend the play to the others by telling them that the count justified the decision for doing it.
Don’t blame other players for their play. In the long run it will all even out for the basic strategy player. Remember the other player is playing with HIS money not yours. He has as much right to play the way he wants as you do. If you don’t like how someone plays at your table, you are free to get up and move to another table. If the player is new to the game you just might frighten them away. If there are no new players are learning the game there will be fewer players and the casinos will replace the blackjack tables with other games or slot machines. A trip to the casino is entertainment and should be fun for everyone. Don’t make it a bad experience by criticizing other players. 

About David Plastik

Name	David Plastik
Current Residence	Las Vegas Nev.
Born	Jan. 22, 1964
Birth Place	Queens New York, US

His name may sound artificial, but there's nothing fake about David Plastik and his poker career. With several years as a consistently winning player, all the poker pro needs to cap off his career is a World Series of Poker or a World Poker Tour championship win.
And that's just to top his current career. He's already spent a decade as a rock photographer and another as a fabric salesman. Quite a combination for a guy born in 1964 in Queens, N.Y., to your average urban family.
Raised in Queens and Manhattan with his one brother, Plastik grew up with a love of playing sports and card games, and for music.
Though he was discouraged from marked cards playing an instrument while younger - he was left-handed, and when he went to a music teacher to learn to play guitar, the instructor tried to make him learn right-handed - Plastik found another way to pursue his love for song.
Instead of playing music, Plastik became a regular at rock concerts. This was back when people could take just about anything with them to concerts, and he started taking along a camera his father had bought him as a gift.
"I got good at taking photos by trial and error," Plastik said in a 2007 interview with PokerListings.com. "I also met the right people and getting paid for my photos sort of grew from there."
His first payday came from a Van Halen concert in the early 90s. Though Plastik says on his own Web site that freelance photography didn't pay well, he was hooked. After graduation from the University of Hartford with a communications degree he moved to the other coast to settle in Los Angeles where most of the rock stars were.
He spent that decade working as a freelance photographer, traveling and partying with the rock stars. He sold his photos to anyone who wanted them, including big music publications such as Rolling Stone, Cream, Guitar and Hit Parade.
Plastik's photos from those days still sell and get published to this day. You can see his work at 80srockphotos.com.
Living the life among rock stars, though, had its price for Plastik. He was drawn into their world of booze and drugs, especially after becoming a personal photographer for comedian Sam Kinison.
"I became very good friends with him, and he introduced me to all these famous people," Plastik says on his Web site. "He was a pretty extreme partier, and he got me into all that. It was a crazy life, and after a while it got ugly."
Plastik decided it was time to straighten out his life and turned to the family business to help him out. His father owned a textile company, and Plastik went to him with the idea of becoming a sales rep for him in Los Angeles.
"So for the 90s I was a fabric salesman," he said, and a successful one to boot.
While making good money in sales, Plastik discovered the nearby Commerce Casino and poker. He'd played in home games before, but never in a casino. He sat down at a table and won - beginner's luck he admits, but he became a regular and honed his game.
In 1997 he discovered tournament play, which appealed to competitive side. Now he's mainly known as a tournament player and competes whenever he can, though he still plays cash games online.
It wasn't until he got out of the sales business though that his poker career took off. His father died, and the company was sold but his dad's business partner soon hired Plastik on in his business where he continued his sales success.
Then his mother died too, and he lost all interest in the industry and left. Rather than look for another sales job, he used the money he'd saved up and gave poker a shot.
That was about nine years ago and Plastik said he's consistently made money year-after-year. He attributes his success to patience, discipline and "knowing that my time will come."
Watching Plastik in a tournament, you wouldn't guess that was his edge when it comes to making it so deep marked cards contactlenses. He's known more for being an emotional player - sort of a John McEnroe or Phil Hellmuth type - when he's competing in tournaments. He tends to be loud and boisterous when winning and tantrum prone when not.
As it turns out, despite his emotional play, Plastik's poker winnings were the more stable and reliable part of his bankroll.
Thinking that he was doing the smart and responsible thing, Plastik invested quite a bit of his poker winnings and business savings in high-tech stocks a few years ago. When those stocks crashed in 2000, Plastik lost everything, including his house, and was left with a big dent in his bankroll.
Luckily, Plastik's consistency in poker tournaments kept him going. Month after month he cashed in events, making it to several final tables in the following years and even winning a few tournaments.
"My goal is to win a big million-dollar tournament or to win a World Series of Poker bracelet," Plastik said.
The closest he's come so far to winning a bracelet is in 2004. He placed third in the $2,000 H.O.R.S.E. event while Doyle Brunson went on to win it.
It's not for lack of trying, though, as he usually enters in about 20 WSOP events each year. That works out to nearly a month of playing poker depending on how deep he goes into an event. It's no wonder he likes to take a vacation before and after the World Series each year.
Travel is also one of his hobbies that he can work into his poker schedule.
"I like to travel around poker and go to the more exotic venues," Plastik said. "It's one of the other benefits I can reap from being a pro player."
Oddly, photography never really made it onto that hobby list, and Plastik said he doesn't really take many photos when he's out traveling and going to tournaments. His passion for music and concerts, however, has survived and he sees many of his favorite bands from the 60s and 70s in concert as often as he can.
Now living in Las Vegas - where he likes the lifestyle despite there being better poker in Los Angeles - Plastik has firmly entrenched himself in the poker world. You can bet you'll see him out rockin' as well as rolling through the poker tournament scene in his quest for a major win.

