The Poker Lab Rat

How Good is your Poker? Do you Rate?

Poker is a game with worldwide recognition and a massive field of elite players. A new ranking system, recently introduced at popular Carbon Poker, aims to give players a credible reference on their overall poker skills. The rankings help players to set themselves goals and to monitor play progress better than factors such as “bankroll growth” or “number of hands played” (time-in). It also gives you another statistically based method to “stick it to the little guy” (bragging rights).

This poker ranking system is based on the ELO rating system, a world-class official system popular for ranking international Chess players that has also been adapted for player ratings at some sports. 

The ELO rating system ranks poker players by assigning a base numerical score, with wins and losses adjusting the score as you play. ELO rewards strong play against tough opponents, and penalizes bad play against weak opponents.

This is a long-term fully automated promotion on the Merge Gaming Network (Carbon Poker) and is available to all players.

Here is a typical example provided by by the team at Carbon Poker on how the new player ranking system works:

A player in a bounty tournament with a below-average ELO score may eliminate a player with a high ELO score. Because the high-ranking player is effectively judged as a stronger competitor, the low-ranking player is awarded more points, because they defeated a player far above their determined skill level. Alternatively, If the high-ranking player eliminates a weak player, they will still earn points, but not nearly as many because the ELO system has ranked them as an easy opponent based on their playing history.

For this reason, the ELO system can be used effectively by any player regardless of their time commitment to the game. It rewards quality of play (defeating tough opponents, avoiding eliminations) above quantity of tournaments and number of bounties claimed. While tournament place isn’t a factor in calculating ELO scores, the top players will generally progress to the later stages of the tournament, and therefore this is where all the top points are found.

To rate highly in CarbonPoker.com’s ELO system, you need to perform well with both eliminations and tournament placings. Check out the basics on site at Carbon Poker so you understand the mathematics - e.g. For every 3 consecutive days that a bounty event is not played, players will have their ELO rating decayed by 15 points.

The ELO system works across all Bounty tournaments and Sit n’ Gos, and every player is automatically registered for an ELO score. Play as many or as little Bounty games as you like and track your progress via ‘Player Admin’ throughout each month.

ELO points start at 1500 each month, and the highest ranking players at the end of the month will receive leaderboard prizes of cash and tournament entry coupons as well as player acolades. The counters are reset as each month rolls over.
Check out the Bounty Grand Master promotion at Carbon Poker if you want to know just how good your poker skills are.

For more information on this US-friendly poker site read the latest independent player review for Carbon Poker onsite at PokerLabRat.com.

New bill to stop implementation of unworkable UIGEA regulations 

New legislation - H.R.5767 - introduced by House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank and Republican presidential aspirant Ron Paul, if approved, will effectively curtail the further operation of the UIGEA.

According to a statement from Frank and Paul, HR 5767 introduced this week seeks to prohibit the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Treasury secretary from “proposing, prescribing, or implementing any regulation that requires the financial services industry to identify and block Internet gambling transactions.”

Both Congressmen claim the UIGEA unduly infringes upon personal freedoms. “The ban on Internet gambling infringes upon two freedoms that are important to many Americans: the ability to do with their money as they see fit, and the freedom from government interference with the Internet,” Representative Paul said.

And on the same subject but from a different source, it is great to hear the professional players getting stuck into this crazy political situation:

According to a recent article in April’s Bluff Magazine, four proposed bills are currently “floating through” Congress that could help legitimize online poker in the United States. Howard Lederer (on the board of directors of the Poker Players Alliance) is quoted as saying that he “believes that poker players will get some tangible results by the end of next year”.

Howard Lederer, Chris Fergusson, Barry Greenstein, Chris Moneymaker, Annie Duke, Andy Bloch and Vanessa Rousso were among the top professionals as members of the Poker Players Association, that met individually with about fifty members of Congress.

Roussou is quoted as saying “I found that the majority of Congress people are actually misinformed on what poker is. They see the old image of smokey backroom gambling.”

“When politicians see a losing proposition, they will abandon it”, Lederer said. “Once we accomplish some sort of national regulatory framework for online poker, I don’t think the PPA is going anywhere. You look at the National Rifle Association or Christian Rights groups, and once they have success they don’t just disengage. I would imagine poker players will be active for some time to come.”  (The PPA has a membership over 900,000 members - and you can join too!) 

