Chasing Poker Greatness: #68 Andrew Brokos: Co-Host ThinkingPoker Podcast & Author of Play Optimal Poker – Pokerfuse

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Full Episode Description Todays guest on the Chasing Poker Greatness podcast is the host of the Thinking Poker podcast and author of Play Optimal Poker 1 and 2 Andrew Brokos.Andrews another one of those human beings who makes you consider your personal beliefs.Recently on Twitter in a thread about the Daniel Negreanu WSOP software meltdown Andrew left me with a this statement, One last thought for you specifically, very few people have chased poker greatness as successfully as Daniel Negreanu and this is where it got him.Which I equated to throwing a grenade and leaving the room.With that thought in mind I just want to make absolute certain one persons version of poker greatness does not have to be yours. Its a personal aspiration that each and every one of us, myself included, should consider deeply.I genuinely hope that through this podcast, if nothing else, you will gain the necessary tools needed to answer this question for you and you alone.And its my ultimate wish that you take special care on your emotional, physical, and spiritual as you endeavor to chase your version of poker greatness.With that said, in todays episode youre going to learn: - The surprising why behind the beginning of Andrews poker career.- Why Andrew has found poker attracts the kinds of souls he tends to enjoy spending time with.- An awesome tactic he uses to measure his level of play in live tournaments.- And much, MUCH more!So, without any further ado, I bring to you podcaster, author, and thinker Andrew Brokos.

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Chasing Poker Greatness: #68 Andrew Brokos: Co-Host ThinkingPoker Podcast & Author of Play Optimal Poker - Pokerfuse

Venetian poker room going to 8-handed tables – Las Vegas Review-Journal

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The Venetian poker room is installing plexiglass dividers to allow eight-handed games.

Ten tables already have dividers, and all 32 tables in the room will be fitted with them in the next two weeks. The poker rooms Twitter account provided the information, and a casino spokeswoman confirmed it was accurate.

Traditional poker tournaments will resume at The Venetian on July 24. The room has been hosting shootout-style tournaments over the past few weeks that require players to defeat their entire table before moving on to the next table. In traditional tournaments, tables are balanced throughout as players are eliminated.

The Venetians tables that dont have plexiglass yet will continue to host five-handed games, per guidelines from the state Gaming Control Board.

Sahara Las Vegas is now hosting seven-handed games after installing plexiglass, poker operations manager Steven Pique said on Twitter. The room will also start hosting shootout-style tournaments July 25.

The Aria, the Bellagio, MGM Grand and The Orleans are hosting six-handed games with plexiglass. Caesars Palace, the Flamingo, the Golden Nugget and the South Point are hosting five-handed games without plexiglass.

Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.

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Venetian poker room going to 8-handed tables - Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Phil Ivey Of Poker – HBCU Buzz

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At present, only a few individuals would be disputing the fact that Phil Ivey happens to be the greatest poker player ever.

Phil Ivey has the propensity to emphasize more on games that generate cash and less on the tournaments, which make his accomplishments much more impressive in the long run. If Phil Ivey ever decides to play tournaments full-time, there will be not much doubt in many people that he would be ranking at the very top of the tournament money list ever.

According to the players who have played cash games against Phil, he happens to be the most gifted player they have ever come across, having mastered every game. As per his colleagues, Phils thorough knowledge in every single variant of poker helps to make him the very best.

Younger players, older players. Professional players, as well as casual players, have one thing in common. Nearly all of them regard Ivey to be the most gifted poker player on the planet.

According to some individuals, names likeDoyle BrunsonandChip Reese should be listed before Phil Ivey; however, these people happen to be few. The general opinion is that Phil Ivey happens to be the best poker player ever in the world.

It is quite difficult to argue with the results of Phil Ivey. According toPhil Hellmuth, Ivey is a triple threat he is outstanding in tournaments, outstanding in online cash games, and exceptional in live cash games. It is very difficult to come across a player who dominates all three settings.

At present, Phil Ivey has got almost $15 million in net lifetime tournament cash, and this places him in 2nd spot on the list of all-time money earners. Moreover, it should be mentioned here that Phil does not appear on the tournament circuit regularly.

Since January 2007, almost $20 million has been won by Ivey on Full Tilt Poker. It is probably the highest amount of cash that any single player has been won since the introduction of online poker in the early part of the 2000s.

As per the players playing regularly with him, Ivey happens to be amongst the most effective live cash game players ever. Apparently, Phil is a big lifetime champion in Las Vegas in the Big Game.

Phil Ivey has as many as 10World Series Pokerbracelets despite being only 35 years of age. Phil has succeeded in picking up his pace only recently, mainly because of the introduction of hefty bracelet prop bets. Earlier, Ivey could play only a few World Series Poker events since better action was available in the lucrative high take cash games.

When looking at all his skills, one has no other option but to provide Ivey the nod for the most gifted poker player ever. None else comes close to him while taking into consideration live cash games, live tournaments, as well as online cash games.

Phillip Ivey was born in February 1977 and has succeeded in winning 10 World Series Poker bracelets, 1 World Tour Poker title while appearing at 9 World Tour Poker final tables. He had been designated to the Hall of Fame of Poker In the year 2017.

Phil IveyEarly Years

In the initial phases, Ivey started developing his poker skills by combating against his colleagues at a telemarketing firm in New Jersey in the latter part of the 1990s. He got a nickname, which is actually derived from the counterfeit ID card that was secured by him for playing poker in New Jersey during his adolescent years. Phil was provided with another nickname in the year 2002 after he won 3 World Series Poker bracelets. He is also called Pokers Tiger Woods.

