PROP Bets Explained

August 25, 2008

Since our company is named “PROP” we sometimes take for granted the definition of the word. PROP is short for proposition – and refers to both players and bets.

PROP players, are ‘professionals’ who are paid by the house to sit and play a game. They play with their own money, but are compensated with an hourly wage to sit in and play.

PROP bets, are all the crazy sidebets and games that can go on in the gambling world.

As a general rule, if you can think of something, you can bet on it. There can be a ‘line’ created for just about any scenario – sports related or not. You can bet on the length of the national anthem, the outcome of the coin toss, or even whether or not Janet Jackson will have another wardrobe malfunction. Bets can be fun, weird, hilarious, embarrassing, challenging, nerve racking, and impossible. They’ll always put a smile on at least one persons face (generally the winner of the ridiculousness).

Often, the highest stakes poker games in the world have a constant running side prop game. The game can get complicated, and it is the players responsibility to call their prop – if they ‘sleep’ a prop – they get whatever was decided as the predetermined penalty. For example, Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu are playing heads up – Phil has ‘red’ and Daniel has ‘black’ for the flop. So if the flop comes out majority black, then Daniel would win the point. The value of the points vary from a few bucks to several thousand. You can also pick sets of numbers (or suits or str8s), and can get multiple bonuses when more than one number hits, or if say you pick ‘5’s’ and three 5’s hit the flop.

Why do people play props? For fun. To make money. And because it creates more action. Sometimes poker can be boring and straightforward – this ensures that every flop has some dollars riding on it.

So next time your feeling a little bored, challenge your buddy to a foot race or a milk chugging contest to spice things up. You’ll have fun, and maybe even win a little money.

Common sports betting terminology:
Tease – lets you move or ‘tease’ the line in your favor – so if the Bears are -4 and the Chiefs are +7 don’t look attractive, combine 2-15 picks and ‘tease’ the lines by as many points as you need. Think of it as diversifying your bet a little.

Pleasers – lets say you have a lock on a game, and the line seems overly generous – well you can give back points against the line, in return for a greater payout – let the buyer beware, but hey if your sitting in the locker room with some inside knowledge, go for it.

Live Betting – allows you to bet on sports action as the game is progressing, the line will constantly change throughout the game, so you can keep the excitement going even during the 20 point blow outs.

Quarters – you can bet on game results for first halves, halftimes, and quarters. You team is a second quarter team? Put your money where your mouth is.

Now that you have all this betting knowledge, you are ready to go take on the lines! Just remember, that people spending a lot more time researching this stuff are making the lines…they’re generally pretty good. But whether you bet to make a living, or bet for fun, there is always money to be made. GL!


The November Nine – Who are they?

August 23, 2008

And should we care?

I’ve been a fan of this new proposed ‘final table’ structure for the WSOP Main Event, mainly because I think it presents an opportunity for casual fans to become more interested in the game.  Which at the end of the day, is the main reason poker is a viable occupation for some people.  New blood feeds this economy and anyone that tells you different is lying.  Not to mention, the ‘rake’ being taken out of the economy by online sites, harrah’s, wsop, wpt, vegas, espn, etc needs to be replaced…you could argue some of these properties bring endorsement money value in as well, but it is such a small percentage of the total community that it is most certainly an overall net loss.  Sorry, I digress…

Originally, I was hoping the final table people would have some interesting stories (and perhaps there still are a few diamonds in the rough) but overall, there are not any super star tv personalities.  I wanted to see some 24/7 style De La Hoya type reality show…but I’m not convinced these guys have enough fire power to fuel that type of show.

So we have this cast of characters about to tee-off for the biggest single table sng of their lives…who are they:

Chip leader: Dennis Phillips – chip count: 27M – seat 1 – he’s an account manager for a trucking company.  Says that regardless of what happens in November, he isn’t going to quit his job.  We’ll see.  This is his first major poker tournament cash, and got into the WSOP ME through a satellite at his local casino.  While his chip count (and bookies) would say he has the best chance of winning…I wouldn’t bet on it.