“The bottom line is if poker isn’t a game of skill then I’ve been getting lucky for 36 years” Robert Williamson III

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) is an American nonprofit Interest group formed to “to speak with one voice to promote poker, and to protect the players’ rights. The PPA aims to get laws such as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 overturned either through political or judicial means.

If you’re US based and looking for a good safe online poker room, check out the latest comparison of the top poker sites for Americans at PokerLabRat.com. 

Despite financial institutions admitting that implementing measures required under the new American ‘anti online gambling’ legislation are verging on impossible, especially without further definition and clarification, some USA based poker players are still struggling to deposit and cash out from their favorite online poker rooms.

The team at PokerLabRat.com understands that a number of previously viable poker deposit methods such as ePassporte are now no longer options for US players. We have therefore developed a summary of poker deposit options at each of the US Player-friendly poker sites that we review and recommend. It may be of assistance to you when you’re deciding which site to join to build that bankroll!

Carbon Poker
With it’s friendly support team in Australia, Carbon Poker offers a couple of reliable payment methods that may suit you, namely: Fonelinx (pre-paid phonecard poker deposits), eWalletExpress (a US-friendly online wallet) and EcoCard Poker Deposits (another branded e-Wallet that takes US customers). Visa and mastercard deposit options are also available for US Players at Carbon Poker - but it really depends on your bank. Prepaid Visa cards are also a viable option for US online poker deposits if your bank does not play ball and let you use your usual Visa account for poker.

Carbon Poker has a good reputation for efficient, no B.S. processing of cash outs to American poker players. If you’re not a member yet at Carbon Poker, use the bonus code FIRST1K for a 200% to $500 join bonus.

Full Tilt Poker
This serious-money poker room requires some serious-money deposit solutions for its huge contingent of US-based players.

Moneygram is apparently the easiest (and cheapest) way to make large deposits at FullTiltPoker.com. Players just need to set up an account then e-mail the Full Tilt Poker customer suppoert team who’ll send instructions to make each deposit a nice discrete, hassle free transaction. Pre-paid visa cards are recommended by Full Tilt Poker for smaller deposits. If you reference the referral code GOG when you sign-up you’re eligible for the maximum deposit bonus available of $600.

Bodog Poker
Bodog offers an amazing online digital entertainment site specifically targeted at USA residents. Formerly Canadian based, Bodog’s popular sportsbook is focused on US-sports betting, their online poker has $5 Million in guaranteed tournament prizes a month and the Bodog Casino has excellent blackjack, video poker and even some slots worth a look if you’re that way inclined…
 
Deposit Methods at Bodog Poker that work well for US based players include eWalletExpress (an online wallet that takes USA residents) and Instant Check/eCheck (instant bank transfers). Depositing a Check by mail is also an option. Apparently Bodog is currently one of the easiest poker sites (and Sportsbooks and Casinos) for Americans to deposit with and they take cash outs pretty seriously with a great team onboard to process these ASAP. Bodog Poker’s latest bonus for new players is 110% to $550.

For more information on each of these Poker rooms for American players use the links above to visit them directly or:

Read the latest detailed poker room reviews of each of these US-friendly sites: 
>>Review of Carbon Poker
>>Review of Full Tilt Poker
>>Review of Bodog Poker

Compare the US friendly poker rooms on one page here at PokerLabRat.com

If you’ve always wanted an easy way to relive those poker hands of the past or a more personalised poker experience, check out the latest software release at Doyles Room.

This week popular online poker room, Doyles Room, has upgraded their poker platform with a major revamp. Not just “tweaks” either, this one’s a major coup that in our view positions Doyles Room as one of the very best sites to play poker!

The new feature we like the best is the ability to replay poker hands from your play history. Relive them to analyse, or show off - we don’t care - just check it out.

We also like the new ability to resize and more readily tile tables for multiple table play. Excellent.

Doyles Room also now lets you customize stuff…like, uploading your own avatars, changing the colour of the table felt and even the poker room floor to make a personalized poker room on your own PC.

Other stuff has changed too so check it out.

If you’re already a member at Doyles Room, upgrade to the new poker software by opening your game client and the system will automatically do the rest.

If you’ve not tried Doyles Room poker yet, Download and experience how the game is meant to be played - the software is free.

Mike 

PS: Doyles Room may still not - in your view - offer THE most advanced or even THE BEST PLAY EXPERIENCE on the net, lots of this stuff is subjective - but it is pretty damned good poker software and the 500,000+ active players on the Microgaming Poker Network can’t be all wrong! I personally like what Carbon Poker has going down too…

Doyles Room is a lead member of the Microgaming Poker Network and is endorsed by poker greats like Doyle Brunson and Mike Caro. For more read the latest Doyles Room Poker Review here at PokerLabRat.com.

