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State Seeks To Close Poker Loophole Charitable Organizations Use Tournaments To Raise Money
Published: 2005-04-22
 State Seeks To Close Poker Loophole
Charitable Organizations Use Tournaments To Raise Money
POSTED: 11:08 am EDT April 22, 2005
CONCORD, N.H. -- The state wants a better hand in Texas Hold 'em poker tournaments.
Attorney General Kelly Ayotte wants to close a loophole that some charities are exploiting.
"Charitable gaming is regulated by charitable trusts (within the Attorney General's Office) and there is a $2 limit wager, but with Texas Hold 'em, there are ways to get around the law," she said this week.
"We recognize it is a concern," she said. "They are using a loophole in the law. We are trying to do everything we can," she told Gov. John Lynch. "I do think the law needs to be tightened, and we have been discussing this with the Legislature."
In Texas Hold 'em, players are dealt two cards each and can use five community cards flipped over in the middle of the table to make the best hand. Players can risk everything on a single turn of a card.
New Hampshire's gaming law has a $2 bet limit, but tournament promoters get around that by assigning no monetary value to the poker chips.
Charitable organizations throughout New Hampshire are raising money by sponsoring poker tournaments where $5,000 is typically the top prize, enough to draw hundreds of card players -- and leaving some legislators wondering whether the state should share in the jackpot.
"I'm not suggesting that we tax the winners," said Rep. Neal M. Kurk, R-Weare. "We need to take a good serious look at whether promoters may be taking an unacceptably large portion of the gross and charities are not getting enough. It seems we've increased the amount of revenue by an order of magnitude, and we need to look at that as an issue."
About 30 charities have filed applications to hold poker tournaments in Derry, Keene, Pembroke, Laconia and a half-dozen other communities, said Audrey Blodgett of the Attorney General's Office of Charitable Trusts.
The charities must report to the state the prizes awarded, expenses paid and revenue raised, but there is no state oversight of the games. Permits are obtained from local police.
In Manchester, the tournaments have been held at the Manchester Bingo Center, sponsored by On the Road to Recovery, a charity that helps the mentally disabled.
Under her contract with the promoters, Andrea Tinkham, executive director of On the Road to Recovery, agreed to pay "50 percent of all net proceeds," after prizes and expenses, to S&T Consultants Inc., the bingo center's managers. She said her charity made an average of $2,500 for each of its 10 poker nights, supplementing the organization's annual state allocation of about $177,000.
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Playing Poker - Betting the Wrong Amount in No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments
Published: 2005-04-22
 Playing Poker - Betting the Wrong Amount in No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments (22.04.2005)
Lots of tournament players play their “A” games for an hour or so — until they can’t stand it any
longer. “There are a lot of players in tournaments who don’t have an ‘A’ game,” T.J. Cloutier
stated. “In the long run, the weaker players are going to make calls and plays that are so far out
of line that they don’t have a chance to win the tournament.” In simple terms, the player who makes
the fewest mistakes in no-limit Texas hold’em is the one who makes the most money.
It is particularly important in tournament play to recognize leaks in your game and correct them as
completely and quickly as possible. The top pros understand that playing mistake-free poker is
their ticket to the top. Sometimes, however, we all have lapses in concentration and make mistakes
that can become fatal flaws, especially in freezeout tournaments, in which you cannot buy more
chips when you lose your stack. One of the fatal flaws that co-author Don Vines and I discuss in
our upcoming book, How to Win No-Limit Hold’em Tournaments, is betting the wrong amount — too much
or too little — in no-limit hold’em tournaments.
Betting too much:
When you push your chips into the pot, always ask yourself, “What is the purpose of my bet?” When
you bet too much, people are often suspicious. “There’s only $100 in the pot and he’s betting
$1,000. Why is he betting so much?” they wonder. Quite often when you overbet the pot, your purpose
is to shut out people when you have a marginal hand that you think might be the best hand — but
just in case it isn’t, you’re praying, “Please don’t call me.”
We often see someone in late position grossly overbet the pot with a hand such as pocket sevens.
They bet several times the size of the pot because they want everybody to fold. The only problem
with that type of play is that they are likely to see one of two outcomes: They will either win a
small pot or lose a very big pot. If they get called, they’re almost always going to be up against
a better hand. We’ve even seen players routinely overbet the pot in tournaments with hands like A-6
offsuit. Anytime we see players overbet the pot (or underbet the pot, for that matter), their play
indicates to us that they probably are inexperienced players.
Here’s a fix for this flaw: If you raise the pot the same amount every time that you are first to
act, your opponents will have trouble putting you on a hand. We suggest raising three to four times
the size of the big blind if you plan on raising.
Betting too little:
Suppose you are playing in a medium-limit tournament and the blinds are $50-$100. A player comes
into the pot for $200, exactly twice the size of the big blind. Your first reaction to his bet
is, “Uh-oh, a limit hold’em player.” Or, if you know the raiser is a seasoned no-limit hold’em
tournament player, you might think, “He wants me to play. He has a big hand and wants to entice
some action on it.” Most of the time, however, a double-the-big-blind bet simply indicates that the
bettor is a novice player who doesn’t know any better.
One of the worst plays we see new players or low-limit online players make is this: Two or three
players have entered the pot for the minimum bet and the novice raises to exactly double the size
of the big blind. This is a raise that will not drive anybody out of the pot. Instead, it will
reopen the betting for anybody at the table who wants to reraise. If someone has sandbagged (slow-
played) a strong hand or believes the raiser’s hand is a bit weak, he often will make a big reraise
and take the pot away from the original raiser right there. The original raiser has not
accomplished anything with his double bet except lose money on the hand.
Here’s one way to fix this flaw: Raise three to four times the size of the big blind. If callers
are already in the pot, add one increment for each caller up to three. For example, if three
players are in the pot, raise six to seven times the big blind.
One of the common consequences of betting too little is that players let drawing hands get into the
pot too cheaply. It’s like they have a limit hold’em mentality, betting just double the size of the
big blind even on the flop. Suppose they have A-J. The flop comes J-10-3 with two diamonds. They
probably have the best hand, but this is a coordinated flop. Say there’s $100 in the pot and they
decide to bet $20 or $30. Now, they’re making it profitable for anybody with any kind of reasonable
draw, including an inside-straight draw with an overcard, to take off a card (call the bet).
Depending on the size of the pot, I like to make a pot-sized bet. I don’t want to overbet, because
occasionally I might run into a bigger hand. But, I want to make it costly enough that the marginal
hands will leave. If you were to always bet the size of the pot when you thought you had the best
hand on the flop and wanted to protect it, and you did no other type of betting, you probably would
be right about 90 percent of the time.
Information von Richard Honegger
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