On Friday, a notorious racketeering enterprise was exposed in San Diego as 47-year-old Tai Khiem Tran admitted to cheating in multiple casinos in California and Canada. Investigators report that Tran and 13 accomplices cheated at the games of blackjack and baccarat between 2002 and 2005. In total, the group is believed to have stolen well over $1 million dollars over the course of these three years.

After admitting his guilt, Tran explained the con to police. He claims the team used card counting devices and paid off casino employees to perform ‘false’ shuffles. These false shuffles couldn’t be easily detected by casino security, but resulted in decks with ‘slugs’ or series of un-shuffled cards. The card counting devices were hidden transmitters that utilized customized software to help predict what the next cards would be.

Over the course of their scam, the team claims to have stolen thousands of dollars at a time from at least five different casinos in California, and one casino in Canada. These casinos were:

- Cache Creek Casino Resort

- Agua Caliente Casino and Spa Resort

- Barona Valley Ranch Resort

- Sycuan Casino

- Pechanga Resort and Casino

- Casino Rama in Orilla, Ontario

Of all of the people connected with the fraud, it is reported that 24 different casinos fell victim to the scam. Tram reports that one particularly lucrative occasion, he effectively walked away with $868,000! While this technology was used in the games baccarat and blackjack, similar devices could be used to con roulette or just some of the best casinos online in particular.

This scam has been compared by many to the well-known events that were carried out by the students from MIT. These students did not have the access to the sophisticated equipment used by Tran and his accomplices, but that did not stop them from reaching the same levels of success. To learn more about the principals behind these strategies, check out our blackjack guide.

Including Tai Khiem Tran, 26 people connected to the case have plead guilty. This includes his immediate team, as well as casino employees. Tran is facing charges of racketeering conspiracy and has already agreed to repay $823,612 is cash, and is going to be relinquishing assets such as his home, jewelry, and a Mercedes Benz. In Canada, he faces separate charges for his crimes committed against Casino Rama. The U.S. attorney’s office said they did not know if Tran is currently represented by a lawyer.

Suited connectors are a very interesting starting hand in no limit Texas hold’em. If you are able to make a hand with them, it will likely be a very strong hand, and one that your opponent will have difficulty putting you on. On the other hand, if suited connectors are played too loosely they can end up costing you a lot of money and crippling your poker bankroll.

What are suited connectors?

Suited connectors are defined as hole cards that are the same suit and are come one after the other in rank. Some examples would be 8-9 of diamonds and 3-4 of spades. The reason suited connectors are appealing hole cards is because they have the best chance of hitting a flush or a straight out of all possible hole cards. In fact, suited connectors between 4-5 and 10-J have the greatest chance of drawing to a strong hand because they have the most possible straights associated with them. Suited cards that are two apart are also considered suited connectors, but these kind of suited connectors have a smaller chance of hitting a straight because the middle card must be hit to have a shot at the straight.

When should I play suited connectors?

Seeing a cheap multi-way flop is the ideal situation for suited connectors. Your hope is to hit the flop and have your small investment pre-flop turn into a large return, but if you miss the flop you can still get out of the hand very cheaply. Limping from early position with suited connectors is risky because there are still many players left to act who can raise the pot to more than you are willing to pay. In late position there is a smaller chance that someone left to act may raise the pot, so you can limp in or call a small raise with more confidence that this investment will actually allow you to see the flop.
Don’t play suited connectors with the short stack.

You will miss the flop the majority of the times you play suited connectors and for this reason you want to ensure that when you do hit the monster you get value out of it, and you can only get value if you have chips to bet. For this reason you should only call with your suited connectors if you have at least 20 times as many chips as you invested, so that you have enough chips to win a big pot if you hit the flop.

How do I get value from my suited connectors?