2017 had been a sluggish year for Phil, who focused on Asia, particularly Hong Kong, and ended up missing all the major global events in the western part of the world because he wanted to play the greatest games in Asia. In a conference, Phil announced that he would be returning to the main circuit for the year 2018.

World Series Poker

Phils most significant tournament accomplishments consist of winning 3 bracelets at World Series Poker in the year 2002, tying Ted Forrest, Puggy Pearson, and Phil Hellmuth for the maximum number of wins in World Series competitions in just one year. Ivey likewise has got bracelets from 2000 as well as 2005 in Pot Limit Omaha. He had been the first individual who defeated Amarillo Slim In the year 2000 at a table for the WSOP finals. The victory of Ivey over none other than Amarillo Slim had been for his initial career bracelet. Apart from his 10 bracelets in the World Series, Phil was also successful in the Main Event at WSOP. Between the World Series Poker held in 2002 and the World Series Poker held in 2009, he had been placed at the top 25 for as many as 4 times. In the year 2002 Phil finished 23rd, in 2003 10th, in 2005 20th, and on 2009 7th.

World Series Poker Hall of Fame

Ivey ended up winning the 6th bracelet of his career in the year 2009. He managed to defeat as many as 147 players for catching his bracelet. Phil succeeded in winning a very long combat against a player named John Monette. Following this, he won one more bracelet in the $2,500 Omaha Hi/Lo event defeating as many as 376 individuals. He succeeded in defeating Ming Lee as well. While emerging the victor in the event, he likewise managed to be placed in the 22nd position in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event despite playing only at the time of the breaks.

In the World Series Poker in the year 2010, Phil succeeded in receiving the maximum Tournament of Champions votes.

At the WSOP in the year 2010, Phil won his 8th bracelet n a table that comprised of other distinguished players, including Bill Chen, John Juanda, Jeff Lisandro, as well as Chad Brown.

Phil finished amongst the top 25 gamers between 2002 and 2009 in the Key Event for as many as 4 times in pitches, which varied from 500 entrants to under 8,000 in size. In the Main Event at WSOP held in 2003, Ivey finished 10th and 7th in the year 2009. Ivey ended his Main Event in the year 2009 after winning $1,406,002

Having as many as ten World Series Poker bracelets, Phil is presently tied with Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson for the 2nd maximum all-time. Moreover, at 38 years of age, he happens to be the youngest gamer who has ever won 10 bracelets (in fact, Phil Hellmuth had been 42 while winning his 10th bracelet). Furthermore, you will not come across any other player who has accumulated ten bracelets more quickly. Phil took just 12 years from winning his 1st bracelet to the 10th (Phil Hellmuth took 17 years). Ivey likewise holds the all-time record for winning the maximum number of bracelets in the non-Holdem events. His win in the year 2010 helped him to lead Billy Baxter. Phil likewise has won the maximum number of mixed-game bracelets; in fact, he has won as many as 5 in his illustrious career. He succeeded in winning one in the year 2002, another in the year 2009, one more in the year 2010, in the year 2013, and in the year 2014.

World Tour Poker

Phil has also succeeded in reaching nine final tables during hisWorld Tour Poker. He had been eliminated during several WPT events while he held the identical starting hand every single time, a queen plus an ace. Ivey has been able to cash in an event at the WPT 9 out of the 12 times. Ivey succeeded in making the final table in the year 2008 at the LA Poker Classic during the 6th season of the WPT at the Commerce Casino, the final table comprised of Nam Le and Phil Hellmuth. Phil eventually captured the first prize worth $1,595,100, which ended his run of 7 final tables at the WPT without securing a victory. In fact, Ivey has succeeded in earning approximately $3 million in cash at the WPT. In September 2006, he made his appearance for the first time on the European Tour Poker. Although coming as the chip leader to the ultimate table of 9, he finally finished second to Norways Bjorn-Erik Glenne.

Other significant tournaments

Ivey took part in The All-Star Challenge held in London in the year 2006. Phil ended up finishing 7th and accumulated 6,700. Ivey won the first prize of $1,200,000 at a competition held in Monte Carlo in 2005. The next day, another $610,000 was won by him for winning The FullTiltPoker.Net competition in Monte Carlo. Phils six rivals had been Gus Hansen, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, and Dave Ulliott.

In the year 2007, Ivey succeeded in winning the $126,000 Earphones Please competition, where he defeated Andy Bloch, Hellmuth, Tony G, Matusow, and Sam Farha. On 15th April 2007, Don Cheadle defeated Ivey in the very 1st sound at the National Heads-Up Poker Championship. It had been the third successive year where Phil had been eliminated in the very 1st round of the particular competition. However, this streak was ended in the year 2008, while he succeeded in advancing to the semi-finals, where he lost to Ferguson, the eventual winner. Phil participated in 3 and 6 seasons of the High Poker Stakes of GSN.

Ivey won the Australian Millions $240,000 High-roller competition on 29th January 2012, where he defeated Patrik Antonius for prize money worth A $ 2,500,000. Ivey was likewise positioned 12th for prize money of A$120,000 at the Aussie Millions main event.

Ivey ended up winning the 2014 LK Boutique Aussie Millions $255,000 Challenge on 10th February 2014 for a sum of AU$4,500,000 this had been the biggest single cash in his entire career. He succeeded in winning the Australian Millions $255,000 Challenge once again in February 2015 this time, he earned AU$2,210,000, which made him the only gamer in the tournaments history with two successive championships within a period of 4 years.

