What happens when you take a bunch of poker virgins and train them up to play poker well...
POKER VIRGINS
Reality TV has its sites firmly fixed on the exploding online poker market. Channel Five’s latest TV show: Ultimate Poker Showdown is a good case in point. The concept is to take five newbies who’ve just about grasped the basics of the game and turn them into fully fledged pros in nine weeks. The reward for success is £100,000 in crisp virgin pound notes. At the outset the five contestants were only told they were going to be entered into a reality TV show where they would have to use mental gymnastics to win big money. They were NOT told poker was the game they were about to be asked to play. The contestants were blindfolded, taken to a secret destination, and eventually sat down at a poker table. There followed a crash course in poker from the Bellagio’s Tournament Director, Jack McLelland, in which he detailed how rounds of betting are carried out and the way hand ranking works. Physics student Olivia Boeree became the star of the five poker virgins and confessed that once poker gets into your blood it takes a firm hold. Everyone of the contestants admitted to discovering they were closet card sharks and spend every waking hour practicing online now that they’ve got the bug. The highlight of the programme is mega star tuition from the likes of Dave “ Devilfish” Ulliott and the Queen of Hold’em, Annie “The Duchess” Duke.
How long do we have to wait for our own Starbirds to start a “Strip Poker” reality TV show? The odds have got to be good. Any announcements will be made on www.dailystarpoker.com.
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POKER TRACKING
For a very small sum of money you can download software called Poker Tracker which is the hi-tech equivalent of having your very own digital Yoda as a side-kick. The tracker will record and remember every hand you’ve ever played and more important, evaluate it for your future play. The tracker records rakes, flop details and will build a data base of your online opponents’ play. This enables you to construct strategies against regular opponents. You are allowed to test the software for free on one thousand hands just so that the Poker Tracker can strut its stuff and allow you to decide its value to your game. The main advantages are the ability to replay complete tournaments, track sharks or fish, monitor your previously successful plays and sift through multiple screen names across an array of sites.
Poker virgins welcome at: DailyStarPoker.com
ALL THE ACES poker column:
Thursday November 17, 2005: Poker Virgins on Ultimate Poker Showdown
