Poker for the Holidays and Future Predictions

December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas to all the Degens out there…

A few things have happened in the poker world lately, that deserve an honorable mention:

Chino Rheem takes down the Bellagio $15k Five Diamond.  Good for him.  As he’s said in a few interviews when asked what to do about various annoyances… ‘now that I got money….’  Well GL Chino, don’t go spending it all in one place.  How’s he get his hat to stay on like that? 

Ultimate Bet is still rigged – Phil Hellmuth was pushed a pot with 1 pair vs. the other guy with trips in a 200/400NL game.  Nice christmas bonus Phil.

PokerRoad is still cool – The most recent poker road radio show, Mr. Sebok missed 2 of 5ish episodes due to various debaucheries…and Ali started talking about ‘what’s next’ for his career…just to do a little gossip starting…What are the odds the PRR crew endures through all on 2009?  

Advertising spending is down across all industries – the casino, gaming, and vegas hotel industries are all hurting (unless your Stars or Tilt in which case you are just laughing at your bank account continuing to magically grow).  Pokerroad is a ad supported business…whatever….09 is gonna be tough on a lot of businesses.  I think they do make some of the best media product out there, but it does require a lot of energy to do so, and if you are not being compensated properly, at the end of the day, enthusiasm will wain.  Vegas is going busto, along with everyone else.

Poker in 2009 – online will continue to grow, satellites will happen more often, games will continue to get tougher, live games will shrink, and poker rooms will go out of business as casinos lose their patience and replace them with one of two things – 1. automated poker tables or 2. slot machines.

PROP in 09 – you will have to wait and see – but there are a variety of stealth projects in the works – mostly consisting of extremely limited production type products.  Watch out.  For now, go snowboarding, get outside, and do something fun.

Merry christmas, happy new year.  See you in 09.

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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!


Live in a bathroom for 30 days = $100k

January 16, 2008

PROP bets can be incredibly fun, incredibly stupid, incredibly smart, incredibly profitable…I’m not sure I’d want to live in a bathroom for 30 days though. Read about this guy, ‘bellagio jay’, who’s spending a solid month in a fine private Bellagio bathroom for a shot at 6 figures.

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/article/10605/the-wonderful-world-of-prop-betting


PROP to be featured on Veoh 12/15

December 6, 2007

Hey!  Check us out, we’re going to be a featured video on a new website (kinda like youtube, cept easier on the eyes) called Veoh on December 15th.  Make sure to swing by and give it a view.

Cheers.