Trivia

• Communications degree from the University of Hartford
• Rock and roll photographer during the 80s
• Has partied with Madonna and the Rolling Stones

 

How to Calculate Pot Odds and Equity: Equity

As we mentioned in part one, the ability to calculate pot odds will only get you halfway to where you need to be. Once you have the odds, you need to calculate your equity in the pot, and then compare the two.
The previous article explained how to calculate pot odds in your head at the table. This next concept, though every bit as important, is much easier to master, thanks to some simple shortcuts.
Hand Equity
Count Your Outs: In order to calculate your equity (your odds of winning the pot), you need to first know how many outs you have to make your hand. This becomes quick and simple with a little practice and a little memorization.
Remember: There are four cards of every value, and 13 of every suit.
If you have an open-ended straight draw, there are two different values of cards that will give you your hand: 2*4= 8 outs. If you have a flush draw there are 13 cards of that suit. You hold two of them, and two of them are on the board: 13 - 2 - 2 = 9 outs.
Remember to remove the outs of cards cheat poker you know (on the board and in your hand), and to not count outs twice (for example, if you have an open-ended straight flush draw, you have 15 outs).
When counting your outs, you need to remember the idea of anti-outs (and possibly even blockers). If by making your straight you also complete the flush of your opponent, then those straight cards are not outs to your hand, and cannot be counted as such.
The possibility of a flush draw on the board can turn a profitable eight-out straight draw into a six-out straight draw, rendering your odds insufficient.

The stronger a read you get, the more accurate your equity calculations can become.

To learn more about anti-outs and blockers, check out this article.
If you're unable to make an astute deduction of the value of your opponent's hands, err on the side of caution and always assume that they have the hand most dangerous to your own.
If there's a flush draw, assume they have the draw; if the board is paired, assume they have a full house or, if you're lucky, just trips. It's less expensive to wrongly fold a hand than to wrongly call off your whole stack.
Equity Shortcut: The easiest way to get juice cards your equity is to remember this simple rule:
On the flop, multiply your outs by four.
On the turn, multiply your outs by two.
This means with an open-ended straight draw (eight outs) you have a 32% chance of making your straight with two cards left to come.
For hands on the flop with a large number of outs (>8), the previous shortcut gives a slightly incorrect answer. There's a simple formula you can remember to get a slightly more accurate figure:
(number of outs * 4) - (number of outs - 8) = Equity
This means the equity of an open-ended straight flush draw (15 outs) would be:
(15 * 4) - (15 - 8) = 53%
Without this little formula, the percentage would be higher by seven points, giving us an artificially large result. If your equity calculations are wrong, you will be unable to make informed decisions on the day.

Matusow's notorious for his real results not reflecting his equity in any way.

