You’d have to be living under a rock this past week to not have realized that the Full Tilt Online Poker Series is well underway and drawing huge crowds of young poker hopefuls to compete on Full Tilt. This is, of course, the seventeenth FTOPS and the biggest so far with 34 events and a massive $19,000,000 in guaranteed prize pools. Event 22 is the first thus far to have had a $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool, and it kicked off yesterday evening.
This latest FTOPS tournament was a rebuy event, which allows players to be much more liberal and aggressive in the first hour of play. Any time that a player falls below a certain level of chips during the rebuy period, even if he loses all the chips in front of him, he is able to top up his chipstack and continue playing. As the rebuy period comes to a close, there is a brief break in which players are given the option of purchasing an add-on, which is usually the size of their starting stack. In these sorts of tournaments you tend to see a lot of big pots in the first hour when the consequences of getting stacked aren’t very harsh.
Only 913 players registered for the $300 + $22 tournament, whether outright or by winning any number of satellite tournaments, but each time a player rebuys or purchases an add-on it costs the same as entry into the tournament, minus the tournament fee. With 1,713 rebuys and 711 add-ons, the prizepool for Event 22 just snuck over its $1,000,000 guarantee and came to rest at the grand total of $1,001,100. The top 102 players got a piece of the action.
A cool thing about FTOPS is that each event has a host, usually a well-known poker player affiliated in some way with Full Tilt. Event 22 was hosted by Argentinean player Damian Salas, who has enjoyed multiple World Series of Poker cashes since discovering his passion for poker. The lawyer is a force to be reckoned with, and in addition to hosting the event he made his presence felt on the tables, too, during this tournament.
Event 22 was a 6-handed event, and as the final 30 players settled into their five tables, there were two red pros in their midst. One was 2010 November Nine member John Dolan, and the other was the host himself Damian Salas. Although they both put in a great effort to make it so far, sadly their luck ran out and shortly afterwards Dolan and Salas busted in 26th and 27th places respectively, for a touch over $4,500 each.
Sailing past them were KJulius10, BLUEberLEEZ and elanor, three players who went on to make the final table, outlast their competitors and eventually settle on a chop. While BLUEberLEEZ and elanor walked away with $147,000 each, KJulius10 scored $159,000 and the win. The young american player is no stranger to big success, having already netted over $1 Million in online poker winnings since starting playing, but this latest victory is nevertheless sure to have him riding the winner’s high for days to come!
Here are the official final table results:
KJulius10 – $158,243.21
BLUEberLEEZ – $147,826.47
elanor – $146,929.17
Bourbonftw – $76,083.60
Maxine Waters – $54,059.40
Aneris – $34,537.95
This being a gambling column, we pride ourselves on commanding oodles of odds. So it is with great confidence that we say the game of poker is about nothing but making money 99.8 percent of the time.
On rare occasions, however, events around the poker table transcend the need to win the almighty dollar and force players to look deep inside ourselves and think about – gasp! – the right thing to do.
One of these moments happened to yours truly last week.
The scene was a cardroom on the Peninsula. I had been winning big at a table of $2/$5 no-limit Texas hold ‘em for about two hours when two people walked in and grabbed seats at my table.
From the moment they sat down, it was clear something just wasn’t right about our new players.
For starters, they obviously were mother and son. Mom couldn’t have been a day over 40, and Boy looked like he wasn’t even old enough to drive. (He had to be older, though, because most cardrooms won’t let you play unless you’re 21.)
Within minutes, Boy (who was seated next to me) announced to the table that this was his first experience playing poker anywhere but online, and that it was his mother’s first time ever playing poker, anywhere. He thanked us in advance for our patience. Then he ordered a Budweiser.
It was around this point that I started wondering if they were faking it. Was this an elaborate ruse to get us to take pity on them and play soft? Were they duping us?
All skepticism disappeared quickly when Mom looked at her hole cards, clapped (no, I’m not joking) and said, “Oh, this is a good hand!” She moved her entire stack of $95 into center of the felt and laughed giddily.
Then some dude called her.
She, of course, had aces, and he had some suited rags. As the board filled up, she spiked an ace on the flop but lost to a flush on the turn.
Mom lost all her money in one hand. So she bought in for more.
The scene played itself out nearly a half-dozen times over the next 40 minutes – our opponents at the table lining up to take turns sucking out on Mom and Boy. I steered clear of the carnage completely, quietly wishing the newbies would just go away.
