Archive for Poker Blog

Relax with the Best Video Poker Games at the Royal Vegas Casino

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Before you say anything: I know that video poker is not really poker. Actually, none of the games called poker at the Royal Vegas online casino are true poker games. They are casino versions of the most popular card game of the world, built to lure poker fans to the casino tables. They require little to no skill, but loads of luck. Still, I say you should head over to the Royal Vegas and play video poker. Because it is a fast-paced, relaxing game, that’s similar enough to poker to get you in the mood, but easy enough to help your mind relax for a change.

What is, in fact, video poker? For one, it is a game that’s older than it seems. Back in the late 19th century, a couple of Brooklyn engineers built an automated poker machine. With just 50 card faces, and no automated payouts, the game worked much like a slot machine: people would feed it a nickel, pull a lever, wait for the drums to stop at a hand – and be rewarded with a beer, a cigar or anything the pub hosting the machine had at hand. And people loved it, at least its fame was overshadowed by Charles Fey’s slot machine.

Video poker stayed silent, forgotten, until the 1970s. This was the time when solid state computers and color monitors allowed the first true video poker machines to be built. Mounted inside cabinets, much like the arcade games – and slot machines – of the times, these games offered players a different kind of real money entertainment, one that didn’t involve sitting idly at a table, feeding the house with cash, and waiting for the dealer to do all the work. I think this is one of the reasons people love video poker games so much: they get to actually do something. They have to push a button to deal the cards, hold and un-hold them, draw, double up – they actually get to use their hands for a change.

As time has passed, the popularity of video poker games continued to grow. The great leap casino games made into the vast world of the online was kind to them: it allowed the games to expand, to get new versions, new varieties, all of them just a click away. The Royal Vegas online casino, one of the oldest online casinos out there, has continued to grow its collection of video poker games. Today it has tens of versions players can choose from, single and multi-hand, with wild deuces, jokers, side games and progressive jackpots. But with all these versions, changes and alterations, video poker has stayed the same over the last decades: a fast, relaxing game that deserves a chance. Even if it’s not really poker.

 

NetEnt Launches its Casino Games with PokerStars NJ

Swedish online casino software developer NetEnt has announced its latest deal on American soil. After introducing its games to New Jersey’s online casino market through last year’s deal with Caesars, it has now signed with PokerStars, the largest poker operator of the world. According to an announcement made through the developer’s website, it has reached a deal with Amaya Gaming, the Canadian owner of the PokerStars brand, to add desktop and mobile games to its poker lobby in New Jersey. This seems to be the perfect time to start looking for online video poker tips .

PokerStars has first announced its intention to add random number generator (RNG) online casino games to its poker lobby in 2014, rolling them out first in the Spanish variant of their service. It was not the intention of Rational Group at first, but all changed when Amaya took over the business. Amaya’s intentions were apparently to turn PokerStars into a global and complete gambling brand, which it has become today. In time, it has added RNG and live dealer casino games to its poker lobby, launched a sports betting operation under the Stars brand, and is preparing to launch its daily fantasy sports branch, StarsDraft, as soon as the legal status of the service is clarified in the US.

The service has returned to the United States – namely to New Jersey – after a hiatus of about a decade. PokerStars was finally re-launched in the US on the 21st of March, with a license to provide online casino and online poker services to the state’s residents. “We could not be more proud to bring PokerStars to New Jersey,” David Baazov, Chairman and CEO of Amaya Gaming said with the occasion of the launch. “Working with our partner, Resorts Casino Hotel, we look forward to providing the most exciting, innovative and secure gaming experience to New Jersey.”

Swedish developer NetEnt was perhaps the best choice for an online casino partner for Amaya. Aside from it being one of the leading developers in Europe, NetEnt is highly appreciated for its high quality games and the experience it offers its players. Its collection of over 100 video slot machines, table games and card games is used by thousands of online casinos already, and it has received numerous awards for its technology and design.

“We are really thrilled to be live with a selection of our award-winning desktop and mobile games through PokerStars in New Jersey,” Björn Krantz, Managing Director of NetEnt Americas LLC said. “I am confident that our portfolio offering will support their strategy to build sustainable long-term digital casino growth in New Jersey.”

 

 

Winamax Introduces the Hit & Run Satellite!

A very interesting twist on what I see as a “modified” Super Satellite.

Normally in a Super (a feeder tournament) there are seats to an upcoming event. This is a great way for players to pay less for an upcoming event by winning the feeder or for those with lesser bankrolls, the opportunity to play in an event that they wouldn’t normally shell out money for. Ok everything normal so far.