Poker players from around the world including 39 States of the USA are welcome at Doyles Room 

It just gets better - Carbon Poker has done it again. They’ve released a cool new feature that no other online poker site has yet to offer… and it’s a good one!

I guess that being a smaller bespoke online poker network without any of the  baggage and hype that some of the more “brand heavy” poker sites suffer means that Carbon Poker can lead, not follow, when it comes to software tweaks and enhancements.  Generally these come in 3 categories: ”Wow, cool”,  ”nice to have” and “we’d better have that too”.

In Carbon Poker’s latest software release (version 4.3) they’re the very first room to offer “Deal it Twice” in online poker!  (And that’s a “Wow, cool” by our standards - and we’re confident that other poker sites will be battling each other in the race to develop this feature ASAP)

Deal it Twice? Huh?

Deal it Twice: You get the chance in 2-player, all-in situations in certain ring games, to deal both turn and river cards twice. Here’s Phil from Carbon Poker with an example:

“Two players can go all-in after the flop - one player with a made hand, and the other with a draw. The players must both agree to deal it twice, with each deal worth half of the pot. The player with the made hand wants to take less risk of being drawn out on (assuming the opponent has a draw), and the drawing player wants more chances to hit”.

He says “This technique is becoming very popular, and you can see it employed in many live high stakes cash games”.  (So it’s great for budding late night high stakes television poker fans…)

Oh, yeah, what else is new at Carbon Poker?

They’ve added or enhanced features associated with Bounty Tournaments, their Bad Beat Jackpot, and Shootout Tournaments.

For a detailed review and rating of Carbon Poker check our PokerLabRat.com or visit them via any of the links on this page for the latest join bonuses and promotional offers.

Here’s a quick note of congratulations from Carbon Poker…

Caribbean Stud - 100% Jackpot winner!
Sunday, February 10, 2008

It’s been a long time coming, but Carbon Poker’s ultimate Caribbean Stud jackpot has finally been won! The prize has always been sitting at approximately $50,000 and has seen a number of players take off a few chunks every so often - normally 10% for a straight flush. However, the jackpot always built right back up, and the inevitable has happened.

The winner is tazdog2, who plays the full range of CarbonPoker’s games, from Texas Hold’em to Roulette. This time, his experience across the software paid off in spades! Picking up a Royal Flush in the hand, Ten to Ace of Hearts, the jackpot payout came to a total of $51,354.18. Considering the bet was only $3, with a progressive jackpot bet of 20 cents, it’s not a bad profit at all.

Congratulations tazdog2, today you are a champion!

– Phil @ carbonpoker

Players from around the world are welcome at Carbon Poker including Americans from all States. Check out the latest Carbon Poker review here at PokerLabRat.com.

Ever player poker on a heart shaped table? Ever wanted to?

I personally haven’t felt the need. I have, however, always liked the elegantly simple layout of Carbon Poker’s navy blue table…Anyways, the crew at Carbon Poker just couldn’t resist laying on some of the frilly girlie pink stuff and consider Valentine’s Day is not just for lovers - it’s for poker players too.

Carbon Poker’s special February Heart Attack promotion will be offering players over $30,000 in freerolls (and they are smart enough to offer both Euro and US friendly start times).

There will be daily Heart Breaker Poker Tournaments, with a prize pool of $500 on weekdays and $1000 on Saturday and Sunday’s throughout February. On Valentine’s Day there will be a special $5,000 prize pool.

Now here’s another weird bit (as if heart shaped poker tables & cupid backed playing cards wasn’t enough): Half of each prize pool is paid as usual, but the other half will be paid to the top five players with the most consecutive hearts hole cards during the tournament. A leaderboard will run during the tournament so you can see how your streak of hole card hearts is stacking up against the rest of the field. The top five will be paid out 1st - 40%, 2nd - 24%, 3rd - 18%, 4th - 12% and 5th - 6%.

Easy. OK, well, I guess this is at least a unique twist on the usual Valentine’s celebrations - and probably one you should take advantage of!

Click here if you’re not yet a member at Carbon Poker or to find out more about this freeroll series.  Get really to add some February tournament dates in your poker diary!

This dude is GOOD! Howard Lederer has claimed one of the most prestigious titles in tournament poker, the Aussie Millions $100K No-Limit Hold‘em Main event.