Ivan Demidov – chip count: 24.4M – seat 7 – A fairly close second to Phillips this will be Demidov’s second cash of the 2008 WSOP as he took 11th place in Event 44 NL w Rebuys for $39,854. Demidov hails from Moscow, Russia.  He started playing poker two years ago.

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Hard Rock Poker Lounge

August 23, 2008

The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino just off the strip in Las Vegas has recently ‘soft’ opened their new poker room.  It’s basically a night club lounge atmosphere.  And from what we can tell, looks pretty cool.  I’ve always like the Hard Rock but have found myself wandering to other properties during debauchery due to the fact there was no place to play poker…

The soft open last thursday (8/21) gave players their first look at the brand-new room, which boasts a full bar, private VIP rooms, and 18 tables spread out over 7,000 square feet.

“I consider the soft-opening a great success, as we set a new standard in the world of poker,” said Mark Gore, casino general manager. “The stakes just got raised.”

The idea of the Poker Lounge is a unique one, mixing a club atmosphere with a professional and efficiently run poker room. Not only does the lounge have music, but it also offers bottle service. Private parties and games can be run in one of the lounge’s VIP rooms. Despite the enormous amount of work put toward providing a party environment, even more attention has been focused on offering poker the way players want it.

“The Hard Rock Poker Lounge philosophy is that we welcome any action,” said Poker Lounge Manager Houston Waldie. “We will spread any game our players want, and we will have knowledgeable staff to be able to do that.”


Three reasons to like Kid Poker

August 22, 2008

Daniel Negreanu – he’s well respected among the poker community.  He’s played in the biggest games in the world, and although not a regular in those games any more he at least takes his shots.  He is a bit of a work horse, and has multiple side projects all taping into the poker world to make a few dollars.  Another smart move, you might as well get the gravy while the gravy is worth gettin.  He’s also the type of tv personality that makes it interesting to watch – you hear his thought processes on hands, you listen to him call out the opponents cards, he laughs and jokes, much more entertaining overall than the standard sunglass/hat wearing couch-pro.  At the end of the day it’s about marketability.  It pays to set yourself apart and define your niche.  He is the ‘nice guy’ in the poker world.

Here’s three reasons why I like him:

1.  We have the same birthday.  July 26th.

2.  He likes the Buffalo Bills.  Wide Right.

3.  He can put together complete sentences and talk intelligently about any poker game.  Stay in school kids.


Kanye West Drunk

August 22, 2008

Screw the Iphone – get the Eclipse Intuit

August 22, 2008

This new phone, designed by Eddie Goh, is sleek and eco. The phone has a 5mb camera, and is powered by the sun.  It looks like a slimmed down version of some of the tmobile slider phones, a perfect set up for game play, internet browsing, and assuming the face is touch screen – pimp iphone like phoning.

eclipse eclipse eclipse


Real Man Olympics

August 21, 2008

Some clever folks have decided to put in a ‘weighting’ system for all those medals being won over in Beijing. You can modify the weighting system to your liking – so if you are a die hard badminton lover you can factor that into the calculations.

Anyway you slice it – China is probably coming out on top.

Check it out here.

Here is another olympic site that is fun – man or woman?? – you decide:

Test your gender identifying skills

I got 600 points.


50k Horse – DeMichele and Nguyen lose it.

August 20, 2008

First hour: DeMichele takes a bow for every pot he wins. He was running hot, and obviously excited to be there. His actions clearly get under the skin of several of the ‘big names’ including Barry Greenstein, Erick Lindgren, Scotty Nguyen, and Lyle Berman. On one hand, DeMichele miss calls his made hand on 7th in Stud, having made a flush, calls two pair vs. an all in Huck Seed who had one pair. Honest mistake I’m sure, but his overall table presence was certainly aggravating to say the least. Surprise surprise, he’s wearing an Ultimate Bet patch. Notice any trends with that company? Kids, when you make your next final table, please just say no to UB.