Most satellites of this kind pay out 10% of the field. So let’s use an example.

The tournament that you’re trying to get into costs 100 (no rake), just 100. So if the satellite pays 10%, then 1 out of every 10 players win a ticket to the upcoming tournament. Simple right.

To add to the example let’s say there are exactly 100 players that enter the event. The last 10 players, regardless of chip count would win the seat. Yes, even if you only have 1 chip left. This format benefits the survivor, not the guy who likes to amass a mountain of chips, because at the end, a large stack gets you an equal prize to a 1 chip stack. Still we’re on standard ground.

To make it even clearer, if the ticket cost 100, then every player has to pay 10 to enter. That means that for every 10 players it adds up to 100.

This is where normal ends and here’s the twist.

Twist 1:

To win a seat here at Winamax, you’ll need to amass 20% of the chips in play (1 out of 5 players), so let’s go to an example. There are 100 players all starting with 1000 in chips. That’s 100,000. So in order to win a seat you’ll need to amass 20% of the chips or 20,000 chips. Another way to put it is you’ll need 20 times your starting stack. 20X1000 = 20,000.

Twist 2:

Once you’ve reached the 20,000 in chips, your satellite is over. You’ve now won a seat and you’re removed from the tournament. Voiala, no further risk, you’ve done your job and won a seat.

Twist 3

You’re chips are then put back into play, being divided equally by the remaining number of players. In other words your chip count will automatically increase. Sweet if you’re a short stack. Not bad if you’re a big stack either, the added chips might just put you over the top and get a seat.

Twist 4

Play continues in the same format until all the seats are given away. So there’ll be more chips available everytime someone gets knocked IN so it should be easier to reach the chip count goal.

Twist 5

If there’s an overage, play continues with a winner take all format. Here’s the example: 104 players enter leaving 4 buy ins. Those 4 buy ins do not add up to a full seat. So there’d be 4 x 10 or 40 left over after all the seats are awarded. The remaining players then play a winner takes all format. So the last player standing wins the remaining money.

The more things that change the better it is to freshen up poker. This is a great twist and you’ll need to change your strategy in trying to win this Super Satellite twist.

Bravo Winamax on both Espresso and Hit & Run. We applaud your innovations.

Team Sharkscope

2015 Leaderboard Highlights

Happy New Year everyone, we hope it was a good and profitable year.

Our 2015 Leaderboards are now closed and this year we have all new names atop the 4 main leader boards!

Furkay (Russia) took top honors in the all important SNG profit category, topping out at just under 170 thousand dollars. Furkay crushed it by besting the second place finisher Jorj95 (Canada) by $20,000.

How do you beat someone who lives on the computer playing poker for hours on end and multi-tabling to boot? Simple all you have to do is be Leshiy588 from Belarus. He played 228,678 SNGs. In order to do that you play in your house, on the road, on a bus and at the beach! FXCO (Slovakia) just couldn’t keep up logging only 146,554 SNGs. That’s over 80,000 more games!

Last year in Stevie444 and Skaiwalkurrr were all over the leaderboards, but both could only reach 6th and 5th respectively as the overall leader in Best 100 Streak Average Profit went to NikolasDLP  from Russia earning just under 1 Million Dollars. Wow that’s a lot of caviar!

Moving on up to Best 500 Streak Avg. Profit, while all the above winners were on the list, the Top Honors went to, Smokrokflock from  Canada with an average of $234.67

All of the above tournaments are on our main leaderboard page and all were achieved on PokerStars.

If there was one trend that we saw it was hoe Spin N Go’s effected the over all leader boards.

Total winnings and counts were down across the board as Sp N Go’s and Jackpot SNGs became more prevelant, taking many players away from Regular SNGs and MTTs.

Any Game by Country turned out to be a big hit and the list of countries represented is 52 and growing!

Last but certainly not least is Citoject from Bulgaria  won over 1 million in scheduled tournaments. That total is down by $500.000, but I’ll take a million anytime!

All in all 2015 was a great year for SharkScope and Online Poker. We want to thank all of you who participated and most of all we really appreciate your posts, chats and emails referring SharkScope to your friends! Don’t forget to like our Facebook page

Don’t forget 2015 brought the New SharkScope Desktop. This all in one tool proved to be a great success in 2015 and more networks and refinements are due in 2016, so get yours today!

