PokerListings Blog

Blogs have many uses. One is to treat them like the classic soapboxes of the British parks, where you just stand up and start talking, talking about what you're thinking, why you're thinking it and why everyone else ought to start thinking about it too.

So, this will begin an off-and-on soapbox series looking at the "fine lines" in poker. The ones that we cross, sometimes because we didn't even know there was a line there in the first place.

Today's line is the one that divides the tricksters, the masters of deception and geniuses of artifice from the con artists, the scammers and the cheats. But this line isn't a clean one. It moves about and it's not always clear when it's been crossed.

Many choose to ignore this topic, claiming it isn't of any real importance. They are wrong.

A few days ago an ad appeared on ebay.com for TJ Cloutier's 2005 WSOP bracelet. Starting bid: $2,999.

Put aside the easy assumptions that Cloutier lost so much playing dice that he's forced to sell his hardware and the ad has actually sparked some interesting debate.

As a side note the ad says the bracelet was "acquired" from Cloutier, and the seller's name is planopawnshop. Draw your own conclusions.

David Sklansky started a thread on two plus two this morning posing the question, "At what price is a WSOP bracelet sale not tacky?"

This question on its own isn't of much import, considering that the bracelet in question is of no real historical significance. It's just one of the hundreds handed out over the last few decades.

But what if the bracelet for sale was noteworthy? What if it was the last Main Event bracelet Stu Ungar won before he passed away? What if it was the first Main Event bracelet won by Doyle Brunson?

Does poker memorabilia really exist and is there a group of people willing to pay top dollar for it? What does that say about poker's place in modern cultural history?

Personally I can't imagine a reason for wanting TJ Cloutier's 2005 bracelet but I have a feeling there would be a lot of interest if the piece played a big part in poker's shared heritage.

Sports are an immensly strong thread that ties a culture together and memorabilia is a way to own a part of it, to be able to hold it and touch it.

Despite the fact that poker has made it into the light only recently, for more than a century it's been there every step of the way. It shouldn't be surprising that people might want a part of it for themselves.

Life, like many things, has both a start and an end.

From our first breath to our last we're destined to play out the stories of our lives. Each one of us has a different story and we each live with varying degrees of uncertainty about what will happen next.

Our lives are like books. Each day is like a page and tells our story. Stories unravel in numerous ways and sometimes we neglect to question ourselves about how we are viewing it.

Ask yourself, objectively, who are you in the story of your life?

After what happened earlier today at EPT6 Barcelona Roland de Wolfe will back me up on this, don't let go of your cards!

If you missed it in the live updates from the event Roland bluffed at a river with king-high and got looked up. He flashed a king and threw both his cards in the muck. As it turned out his opponent had queen-high and since he was the only one holding cards he was awarded the pot.

Suspicion of angle-shooting aside, Roland's nemesis did one thing right - he did not let go of his cards.

This lesson extends to anytime you have cards in front of you. You must protect them! I've seen dealers muck people's cards while they're all-in, knocking them out of the tournament regardless of what their opponents are holding.

I've even seen players hurl their own cards at another player's unprotected cards out of spite during multi-way pots. If you don't have something protecting your cards it becomes a dead hand the second someone else's cards touch them.

Roland found out the hard way today so learn from his mistake and protect your hand.

There comes a time for every poker player when the only move they have left is to get up and leave the table. For me, this came on my first day in Vegas during the WSOP.

I sat at an empty seat at a $2/$5 No-Limit table and grabbed a rack of chips. The session started off ridiculously slow. I literally didn't have a single hand worth limping for close to an hour.

Any time I felt like raising a hand, such as #7s#9s, there would be a raise and a re-raise ahead of me. No big deal, just wait it out I thought.

With all the ego and trash talking between the degenerates at every poker table, it may seem odd to get upset over the phrase "I'm sorry."

Like any competitive sport or activity, poker is a game of respect. You can be a lot of things at a poker table, and how you act and play is entirely up to you.

But at the end of the day you need to have respect for the rules, other players and the house for the game to function.

To an outside observer, poker may seem like a rogue game full of social miscreants. Players are bluffing, goading, needling, angling and juicing the other players, all in an effort to take as much money from everyone else on the table as possible.

The other day I made a decent series of calls against an opponent for a nice pot. After the hand some of the other players asked me how I knew the other guy was bluffing.

I don't like talking strategy at the poker table, so I told them that I'd have to sit down and think about it to give them an answer.

Truth is, I knew exactly what I'd been doing, and why I'd been doing it. The only thinking I needed to do was how to put it into words.

Live poker is all about taking control of a table, and manipulating its play to suit your own needs.

Twice in my life I've been seated at a table with a player perpetually pushing. The game of poker completely changes when a player is all-in blind on every hand dealt.

I remember hearing about a hand in the WSOP Main Event a few years ago that really entertained me. Even now, with thousands more hands under my belt, this hand still makes me smile.

If you sleep all day and spend all night playing cards, the only ladies you're ever likely to meet as a single grinder will be at the table. Here, then, is a guide to help you pick up more than the pot.

Somewhere among the lewd jokes, angle shooting, bad beat stories and outrageous boasts, I've managed to come away from poker tables with some valuable words of wisdom.

Every time I sit at a table, I seem to find myself with players completely oblivious to standard poker etiquette rules (written and unwritten). As you can imagine, this makes me rather angry.

Poker is one of the most diverse competitive activities on the planet. Race, religion, age, political views, social status and gender are irrelevant; if you have the cash, you're welcome to the game.

With millions of people playing poker online day after day, it stands to reason there must be advantages to pushing the virtual chips around instead of the real things.

When it comes to poker, I'm not easily impressed. It's rare that the lines and actions made by opponents at the felt are even worth noticing - never mind worthy of admiration.

Unless it's for an amount of money totally meaningless to you, or you can really handle your booze, playing drunken poker is never a good idea.

Poker players spend most of their time trying to gain and keep control of everything around them: hands, tables, odds, players, rolls and most importantly, themselves.

I think fast, talk fast, drive fast, eat fast and play fast. Regardless of whether I'm playing live or online, I make decisions quickly; only once has anyone called the clock on me.

Everyone makes mistakes, on and off the poker table. But when you know what you're about to do is a mistake and you still do it anyway, that's when it hurts the most.

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