Putting the Two Together
Now that we know the equity and are capable of calculating the odds, how can we tell if it's a good call or not? In the previous article, we got our odds as a ratio (the final example ended with the cut-off being offered 2.3-1 odds, and after the cut-off called the button was offered 3.3-1).
It's impossible to compare apples to oranges, so we need to convert our equity percentage from a percent into a ratio. Doing that will require some of the same techniques described in the previous article:
32% is most easily described as having 32 out of the total 100. 100 - 32 = 68. Since you're looking for your odds, and not the odds of your opponents, your ratio is 68-32. Use the techniques from the previous article and you'll get yourself a final ratio of 2.1-1.
This means your odds of winning the pot are 2.1-1 against. For you to make money, you need to have pot odds higher than that ratio. If you're sitting with your open-ended straight draw (32% or 2.1-1), your odds example from the previous article gave the cut-off odds of 2.3-1, meaning the cut-off would have just enough pot odds to make this call.
If you put yourself on the button with your open-ended straight draw, and the cut-off calls, your odds become 3.3-1. You only needed 2.1-1 to make money, so the call has become very profitable in the long term.
Although this result is correct, it's only half of the odds spectrum you will want to take into play, as you haven't taken any consideration of the implied odds.
Implied odds change the game of No-Limit Hold'em greatly. In fact, having a very large amount of implied odds can render a call correct, even though pot odds would render it absolutely incorrect.
To learn more about implied odds, and how they can affect the choices of you and your opponents, check out this article here.
(For another method of calculating your equity in a pot - one you may find easier - you can check out this article.)
As you can see, equity and pot odds hang on a bunch of relatively simple calculations. All that they require is some memorization of the formulas and techniques, and a little bit of practice calculating them in your head. For some people this will be much easier than for others, but everyone can do it if they spend a small amount of time practicing.

One for the Old Guys: Reaction Times, Decision Times and Memory

I was scanning back over a column I did on memory and noticed something I missed before.
The strategy section producer slotted in a number of photos, picking ones that he thought would be amusing and relevant to the topic. He's got a real eye for this, and must have one hell of a database to work with.
Anyway, while scanning over the piece, I noticed that all the photos were of middle-aged and elderly men! There was Doyle, T.J. and, for a bit of balance, the merely middle-aged Andy Black.
I have no idea if he did this on purpose, but it got me thinking and led me to the topic for this week: psychological functions that change as we age.
Memory Accuracy - Memory Capacity: You may not like to hear this, or you may not care. If you're young, you almost certainly don't care, 'cause when you're young you're invulnerable juice cards- can dodge bullets and leap tall buildings in a single bound - and hence find it virtually impossible to grasp what will happen to you down the long, dusty road.
But if you're in your 40s and up you probably are already sensing that things just "ain't what they usta was."
Your ability to recall events is degraded. Words, names and events sit squirming, unuttered, on the tip of your tongue. And when you try to reconstruct what happened two hands back when you got felted, well ... it's all a blur.
In that earlier piece we found that memory, no matter what we might like to believe, is actually rather poor, filled with errors, misrememberings, misinterpretations and outright falsehoods. We are all guilty of these sins of recollection, but the ante gets upped several-fold for each decade of our lives.
The poker moral here?
For the young and the restless, don't sweat it. The future will show up whether you want it to or not, but there's nothing to worry about now.

On the bright side, you'll be done in time for the early-bird dinner!

For the geriatric set? There are some things we can do. First, play shorter sessions.
As more and more hands are played our memory gets "clogged" (yeah, I know, that's not a technical term but it's not far off from what actually happens) and it gets harder and harder to remember what's actually happening.
And this can prove expensive, like when you can't remember whether it's the cowboy hat or the smarmy guy with the bad rug sitting next to him who's been making all those loose calls.
Or when you did manage to note that Seat 2 was a raising maniac but forgot that he moved to Seat 7 and you can't recall what he looked like.
Second, be honest with yourself. Be aware that as you get older your memory will degrade. Take your time to make sure you've properly understood a hand, take more breaks and know that each little memory cache you've given up has been replaced by the wisdom garnered from life's experiences.

Time to React - Time to Decide: A reaction time is exactly what it sounds like, the time it takes you to react to something. Ditto for decision time. We psychologists know a lot about them - more than you want to know, trust me, because the topic would test the patience of a monk.
Among the straightforward things we know are:
a. Reaction times slow down as the decisions get more complex.
b. Reaction times and decision times slow down with age.
The first is pretty obvious. If I ask you to press a button as soon as you see a light, you're fast. If I ask you to press one button if the light is red and another if it's blue, you're a lot slower.

Old but fast.

The second is also obvious. Do the same experiment with people of varying ages and the older they are, the slower they will be.
But the obvious gets less so when we look at live games and online play. For live play marked cards neither of these issues looms particularly large. If the decisions are tough, just take your time.
Yeah, every now and again some dude will call time on you, but for the most part, players will give you the time you need to make tough calls.
And age doesn't matter. Geezers will take longer to make decisions but, for the most part, players will accommodate and there won't be problems.
But online it all changes, and if you're multi-tabling the problems grow exponentially. Online play is fast and there are strict time limits on your action. You can hit the "time" button but you're not going to get as long as you might like.
And, unlike the live games where the dealer will ask you to please make a decision, online the freakin' computer just assumes you've passed out on the floor (or whatever), folds your hand and, if you don't do something about it, skips you on the next deal.