Suited connectors are often one of the best hands for getting value after you make a strong hand. Your opponents will often find it hard to put your on a hand, especially if you hit the straight. If you hit a straight you can build the pot slowly because the chances of a player drawing out on you are slim. On the other hand if you hit a flush with low suited connectors your hand is vulnerable to a higher flush if another card of the same suit hits. For this reason you should bet out aggressively to try to eliminate any hands could improve past yours and hope that other strong hands which are drawing dead, such as top pair, come along with you.

If you haven’t quite hit your hand yet, but are 4 to a flush or a straight then your table position and your opponents tendencies will greatly affect how you should play the hand. If you are facing a raise you should calculate your outs and determine your pot odds and implied odds when decided whether to call. If it is an aggressive player making the raise you should be more likely to call because if you do manage to hit one of your cards you will likely be able to increase the pot on the turn or river. If the pot was checked to you when you are on the draw you have the option to see the free card or try to take the pot down right away with a semi-bluff. You should consider the tendencies of your opponents when making this decision.

Summary

In conclusion suited connectors have the potential to become a monster hand that is hard for your opponents to detect. However, the majority of the time you will miss the flop and for this reason you want to ensure that when you do play suited connectors, you have a large enough chip stack to win a big pot the times that you do hit. You have to take into account whether you hit a straight or a flush, as well as your table position and opponent’s tendencies when you are trying to gain value from your suited connectors.

You should try to play some suited connectors at PKR by signing up with a PKR Bonus Code.

Choosing a deposit method at online casinos can sometimes be hard for people because of a couple reasons.  Firstly there are a handful of casino deposit options to choose from, some deposit options are not available to certain countries, and a couple of the deposit options may be confusing to some.  Online casino gamblers in North America can now stop worrying about what casino deposit method to choose from, the Instant eCheck casino deposit option is great.  If you are unaware of the Instant eCheck deposit basically it is like using one of your personal checks to deposit.

The online casino will ask you for the information that can be found on one of your checks, such as the bank routing number, and account number.  The amount you have requested to deposit will be taken from your bank electronically and deposited into your casino account.  This deposit method is completely safe, and the casinos don’t have access to your bank account or any information that would make it unsafe.

The casinos sites will often put a deposit limit for your first instant eCheck casino deposit until it has gotten cleared.  Once they are assured that the banking information is correct they will increase your deposit limits.  Depending on the online casino you may also be able to withdrawal using the Instant eCheck method.  The withdrawal with the Instant eCheck will basically be the reverse of the deposit, and the casino will fund your bank account.  This is great for players because they can instantly deposit to the casinos when they choose and withdrawal their winnings right back into their bank accounts.

I have yet to found an easier and more convenient way to deposit at an online casino then the Instant eCheck deposit method.  Depositing using this Instant eCheck method has become a favorite for poker players as well.  The two biggest online poker rooms are offering players to deposit via Instant eChecks and they are getting a large percentage of players using the deposit method.  Unfortunately they aren’t too many online casinos that offer the Instant eCheck deposit method just yet, but two of the top online casinos do offer Instant eChecks as a deposit option - Cherry Red Casino and Rome Casino.  So what are you waiting for, get started with your first Instant eCheck deposit at an online casino!  I am sure you will find using the Instant eCheck deposit option as convenient and easy as I did my first time deposit.

Most new craps players think of craps as a game of chance, a game that revolves around a rolling dice.  The truth is, the dice are simply a necessary mechanism.  The real heart of craps play is in the betting.  There are a wide variety of craps bets and your success depends largely upon which bets you utilize.  If you plan on doing well at craps, you not only need to understand how these bets work, but how much they can help (or hurt) your play.  By betting well you can ensure that you have done everything possible to put the odds in your favor.

Before we begin analyzing craps play, make sure you understand how all the types of craps bets work.  Let us start by examining how we can compare all these bets.  There are a few different parameters that can be used to measure each bet, but no single value is more telling than the house edge (sometimes called the house advantage).  The house edge is the percent advantage the house has over you (the player) each and every time you make a given bet.  The lower the house edge, the fairer the bet.  If a bet had a house edge of 0% it would be perfectly fair.