Finally, after watching a particularly brutal hand where a player baited Boy into calling with nothing, I couldn’t take it anymore.
So I got up and left.
Did I want to play more? Absolutely. Could I have partaken and made bank? No question. But the way I saw it, playing against Mom and Boy was, quite literally, like taking candy from babies. One can do that anywhere; doing it at the poker table just doesn’t seem fair.
Canadians gamers, their fingers wrapped tight around their controllers and clicking madly across their keypads, brought in millions of dollars for advertisers posting product shots inside virtual worlds last year.
But exactly how much that captive audience could be worth to companies and advertising agencies remains out of reach for the time being, according to an industry expert.
“It is a really controlled environment where you are really leaning forward, you are really paying attention,” said Paula Gignac, president, The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB).
“When you are deeply immersed and there is only one big outdoor sign in this city that you are walking down and it is from Coca-Cola that is a very big branding opportunity for the advertiser,” she said.
On Tuesday, the IAB reported that in 2009, revenue generated through display advertising in games connected to the internet and watched by Canadians, through computers or systems like Xbox and PlayStation, reached at least $3 million.
It was the first time the IAB included video game data in an annual report on online advertising revenue. This year the report showed that in 2009 total online advertising revenue reached $1.82 billion, up 14 per cent from the previous year. That figure is estimated to jump to $2.1 billion, or up 15 per cent, in 2010 and is rapidly approaching the revenue generated by more mediums like print, according to the report.
Gignac said the $3 million related to video games represents only a “tiny sliver” of revenue generated though gaming in Canada as it only tracks a specific type of advertising within game titles viewed by Canadian audiences, she said.
She said when it comes to marketing information video games remains something of a walled garden, with only bits and pieces of information available. But she hopes that releasing some estimates will result in more complete reports in the future.
Research group Screen Digest estimates that by 2014 revenue generated by video game advertising worldwide could grow to one $1 billion, according to Bizreport.com.
Massive Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft that specializes in video game advertising, includes Rogers Communications, Government of Ontario, Telus, Bell Sympatico, BMW, Greyhound and HMV on their client list.
EA, a U.S. based company with Canadian operations, drops everything from Honda logos, to corn chips to images of Obama into games.
Gignac said as long as the game is internet connected the advertiser can change the content and style of the advertisement, tailoring and inserting different content based on time of day or season or specific environments.
That means in the interactive wild-west cowboys kicking their spurs through graphically generated dust are unlikely to see a massive neon sign for sports cars flashing in the desert.
But there may be dirty and dusty ad for cellphones flickering dimly above the saloon door, said Gignac.
“Gamers don’t want to be disturbed. They don’t want to click on the brands they just want to be exposed to them,” she said.
Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business said compared to television advertising consumers find product placement in online games less disturbing.
Advertisers and corporations are “stepping very gently into the water but not grabbing where the opportunity is,” said Middleton.
Creating and giving away games and machines to ensure their message is broadly implanted in the program and widely accessible would be far more lucrative, he said.
Legalized online gambling in Ontario could mean a $500 million annual windfall to the cash-strapped provincial government, Liberal sources say.
But Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak warns Ontario taxpayers should be leery if Premier Dalton McGuinty bets on Internet gaming here.
As the Star disclosed on Saturday, McGuinty’s administration, which is wrestling with a $19.7 billion budget deficit, is “exploring” the possibility of expanding the gambling industry.
Insiders say the move is designed to “repatriate” hundreds of millions of dollars that Ontario gamblers bet offshore every year from the comfort of their computer keyboards.
Government sources said Monday that the bonanza could be an additional $500 million a year on top of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s (OLG) $1.9 billion profit in 2009.
In February, OLG chairman Paul Godfrey, retained by McGuinty to fix problems at the troubling gambling monopoly, said the province had to look online for future growth.
“It’s something that I would explore . . . (because) money is going out of this province to other provinces as well as offshore sites,” Godfrey said at the time.
“The fact is that it’s there at the present time all around us.”
But Hudak, who has praised Godfrey’s appointment at OLG, expressed concern that the Liberals may push forward with online gambling.
“Who is going to trust Dalton McGuinty to run an online casino?” the Tory leader told reporters at Queen’s Park on Monday.
