The Poker Winner Strategy

About the blog

2011-08-08T08:40:00.001-07:00

This blog provides a concise summary of Texas Hold'em poker, including rules, conduct, tactics, and strategies. Read this book to:

Learn the rules of Texas Hold'em.
Learn poker terminology.
Learn to play Texas Hold'em in a public cardroom.
Learn to play Texas Hold'em online.
Learn the fundamental tactics and strategies.
Learn to become a winning poker player.
The goal of this blog is to provide the tools you need to pluy an intelligent game of Texas Hold'em in any venue, and to give you a greater understanding of poker in general.

Texas Hold'em is one of the many variations of poker. In all poker games, money is wagered On the outcome of each hand, but each variation of poker has its own structure for dealing cards, betting, and awarding the money wagered. Winning money is the object of all poker games. Without monetary stakes, poker is a meaningless game.

Poker combines elements of both skill and luck. The structure of the game determines the extent to which skill is more of a factor than luck.

In cardrooms throughout the country, two variations of poker predominate- Seven-Card Stud and Texas Hold'em. Both variations require a high degree of skill to be successful. Only players with the knowledge, discipline, and patience to execute correct strategies will win over the long run.

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook page apparently hacked

2011-01-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

The latest high-profile hack follows one on the page for French president Nicolas Sarkozy

IDG News Service - Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg appears to be the second high-profile victim of a hacking attack on his own Facebook page, following a similar account takeover early this week targeting French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The page www.facebook.com/markzuckerberg sported an uncharacteristic message advocating that Facebook adopt a "social business" model, where profits are invested in areas such as health care for the poor and other charitable causes, according to a report on TechCrunch late Tuesday.
The message read: "Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a social business the way Nobel Price winner Muhammad Yunus described it? What do you think? #hackercup2011," according to a screenshot captured by TechCrunch.
The hash tag included in the message references Facebook's Hacker Cup, an ongoing competition that award prizes to people who compete in algorithmic programming exercises centered around Facebook's services. The bit.ly link points to the Wikipedia page for "social business," but includes other elements including a message saying "thanksforthecup" and a link to the profile picture for the Facebook page facebook.com/hackercup/.
It appears that Facebook has taken down the page where the post appeared, although Zuckerberg has at least one other page online.
Facebook representatives contacted in London said they had no immediate comment.
This is the second high profile apparent Facebook hack this week. Sarkozy's Facebook page displayed a message with poor grammar on Monday saying he would not run for re-election in 2012. The post was taken down.
The attack on Zuckerberg's page shows the vulnerability of many Web sites that use only a login and password over HTTP connections to protect accounts. Capturing those details is quite easy for hackers, who can rig Web sites with malicious software that gets automatically installed if a computer doesn't have the latest software patches for applications such as Web browsers.
It is also possible for someone with access to the network infrastructure to intercept unencrypted passwords -- as Facebook itself alleges happened in Tunisia ahead of the recent uprising there.

Toyota recalls 12,000 vehicles in Canada, 1.7 million worldwide

2011-01-26T11:35:00.000-08:00

In the latest setback for troubled Japanese auto giant Toyota, the manufacturer announced Wednesday that it is recalling 1.7 million vehicles worldwide, of which nearly 12,000 are in Canada, for issues that could result in a fuel leak.
The vehicles affected by the problem with the fuel-pressure sensor are the 2006-through-2007 Lexus GS300/350, 2006-through-early-2009 Lexus IS250, and 2006-through-early-2008 Lexus IS350.
The company said if there is insufficient tightening of the fuel-pressure sensor connected to certain fuel delivery pipes, there is a possibility that the sensor could loosen over time. This could in turn cause fuel to leak.
No accidents have been related to the problem, the automaker said.
Owners of the involved vehicles will receive notification of the recall by mail next month, Toyota said.
The majority of the recalled vehicles, nearly 1.3 million, were sold in Japan.
In 2008, Toyota ended General Motors' 77-year reign as the world's largest automaker, but the company has faced several hurdles since then, including millions of vehicles recalled in 2009 and 2010 when brake and accelerator defects were linked to some driver fatalities.
By November last year, the automaker had pulled nearly 13 million vehicles over a range of issues.
Last month, Toyota agreed to pay a record fine of $32.4 million U.S. in the U.S., following a $16.4 million penalty in April over its handling of the recalls.

