Back from Affiliate Summit West 2012

I just got home from Affiliate Summit West 2012 in Las Vegas. I have several days of sorting through video clips and photos and LOTS of posts to write about the experience. I flew home on the red eye, but I was one happy camper.

Check out the video to see why.

Poker is the New Black Jack

In the past when I went to Vegas, I'd spend a lot of time at the blackjack tables. One year, I won enough for BOOTMONEY. As little as ten years ago, you could find a lot of double deck, straight blackjack games up and down the strip. Now, every house has 6 decks, auto shufflers, and bad rules like the dealer hitting the soft seventeen. In a straight blackjack game, the dealer stands on all seventeens. Hitting the soft seventeen is a bad rule for the player. If you don't believe me, check the Wizard of Odds.

I have lost my enthusiasm for blackjack as a result of most casinos stacking the deck further in their favor. Poker has become-for myself and a lot of other blackjack enthusiasts- the replacement game. This trip, instead of hunkering down and counting tens in the blackjack pit, I'll be playing in the Purpose Poker Tournament on Sunday Night at the Mirage. I was able to get one of the last ten seats available in the second night of a two night tournament. With a little luck, maybe I'll come home with some ostrich skin boots.

More insanity to follow....

Mac Poker

My wife's friend likes to play poker online. She wins. She likes to play in poker tournaments. She wins. She's won a few bucks playing poker.

She told the story of her recent trip to Vegas. She went to a local casino off the strip and sat down like she was clueless.

"I was the only woman at the table and everyone was bending over backwards to help me."

She played naive and then cleaned the guys out!

She was over tonight and I asked her what her favorite online poker site was. She plays on Poker Stars because they "are reputable and they actually pay you." I showed her Mac-Poker, a site about playing poker online on Mac Computers. The first thing she said was "why the f___ would you have a Mac?" Then we read the review on Poker Stars (there are lots of reviews on Mac-Poker) and they gave them a good rating too. Unfortunately, Poker Stars has not perfected their Mac platform yet, which prompted her to say "another reason not to get a Mac! Seriously dude, if you win enough playing poker, just buy a f___ PC!"

Lucky for all the Mac users out there, Mac-Poker reviews a bunch of sites that have Mac platforms to play poker online. We checked out a few of the other reviews. Fulltilt Poker is another site she likes.

"It's also a reputable sight and they get celebrity poker players a lot too. But if I can't play on Pokers Stars, I wouldn't ever get a Mac."

OK. So she doesn't like Macs, but she knows her poker. She liked the famous poker players page and wants to be on it someday!

Never Play Poker with a guy who brings his own table!

The following is a true story AND a paid review.

I recently got together with my old college roomate who I hadn't seen in about 10 years. His brother lives nearby and my wife and my roomate's brother's wife are chummy. I found out Sam (that's my old roomate) was coming for a visit and my wife and I made plans to get together at his brother's house. It was good to see him after such a long time and I had never met his wife so it was looking like a fun evening.

Now Dani (that's the roomie's brother's wife) is big into playing Texas Hold Em online and she's trying to get to the World Series of Poker. She eventually started talking poker and someone said "hey, why don't we play tonight?"

No sooner had we all agreed to play some Texas Hold Em, Sam runs out to his car and comes back into the house with one of these portable Poker Tables and a big "briefcase" full of Poker Chips.

I'm thinking "Oh boy, here we go, Sammy the Shark and Dani are going to clean us out!" We each threw $20 into the pot and proceeded to play Texas Hold Em. I had the kiss of death-I won the first hand! We played for a few hours, and surprise surprise, the guy who brought the table and chips ended up with all the money!

Playing cards on one of these real Poker Tables is a heck of a lot better than playing at the kitchen table. The "real" Poker Tables have the nice felt surface, little drink holders and this particular one went right on top of the kitchen table. It is also portable which is great for blindsiding unsuspecting former roomates who don't play a lot of poker! I teased him mercifully about lugging a poker table around in his trunk, but he had the last laugh as he took my $20!!!

We're planning a visit to his place in Vermont this summer and he vows to sit us down for some more poker, this time at the "fancy" poker table he has set up in his game room.

I asked him where he got his Poker Tables
since we thought we'd get a table top style one for our house. He said he got them at Cardroom Supply, a nifty online, one stop shopping spot for Poker Tables, chips and any other poker supplies I might want.

I don't know if having my own poker table will help my game, but it'll sure give me an excuse to practice!

Free Stuff and Poker, What a Country!

If you like free stuff and you like playing poker, check out pokerprizes.com. The deal is you sign up with them, then complete "offers" which involve filling out surveys, taking free trial offers, using a new web product etc. Each completed offer is awarded a point value. Accumulate points and redeem them for prizes like DVDs, video games, ipods, even computers and plasma TVs! You can also use your points to buy into-you guessed it- poker tournaments. Players can win points in these tournaments which can ramp up their point totals thus allowing them to redeem more valuable free stuff. There is no cost to participate. Its a neat little site. I'm going to try to get enough points for a new Mac Laptop by next Christmas. pokerprizes.com