Fun is in the Cards

Nebraska Poker Events puts on the tournament, which costs nothing to play. There are two rounds. The first starts at 7:30 p.m., the second around 9 p.m. The winners earn $50 dollars. Real money.

This time of year sees a decline in poker tournament participation, said NPE owner Nick Brown. Summer is the slow time of year due to everyone wanting to be outside. Winter is the poker tournament season, he said.
"We have 11 venues across the metro area," Brown said. "We have about 40 to 60 players in each tournament. In winter, we'll see more than 75 to 100 each night."
Playing for free might not seem to be much of a gamble. It's not. These tournaments offer everyone the chance to learn the game, develop skills and have fun, Brown said.
"By doing free tournaments in local establishments we offer regular people a chance to experience a tournament without having to put down a $100 buy in like a casino," he said. "We are looking at brokering a deal with Horseshoe in Council Bluffs to earn a seat in a real tournament."
Right now, Texas hold 'em is the most popular poker game in casinos and poker card rooms. But these aren't the only places that tournaments are held. There are also Card Shark Cruises where cash games take place on cruiseliners in international waters.
Hold 'em is a community card game where each player may use any combination of the five community cards and the player's own two hole cards to make a poker hand.
What that means is, the dealer gives two cards face down to every player. Then, the dealer places three cards face up. These are the community cards that everyone uses. The dealer will then place two more community cards with the first three. There is a round of betting between each deal.
Most hands don't go to the showdown. The pros recommend a strategy that involves playing relatively few hands but betting and raising often with the hands one plays.
Because each player only starts with two cards and the remaining cards are shared, it presents an opportune game for strategic analysis (including mathematical analysis). The objective of winning players is not winning every individual hand, but rather making mathematically correct decisions regarding when and how much to bet, raise, call or fold. By making such decisions, winning poker players maximize long-term winnings by maximizing their expected utility on each round of betting.
After slow but steady gains in popularity throughout the 20th Century, hold 'em's popularity surged in the 2000s due to exposure on television, on the Internet and in popular literature. During this time hold 'em replaced seven-card stud as the most common game in U.S. casinos, almost totally eclipsing the once popular game. The no-limit betting form is used in the widely televised main event of the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour.
Brown said this may be the reason why women have started taking a bigger interest in the game of poker. He said that couples have started coming to his tournaments and the wife or girlfriend is the one who is usually the one most interested in the game. At the Bushwackers venue, the crowd of about 50 players usually includes about a dozen women.
In the first decade of the 21st Century, Texas hold 'em experienced a surge in popularity worldwide. Many observers attribute this growth to the synergy of five factors: the invention of online poker, the game's appearance in film and on television, the 2004-05 NHL lockout, the appearance of television commercials advertising online cardrooms, and the 2003 World Series of Poker championship victory by online qualifier Chris Moneymaker.

"A lot of guys figured if he can do it, so can they," Brown said. "Some have."

Ralston Recorder

News Added: 04 August, 2008

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