Egypt's allies warn government must respect democratic rights or face revolt

2011-01-26T11:31:00.000-08:00

Egypt's western allies, and its main middle-eastern backer Saudi Arabia, have said its government must respect democratic rights and if it is to stave off a Tunisia-like revolution.

The criticism came as Egypt banned demonstrations and deployed riot police in an effort to stop the largest and most significant political mobilisation since protests over bread subsidies shook the Arab world's most populous nation in 1977.

In an unusually critical statement, the White House said the Egyptian government had "an important opportunity to be responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people, and pursue political, economic and social reforms." The strongly worded statement also expressed support for the "universal rights of the Egyptian people, including the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly."

The statement was issued hours after Barack Obama, the US President, said in his annual State of the Union address that in Tunisia "the will of the people proved more powerful than the writ of a dictator."

European leaders have echoed Mr Obama's concerns. Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign affairs chief, called on "Egyptian authorities to respect and to protect the right of Egyptian citizens to manifest their political aspirations." Guido Westerwelle, Germany's foreign minister, also said "basic human rights, civil rights, freedom of opinion and assembly and press freedoms must be respected in Egypt."

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a powerful Saudi Arabian royal who served as its intelligence chief, also had rare words of warning for Egypt's government, saying its survival depended on its ability to understand what the population wanted. "Whether they can catch up as leaders to what the population is aiming (for) is still to be seen," he said.

Obama calls for new era of competitiveness

2011-01-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

President Barack Obama receives an autographed Green Bay Packers Charles Woodson from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, center, and Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt, upon his arrival in Green Bay, Wis., Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011, en route to nearby Manitowoc, Wis., where he will a tour renewable-energy factories and talk about jobs and the economy. Obama, a Chicago native, predicted the Chicago Bears would beat Green Bay in the NFC Championship game. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

MANITOWOC, Wis.—President Barack Obama set out Wednesday to build momentum for his revamped economic message, calling for a new era of American competitiveness during a stop in Wisconsin, a state that will be critical to his reelection prospects.

A day after his State of the Union address, Obama reinforced his primetime argument that the U.S. has to step up its investments in innovation and infrastructure in order to compete in the global economy and create jobs at home.

"We're going to need to go all in. We're going to need to get serious about winning the future," Obama said during a stop at Orion Energy Systems, a power technology company in the small town of Manitowoc.

The president is calling it a new Sputnik moment, like the one in the 1950s when the Soviet Union beat the U.S. by sending a satellite into space. The challenge resonated in Manitowoc, a small city on the shores of Lake Michigan known best as the place where a 20-pound chunk of the Sputnik satellite crashed in 1962.

The stop was the first of three factory visits Obama was to make here in northern Wisconsin. He pitched forward, looking to highlight ways businesses like Orion would benefit from the proposals he outlined in Tuesday's address, including fresh investments in clean energy, research and technology.

Still seeking to convince Americans that some of the unpopular economic decisions he made during the first two years of his administration were necessary, Obama also argued that those policies were responsible for the recovery that's begun to take hold.

"New manufacturing plants, and new hopes, are taking root, part of the reason the unemployment rate here is four points lower than it was at the beginning of last year," Obama said.

Obama's stop in Wisconsin, likely a key battleground state in 2012, underscored just how quickly the White House is refocusing on the president's fast-approaching reelection campaign. Though Obama won Wisconsin in 2008, the state turned sharply to the right during last year's November elections.

