As you probably know by now there was a big cheating scandal at Absolute Poker last year. I still haven’t heard if the cheaters (who were actually owners of the site) were sent to prison. You can get the full story here from NY Times columnist Steven D. Levitt.

I too have had my problems with this site and their lax security and bad programming. In my case I have spent dozens of hours over the past year trying to resolve this problem. I want to explain this situation to you in hopes it may save you countless hours of lost money and headaches as it has cost me.

Scenario: One day I let my girlfriend play on my account with my money. Seems harmless enough until she lost my money. She then went and used her credit card to deposit more funds so she could continue playing. By doing this, my account has now been turned into hers. Her name is now the account holder, all financial information is now hers. Because of this Absolute Poker won’t let her or I withdraw money.  The reason Security gives is that it is against the rules to use someone else’s credit card on a players account. HELLO??? If it is against the rules, why did Absolute Poker not stop it in the first place? It only takes about five minutes to write a piece of code that rejects credit cards that have a different name than the one on the Absolute Poker account. I swear these people are real idiots.

It is clear to me that their software lacks security as in my case and in the case of last years cheating scandal. They refuse to give me my money and they refuse to apologize for causing me so much work and aggravation. In fact, they refuse to allow me to even speak with a supervisor (I believe all the phone people live in India and the support is outsourced so there is no one from Absolute that you can talk to).

With all the poker sites available to play at, I recommend to everyone, please avoid this site and the other site it owns, Ultimate Bet. Their software has many security breaches in it which, as Absolute Poker themselves claim in the above mentioned article allows others to hack in and steal from you.

If you have a horror story about Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet, I would love to hear it. Feel free to post your comment below.

I have two superstitions at poker. Whenever I make change at the table, I seem to start losing. My other superstition has to do with the first hand I play. If I win the first hand, I never seem to win another hand again.Maybe you have these same superstitions. Superstitions can be fun and harmless. However, they could also make you go broke.For example, maybe you hit a jackpot once with J-3 offsuit so now you believe it to be lucky and play it every time. Playing a hand for this reason is not good enough. Your criteria for playing a hand should be because of its quality, not because you made a big score with it once.Another superstition to avoid is the lucky seat. How many times have you picked a seat at a table only because it was the same seat you won in yesterday? Luck comes and goes. What was lucky yesterday is not always lucky the next day. You should choose a seat based on the players. I personally like tight players on my right and loose players on my left. I can make a lot more moves in this arrangement.

If you believe in superstitions and luck, and would like to harness the power of luck to accelerate your winnings, I recommend you visit Luckalyzer for a look into the future. Here you will find your lucky days for playing poker, and most importantly, the days to avoid poker playing.

The other night I’m sitting under the gun at a $5/$10 NL table when my eyes widen a little as A-9 suited shows up in my hand.  Visions of a flush draw or top pair on the flop crept into my head, and my mouth watered at the thought of raking in another huge pot.

So as I’m ready to make the call  I look down at the new poker odds calculator that I am currently evaluating.

“Fold.”  Fold?  Are you kidding me?  I’m suited A-9.  According to Oddsmaker.com this is a premium hand. It’s one of the top twenty hold ‘em hands to play. Nevertheless, I was there to test out this new odds calculator, so I followed it’s advice and folded.

Table goes around.  4 players in.

Flop comes: 7h Ad 9h.

I just folded top pair with a decent kicker and I only need one more heart to make the nut flush.  Ouch!! These are the pitfalls I must face when I’m trying out new software to bring to you.

So the Turn comes 2c and River 8s.  Pot hits a couple hundred and out come the cards.

Winner shows A-Q!

Whew!  I just saved me over half my stack. I love using poker calculators.

Ok. It’s not laying down Kings against a made straight or folding a boat to four of a kind, but I would’ve played that through and lost a ton.  So it was the best laydown I’ve had in a long time.

The best part is about 6 hands later the calculator, Calculatem Pro, had me raise a hand I would’ve just called.  That was a nice payoff!

Anyhow, I felt like bragging a little and sharing the story.  Thought you would enjoy it. If you are not using weapons when battling at the table, why not? Your opponent is!

I’m in love with Calculatem Pro now.  You can find this new program and all the others on our Tools Page.

In last month’s Poker Player magazine an article was written on how a player should compare what rake a casino charges to play in their tournament. They quoted a few casinos that charged a 7% to 10% rake.

As usual, here in California, everything is MUCH MORE expensive. The Commerce Casino has a $40 buy-in tournament plus an extra  charge of $15 for the house. You pay $55 yet only $40 goes into the prize pool. This calculates to a 27% rake. Nearby at the Bicycle Casino, they have them all beat. They have a $10 buy-in with a $10 premium to the house. Here we have $20 to play, yet only $10 goes into the prize pool for a 50% rake.

Does anyone have a nearby casino that rakes more than these? I welcome your replies.