"Tyrone Slothrop" wrote

I suggest
downloading the commercial version of UofAlberta's Poki
(http://www.poker-academy.com/), and giving it a go yourself.

Is it the "Poker Academy Pro" Trial you are suggesting? Or the paid
version?

Can someone suggest a site for me to play for free or with "play money"?

I have not played in over 20 years, in fact we would do "Tuesday Night with
the Boys" nothing serious at all. However, I'd like to explore a good, safe,
free
poker site. Any suggestions? TIA.

--Duncan

True, Paul. Mike's was just a bad analogy.

Chess is just something people don't fond interesting, largely because they
don't understand it. A good analogy would be a math competition. How many
people would find advance math competitions interesting? Very few, I guess.

Something worth pointing out:

In any park where chess is being played, the blitz games are the only ones
that attract spectators. I'll let others interpret that any way they want...

--
Irvin
-------------------------
http://www.pixel69.com


"Paul Rubin" wrote in message
...
(Mike Nolan) writes:
The reason poker is so popular is because most average players think they
can beat the pros, and if their luck is good they can. In chess, it
becomes brutally clear to fish that the top players are going to prevail
99.99% of the time. I might be able to beat Doyle Brunson in a few hours
of hold-em every now and then, I don't stand a chance against a top GM.

Ehhh, most people know they'd get crushed in an hour of one-on-one
basketball with Shaq O'Neal, but they still like watching basketball.

On 1 Feb 2006 06:50:26 -0800, "LiamToo" wrote:

Poker players can shout, dance,
sing, whatever, at the table and it's all part of the fun. Can we do
all of these in chess?

Once or twice.

Mike Murray wrote:
On 1 Feb 2006 06:50:26 -0800, "LiamToo" wrote:

Poker players can shout, dance,
sing, whatever, at the table and it's all part of the fun. Can we do
all of these in chess?

Once or twice.

At least 10 times in the course of a 7-day tournament.

Duncan Oxley wrote:
"Tyrone Slothrop" wrote

I suggest
downloading the commercial version of UofAlberta's Poki
(http://www.poker-academy.com/), and giving it a go yourself.

Is it the "Poker Academy Pro" Trial you are suggesting? Or the paid
version?

Can someone suggest a site for me to play for free or with "play money"?

I have not played in over 20 years, in fact we would do "Tuesday Night with
the Boys" nothing serious at all. However, I'd like to explore a good, safe,
free poker site. Any suggestions? TIA.

--Duncan

I play at www.fulltiltpoker.com

I practiced a lot in the "play money" section first. When I finally
played with real money, I only entered the $4.00 entry fee tournaments
initially. In these tourneys, there will be at least 500 players so the
prize pool is $2,000.00, which is not bad for an entry fee of $4.00. I
was in the money in a lot of these small tourneys.

Try it and have fun!

I wrote:
In Sam Sloan's book on Chinese Chess, he described
the atmosphere of the game as being quite different
from that at a European chess event. Evidently, there
was a lot of crowd participation. Perhaps we need to
be more like the Chinese.

_
Nick wrote (31 Jan 2006 19:15:46 -0800):

If 'you' were perceived as 'more like the Chinese',
then 'you' would experience more racist stereotyping,
condescension, prejudice, and hatred in the West.

Until a few years ago, I would hear some Western
chess players saying (with varying degrees of
euphemism) that it must be impossible for any
Chinese players ever to play chess as well as
strong Western GMs.
_
By the way, Chinese teams have dominated the
recent International Mathematical Olympiads.

_
Does Nick deny the existence of differences of
custom and culture between Europe and China?
If not, is there a way to refer to such differences
without someone feeling obliged to start talking
about "racist stereotyping, condescension,
prejudice, and hatred"?

LiamToo wrote:
I wonder if there's a Chinese poker?

Mahjongg.

Irvin wrote (Wed, 01 Feb 2006 16:24:00 GMT):

Chess is just something people don't fond
interesting, largely because they don't
understand it.

_
Do people watch Shogi or Go games in Japan?

In article ,
says...
True, Paul. Mike's was just a bad analogy.

Chess is just something people don't fond interesting, largely because they
don't understand it. A good analogy would be a math competition. How many
people would find advance math competitions interesting? Very few, I guess.