Second hour: Down to three – Scotty, DeMichele, and Lindren. Scotty is on complete monkey life tilt. He beraides DeMichele for excessive celebration, and proceeds to do a little excessive celebration/high fives himself. Granted, Scotty appears to have had one too many drinks during this final table. And he also chose to ‘dump chips’ to Erick during an O8 hand in which he had the best low draw and an overpair of AA on a 73JJ board, he folded on the turn, Lindgren had the second best low draw and an overpair of QQ. This was obviously because Nguyen didn’t want DeMichele to get to heads up. He was clearly on life tilt. But such a blatant chip dump was pretty sketchy.

Lindgren handled himself with class throughout the final table, although even he got a little heated at the end, apparently fed up with Scotty’s antics. Can’t say I blame him, but there also appeared to be a back log of history between them when Erick said “I’ve never been on team Scotty…and never will.” DeMichele and Nguyen definitely got into heated ego-driven debates. This happens a lot at the poker table, someone loses a big hand, or personalities conflict after several hours of play, but unfortunately this is the biggest tourney of the WSOP.

Overall, I wish the 50k was a ‘better’ final table in terms of skill being showcased rather than brash conflicts, and a lot of what’s wrong with poker. It is fun to watch these guys go on tilt on tv but for the grander scheme of the poker world, I think having say a Barry Greenstein and Erick Lindgren get heads up and play for the title would have been much better. Scotty lost it a little bit and it turned into a shit show. I still love Scotty, and I was rooting for him while I was there this summer, but at the end of the day perhaps he tarnished his prince status just a touch for letting the 23 year old get under his skin. I’m pretty sure Chip Reese would have handled some of these situations quite a bit differently. Let’s just try and keep that in mind next time the monkey tilt comes out.


Michael Phelps playing in the WSOP

August 19, 2008

One of my biggest qualms with poker, and the poker media, is lack of quality content. I should probably comment on the FTOPS winners, $500k here, back to back wins $170k there….blah blah blah. Some cats I don’t know won a few tournies I wish I did. (obv jealous and bitter).

However, the biggest story over the past two days for the main poker media outlets is Mr. 8 Gold Medals stated in a press conference interview that he thinks it’d be cool to play the WSOP. Sweet.

Hopefully he brings his $40M of endorsement dollars into the poker economy. We need it.


Justin Shronk – Funny Mother F’er.

August 17, 2008

Here is a recent article from his Pokerazzi column on Pokerroad, to get full appreciation of this: go watch the most recent 2008 WSOP coverage ($1k rebuy that Banducci wins)…then read this:

…..So here we go, ESPN’s coverage of Event #5, the $1,000 with Rebuys.

NOTE: I’m going to try signing on AIM under the name ‘ShronkDaddy’ during the WSOP coverage in case anyone reading this wants to chat while watching. The real reason is that hopefully someone says something funny to me via AIM, and I can steal it for the blog.
5:00pm – I keep getting over-excited for the WSOP coverage. I remember ESPN filming a lot fewer events than it appears they actually did, so I keep thinking the $50k HORSE is going to be on.

5:01 – Note to ESPN: Do not start your coverage with the line, “You might not know any of their names… .” If you got unlucky and no “big name” pros are at the final table, you should do your best NOT to draw attention to that.

5:02 – I was thinking “Lyric” was a pretty cool screenname. Then I find out that it’s the kid’s real first name and it’s less cool…especially since the kid’s last name is Duveycover or something (actually turns out it’s Duveyoung).

5:03 – The guy’s reshove with A-Q is really weird. Him yelling “ACEY IN YOUR FACEY!” was creepy.

5:11 – The fact that it’s “your signature” doesn’t excuse you from wearing a women’s hat on national television. It does, however, make you a moron (Alan Jaffray).

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High Stakes Poker Results, Variance and Swings, Superuser?

August 15, 2008

To try something a little different, and hopefully provide value to all you aspiring high stakes gamblers I decided to take a look at the high stakes poker results of the biggest games around to see if there were any trends we could learn something from.