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As you should already know by now, proposition bets have the highest house edges and therefore have the worst statistical profiles.  Many self-proclaimed craps gurus will tell you that you can play these risky bets by applying a count.  The count is supposed to keep track of hot and cold streaks and keep you only betting while you are winning.  This concept, however, is based in fiction.  The belief that any given dice roll is influenced by the previous rolls is a ‘gamblers fallacy’ and you would be wise to avoid any craps strategy based on a count.

The smartest statistical bet is absolutely the odds bet.  Technically the odds bets payout with fair odds, and therefore have a house edge of 0%.  The caveat to this is the requirement of a line bet before an odds bet can be made.  A don’t pass line bet is already slightly better than a pass line bet and by adding in an odds bet you can get an extremely low house edge: down to a fraction of a percent.  With an odds bet of 100x (rarely allowed) the overall house edge is dropped to .01%.

Just because an odds bet is your safest bet, does not mean it is your best option.  If you only play with the odds bet you are likely to get bored waiting for the point.  Most players probably will get the most out of their game if they use the odds bet as a staple and mix in some of the more exciting bets (such as the field bets or place bets).  By keeping close track of the house edge applied to your bets, you can make sure you always bet in a way that protects your bankroll, while helping it grow.

Full Tilt’s super turbo sit and go’s can be very profitable if you know how to play them properly and take advantage of their structure.  In these tournaments players start with 300 chips and the blinds raise every 3 minutes, starting at 15/30.  They are definitely not your standard SnG tournament especially in regards to stacks and blind levels, however, these types of tournaments can be a very good value for a couple of reasons:

1. The fee is lower than usual. Since the tournaments are so fast the buy-in to fee ratio is better than you can usually find at Full Tilt.  For example a $7 super turbo has a $0.50 fee, which is a little bit lower than the usual 10%.
2. A lot of players think the super turbo’s are lotteries. Players who are on tilt will often play the super turbo’s because they think they are all about luck.  These players come in with chips blazing and will usually push with any medium to good hand.

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Here are 5 tips to make a profit playing the Full Tilt super turbo sit and go’s.

1. All in or fold - Starting with only 10 times the big blind means that you should be pushing your entire stack whenever you want to raise.  If you double up early you can stop pushing, but once the blinds catch up and you are within 10 times the big blind, you should go back to pushing in your entire stack.  Slow playing doesn’t work in this structure because if people have a hand they will call an all in just as easily as they would a minimum raise.  The one time I could see a call being profitable would be if you have a huge hand, like AA or KK in the small blind and there have been no callers in front of you.  A lot of the time the big blind would push on you and you can hopefully double up.

2. Play fairly tight for the first few levels - Since you only start with 10 times the big blind you want to pick when you push.  The tournaments start with 9 players, which lets you see a lot of hands before you should feel the need to move in.  If players start going out and the blinds are coming faster and growing steadily you will have to change the range of hands you will push with.  A common mistake in these super turbo’s is feeling the need to push early and often.   Be patient for the first couple levels and only go all-in with a quality hand.

3. Use your position - Position is extremely important in this format.  A push from the button with no callers in front of you is often made with a hand that would have been an easy fold under the gun.  For example, (K,J) in early position is an easy fold 9-handed, but an easy push from the button.

4. Less Players = Wider Range - As players start to bust out of the tournament your range of hands to push with should grow.  The less players that are left, the greater the chance that your hand is the best at the table.  For example, 9-handed (A,7) doesn’t look so great, but 5-handed it becomes a much stronger hand.

5. Avoid the bubble -This is easier said than done, but 4^th place finishes are just depressing.  If the tournament is down to 5 or 6 players and you have the least chips, this is the time to start to push from good positions with a wider range of hands and hope for the best.  Don’t let yourself blind out.  6^th place awards the same prize money as 4^th.

