February 2011

  • February 2011
  • 36 Cover story: Antonio Esfandiari – The life and times of a poker playboy
    28 Review: Don’t listen to Phil Hellmuth, the new book by Dusty “leatherass9” Schmidt and Paul “GiantBuddha” Hoppe
    30 B.E.S.T. Rankings Player of the Year: Meet Paul Berende
    60 Prahlad Friedman: Our US editor talks to UB’s controversial new signing
    Thrills
    10 Snapshot: Relaxing at home with The Magician
    12 The Beat: With Neil “Bad Beat”” Channing
    14 Newswire: Rolling poker news from around the globe
    18 Dr Tom: Is your poker game sick?
    20 Nick’s Column: Wealthall on Life Zombie Tilt
    22: Cashing Out: What to do when chips become money
    24 Being Phil Laak: The Unabomber takes stock and fails to make jam
    26 The Ogmore Poker Tour: The lads play round Terry’s unfurnished house
    34 Raw Power: Nicky Power reports from the Irish Poker scene
    42 Road Gambler: Oswald Jacoby, lest we forget
    44 Jennifer Tilly: Jen finds inspiration through dangerous recreational pursuits
    46 Off the Felt: Slutsky goes undercover amongst the donks
    48: Last Man Seated: The greatest last longer bets ever
    52: Emerging Victorious: Happy and glorious! Hooray for the Vic!
    66 PCA: All the latest from the Bahamas
    Virtual Felt
    54 Online Report: Snoopy talks to John Eames
    58 Cardrunners: Are you a feel player or a stats player?
    64 Brunson 10: Inflection Points and how to attack them
    Wisdom
    70 Caro: The Mad Genius has your number
    72 Action Jackson: Paul is on Monkey Tilt
    74 Pickleman: Alex Rousso heals your psychic pain
    78 Poker Pwnage: Making sense of tracking software
    80 Jared Tendler: Lee Davy’s final session with the world’s greatest mental coach
    82 Lee Jones: Two PLO hands
    84 Sam Chauhan: Thinking positive works wonders
    88 Beat the Casino: Examining the house edge
    90 Table Games: Dr Les teaches us to card count
    92 Grassroots: Supporting poker in the community

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Living in Las Vegas, in my twenties, and having financial freedom, I was really fortunate to do be able to do things that your average guy can’t do. I pretty much maximised the life-vig out of that.

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Dear Dr Tom,


My friend says that betting to “see where you are” is an out of date concept and a bad way to play, but I always thought it was an important part of poker. Who is right?


Liam, Plymouth

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Thus far in this series of articles, I’ve discussed the concept of psychic pain in tournament poker, and attempted to categorise a few types of them. I’ve mooted a few reasons why they might be stumbling blocks for certain people.

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We all know that poker is a game of skill that is affected by luck, be it good or bad. The theory is that a good player needs less luck than a less able player in order to be successful. In the long term, this is probably true but, in the short term, the “luck factor” or “variance” can completely dictate one player’s success or failure.