First I took the results published by highstakesdb.com – which provides the top 50 and bottom 50 winners and losers for each month. The results are from 1/1/07 thru 7/31/08, including Omaha and Holdem on Ladbrokes/Prima/Fulltilt networks. High stakes horse is also included in the 7/08 monthly results.

I compiled all these monthly reports into a single spreadsheet workbook in Excel, and then combined the months to provide a data set of 19 months of the high stakes poker world. My initial theory was that the biggest high stakes players have the biggest swings but I wanted to visually see the difference between, if they are constantly playing the biggest games, or game selecting and ‘taking shots’…

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High Stakes Poker Online Screen Names

August 15, 2008

Who’s who? Here’s some that we know:

Noataima – Guy Laliberte – owns Cirque du Soleil – possible alias: Lady Marmelade
Ziigmund -Ilhari Sahamies – old alias: sutrakama
Gus Hansen
Patrik Antonius – Alias Finddagrind and Luigi66369, crymeariver8, I_Knockout_U
Phil Ivey
David Benyamine – ballsrider, magicpitch1
OMGClayAiken – Phil Galfond
Brian Townsend – sbrugby – cardrunners
Durrrr – Tom Dwan
KObyTAPOUT – Jani Vilmunen
trex313 – Hac Dang
Urindanger – Di Dang
Genius28 – Chris Lee
Niki Jedlicka – Kaibuxxe
patatino

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Travis Pastrana Skydiving without a Parachute

August 13, 2008

After my first tandem skydive a few weeks ago, I’ve become a little obsessed…apparently some sicko’s like to jump out of planes without a chute. One of those crazies is Xgames superstar Travis Pastrana.


Written on the City

August 13, 2008

One of the cool things about living in San Francisco is the street art.  The city is actually pretty good at cleaning up random sticker bombings and what not (believe me I know…) but its always cool to come across some great graffiti or a cool slogan.  

A little brand founded in LA by Shepard Fairey called OBEY got it’s start this way.  The message is the medium.  And Shepard claims to have placed over 1 million Obey stickers around the world himself.  That’s really insane, but I believe it.  Next time your walking around your local downtown take a look, you’ll most likely see one, or at the very least some other cool start up brands (like PROP!). If you want some PROP stickers to tag your town, hit up info@propclothing.com with your name and address and we’ll hook it up.

Some SF artists just put together a cool book called ‘Written on the City.’ and it’s based around this very premise and using the medium to present artistic messages.  


Zeejustin Cheating

August 13, 2008

Here’s the deal folks – I’ve had a few people of late email and ask me what happened with Justin Bonomo and why he was called out for cheating on ESPNs broadcast of his $5k Mixed Event Final Table.

Basically, when the kid was under 21 he was crushing the party poker games, and building a little name for himself. Then a mild scandal occured where he was caught multi-accounting a big multi table tournament (MTT) on party which he ended up winning. His six figure winnings were confiscated by the site, and returned to the prize pool for distribution amongst the others who cashed. I believe his stars account was also shut down for multi-accounting.

Now, he took a lot of heat from the online community especially in the forums. He issued a public apology on his website, addressed issued on the forums, and overall accepted responsibility for his actions.

To me, this level of ‘cheating’ was infinitely milder than some of the recent scandals with UB and Absolute – in which MILLIONS of dollars were stolen out of the poker community. His multi-accounting thing was ethically wrong, but maybe doubled his edge in the thousand player fields to 5-7%…I’m not that good with ICM but someone could tell you its not a huge monetary scam in the poker community. It was just more convenient to witch hunt someone like Bonomo because you could easily place a face with the blame. Especially because he was young and successful.

With the new stuff, it’s harder to pinpoint the exact culprits as multiple people may have been involved, different parent corporations, etc.

It was a low blow from Norman Chad, an off hand remark, taken out of context, and presented to uninformed viewers on national tv. Enough with zeejustin – what about Ultimate Bet???


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