Burned by deep, dark family secrets: Oscar-nominated Incendies a Greek tragedy transplanted to the Middle East

2011-01-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

By Jay Stone, Postmedia News January 26, 2011

Incendies
(In French with English subtitles)
Starring: Lubna Azabal, Melissa Desourmeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette
Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Parental guide: adult themes, violence, sexual content, not suitable for children
Running time: 130 minutes
Rating: Four stars out of five
``Sometimes it's better not to know the truth,'' someone says in Incendies, Denis Villeneuve's devastating family drama, and by the end of this brilliant and disturbing movie, you come to feel that he might be right. Incendies - the English title is Scorched - is about a twin brother and sister hunting for the secrets of their family, and what they find is at once horrifying, contrived, moving and impossible: a Greek tragedy transplanted to the Middle East, where tragedies of every provenance have been known to bloom.
Incendies - which has been nominated for a best foreign-language-film Oscar - is the story of two searches. In the first, which takes place 35 years ago, a woman named Nawal (Belgian actress Lubna Azabal, giving a performance of deep and sad watchfulness) is wandering through an unnamed country, looking for her son. It's a place of bombed-out stone villages and perilous desert tracks: The signature scene, used in the film's poster, shows Nawal on her knees in the sand while a bus explodes into flames behind her.
The second story takes place today. Nawal's daughter Jeanne (Melissa Desourmeaux-Poulin), who was raised in Canada, is back in the Middle East, looking for the history of her family. The actresses look so much alike, we're sometimes lost in time as Jeanne retraces Nawal's tracks, and you wonder if Villeneuve ever considered using the same performer for both. The stories of Jeanne and Nawal curl around one another like the strands of a DNA molecule, although the exact nature of the beast it comes from - political terror, family anguish, the very nature of violence - is never made explicit.
Incendies begins as a similar puzzle. First we're in some kind of school where - to the sound of Radiohead's You and Whose Army - young children are having their heads shaved by men in army uniforms. One of them looks up with a terrifying expression, the hooded eyes of lost hope. We move to the Montreal office of a lawyer (Remy Girard), where Jeanne and her twin brother Simon (Maxim Gaudette) are listening to the provisions of Nawal's will.
Her final testament is chilling. She wants to be buried naked, with no casket, face down, so that her eyes will be turned away from the world. The reasons for her bitterness are sealed in two envelopes, one for each child. They are to be delivered to their father, who they have been told is dead, and their brother, of whom they have never heard. The delivery will fulfil a promise.
The will angers Simon, who says it's just another of her mother's mad ideas: Simon serves the story mostly as a mirror, a man whose reactions we can use to discern what kind of mother Nawal was. However, Jeanne heads to off to the unnamed country with a photograph of her mother and the names of a few people who might help her in finding her wayward family.

The journey into the past becomes a trek through a nation where Christians and Muslims were involved in a ruthless civil war (the country in question is probably Lebanon, birthplace of Wajdi Mouawad, who wrote the play on which Incendies is based). Photographed with frightening realism by Andre Turpin, it is a place of shadows and starkness, uncompromising in its beauty and its menace. Jeanne goes from a small village of wounded honour to the abandoned shell of a frightening prison: Nawal's story unfolds all around her until she learns - as all children will - of the unknown lives her parents lived in the world that existed before she was born.
Incendies is not perfect. Its dark secrets eventually feel imposed on the story, put together for theatrical purposes rather than from life. But its scheme is haunting. ``Death is never the end of the story,'' the attorney says. ``It leaves traces.'' Incendies is that record, and Villeneuve crafts it with a spooky immediacy, fulfilling the promise he showed in Polytechnique as a filmmaker unafraid to look into the corners of violence to find the humanity that created it.

White House says monitoring Egypt situation closely

2011-01-26T11:20:00.001-08:00

Jan 26 (Reuters) - The White House said on Wednesday it was keeping a close watch on protests in Egypt and reiterated that the United States supports Egyptians' universal right of assembly and speech.

Asked whether the United States still supports Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Egypt remains a "close and important ally."

"We are monitoring closely the situation in Egypt," he told reporters traveling with U.S. President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One.

(Reporting by Ross Colvin, editing by Alister Bull)