The net live tournament earnings of Phil are more than $26,240,000 as of 2018. Millions have also been won by him playing in cash tournaments as well as online. More than $6,800,000 of his net earnings have been derived from the winnings at WSOP. Presently, Ivey is in the 7th position on the money list of all-time.

Ivey regularly participates in the $4,200-$9,000 cash game in the city of Las Vegas at the Bellagio. Ivey succeeded in winning more than $16,200,000 over a span of 3 days at the time of a match held at The Wynn Resort. Phil had been competing for The Corporation which happens to be a team of professionals that took turns while combating Beal after pooling their cash. The Corporation had been beaten by Beal earlier in the month out of more than $14,000,000.

Phil Ivey Video Master of Poker Bluffs:

Phil Ivey AndOnline Poker

Ivey belongs to Full Tilt Pokers initial management department. Ivey had filed a lawsuit in Clark County in 2011 claiming that his contract had been breached by Full Tilt. More than $150,000,000 was asked by the suit for damages and for Ivey to be free from his agreement with Full Tilt. Ivey voluntarily withdrew the suit on 30th June.

In accordance with HighStakesDB.com, $2 million had been won by Ivey on FullTilt in the year 2007, $7.35 million in the year 2008, $6.34 million in the year 2009, as well as $3.2 million in the year 2010.

Edge-Sorting Lawsuit

It was reported that Phil had won 7.2 million in the year 2012 while playing the casino game Punto Banco in acasinoin UK; however, he had been declined payment beyond the initial 1.1 million stakes because of using edge sorting. Ivey issued a statement through his legal practitioners denying any kind of misbehavior. In April 2014, Ivey was sued by the Borgata Casino located in the Atlantic City, claiming that he used a flaw in the making of playing cards to his advantage and defrauded at baccarat. Incidentally, the identical type of cards is used by Crockfords along with the Borgata.

In October 2014, a court in the UK claimed that Phils methods at Crockfords actually constituted dishonesty.

On 29th November 2015, Phil had been granted the consent to make an appeal after a judge found that the case actually raised a vital question of regulation and had a genuine possibility of success. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on 3rd November 2016 by upholding the previous conclusion that the method actually resulted in cheating. Another appeal made to the UK Supreme Court resulted in an undisputed judgment delivered on 25th October 2017 and found in the casinos favor. The court concluded that the actions of Ivey actually constituted dishonesty.

In the month of January 2019, the Borgata was permitted by a judge to pursue Iveys assets in Nevada for recouping in excess of $10 million, which was won by him at the gambling den by making use of edge-sorting.

On 27th June 2019, an execution writ was served to the World Poker Series by the United States Marshals Service, and it seized the 2019 winnings of Ivey for paying The Borgata.

On 10th July 2020, it was reported by Card Player publication that Ivey had given consent to a settlement of the claim made by the Borgata.

Personal life

As mentioned earlier, Phil Ivey arrived in this world in 1977 in California, USA; however, he later relocated to Roselle in New Jersey. He developed an interest in the poker card game when he had been an adolescent. Ivey learned many things from his grandfather, who educated him regarding the Five-Card stud to prevent him from gambling. However, Phil started playing for cash when he was 16 years of age, and when he was 18, he played at thelive tables in the Atlantic Cityfor pretty long durations.

At present, Phil lives in Las Vegas. He is likewise a huge follower of Los Angeles Lakers, Buffalo Bills, as well as Houston Rockets. Hes observed putting on basketball jerseys from time to time. Phil loves to play games, including golf, video games, plus prop betting, while not playing poker. Apart from this, he is also known for his charitable causes as well as philanthropic pursuits. He has donated thousands of dollars to charities intended for those children who happen to be underprivileged. A charity has also been co-founded by Ivey under the name ofBudding Ivey Foundationfor continuing his grandfathers benevolent work.

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The Deck Is Not Rigged: Poker and the Limits of AI – Undark Magazine

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Tuomas Sandholm, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, is not a poker player or much of a poker fan, in fact but he is fascinated by the game for much the same reason as the great game theorist John von Neumann before him. Von Neumann, who died in 1957, viewed poker as the perfect model for human decision making, for finding the balance between skill and chance that accompanies our every choice. He saw poker as the ultimate strategic challenge, combining as it does not just the mathematical elements of a game like chess but the uniquely human, psychological angles that are more difficult to model precisely a view shared years later by Sandholm in his research with artificial intelligence.

WHAT I LEFT OUT is a recurring feature in which book authors are invited to share anecdotes and narratives that, for whatever reason, did not make it into their final manuscripts. In this installment, Maria Konnikova shares a story that was left out of The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win (Penguin Press).

Poker is the main benchmark and challenge program for games of imperfect information, Sandholm told me on a warm spring afternoon in 2018, when we met in his offices in Pittsburgh. The game, it turns out, has become the gold standard for developing artificial intelligence.

Tall and thin, with wire-frame glasses and neat brow hair framing a friendly face, Sandholm is behind the creation of three computer programs designed to test their mettle against human poker players: Claudico, Libratus, and most recently, Pluribus. (When we met, Libratus was still a toddler and Pluribus didnt yet exist.) The goal isnt to solve poker, as such, but to create algorithms whose decision making prowess in pokers world of imperfect information and stochastic situations situations that are randomly determined and unable to be predicted can then be applied to other stochastic realms, like the military, business, government, cybersecurity, even health care.

