January 19, 2006
The rules at the tigergaming .net table are simple. None of the tigergaming gamers are allowed to bring their burdens - it's all good fun, and only fun. If someone's cell phone rings, a player has only 30 seconds to talk before returning to the tigergaming net game. But the players will break for "deuce runs" or trips to McDonald's to spend earnings on double cheeseburgers. Finally, the World Series will see another foreign born player win the World Championship, like the current reigning champion, Australia's Joseph Hachem. Expect that player from tigergaming net to come from the burgeoning poker realm of Europe and, more specifically, from the Nordic region, perhaps Denmark, the Netherlands or Norway, where the players have an attacking style and ice in their veins! As the World Series ends, expect it to crush the tigergaming bounty that was 2005 in both number of players and purses awarded (it will break $200 million in 2006).
It is with lament that the World Poker Tour may not make a return to the Aviation Club de France and the Champs Elysees for the only WPT tigergaming .net tournament conducted in Europe. With the World Series pushed to its late June start and conclusion in mid-August, the traditional mid-July tigergaming championship at the Aviation Club may be bereft of the big names that it has drawn in the past. The Crystal Ball says that it might take a tremendous rescheduling for the WPT to return to the City of Lights and, thus, 2005 could have been the last time we'll see the cream of Tigergaming's European players vie for such a prestigious championship on American television. This is unfortunate but, alas, it is part of the growth of the game. At some point (hopefully!) in your tigergaming poker career, it is a situation that you will face. Whether playing in a small online tournament at tigergaming .net or one of the World Poker Tour or World Series of Poker events, do you play for the win or do you play for the best cashout possible? While many would say that their goal is to play tigergaming net for the win, once finding themselves in the position to make more than they spent on the tournament, their play indicates otherwise.
I was faced with this situation just the other evening in a rather large online tigergaming tournament. The bubble had just burst, leaving around 190 online poker players with a shot at the five figure first place prize. While my chip stack hovered around the median, I knew it was going to be a tough battle to get any great distance up the cashout ladder. With the blinds at 400/800 and in the big blind, everyone folded to the small blind, who went all in with a larger stack than myself. I looked at the tigergaming net screen, which held my pocket nines, and quickly thought about the situation. I had said to myself that if one of the smaller stacks made the move, I was automatically calling. With the small blind's larger stack, however, I now had to think a little more on the subject.
If my opponent was pushing with an A-K or something similar (A-Q or A-J), I was facing one of those races that are always filled with excitement and dread. If he had one of the five hands that clearly beat me (pocket Aces through tens), then I was at a serious disadvantage. However, if he was on a pair lower than me or a paint card with a random second, I was dominating the situation. After all this tigergaming review, I decided to make the call and, as my tigergaming opponent's pocket fours came into view, felt I had made the right decision. After he spiked his four on the turn and my abrupt departure from the tournament, I did beat myself up with the possibilities. Not 20 minutes into a No Limit Texas Hold'em Tigergaming .net poker tournament at the Granite Bowl bar and grill here, State Senator Mike McGinn pushed his entire pile of chips into the tigergaming pot. State Senator Dave Kleis hardly hesitated before following suit, and State Representative Tom Hackbarth quickly joined the "all in" chorus. "No wonder we've got budget problems at the state," cracked their colleague, State Senator Brian LeClair, who had folded his own cards long before.
"Well, it's other people's money," Mr. McGinn said of the taxes that fill state coffers. "It's kind of the same thing." Actually, the eight tigergaming lawmakers gathered around the green felt here on Saturday afternoon, all but one Republicans, were not playing tigergaming.net for money at all, but for T-shirts proclaiming, "Poker is Not a Crime" - and to make a point. Betting with chips that had been seized last summer in a police raid on the Granite Bowl's free weekly tigergaming net poker tournaments, they came to support a bill sponsored by Mr. Kleis, who represents St. Cloud, that would explicitly legalize Texas Hold'em (but not other forms of poker) so long as prizes do not top $200.