You can find Full Tilt super turbo sit and go’s with buy-ins anywhere from $3.50 to $70.  Full Tilt offers a great first deposit poker bonus of up to $600.  Take advantage of the bonus with the referral code “PAWSUB989” when signing up for an account at FullTiltPoker.com.

With the rise of Mac computers in households all around the world has come an ever-increasingly larger demand for gambling sites that are compatible with the new Mac OS’s.  Poker rooms like Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars were quick to jump on this popular market demographic, as were online casinos such as Club USA and Rushmore.  Well you can add yet another big name powerhouse to the limited family of Mac-friendly gambling websites - Bodog!

The revamped software has attracted thousands of new players to the site, and with the addition of this “instant play” version available for Mac users, there is no doubt that this will trend will continue on for a long time to come.  Right now, new players can open an account and start playing at Bodog right through their web browser, and instantly open up all the available cash games right at their fingertips.

The only downside that I can see so far is that if you want to play tournaments or sit-and-go’s, you will actually have to use some type of PC Emulator or Boot Camp program on your Mac in order to get the full download version of the Bodog software.  Right now, the “Instant Play” browser version of the Bodog client only allows for cash game play at the moment.  It’s a work in process, but at least it’s definitely a start for one of the most recognized names in the online poker room business.

Check out our other top-rated Mac Poker Rooms.

Hit up the Million Dollar Mission at Bet365 Poker for exclusive prizes in February!

February 2009 is already looking like one of the best months of the year with the “iPoker Raked Hand Cash Race.” But the online poker site at Bet365 Poker - which also has the top-rated Bet365 Sportsbook in its personal gaming arsenal - have now ensured the action will be increased even more from a $400,000 prize pool to an astounding $1,000,000 in their Million Dollar Mission.

As it stands, the top 300 players on the raked hand leaderboard for the month of February are guaranteed a share of that insane prize pool, with the winning players who rack up their raked hands at Bet365’s tables will pocket an additional 250% MORE than if they played at any other iPoker poker room!  If a Bet365 player shows up at the top of the leaderboard, that player’s winnings will jump from $20,000 to a sick $50,000.

Players will find that racking up those hands for the Million Dollar Mission will be even more rewarding with additional Millionth Hand Jackpots. For every one millionth hand dealt from the start of February, participating players at the table will share a jackpot of up to SIX DIMES ($6k for you gambling noobies), just for being apart of the monumentail hand.

Yea, there’s more to read BUT you can always download Bet365 Poker if you get too bored…

Even better, the winner of every Millionth Hand will also have a chance of another prize in the Jackpot Hand Super Showdown. The player with the highest winning hand of all the jackpot winners will pocket a High Hand bonus of $30,000. But don’t worry if your hand isn’t high up the hand ranking list, as there’s also a $20,000 Low Hand Bonus for the winner of the lowest ranked jackpot hand too!

Kate Laverick, Poker Marketing Manager at bet365, commented, “The February Raked Hand Cash Race promises to deliver the most exciting competition and rewarding prizes for online poker this month. And with the additional $600,000 waiting to be won at bet365, poker fans would be crazy to play at any other iPoker site in case they miss out on the extra cash.”

New players can also give their bankroll a boost with a 200% bonus added to their first deposit, up to a whopping $600 free, when they hit the poker tables at Bet365.

In a short press release that was issued to both players and affiliates, Rival Gaming casinos will no longer be allowing Canadian citizens to play on Rival-powered online casinos.

It was a sudden move that was brought upon by the Canadian government’s continuing power push to ban certain online gaming sites from all areas in and around Canada.

Tens of thousands of surprised Canucks found the following statement that was issued via email by Rival Gaming casino websites (the one below was from SlotoCash):

“Dear SlotoCash player,

Unfortunately as from 1st February 2009 all Rival powered casinos will no longer accept residents of Canada.