While the first program, Claudico, was summarily beaten by human poker players one broke-ass robot, an observer called it Libratus has triumphed in a series of one-on-one, or heads-up, matches against some of the best online players in the United States.

Libratus relies on three main modules. The first involves a basic blueprint strategy for the whole game, allowing it to reach a much faster equilibrium than its predecessor. It includes an algorithm called the Monte Carlo Counterfactual Regret Minimization, which evaluates all future actions to figure out which one would cause the least amount of regret. Regret, of course, is a human emotion. Regret for a computer simply means realizing that an action that wasnt chosen would have yielded a better outcome than one that was. Intuitively, regret represents how much the AI regrets having not chosen that action in the past, says Sandholm. The higher the regret, the higher the chance of choosing that action next time.

Its a useful way of thinking but one that is incredibly difficult for the human mind to implement. We are notoriously bad at anticipating our future emotions. How much will we regret doing something? How much will we regret not doing something else? For us, its an emotionally laden calculus, and we typically fail to apply it in quite the right way. For a computer, its all about the computation of values. What does it regret not doing the most, the thing that would have yielded the highest possible expected value?

The second module is a sub-game solver that takes into account the mistakes the opponent has made so far and accounts for every hand she could possibly have. And finally, there is a self-improver. This is the area where data and machine learning come into play. Its dangerous to try to exploit your opponent it opens you up to the risk that youll get exploited right back, especially if youre a computer program and your opponent is human. So instead of attempting to do that, the self-improver lets the opponents actions inform the areas where the program should focus. That lets the opponents actions tell us where [they] think theyve found holes in our strategy, Sandholm explained. This allows the algorithm to develop a blueprint strategy to patch those holes.

Its a very human-like adaptation, if you think about it. Im not going to try to outmaneuver you head on. Instead, Im going to see how youre trying to outmaneuver me and respond accordingly. Sun-Tzu would surely approve. Watch how youre perceived, not how you perceive yourself because in the end, youre playing against those who are doing the perceiving, and their opinion, right or not, is the only one that matters when you craft your strategy. Overnight, the algorithm patches up its overall approach according to the resulting analysis.

Theres one final thing Libratus is able to do: play in situations with unknown probabilities. Theres a concept in game theory known as the trembling hand: There are branches of the game tree that, under an optimal strategy, one should theoretically never get to; but with some probability, your all-too-human opponents hand trembles, they take a wrong action, and youre suddenly in a totally unmapped part of the game. Before, that would spell disaster for the computer: An unmapped part of the tree means the program no longer knows how to respond. Now, theres a contingency plan.

Of course, no algorithm is perfect. When Libratus is playing poker, its essentially working in a zero-sum environment. It wins, the opponent loses. The opponent wins, it loses. But while some real-life interactions really are zero-sum cyber warfare comes to mind many others are not nearly as straightforward: My win does not necessarily mean your loss. The pie is not fixed, and our interactions may be more positive-sum than not.

Whats more, real-life applications have to contend with something that a poker algorithm does not: the weights that are assigned to different elements of a decision. In poker, this is a simple value-maximizing process. But what is value in the human realm? Sandholm had to contend with this before, when he helped craft the worlds first kidney exchange. Do you want to be more efficient, giving the maximum number of kidneys as quickly as possible or more fair, which may come at a cost to efficiency? Do you want as many lives as possible saved or do some take priority at the cost of reaching more? Is there a preference for the length of the wait until a transplant? Do kids get preference? And on and on. Its essential, Sandholm says, to separate means and the ends. To figure out the ends, a human has to decide what the goal is.

The world will ultimately become a lot safer with the help of algorithms like Libratus, Sandholm told me. I wasnt sure what he meant. The last thing that most people would do is call poker, with its competition, its winners and losers, its quest to gain the maximum edge over your opponent, a haven of safety.

Logic is good, and the AI is much better at strategic reasoning than humans can ever be, he explained. Its taking out irrationality, emotionality. And its fairer. If you have an AI on your side, it can lift non-experts to the level of experts. Nave negotiators will suddenly have a better weapon. We can start to close off the digital divide.

It was an optimistic note to end on a zero-sum, competitive game yielding a more ultimately fair and rational world.

I wanted to learn more, to see if it was really possible that mathematics and algorithms could ultimately be the future of more human, more psychological interactions. And so, later that day, I accompanied Nick Nystrom, the chief scientist of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center the place that runs all of Sandholms poker-AI programs to the actual processing center that make undertakings like Libratus possible.

A half-hour drive found us in a parking lot by a large glass building. Id expected something more futuristic, not the same square, corporate glass squares Ive seen countless times before. The inside, however, was more promising. First the security checkpoint. Then the ride in the elevator down, not up, to roughly three stories below ground, where we found ourselves in a maze of corridors with card readers at every juncture to make sure you dont slip through undetected. A red-lit panel formed the final barrier, leading to a small sliver of space between two sets of doors. I could hear a loud hum coming from the far side.

Let me tell you what youre going to see before we walk in, Nystrom told me. Once we get inside, it will be too loud to hear.