Have a GREAT 2016 as the 2016 leader boards are now open!!!

SharkScope Team

PokerStars & SharkScope “OPT IN” Required Changes

Hi Scopers,

As a part of the rules for third party software on Pokerstars, we’ve been directed to change our Opt In procedures for PS.it, PS.fr and PS.es. (See the how to Opt In procedure at the bottom)

Our great relationship with Pokerstars only gets stronger when we comply with their requirements. Unfortunately PokerStars are now requiring us to use a default opt-in system on their regulated networks such as .fr, .es and .it as they have done for their regular .com network for a few years.

What it means in the short term is that you won’t see the full compliments of stats until all the players Opt In. What you will still see is the” Ability Rating” and “Vs Me” Functuality.

Whilst in the short term these rule changes do significantly reduce the amount of information available to most users with regards to looking at other PokerStars player statistics there are still many ways SharkScope can still be used effectively:

  • Ability Rating

The Ability rating is a relative score that only has interpretive value when compared to the Ability score of others but is an extremely effective way of quickly judging the strength of your opponents. Although it’s calculated based on actual gameplay and takes advantage of the wealth of tournament data available to Sharkscope to provide a statistically significant assessment of success, there is not enough information publicly available to reverse-engineer its algorithm, and so private player information remains safe and secure.

  • Versus Me Functionality

Once you have configured your own player names if you search a player who has not opted in yet, or even has blocked their name, you will see the full statistics derived from the games that you have played against that player.

To assist you in understanding these options we have created a tutorial video which is now available to watch on our SharkScope Tutorials page.

On the POSITIVE SIDE:

To minimize the effect of these changes for our users we have, through our Opt-In Cash Giveaway and other means, managed to increase the number of opted in players to a level which is many times more than those who have chosen to completely block their statistics. Thousands more players are currently opting-in each week.

Here’s the opt-in procedure as follows:

By default all ROI and Profit data is hidden. To opt-in and show this data the user must 

  •  Email support@sharkscope.com with your player name and which PS client you’re on (IT, ES or FR) and attach a screen shot showing you logged into the PokerStars software with your screen name visible 

              or

  • Alternatively email PokerStars support with your request and they will pass it on to us (no screenshot required).

 In order to keep SharkScope as the number 1 source for your statistics we are complying with the PokerStars requirements.

We greatly appreciate your understanding and value you as a loyal SharkScope customer.

 

Team SharkScope

Phil Ivey Accused for Cheating Borgota out of $9.6 million

“The poker pro loves to play other casino games as well, such as Punto Banco and Baccarat, and both games have brought him two lawsuits in the last couple of years.”

Some time ago Phil Ivey was playing baccarat at the Borgota in Atlantic City, and now he is being sued for his play because of an alleged cheating technique called edge sorting that according to the casino official’s Ivey used to win $9.6 million. The casino claims that Ivey did that in four separate visits, and now he is being sued for that. However, Ivey made a countersuit because he claims the casino is out of its mind.

According to Ivey, the win occurred simply due to a result of skill. He even says that the casino tried to distract him by giving him a private play area with a certain brand of cards and a dealer that spoke Mandarin. The casino even allowed him to play with a woman at his side, and later they accused her of being his accomplice.

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Phil Ivey is a ten-time WSOP bracelet winner. As reported by this site one of his more notable wins have happened in Australia at the Aussie Millions where he won a $250,000 Challenge for AU$4,000,000, which is about 2.8 million in USD. This is his largest single cash of his career. According to Australian Casino Club Ivey has expressed how much he loved Australia. And, who wouldn’t if he won that much money and had such fun memories there.

Anyway, Ivey was deposed on the matter about him supposedly using edge sorting at Borgota, but the poker pro has expressed his thoughts about the absurdity of it as well. He accuses Borgota of deliberately distracting him by offering him free booze with an unlimited budget served by pretty waitresses that are dressed in very provocative skimpy little outfits.

ivey2

He says that every time he played there he was allowed to play for multiple hours, and not one time he was asked about his strategy or his girl next to him. They didn’t even care how drunk he would get with the free booze. All of that says that Borgota wanted to keep him there and make him happy, but unfortunately for them Ivey is a pro and managed to win $9.6 million, despite all of those distractions with free alcohol in order to make him drunk enough to lose, pretty cocktail waitresses that flirt etc.