Lederer out-played what many would consider an elite field of 25 top poker professionals, that included fellow members of Team Full Tilt* Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, and John Juanda.

Having entered the final table as one of the short stacks, Lederer demonstrated great patience and timing to slowly accumulate chips to become the chip leader with just three competitors remaining. After starting heads-up play with a 2-1 chip advantage over second-place finisher Mark Teltscher, it took more than and an hour of heads-up play to take out the title and the $1.25 million first-place prize.

The final hand pitted Lederer’s two pair of Aces and Jacks against Teltschers two pair of 7s and 8s.

The victory is the largest single tournament payday Lederer has ever earned, bringing his career tournament earnings to nearly $5 million.

For the latest tips and poker advice from Howard Lederer

*Team Full Tilt is a select group professional poker players, including Gus Hansen, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Andy Bloch, Phil Gordon, John Juanda, Mike Matusow, Clonie Gowen, Jennifer Harman and Allen Cunningham who have collectively won 32 WSOP bracelets.

Full Tilt Poker offers all players the opportunity to learn, chat and play poker with the best poker professionals in the game.

Full Tilt accepts players from around the world including the USA and has a growing reputation for some of the best cash game poker on the Internet.

For online poker players who like it busy, the ultra popular Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) is kicking off again - for the seventh time - in the first week of February 2008.

This is the poker series where players vie for more than just big money - bragging rights are reinforced with special gold avatars for your future play at Full Tilt. There’s no mistaking winners at this poker room (unless of course you’re playing in race track view especially to avoid the lizards, bulldogs and American footballers that fill the tables. Yawn.)

Play at FullTilt Poker these days, however, is far from ‘yawn’. This US friendly poker site is teeming with action 24×7 and at most stake levels and buy-ins, and has really come a long way since it’s establishment in 2004.

Anyway, back to FTOPS…

FTOPS is now held three times a year and always attracts a large and competitive entry field. It has become one of the leading tournament series for online players which is amazing considering Full Tilt Poker is a stand alone site (ie not part of a poker network where players are pooled across multiple poker rooms, like the Microgaming Poker Network, Playtech’s iPoker Network or the Ongame Poker Network).

FTOPS VII Players will be competing for a major prize pool -  $10 million guaranteed, with the series Main Event offering a guaranteed prize pool of $2 million.

Full Tilt Poker’s spokesman says that the FTOPS VII starts on February 6th with the Main Event scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 17th.
 
Detailed information on each of the 20 FTOPS 7 events can be found at Full Tilt Poker.com.
For more information on FullTiltPoker.com check out our latest review, or compare Full Tilt to the other recommended poker rooms for US based players.

Here’s a poker promo that’s a bit different… you can win an all expenses paid Germany EPT package via a freeroll. Citadel eWallets are very popular for online payments and if you’re looking for a new, safe online money trafer service, Citadel really is well worth a look!

myCitadel EPT German Open Freeroll Promotion

Betfred Poker, in close association with myCitadel World Wide Wallet is giving you the opportunity to qualify to one of the biggest tournaments of the poker calendar…for absolutely nothing!!

For every deposit into your Betfred Poker account using myCitadel, you get another entry to  myCitadel EPT Qualifier tournament.

The next Qualifiers play Sun 06 Jan, 18:45 GMT;  Wed 09 Jan, 18:45 GMT;  Sun 13 Jan, 18:45 GMT and finally,  Wed 16 Jan, 18:45 GMT.

The top 10 players from each qualifier will advance to the $145 EPT German Open Final on Sunday 20th January 2008 at 18:45 GMT (19:45 CET).

The outright winner of the EPT German Open Final will be awarded an all expenses package to the EPT German Open, including a $12,000 (€8,000) seat at the Main Event, taking place at the Casino Hohensyburg in Dortmund , Germany between Tuesday 29th January and Saturday 2nd February 2008 .

>>Visit BetFred Poker for a look around
>>Read more about BetFred Poker in our latest detailed poker room review 
(Betfred Poker is a member of Europe’s busiest online poker network run by Playtech. BetFred, named after Fred Done the founder, is one of the UK’s leading sportsbetting and online gambling operations. Safe, secure - and around since 1967 - so no fly by nighter!)

PS: Not into in-the-flesh poker tournaments? What about checking out BetFred’s $2,000,000 Guaranteed Main Event that is scheduled to take place on Sunday 2nd March 2008?