I was about to witness the heart of the supercomputing center: 27 large containers, in neat rows, each housing multiple processors with speeds and abilities too great for my mind to wrap around. Inside, the temperature is by turns arctic and tropic, so-called cold rows alternating with hot fans operate around the clock to cool the processors as they churn through millions of giga, mega, tera, peta and other ever-increasing scales of data bytes. In the cool rows, robotic-looking lights blink green and blue in orderly progression. In the hot rows, a jumble of multicolored wires crisscrosses in tangled skeins.

In the corners stood machines that had outlived their heyday. There was Sherlock, an old Cray model, that warmed my heart. There was a sad nameless computer, whose anonymity was partially compensated for by the Warhol soup cans adorning its cage (an homage to Warhols Pittsburghian origins).

And where does Libratus live, I asked? Which of these computers is Bridges, the computer that runs the AI Sandholm and I had been discussing?

Bridges, it turned out, isnt a single computer. Its a system with processing power beyond comprehension. It takes over two and a half petabytes to run Libratus. A single petabyte is a million gigabytes: You could watch over 13 years of HD video, store 10 billion photos, catalog the contents of the entire Library of Congress word for word. Thats a whole lot of computing power. And thats only to succeed at heads-up poker, in limited circumstances.

Yet despite the breathtaking computing power at its disposal, Libratus is still severely limited. Yes, it beat its opponents where Claudico failed. But the poker professionals werent allowed to use many of the tools of their trade, including the opponent analysis software that they depend on in actual online games. And humans tire. Libratus can churn for a two-week marathon, where the human mind falters.

But theres still much it cant do: play more opponents, play live, or win every time. Theres more humanity in poker than Libratus has yet conquered. Theres this belief that its all about statistics and correlations. And we actually dont believe that, Nystrom explained as we left Bridges behind. Once in a while correlations are good, but in general, they can also be really misleading.

Two years later, the Sandholm lab will produce Pluribus. Pluribus will be able to play against five players and will run on a single computer. Much of the human edge will have evaporated in a short, very short time. The algorithms have improved, as have the computers. AI, it seems, has gained by leaps and bounds.

So does that mean that, ultimately, the algorithmic can indeed beat out the human, that computation can untangle the web of human interaction by discerning the little tactics of deception, of asking yourself what is the other man going to think I mean to do, as von Neumann put it?

Long before Id spoken to Sandholm, Id met Kevin Slavin, a polymath of sorts whose past careers have including founding a game design company and an interactive art space and launching the Playful Systems group at MITs Media Lab. Slavin has a decidedly different view from the creators of Pluribus. On the one hand, [von Neumann] was a genius, Kevin Slavin reflects. But the presumptuousness of it.

Slavin is firmly on the side of the gambler, who recognizes uncertainty for what it is and thus is able to take calculated risks when necessary, all the while tampering confidence at the outcome. The most you can do is put yourself in the path of luck but to think you can guess with certainty the actual outcome is a presumptuousness the true poker player foregoes. For Slavin, the wonder of computers is That they can generate this fabulous, complex randomness. His opinion of the algorithmic assaults on chance? This is their moment, he said. But its the exact opposite of whats really beautiful about a computer, which is that it can do something thats actually unpredictable. That, to me, is the magic.

Will they actually succeed in making the unpredictable predictable, though? Thats what I want to know. Because everything Ive seen tells me that absolute success is impossible. The deck is not rigged.

Its an unbelievable amount of work to get there. What do you get at the end? Lets say theyre successful. Then we live in a world where theres no God, agency, or luck, Slavin responded.

I dont want to live there, he added I just dont want to live there.

Luckily, it seems that for now, he wont have to. There are more things in life than are yet written in the algorithms. We have no reliable lie detection software whether in the face, the skin, or the brain. In a recent test of bluffing in poker, computer face recognition failed miserably. We can get at discomfort, but we cant get at the reasons for that discomfort: lying, fatigue, stress they all look much the same. And humans, of course, can also mimic stress where none exists, complicating the picture even further.

Pluribus may turn out to be powerful, but von Neumanns challenge still stands: The true nature of games, the most human of the human, remains to be conquered.

Maria Konnikova is the author, most recently, of The Biggest Bluff. She is a regularly contributing writer for The New Yorker, the author of two previous New York Times best-sellers, and a professional poker player.

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The Deck Is Not Rigged: Poker and the Limits of AI - Undark Magazine

NJ Special Legislation and the Impact on Online Casino Players in NY – Blog – The Island Now

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The recent proposal for special legislation to be introduced in New Jersey relating to poker was undoubtedly great news for fans of the game in the state.

However, for players in neighbouring New York it is highly likely that the announcement will have left them feeling just a little deflated.

While New Jersey officials continue to be proactive in embracing the gambling boom, their counterparts in New York are still dragging their heels.

Read on as we take a closer look at the latest state of play for poker in New Jersey and assess how developments there may affect New York in the future.

NJ Aiming to Declare Poker a Game of Skill

Players already have plenty of online casino NJ opportunities for real-money games and their options would be widened if the new legislation is passed.

The bill aims to have poker classified as a game of skill and bluff and would therefore not be a form of gambling that is restricted by the provisions of the New Jersey Constitution.

This would mean that permit holders for racetracks in the state could establish a poker room at their venues on the basis that they retained a portion of the amounts wagered.

The games would fall under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement rather than the New Jersey Racing Commission.

Why Does the Bill Matter?

Establishing poker as a game of skill rather than a form of gambling is an important distinction to make and would have much wider reaching implications.

It would create new opportunities for the live poker industry and generate extra revenues for the various racetrack operators.