“Listen, this guy has had two consecutive major scandals at the OLGC, they’ve gone through five CEOs, they can’t run the existing casinos let Internet gambling,” he said, referring to suspicious insider lottery wins and other problems.
“They have a voracious appetite for more and more tax dollars. They can’t control the OLGC as it is. This will be a disaster if Dalton McGuinty is running an online casino.”
Stung by offshore websites cashing in on the demand for Internet gaming, governments around the work have been legalizing online betting.
British Columbia, which last month became the first province or state in North America to offer legalized online casino gambling, has estimated it was losing $100 million to illegal websites abroad.
While the Liberals are enticed by the lure of additional revenue, the governing party is mindful that many Ontarians, already uneasy with existing casinos, would oppose Internet betting.
One of the disadvantages of online keno is that players cannot play with multiple tickets as they can do in brick and mortar keno games. In land based keno games players can buy as many tickets as they want for the next game and play all those tickets simultaneously. However this is not possible in online keno. There is only one matrix of eighty numbers on display on which players can mark their chosen numbers. The called numbers are also marked on this matrix later. One set of called numbers can be matched against only one set of marked numbers.
Now Win A Day online casino has removed this limitation in its recently released keno game. Players can play multiple tickets, up to 7, at a time. In order to achieve this, the display mechanics have had to be changed. The large central matrix of 80 numbers is used only to display the called numbers and not to mark the selected numbers. There are seven tickets on the left hand side of this central display. Each ticket contains the 80 numbers. The tickets become so small that the numbers are barely readable and hence these tickets cannot be directly used for marking.
Therefore an indirect marking mechanism is chosen. There is a larger matrix of 80 numbers below the central matrix, for the sake of convenience being called bottom matrix, and this is used for marking the tickets. First the Ticket 1 is selected by clicking on it. The required numbers are clicked on the bottom matrix and are automatically marked on Ticket 1. Then Ticket 2 is selected. The bottom matrix is automatically cleared and can be used for marking the numbers on Ticket 2. Following this procedure up to 7 tickets can be marked. There is a Quick Pick button that can randomly mark 15 numbers on a selected ticket. When players move the cursor over a ticket the marked numbers are displayed in the bottom matrix and this enables players to check the tickets before starting the balls.
When the Play button is clicked, the 20 called numbers are displayed on the central matrix. Each ticket is independently matched against the called numbers and evaluated against the payout table. The number of matches and the amount won are displayed on each ticket.
This variant allows different numbers to be marked on each ticket. It also allows different number of numbers to be marked on each ticket. For example in Ticket 1 the player can mark 15 numbers, in Ticket 2 he can mark 10 numbers and in Ticket three he can mark 5 numbers. Therefore each ticket will be played against a different payout table. As each ticket is highlighted, the payout table for that ticket is displayed in the payout table column.
Many online keno games offer an auto play feature in which a player can repeat a number of games. The player uses the same ticket against different called numbers in each game and hence these keno games are not multiple tickets games. The variant at Win A Day online casino allows players to play different tickets simultaneously against the same called numbers and is a true multiple tickets game.
Video slots form the bulk of online casino games. Usually these games have a maximum of five symbols in each payline, each symbol corresponding to one of the reels. From time to time the developers of slots software have experimented with introducing more than five symbols per payline. The simplest way to do this is to increase the number of reels. Vegas Technology has launched two video slots with seven reels, Farming Futures and Lucky 7s. They play exactly the way of five reel slots, except that winning combinations are defined for from three to seven symbols aligned from left to right on enabled paylines.
Some time ago Playtech released a slot game that could have up to six symbols per payline without increasing the number of reels from five. This slot game was Blade, which was from its popular Marvel Movies super hero series. The basis of this innovative concept was a “split” symbol. In Blade there is a special symbol called the Blade Split symbol. It appears only on Reel 5. When it does so, the last symbol in any winning combination will be split in two and will count as two symbols. If the A symbol appears on Reels 1, 2 and 3 in an enabled payline and the Blade Split symbol appears on Reel 5, then the A symbol in Reel 3 will be split in two and the payout will correspond to four A symbols. Payouts for each symbol are defined for up to six symbols per payline. The visual process of splitting the symbol is also very appealing. The image of the superhero Blade appears on the symbol that is to be split. Blade draws his sword and rips it vertically through the symbol. The larger square box is then formed into two smaller rectangles. This process is described as the Blade Symbol Split Feature.
