Casinos

Right when all these cool new poker programs come out, I've decided to play something other than poker.

In case you don't know, I've heard great things about PokerAce HUD, which apparently works very similar to Playerview.net and Gametime+. The advantages of PokerAce HUD are that it's free, and it will graphically show you mucked cards at showdown on the screen! The disadvantage is that it only works on the Party skins so far.

Meanwhile, PokerTracker is being updated regularly, and it now uses PostgreSQL databases (instead of Access) if you want to give it a try (check out the PokerTracker forums for details). I don't know what PostgreSQL is exactly, but it's supposedly a lot faster.

Gametime+ also has a version that's compatible with PostgreSQL.

But despite all this great stuff, I've gone to the dark side of the force.

Casino gambling. Blackjack. Negative EV.

These are supposed to be the games for suckers, the games where the house wins. These are supposed to be games that only losers play who can't control their gambling impulses so they hope to get lucky in the short term, knowing that over time, their luck cannot possibly hold because the house almost always wins in the end.

But wait! There's a lot of free money out there! Free money? Yes, free money! Casinos are happy to hand out bonus money that make blackjack +EV if you follow the rules.

Here are the rules:

1) Follow the blackjack strategy chart religiously.

2) Cash out as soon as you clear the bonus.

3) Understand that you should only play a game when you think you have an edge, and in blackjack, you only have an edge if you're getting a bonus that's significantly more than the expected variance during the workthru period.

Obviously, I'm a novice at all this. For a much better guide on how to casino whore, go to this post from Sound of a Suckout, which is a great poker blog anyway.

Free money!