Something worth pointing out:

In any park where chess is being played, the blitz games are the only ones
that attract spectators. I'll let others interpret that any way they want...


This is what I mentioned in the original post...something about speeding
up the time limits. And I've read smattering of posts suggesting the
same thing. But of course the "skill" level also has to be considered as
well.

Someone mentioned that Crazyhouse would favor the arbitrary player and
I've been thinking about that comment. If that's true...maybe blitz
crazyhouse would get interest. Since Crazyhouse doesn't require
theoretical knowledge to play...it suddenly evens out the odds of
beating even the pros at this. For example...I've been unable to beat
the computer at regular chess but at crazyhouse rules...it gives me a
better chance to beat it..and I've been successful at Crazyhouse. You
don't need book knowledge to play crazyhouse. Everytime I've played
crazyhouse on ICS at 5 minute limits...I've been winning.

The same thing for Fischer Random chess...no theory required...book
knowledge out the window...and this also evens out the odds against even
the best in the world. Everytime I've personally asked a GM to play me
OTB using Fischer Random chess...they refused. They called it
"childish" "kid's play"...but I think differently. I think these GMs who
are so good at book theoretical knowledge would be afraid to try Fischer
Random against a reasonably experienced club player...like myself. It
would mean...they could LOSE.

So I think Fischer Random, Crazyhouse chess with blitz time limits would
increase interest in chess because it's fast, exciting and without
theoretical knowledge...anybody can play and have a good chance to beat
the pros. Just my opinion.

Duncan Oxley wrote:
"Tyrone Slothrop" wrote

I suggest
downloading the commercial version of UofAlberta's Poki
(http://www.poker-academy.com/), and giving it a go yourself.

Is it the "Poker Academy Pro" Trial you are suggesting? Or the paid
version?

I am recommending the paid version. That is what I own and train with.
It may be that the free trial is the same thing but stops working
after a limited time, however I have no experience with the free trial
version. Download it and see!

I do have experience with Poki's only real competitor from Wilson
Software. I recommend against Wilson as the University of Alberta's
Artificial Intelligence lab has come up with a much stronger product,
and the prior weak areas where Wilson shined have all been addressed in
the 2.0 version of Poker Academy Pro (Poki). Besides, Poki continues to
be worked on as an ongoing research program at the University of
Alberta, and one could reasonably expect the AI in subsequent versions
to get only stronger and stronger.

Forget all of the so-called "tournament poker" software you find at the
local computer store. They are cheap software for the masses -- sort
of like buying a no-name chess program for your kids because it is
$9.95 instead of Fruit 2.2.1 or something from Chessbase.

By then way, training with Poki is a bit like training with a table of
good tournament (or money) poker players. You are not playing with
Doyle Brunson, but then most poker players don't need to be to improve!

Can someone suggest a site for me to play for free or with "play money"?

Two of the largest poker sites are pokerstars (www.pokerstars.com) and
partypoker (www.partypoker.com). Both of these sites have
no-obligation "play money" tables you can practice on. I would not
however recommend such free sites as Yahoo! Games. The players there
don't even pretend to be serious about the game and the play can be
incredibly poor and indifferent.

If you practice with play money and then move to low-limit poker, you
will find that the tables are very loose. In general, players play
tighter when there is more real money at stake. This *significantly*
affects the strategy. I would suggest a good low-limit book to
accompany your first foray at the table. My favorite these days is
"Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play" by Ed Miller. In
my opinion, this is a better book, and more (mathematically) sound than
the older low-limit Hold'Em standby by Lee Jones, "Winning Low-Limit
Hold'em". Stick with Ed Miller's book and get no others until you have
completely digested it and got the LL game mastered. The ruin of any
poker player is buying too many books at one time and getting confused.
I've even heard tournament players say that they love to play against
players who have "just read" a new book! This is not to say books are
bad. They are great! But it always takes time to adjust your game to
the new information and fit it into your own style.

I have not played in over 20 years, in fact we would do "Tuesday Night with
the Boys" nothing serious at all. However, I'd like to explore a good, safe,
free poker site. Any suggestions? TIA.

I suggest both pokerstars and partypoker. These are both now
billion-dollar enterprises that have a strong incentive ($$$) to keep
the game as clean as possible so as to keep player confidence up.