The latter point is a particularly pertinent one, with some venues in New Jersey currently struggling to make ends meet in the current financial climate.

Although there may be opposition from some Atlantic City casinos, the bill could have a good chance of passing as it is limited to the game of poker.

NJ Poker Boom Continues Apace

Online poker revenues continue to boom in New Jersey, highlighting the lucrative potential of the game in the state and elsewhere.

More than $3.5 million was generated by regulated operators there during June 2020 almost double the figure reported for the same period last year.

With revenues in April and May also showing a significant year-on-year increase, it is easy to see why officials in New Jersey are eager to cash in.

Allowing poker to be played at the racetracks would serve to heighten the games popularity and generate even greater revenues in the state.

New York Players Look on With Envy

While New Jerseys gambling boom is great news for players, operators and state finances, the situation is very different in New York.

The state has historically had some of the strictest gambling laws in the United States and has been reluctant to let off the brakes in recent times.

Although it is not illegal for New York residents to participate in online gambling, they have to use the services of operators located elsewhere.

However, the success of regulated online gambling in other states has left many NY players yearning for new legislation to be introduced in their jurisdiction.

Addabbo Leading the Poker Charge in NY

The push in New Jersey to have poker declared as a game of skill and bluff could have a major knock-on effect in New York.

Officials in the state have been trying for seven years to legalise online poker in the state, and they will be keeping a watchful eye on events in New Jersey.

A bill from Senator Joseph Addabbo to remove poker as an illegal game of chance has appeared back on file and may have a greater chance of succeeding than previous incarnations.

Passing new legislation for poker would not only be a positive move for NY players, but would also prove to be hugely beneficial for the state in terms of tax revenues.

NY Ready to Join the Poker Party

Given the difficulties many industries are facing in the current climate, it makes perfect sense for New York to ease the restrictions on poker.

The figures generated in New Jersey highlight the popularity of the game and operators are queuing up to replicate that success in New York.

The key to breaking down the barriers may well lie in the proposal in New Jersey to have poker declared as a game of skill and bluff as opposed to a form of gambling.

If that bill is passed, it would be no surprise to see Addabbos proposal rubber-stamped and that would be fantastic news for poker fans in New York.

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NJ Special Legislation and the Impact on Online Casino Players in NY - Blog - The Island Now

Key Points To Consider When Choosing Online Poker Tables – Top10PokerWebsites

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July 20, 2020 July 20, 2020 Paul Butcher https://plus.google.com/116893384630351018637

Being successful in poker involves a lot of tough decisions, including carefully choosing which poker table to play. It is important that you consider this aspect seriously especially if youre just starting to build your bankroll.

Remember, in order to crush the tables, you must play with players that are not as skilled as you, or simply those just within your range. When it comes to real money online poker, selecting tables is a difficult job. First, youre competing against players from different parts of the world and theyre hiding behind screen names, which means their true identity are concealed.

You need to consider a lot of factors, and this is where we can help you with. Weve listed some of the relevant statistics that you must watch carefully before hopping in any table to play.

The stakes in a table refer to the size of the small and big blind, and also the bets involved. So if you have a 5c/10c table, the small blind is 5 cents, while the big blind is 10 cents.

Each table allows a certain number of players to participate. You must put this into consideration, as well as the how many players are actually playing. A 5/9 table indicates that the table can accommodate a maximum of 9 players, but only 5 are actually competing. This means 4 seats are currently vacant.

This refers to the average winning pot available for a particular table. This stat also gives you an insight as to the kind of table youre looking at. Other important determiners to consider are the limit, table speed, and the wait list.

When choosing a table to join, take note of the number of players who are not folding pre-flop these are the players who see the flop. In a table comprised of 10 players, if there is 50% player per flop, this tells you that 5 players see each flop, meaning the pot has at least 5 big blinds.

The table that will give you a higher win rate is the table full of weak players, or those referred to as fish. They are the players that arent very skilled and are prone to losing pots.

How can you tell if a table is joined by a lot of fish players? Simply check the player per flop stat in each table. A higher figure indicates a higher number of weak players competing in that table. These type of players tend to chase losses that result in poor hand selection. So if youre wondering which table to join, look at the player per flop. A 20% player per flop table would be a good place to start.

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Key Points To Consider When Choosing Online Poker Tables - Top10PokerWebsites

Trump’s approach to politics bears the hallmarks of a bad poker player, author says – CBC.ca

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Author and former professional poker player Maria Konnikova says that U.S. President Donald Trumpcould stand to learn a thing or two about politics from a game of Texas Hold'em.

In her latest book,The Biggest Bluff,Konnikovadetails what poker can teach us about decision making and writing for Politico, she argues Trump's political strategies bear all the hallmarks of a bad poker player.

She spoke to Day 6 guest host Peter Armstrong about how she thinks the skills she learned at the poker table could benefit the president.

Below is part of their conversation.

Trump himself has said that he sees his life as something of a poker match. How do you think he's faring at this point in the game?

I remain convinced that he probably is not quite aware of the rules of poker. And it's so funny for someone who lies as openly and as frequently as Trump does, I'm shocked that he hasn't just said, "Oh, yes, I'm a wonderful poker player."

It makes me think that he does realize that it might be a game that's a little bit above his pay grade.

You've said his whole process of decision-making ... stands in direct contrast to what the game of poker teaches. What are the key lessons that he's missed?

