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Monday, October 10, 2005

Is the Party Over?

When Party Poker starts adding "enhancements" like these, I get nervous about the state of online poker. You now have the option to play blackjack @ Party, and make a retarded side bet as to the color of the flop (you bet all red or all black, before you see your cards, and get pair 8 FOR 1 - that's 7 TO 1 for the uninitiated). By quick math, you have about an 11.8% chance of winning that bet, but need 12.5% to break even. The fact that Party thinks they need to go this route is the most troubling.

Also, Party ended their relationships with their affiliates - formerly, if you logged into Empire, you played at the same tables as the PartyPoker players. Now, Empire is a completely separate set of tables. Interesting gambit by party, as they hope to get a bigger piece of a smaller pie: they will get all of the business of the customers they manage to convert, as opposed to only the affiliate fees, but they clearly will not convert all customers.

I spent the weekend in Savannah, Georgia, at MO's wedding. In a mutual drunken stupor, Big Show insulted the voracity of the World Champion New England Patriots, and offered me the option to take the Pats and the 3 points in Atlanta for no vig, when the true market was Pats +3 (-120). I couldn't resist the overlay, or the need to defend my city's honor in the wake of the Red Sox's downfall, and hammered him on it. Boo yah!

Savannah is a nice town - right on the Intercoastal Waterway (Gators and all!) - very old architecture (cobblestones galore, big old trees), and a great tourist strip called River Street. The direct Delta flight from LaGuardia wasn't bad either. If you play golf, it's definitely worth a trip.

Hopefully, I'll be able to log some hours at the poker table this Friday - as I'm in town for the first time in a month. String Cheese Incident is on tap for Saturday night in New Jersey.

-KD

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