This is not the first lawsuit against Ivey for edge sorting. The Crockfords Casino in London has sued Ivey of edge sorting as well. He won there approximately $11 million playing Punto Banco, but the casino refused to pay him beyond his initial stake. Both Borgota and Crockfords use the same kind of cards and both casinos accuse Ivey of taking advantage of a defect in the manufacturing of the cards.

SHARKSCOPE DESKTOP 1.0 THE NEW HUD THAT BREAKS THE MOLD

(THIS HUD ADDS FEATURE OTHER HUDS JUST CAN’T HAVE!)

 

SharkScope develops a new entry into the Poker Tracking HUD market with it’s New SharkScope Desktop HUD 1.0

SharkScope has always featured information that turned into an important add-on for Tournament and SNG players. SharkScope provided the ability to get historical and up to the minute statistics of online players when they play tournaments. The tag line is “Avoid the Sharks” and while that is very true, it also gave players a chance to search their own data, which ultimately helped those savvy enough to break down the stats, to better their own game and ultimately become a positive ROI player.

Early on SharkScope created an online HUD (Heads Up Display) that over-layed on the table the same information players could get on the site, but it was real time and right there on the screen that you are playing on.

There were and are other choices for HUDs but they displayed a completely different set of figures and percentages. They tracked the hand histories and broke down the data into a percentage type overlay that would give you a real-time read on how an opponent played over time. (Percentage of raising on the button, the percentage they defended the Big Blind, a Percentage of continuation bets on the flop, and many many more key indicators) These HUDs not only take into account hand histories, they add real-time information as well, so as each hand ends the data updates. Further, you can do a self-analysis on your play. This allows you to find your strengths and weaknesses and break them down into your key indicators, such as type of games (Hold Em, Omaha, Etc.), blind amounts, bet sizing etc. Lastly, they also covered ring games (Cash tables), so you can build your bankroll using those stats one hand at a time.

All in all, if you’re serious about becoming a better player, both types of HUDS are vital to improving your game, and both gave you different stats and percentages, so both were extremely helpful and necessary. No one can dispute that information in poker is king!

As most progressive companies do today, SharkScope improved, upgraded and re-designed their HUD to better meet the needs of their customers worldwide, so SharkScope married the two types of HUDs, as only SharkScope could, because the other HUDs that are available have no access to SharkScope’s data.

Welcome to the New SharkScope Desktop HUD 1.0!

Why now? Well, it’s because the players today are much more number and percentages centric and after all “Poker starts and ends with math”.

Competition in the Online Poker HUD market is great for players. The players input has literally re-built these HUDs. They all had a great base of features’ but the players spoke about what they’d like to see and the designers listened. In doing so, all the HUDs were defined and then redefined many times till it became the fine-tuned Online Poker Tool that it is today.

SharkScope saw this as an opportunity to do something that the other HUDs couldn’t do. They developed a HUD that could do, well everything. The reason is that while SharkScope has access to the same information that the other HUDs have, none of the other HUDs have access to SharkScope’s information. Add to that a hand replayer and it becomes THE most complete HUD on the market today.

About

The New SharkScope Desktop HUD is always going to be a work in progress. The game of poker is ever evolving and so it only follows that the HUD will continue to evolve. That can happen with your questions, and ideas, as well as giving us all your feedback, the good and the better or anything you think should be refined. And there’s nothing too small or too big that you can tell us. The goal is for all of us to have access to a World Class HUD, the Gold Standard in our industry, and we can only get there with your input. Because of your help up till now, in the very near future we’ll be announcing many new Ground Breaking Features and those using the HUD will be the first to try them out.

Flexibility…there are options within the HUD which allows you to customize what you see on the overlay, so if the full suite is more than you want simply click a few buttons and now it’s YOUR HUD, molded to display exactly what you want to see.

SharkScope Desktop 1.0 is now officially released. The Desktop is a revolutionary application that combines the tracking of hand histories with the HUD display of SharkScope statistics and SharkScope database Syncing.

The HUD and data sync are included in Silver subscriptions, whereas the Hand Tracker requires a Gold subscription or for a stand-alone purchase.

For full details click here: http://www.sharkscope.com/#SharkScope-Desktop.html

Questions, Ideas, Support

Please send to Desktop@SharkScope.com

Sales send to Warren@SharkScope.com


					

SharkScope and 888 New Jersey form alliance for Player Data

Date Line: New Jersey May 15th 2015

Sharkscope888_Newsletter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To further enhance SharkScope’s coverage, we approached 888 and was given the green light to provide tournament data–both MTTs and SNGs–to Sharkscope subscribers. The move was made to benefit 888NJ players, who can now access their data and track their quality of play to monitor their performance and improve their game.