We're still not convinced he's old enough to play legally.

It's pretty clear why Internet poker has become a young person's game. The time pressures are increased and for every additional table you play they go up.
If you're flashing around between two or more screens with 6, 10, 15 and even more tables going simultaneously, your reaction and decision times better be really, really fast or you're going to be in trouble.
There is a lot of discussion about the optimal number of tables to play. Without going into gory detail, it's a complex function of your normative reaction and decision times and the average edge you have in the level of game you're playing.
But what many haven't recognized is that as the number of decisions per unit time goes up, so does error rate; as the memory load increases, error rates will accompany it.
As error rates go up, win rates go down. For each individual, where their error-rate and win-rate curves cross will dictate the optimal number of tables to play.
And this cross-point will change depending on how much experience you have had, how tough the games are, how tired you are and how many miles are on your tires.

Kihara, Neuville, Moschitta Win PokerListings Spirit of Poker Awards

Japan’s Naoya Kihara, Belgium’s Pierre Neuville and Italy Luca Moschitta were selected by a panel of PokerListings experts this week to win the first-ever PokerListings.com Spirit of Poker awards.
Reaching the top three in their respective categories via fan voting and then getting the most nods on the PokerListings ballots, the three esteemed poker pros will receive their awards at the 2013 Battle of Malta live tournament on September 26.

Kihara Outduels Negreanu for Most Inspiring Player

Kihara, perhaps the biggest surprise of this year’s awards, beat out big-name sponsored pros including Marvin Rettenmaier, Max Lykov, Isaac Haxton and Daniel Negreanu to scoop the Most Inspiring Player Award.
The first Japanese WSOP bracelet marked cards winner ever, Kihara has $722,218 in live tournament earnings in just two years on the international circuit but his impact goes far beyond just cashing.
With live poker illegal in Japan and online poker only accessible since 2008, Kihara’s accomplishments are doubly impressive. And since his win in 2012 he’s also kickstarted a wider interest in the game in Japan single-handedly.
“Right now people in Japan think poker is just gambling,” Kihara told us at the 2013 PCA, “so when I'm on TV I want to explain it better.
“Poker is a game and you can use it to gamble but the way I play is as an investment business. Poker is a skill game and I'm trying to tell people in Japan.”
Playing on PokerStars under the nickname “nkeyno," Kihara has racked up millions of hands and a growing rail of Japanese players hoping to follow in his footsteps.

Neuville, Moschitta Rep Old, Young

Luca Moschitta

 

Young gun Moschitta won the hotly-contested Here Comes the Future award for rising superstars, narrowly beating two Scandinavians in Sweden’s Sofia “Welllbet” Lövgren and Finn Lauri Pesonen.
One of the youngest marked poker players ever to reach SuperNova Elite on PokerStars, Moschitta is most famous for collecting two Porsches using only FPPs thanks to the amazing volume he’s put in online.
He's only recently turned his focus to the live tournament scene but he's immediately found success, taking down IPT Saint Vincent in March for €180,000 and finishing second at IPT Nova Gorica. He’s also spent countless hours over the past few years sharing his love for the game at the tables and through social media.

Pierre Neuville

 

Finally, Neuville won the veterans’ This is 50+ award. A satellite master on the EPT, the 70-year-old Neuville has qualified for 50 straight EPT Main Events and counting.
As if that wasn't enough Neuville also developed and produced a poker board game called Poker Champ in his spare time.
Neuville overcame noted old-timers Marcel Luske and Konstantin Puchkov in the final three to take top honors in the category.
Read more about all of the awards and see the full list of nominees on our
Packages Still Available for €200,000 GTD Battle of Malta
All three winners will receive their awards in person during the €200,000-guaranteed PokerListings Battle of Malta from Sept. 26-29, 2013.
Registration is still open for the tournament with a buy-in of just €550. Full packages are also available at €1,400 and include the buy-in, four-nights at a luxury hotel, daily meals, complimentary VIP parties and more. More info here.