There's a notion in poker that I think just everyone outside the poker world should employ in their vocabulary because it's such a convenient word and that's tilt. And when somebody is 'on tilt' or 'tilted' or when you find something 'tilting' that means that you've let emotions into your decision process so you're no longer thinking logically.

This can be both positive and negative in terms of the valence of the emotions so it can be very angry, you can be really ecstatic.

Tilt makes someone a much worse player because tilt is very exploitable by other opponents. That means that people can take advantage of it.

So what Trump should be doing, or what any good poker player should be doing, is trying to perform that calculus on themselves and figure out, "OK, how am I emotional? What things get to me?"

In the great geopolitical poker game, if Trump is the guy at the table who is on tilt, can you look from a distance and see what other players are taking advantage of that?

Yeah, absolutely. I think someone who is very, very good at taking advantage of it is Vladimir Putin. And that's very disconcerting. You do not want a leader who's that easy to manipulate.

Of course, all of this comes with a huge caveat, which is that Trump has already won the presidency and who's to say he's not going to win the re-election?Sometimes this kind of strategy can be successful, despite everything that you think is going to go down.

Do [Trump's] bluffing skills maybe make up for his bluster and emotion and erraticism on the other?

In some ways, yes. It's funny, even though this book was about poker, my last book was about con artists. And even though I think Trump would be a horrendous poker player, he is an excellent con artist and is able to convince people of just about anything who already want to believe it he's very good at selling people the version of the world that they already want to be true.

And what we know about victims of con artists is that once they've already fallen for a con, almost nothing that you can say or do will convince them otherwise.

But, is he someone who is successful at bluffing people who aren't victims of the con artist Trump and instead are just looking from the outside at the politician Trump? And there I think you might see him falter.

So his bluffs work against the weaker players, but I think the strong opponents will be able to sniff out where he's actually just full of it and take advantage of it. And you actually see Trump walking back some of his biggest bluffs when people fight back.

As poker analogies go, this one's pretty incredibly high stakes. [Trump] just used his presidential powers to commute the sentence of a criminal associate. COVID-19 cases are absolutely surging.

We're heading into an election season. He doesn't show any signs of improving his poker skills. If you were betting on it or if you were sitting at this sort of analogous table, how would you weigh the odds that he might actually win this game this round?

I'm actually still incredibly nervous that Trump's chances are much higher than we think that they are, because, first of all, anything can happen, and he's shown himself to be someone who's very good in the 11th hour.

We also know that his international standing doesn't really matter when it comes to re-election. So it doesn't matter that all these leaders are able to take advantage of a hermit and that he's not really a match for the best leaders on the global scale.

Right now, the betting markets are favouring [Joe] Biden. But until it happens, I'm not going to believe it. And I would actually not put any money against Trump right now, personally.

Written by Kyle Myzuka. Produced by Annie Bender. Q&A edited for length and clarity.

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Trump's approach to politics bears the hallmarks of a bad poker player, author says - CBC.ca

The Most Famous Woman in the History of Gambling – Poker Alice Story – Newswire

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Although gambling is still considered more of a male domain, there are countless amazing female players today.

(Newswire.net -- July 20, 2020) --Although gambling is still considered more of a male domain, there are countless amazing female players today. And there were strong women in the past. Probably the most famous one is a Poker Alice who won a fortune, founded a brothel and shot two men during her life in the wild west.

Alice Ivers Tubss or Poker Alice (1851-1930) is probably the most well-known female gambler in history. Even in these days she would be a famous gambling celebrity. Alice was originally born in England as the daughter of the conservative school principal. After she moved to Virginia, she studied at an elite girls' boarding school. As a teenager, she moved with her family again, this time to Colorado.

And it was in Colorado, where she met her future husband, miner and keen gambler Frank Duffield. It was he who first introduced her to poker and faro (a game similar to baccarat).

After several years of marriage, however, Duffield died in a mine explosion, leaving the future poker queen with no income. The mining town did not offer a very attractive job opportunity for a young woman, so young Alice decided to win money in casino. In addition to playing, Alice worked as a dealer, mainly in poker and parish, which were the most popular card games at the time.

She moved from one mining camp to another, earning the nickname "Poker Alice" in the Wild West. Besides her playing skills, Alice was also famous for her love of cigars and carrying of a .38 revolver.

Alice soon left Colorado and went to New Mexico, where she had her first significant gambling success when she won $ 6000 at Gold Dust Gambling House (the real value of this prize with the current dollar is about $ 180,000).

After a while, Alice returned to Colorado, where she worked briefly as a poker dealer at Bob Ford's salon. The same Bob Ford who killed the famous Jesse James shortly before.

In 1880, Poker Alice moved to Dakota, where she met her second husband, Warren G. Tubbs, also a frequent casino visitor. Their love story started quite violently when Poker Alice saved Bob by shooting a drunk.

According to Alice, this event was followed by the happiest time of her life, when she, her new husband and seven children together moved to the ranch. However, nothing lasts forever, and Tubbs died of tuberculosis a few years later.

In 1910, she opened a casino by herself - Poker Palace. The business offered a gaming room and also a special lady service, but was closed three years later in 1913 because Alice shot a drunk soldier. She was arrested for this incident, but she claimed self-defence and was acquitted.

Till the end of her life in 1930, Poker Alice was doing nothing but playing poker or leading a brothel, for which she was sentenced several years before her death, but due to her advanced age (75 years), she did not go to prison. Alice eventually dies at the blessed age of 79 during surgery.

According to her, she managed to win more than $ 250,000 in her lifetime (comparable to about $ 6,250,000 to today's value).