The online gaming software provider WagerWorks took this concept to its logical conclusion with up to 10 symbols appearing in a payline. The slot game was the recently released Noah’s Ark. The execution was done in a different manner. Most of the symbols in this slot game are animals because the Noah’s Ark took the animals to safety. These animal symbols can depict the single animal or a pair of the animal. This selection is made randomly. But when the symbol depicts a pair of animals it counts as two symbols for the purposes of the payout and is called a split symbol. If in an enable payline Reel 1 shows a pair of Lions, Reel 2 shows a single Lion and Reel 3 shows a pair of Lions it counts for five symbols in the winning combination. The payouts for all animal symbols go up to 10 symbols for the case when all five symbols in an enabled payline contain pairs of the same animal. In Noah’s Ark the scatter Dove symbol can also appear as a split symbol. The Noah’s Ark wild symbol always counts for two symbols when substituting for animal symbols.
Skiers, mountaineers, snow-shoers and other recreationists traveling in the backcountry in winter should be well prepared. Make plans based on research of routes, conditions, forecasts and the skill level of the party. The group needs to be equipped for traveling safely in big mountain terrain and have wilderness survival skills and equipment for unforeseen incidents.
Avalanche Awareness
Avalanches are classified on an international scale. Size 1 avalanches are relatively harmless to people. At the other end of the spectrum, size 5 avalanches are the largest snow avalanches known. They could destroy a village or a forest of 100 acres and typically involve a shifting snow mass of 100,000 tonnes.
It is the union of terrain, weather and snow variables that make avalanches possible.
To travel safely in avalanche terrain it is necessary to be able to recognize avalanche slopes, have an idea about snow stability and the impact past, present and future weather conditions have on the avalanche risk. Avalanche bulletins are issued at ski fields.
Even a small avalanche can have very serious consequences if one is caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time e.g. standing on a steep slope above an ice cliff.
Safe Glacier Travel
Glaciers are the large tracts of permanent but constantly flowing ice on a mountainside. They are characterized by fractures known as crevasses that build up in areas of tension. These fractures that can be several hundred meters deep are often disguised by surface snow and pose a threat to mountain travelers.
Finding the least crevassed line on a glacier will provide the easiest and safest route. Typically this is through the center of the glacier where it is flattest.
Snow bridges that cover crevasses can provide access across these deep ice grooves when frozen. It can be difficult to gage the depth of any given snow bridge so mountain enthusiasts, especially mountaineers typically travel roped together on glaciers. Appropriate use of the rope during glacier travel ensures any fall by a climber into a crevasse will be checked by their rope partner or partners. Typically a rope team of two or more people travel with at least 10 meters (33 feet) of rope between them. Spare rope can be carried in rope coils around the chest that are tied off securely. This spare rope can then be used for crevasse rescue in the event of a deep crevasse fall.
When traveling through crevassed terrain in roped, crevasse travel mode it is important to cross crevasse bridges at 90 degrees to the crevasse edge and keep the rope taut between climbers.
Every individual on a rope team should have the equipment and know-how for self rescue (prussiking) and crevasse rescue of another team member.
In the sport of alpine ski racing, margins between top racers on the world cup are often very small. In fact, races lasting over two minutes are often won by mere hundredths of a second. Perhaps what makes such tight margins so amazing is that alpine ski racing is a sport in which a relatively large variety of factors influence performance.
Turning technique is certainly one of the primary factors affecting performance as can easily be seen from the sheer number of publications addressing the topic. These studies, however, are often descriptive in nature and stop short of examining the relationship between technique and performance. In fact, despite a large volume of technique literature, there is a scarcity of research specifically addressing technique in terms of velocity – which is the one, and only, goal in competition. The purpose of this investigation, therefore, will be to identify and study key aspects of turning technique that are thought to have a profound affect on performance. Due to the complex nature of the selected problem, a research design integrating both qualitative and quantitative methods has been chosen.
The purpose of the qualitative component is to establish a basis for selecting interesting research questions. This phase is partially completed and has consisted of extensive observation of the Norwegian national team in training and competition, as well as in-depth interviews with 17 expert coaches from 6 nations. The results of these studies will be used to build a theoretical model of the various factors of turning technique and their relationship to performance.
Following the qualitative component, studies using quantitative methods will be used to examine and test certain aspects of this theoretical model.