 

Handling Stress in the Poker Wars Part 2

Recently we looked at frustration and stress and their physiological and psychological impacts on us - in particular when our poker lives don't go quite as we'd like them to.
My focus was on different reactions to stress and some simple tricks to cope with it.
Here, I want to take a longer look at stress and the emotions that accompany it, and delve deeper into what goes on inside your mind and body at the marked cards poker table.
Yeah, I know, I know; it's the ol' professor bit again. Sorry, I can't help myself. But hang in with me here. You may learn something to help your game.
Let's start with two key points:
1. Stress isn't necessarily bad, it's just another emotion.
2. You can feel very different emotions from the same amount of stress.
I know, those sound so bloody cryptic, but don't you dare move the mouse toward the "back" button.
The story isn't that complicated, and it'll give you new ways to understand our game and new insight into why some of you may be better players than your peers in some cases but not in others.
Stress isn't necessarily bad, it's just another emotion.
As we noted before, the research shows that continuous high levels of stress are bad for you. However, things are a tad more complex than that.
There are times when stress is an important motivator. If it's high enough, people can do things unimaginable in "ordinary" situations.
Parents have ripped open the doors of flaming cars to rescue trapped children - and only later realized that they did it on a broken leg.
When the emotional levels get high enough, they can spur us on to do the most remarkable and wonderful things.

But, on the other hand, do you want someone in the same state doing brain surgery on you?
Not me, baby. I want someone really stoked if my kid is in a burning auto. If she's wielding the surgeon's blade infrared ink, I want her cool and calm.
And vice versa: The calm, relaxed demeanor the surgeon needs isn't worth much with a flaming wreck in an intersection.
To make this point clear, imagine it's the surgeon's kid in the burning car.
Adopt the Goldilocks Approach
In psychology these things are called "interactions."
How stress affects you depends upon (or "interacts" with) other things, like what task is before you.
The interaction between stress and the difficulty of the task has been known for a century and is called the Yerkes-Dodson law, after the two psychologists who did the early research.
Is there any advice buried here? Sure. Adopt the "Goldilocks" approach.
Like the heroine in the child's story you need to try to get everything "just right:" not too hot, not too cold, not to soft, not too hard.
If you're cranked, hyper-stoked, on a permanent adrenaline rush, your thinking is going to suck.
Conversely, if you sit there like a sick toad with no motivation to get involved, you'll be lacking appropriate aggression.
First related thought:
Ever wonder about good $5/$10 players who complain that they can't beat the $1/$2 game?

Chinese Casino Gambling

MACAU LUXURY CASINOS

Sands Macau

The Sands Macau has carried Las Vegas, western-manner casino betting in the direction of the east. Moreover it's an ideal healthy. There is in excess of one million square feet of betting tables along with slot machines by the side of the Sands.situated in the hub of Macau's betting locality moreover on six acres of flourishing water's edge property, participants contain the knack to play their beloved games such as baccarat, fan tan, Caribbean stud, three card baccarat, blackjack, sic bo plus roulette marked cards, besides 680 slot machine alternatives.

Those hanging about by the side of the hotel can scope in whichever among the 51 sumptuous suites that vary in volume commencing 1000 toward 8000 square feet. The rooms have to be observed to be whispered however characterize a sauna, massage areas, state of the art distraction core by means of plasma screen televisions moreover digital enclose sound, in addition to the alternative of a butler .

MGM Grand Macau

The MGM Grand Macau hotel tower is an exclusive construction positioned on top of major water's edge site within Macau's innermost Nam Van betting district.

The 600-room MGM Macau resort hotel increases 28-floors hooked on the sky plus, since the sparkling glass of the construction mirrors the South China Sea, the outline of the construction itself replicates the undulating puff up of the ocean breakers. Alienated into three dissimilar parallel sections as it rises, the external walls bend musically, similar to gestures within the ocean. The Macau MGM cheat poker attributes a cross foyer, which is the focal point of the resort. Surrounded by the MGM Macau, there’s a 222,000 square foot opening-level casino games, in the midst of 300 table games also 1,000 slot machines.

GAMBLING IN CHINA

Pousada de Sao Tiago

If you desire to know-how a Macau hotel amid a further conventional Portuguese viewpoint, you ought to believe the quixotic as well as exclusive 5-star resort Pousada de Sao Tiago. Pousada De Sao Tiago is positioned within Macau's prestigious suburban region next to the peak of the Macau neck of land, beside the picturesque tree-lined Praia Grande Bay.It is 5 minutes ahead of the momentous A-Ma Temple, Maritime Museum, Gate of Understanding, moreover Macau’s distraction along with shopping regions .

Wynn Macau

The Wynn Macau presents the whole thing a voyager might be expecting commencing a Wynn hotel. Positioned transversely the street commencing the Grand Lisboa, the Wynn Macau is presently the same as sleek plus complicated next to its Las Vegas foil. Stylish adornments, a massive Chinese gambling games casino floor, moreover heap of huge shopping plus restaurants are creating the Wynn Macau one among the mainly admired Macau hotels on top of the Cotai Strip.