The decision was made by our Software Provider “Rival Powered Gaming” due to pressure from their Canadian suppliers to cease accepting Canadian residents .”

It is unclear whether this decision will remain permanent or be a case similar to Doyle’s Room Poker, which had left and come back to the United States several times before jumping ship from the Merge Network and finally switching to a more USA-friendly network in the Cake Network earlier this year.

Canucks and Americans are welcome at Sportsbook.com, PlayersOnly, and SuperBook!

Return of Doyles Commences with Weekend Launch Party

This is a press release that was recently announced by the management over at Doyle’s Room Poker:

DoylesRoom.com today announced the worldwide launch of their online poker room on the Cake Poker Network. Since their launch in 2004, the Cake Poker Network has experienced exponential growth and now ranks in the top 3 networks that accept all players on a worldwide basis.

“We wanted to offer our players a rewarding place to play and the liquidity and integrity associated with the Cake Poker Network made this an easy choice for our new partnership.”, says Doyle Brunson ten-time WSOP Champion and the most storied and influential force in the world of poker.

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DoylesRoom is wasting no time in getting down to business on their new network. With doors open to all players from North America and across the globe, DoylesRoom will christen the action with a $5,000 Launch Party Freeroll at 5pm ET on Saturday, January 31st. Poker players won’t have much time to rest as exactly 24 hours later, DoylesRoom will host a $100,000 Guaranteed No-Limit Texas Hold’em tournament with a reduced-fee buy-in of $150+$12 at 5pm on Sunday, February 1st. Visit www.DoylesRoom.com for details.

With this blockbuster move to the world’s hottest poker network, DoylesRoom is more committed than ever to poker players from every corner of the planet. Bigger guarantees, more players, and ironclad integrity and security backed by the most respected name in the gaming industry.

For more information about the only online poker room to proudly bear the legendary Doyle Brunson’s name and to download the software for free.

PlayersOnly.com has announced a pretty sweet deal for this year’s Super Bowl at their online sportsbook - they’re giving bettors a chance to multiply their winning bet by 10x by playing a special poker tournament after the Super Bowl. This is huge for everyone - even $50 wins can quickly turn into $500 pay-days if you take advantage of this offer. Also, there is even an opportunity for players to recoup their losing Super Bowl bets. Here are all the details:

For starters, you simply need to place a spread wager on the Super Bowl game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Then, on Super Bowl Sunday, just kick back, relax, and enjoy the game with your boys.

Your real work comes on Monday - you’ll have to log onto the PlayersOnly.com poker room and register for the ‘Super Bowl - Win 10x Your Bet’ poker freeroll, which starts at 11:00 PM ET. Then, use your sick poker strategy skills to win the tournament (or at least place in the top 20 finishers). If you come in at least 20th place,  your winning OR losing bet will be affected. Here’s how the pay scale works out:

As you can see, if you take first place your winning bet will be multiplied by 10x (up to $1,000), or your losing bet will be returned (up to $1,000). This is a sweet deal!

Also, make sure to note that the Super Bowl poker tournament is free, so you really have no excuse for not making your Super Bowl bet this year at PlayersOnly.com.

Sign up at PlayersOnly via this link for a 10% bonus on your 1st deposit!

PlayersOnly.com is one of our favorite online sportsbooks, as they’ve been in business for over 10 years now and are one of the most trusted brands in the industry. Their brand now offers poker, casino, sports betting, and horse betting all from one platform. This is extremely convenient for multi-game players, as you’ll only need one account for all of your gambling needs.

PlayersOnly is also USA friendly, so you don’t have any worries about depositing from the United States. In fact, the site rewards all players for depositing, because PlayersOnly Promo Codes provide players with 10% bonuses on sportsbook, casino, and horse betting deposits, and 100% up to $650 bonuses on poker deposits (these bonuses apply to first time deposits only).