Many online casino games offer a side bet. This is especially true of casino poker based games. In some games these side bets are known as “bonus bets”, whereas in other games they are given specific names. In Microgaming 3 Card Poker it is called “Pair Plus” because it pays if the player draws a pair or higher. Side bets are popular because they add another dimension to the casino game and at the same time offer a chance of winning a large payout. Despite their apparent attraction side bets should be approached with caution and beginners should understand the various characteristics of these bets.
Most side bets have a much higher house edge than the main game, and from that perspective these bets are avoidable. However there will always be players who operate on a higher risk return curve and they will be willing to take that extra risk in the hope of winning the large payouts. In some casino games the side bet is linked to a progressive jackpot that keeps on increasing until it is hit. Caribbean Stud Poker from Realtime Gaming is an example. In these games the side bets become attractive if the jackpot amount exceeds a critical value. In most casino games the side bet offers a fixed payout that has been specified in a pay table. Blackjack Perfect Pairs from Vegas Technology is one such online casino game.
Usually the side bet is optional. The online casino does remind the player through a text or voice message that this option can be exercised by the player. However in some games the side bet is mandatory and automatically placed when the player places the main bet. If the beginner is not aware of this he may find his balance depleted by an amount more than he has planned for. Hence it is essential to check this out before wagering.
In some games the outcome of the side bet is linked to the outcome of the main game. Hence the side bet can win only if the player wins in the main game. Microgaming’s Roulette Royale is an example of this. In most casino poker games the side bet pays independent of the main game. For example if the side bet pays for a flush it does not matter that the dealer has drawn a straight and the player has lost. The side bet will be settled at the specified payout. However, most casino poker games require that the player continues with the main game till the end and does not opt out. If the player folds at some intermediate stage he will forfeit the side bet. There are some games that pay the side bet up front after the player places the ante wager. Thereafter the player may decide to raise or fold as his strategy dictates. This happens in High Speed Poker from Microgaming.
The question that should players wager on the side bet needs to be answered. If new players want to occasionally wager on side bets with the complete understanding of the risks then there is no harm. However if players want to regularly wager on side bets then they should do so only in the following conditions. The side bet should lead to a progressive jackpot that has grown to an amount to make the risk worthwhile. Or if the game allows them to configure the wagering such that the side bet is only a few percent of the main bet.
The most popular set of original and sequel online slots is Microgaming’s Tomb Raider and Secret of the Sword. Tomb Raider, featuring the adventuress Lara Croft, is a branded slot based on a video game from Eidos Interactive. It ran action clips from the video game and was an instant hit. Later Secret of the Sword was launched, featuring Lara Croft in a different adventure. Because the popularity of Tomb Raider stemmed from the action content, Secret of the Sword focussed on Lara Croft action in the animations. The bonus games in the two slots are completely different. Thus Secret of the Sword was able to cash in on the Lara Croft brand and yet give slots players a different slot game.
A similar situation can be found in Cryptologic’s Spider Man and Spider Man Revelations. Spider Man is a slot game from the Marvel Comics series and is one of the most popular superheroes. This slot game was released in December 2007. The sequel Spider Man Revelations was released in December 2008. The wild and scatter symbols are similar in both slots to emphasize their unity but the other symbols are different because of the different adventures. These are clearly brought out in the bonus games. In the Spider Man slot, Spider Man has to defeat the Venom in order to save Mary Jane. In Spider Man Revelations, Spider Man fights Doctor Octopus who has hijacked a train.
The Dungeons and Dragons slots from WagerWorks form yet another pair of original and sequel slot games. The Fortress of Fortunes was the original and Crystal Caverns was the sequel. The characters in both games are from the Wizards of the Coast. In Fortress of Fortunes players have to go through the dungeon collecting treasures and battling monsters and thereby decide the parameters for the free spins round. In Crystal Caverns the excitement is generated through a feature known as tumbling reels. The symbols in a winning payline disappear and fresh symbols tumble in their place giving multiple payouts in each spin.
Rival Gaming is perhaps the master of sequels. A number of its popular i-slots have sequels. There are two slots in Reel Crime, two slots in Cosmic Quest and three slots in As the Reels Turn. Reel Crime 1 deals with a Bank Heist while Reel Crime 2 deals with an Art Heist. Cosmic Quest Episode 1 is Mission Control and Cosmic Quest Episode 2 is Mystery Planets. Though the overall presentation in both Cosmic Quest games is similar the symbols and bonus features are different.