We applaud 888NJ for their understanding of customer service as it relates to players. They understand that many players won’t play on a site where they can’t get stats (especially those who multi-table) and want to provide 888 New Jersey players access to these tools.

There are many promotions that 888 would like to introduce with this new SharkScope feature, such as $30.00 free (no deposit needed) and a deposit bonus of 100% up to $888.00.

At SharkScope we couldn’t be happier to work with a premier network like 888, and we’re thrilled at their generosity with sign-up bonuses.

If you use SharkScope and play online in New Jersey, you now have it all with 888 NJ.

Team SharkScope
Team 888NJ

SharkScope’s Final 2014 Leaderboards

Happy New Year everyone, we hope it was a good and profitable year.

Our 2014 Leaderboards are now closed and once again SkaiWalkurrr proved he’s one of the best HU players in the world winning more than ½ million dollars. http://tinyurl.com/ozaubfq

44hell44 led all players by playing over 200,000 tournaments and that turned out to be a good thing as his chart shows a steady up stream curve. http://tinyurl.com/ptaq93x . In case you’re wondering that’s almost 600 tourneys a day! Talk about multi-tabling and winning while you’re at it. Bravo!

Everybody looks for consistency in their poker game and after all, your session doesn’t really end till you die or quit the game. One big session (life) is the only way that the math will even out. Stevie444 took the number 1 spot in Best 100 game streak with a mark of $1330.08. That’s a significant ROI per tourney, here’s to hoping they were super turbos! And in the Best 500 game streak w00ki3z. took top honors with an average profit of 395.25. That is consistency at its finest 500 times in a row! As a side note Stevie444 didn’t just stop at 100, he also was on the 500 game streak list in 5th place.

All of the above tournaments are on our main leaderboard page and all were achieved on PokerStars.

There are also so many other leaderboards that there are too many in number to mention. However some standouts were the return of 888 and the addition of WinningPokerNetwork, where the winner of Any Game by Network won by just over $500.00.

Any Game by Country turned out to be a big hit and the list of countries represented is 52 and growing!

In Rush & Zoom BrynKenney was the fastest and won over $150,000 in this category.

Last but certainly not least is CrownUpGuy who won over 1.5 million in scheduled tournaments.

All in all 2014 was a great year for SharkScope and Online Poker. We want to thank all of you who participated and most of all we really appreciate your posts, chats and emails referring SharkScope to your friends! Don’t forget to like our Facebook page

In 2015, stay tuned and look for all the details as we monetize the Achievements, where getting the most achievements can not only be fun but profitable too.

Have a GREAT 2015

SharkScope Team

Cyber Weekend SALE! Plus Get The HUD FREE!!

Team SharkScope wants to wish you the Happiest, Healthiest and most Profitable Holiday Season EVER, and we couldn’t think of a better way than offering a discount for the weekend.

Now that’s starting the Holiday’s off right.

So all day this Saturday and Sunday use the Bonus Code “Holidays” and you’ll get 20% off a new SharkScope subscription.

Already a subscriber? We have a gift for you too!! Any Upgrade, Any Extension or any Renewal and you’ll get 20% off too!! Same Bonus Code “Holidays”.

Now is the time and this is the weekend, on Monday were back to regular prices, so enjoy the “Holidays” with us NOW,

 

MORE PRESENTS?? you BET! or CHECK it out!! (Pun intended)

Along with William Hill Poker, SharkScope has put together a FREE HUD deal and a Bonus Offer. This deal starts right now but won’t last forever.

Sign up a NEW account at William Hill Poker and they’ll give you a bonus of 200% up to £1200, and that’s just the start!

On the heels of our Beta test of the new SharkScope Desktop (The HUD that does it all) William Hill Poker will give it away FREE as long as you play on William Hill Poker.

A FREE SHARKSCOPE HUD, now that’s a holiday gift that beats a scarf!!

Already playing on WillHill, that’s ok, you can get the HUD FREE as well. Just hit the Get the SharkScope FREE button on our site and then enter your Players Name and you’ll get it Free too.

William Hill is on the iPoker network so if you’re playing there and not getting the HUD FREE, now’s the time to make a move. William Hill is on your side on this one.

We thank you for your loyalty to SharkScope, now go enjoy your presents and may all your rivers be good ones. Ho Ho Hold’em!