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The Most Famous Woman in the History of Gambling - Poker Alice Story - Newswire

How Has Poker Changed Over Many Years? – Loop21

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Life goes on with the changing world.Almost everything is made to be changed after some time. Poker is as old as theexistence of man. It was designed to play cards in leisure time. But now it haschanged drastically over many years due to the advent of technology. Manysignificant changes are observed in a poker game during the past few years.Change in the privacy policies, the settings, and the way of playing it haschanged over many years.

Reasons for Changes in Poker

The online poker industry has manypotential reasons which act as a massive catalyst for changing the strategiesin the poker industry. Lets discuss all of these reasons in detail as below.

The strategies of poker werestraightforward in the past. Most players knew every trick to win the game inthe end. There were many traditional resources available to every player,because of this, the competition was quite low. This is the significant reason whythe change was needed in strategies of poker.

There is no doubt in the past 6-10years that the availability and quality of resources to poker users becomequite restricted. In the past, there were many skill books for the training ofnew pokers in the market, which they used to develop more in the industry ofpoker. In the past, players were worried about the offloading of their secrets,but now everything is open to them. They can get all the techniques by usingmany resources on the internet.

Most players realized that there aremany other impressive ways to beat their opponents. This was the most importantreason for the change in strategies of poker. The creativity of players hasbeen increased with the help of many online training sites. These onlinetraining sites play an essential role in enhancing the creativity of playersworldwide.

Ways in Which Poker Has Changed Over the Last Many Years

Poker has made drastic changes inrecent years, which is very prominent in the gaming industry. In past yearspoker has made massive progress in the filed of continuation bet. However,still, there is nothing new in it. Most players played this version many yearsago. Most players used to okay at hands about five years ago, but now they aremade to assign a range of hands so that the opponents could not recognize them.

Poker strategies have also changed, considering the decision support tools. Many decision tools play an essential role. There is a long list of such tools available now, which can give a raft of online support tools, which will allow you to play in a post-mortem of poker for playing at hands. If you are searching to play poker according to new strategies, then you must have to visit Situs sbobet; it will guide you in the best way.

Poker has always been an essentialsports activity for most players. It doesnt matter how it has changed over therecent years; it is still an exciting activity for people.

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How Has Poker Changed Over Many Years? - Loop21

Orange City OKs more poker players, and Greyhound racing in Daytona is over – The West Volusia Beacon

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Four years after it approved a cardroom with a sports bar in an aging shopping center, the Orange City Council has agreed to allow the business to draw bigger crowds but the coronavirus pandemic may limit the expected rush.

Since opening in 2017, the Orange City Racing & Card Club at 822-4 Saxon Blvd. has operated with a maximum 297 seats in the poker room, by agreement with the city.

We need to remove the existing cap, Daytona Beach Kennel Club President Fred Guzman told the Orange City Council July 14. We need to clear this hurdle.

The cardroom has been good for Orange City, Guzman said, producing more than $300,000 in revenue from the state parimutuel fund. He said that income may increase by $100,000-plus this fiscal year.

The parimutuel-fund money is in addition to city property taxes and electric-utility taxes.

The cardroom produces an economic impact of $6 million for Orange City, Guzman said, because of the scores of people employed there.

I like what you all have done, Vice Mayor Bill OConnor said, praising the cardroom and its owners. I appreciate the work you have done. ... Thank you for what you have done with that blighted community. I just wanted to give you a thumbs-up.

The cardroom and restaurant operate in what had been an empty former movie theater.

Orange City Racing & Card Club operates under the state parimutuel gambling license of the Daytona Beach Kennel Club.

A restaurant and sports bar, combined with opportunities for off-premises betting, have made the cardroom a success, and the local business and its parent firm, Delaware North, requested permission in late 2019 to lift the customer limit that was set four years ago. The Orange City Council readily agreed to do so.

Asked how social distancing to combat the spread of the coronavirus may restrict the numbers of fortune seekers, Guzman replied, I really couldnt put a number on it.

In line with what other businesses have done or are doing, he said the business has installed hand sanitizers.

The Orange City poker room covers about 6,200 square feet of the businesss total of 29,237 square feet. The cardroom now has 34 tables, with as many as eight players at each one.

Were not requesting to expand beyond the current footprint, Guzman said.

Orange City Racing & Card Club is welcoming back its clientele after the pandemic shutdown.

We reopened on Memorial Day, Guzman said.

As well as the gambling, the restaurant is also doing well, he added, noting alcoholic beverages are available with food orders.

The Kennel Club took over the former multiplex cinema in the Orange City Marketplace shopping center and redeveloped the space under a conditional-use permit granted by the City Council. A conditional use is special permission given to a developer to operate a business not specifically allowed under the zoning code.

One City Council member recalled the debate in 2016 over a gambling business.

There was some controversy about this, but we did approve it, Council Member Bill Crippen said.

Critics of the cardroom expressed concerns about possible crime, late-night noise and traffic. According to the City Council, those fears have not materialized.

The cardroom has been a positive impact in Orange City. I havent heard any complaints, Mayor Gary Blair told Guzman.

The council voted 7-0 to remove the cap on customers in the cardroom.

The Daytona Beach Kennel Club may need a new name.

Kennel Club President Fred Guzman said dog racing has ended months before the Dec. 31, 2020, deadline mandated by Florida voters.

In 2018, a majority of the states electorate about 69 percent adopted a state constitutional amendment to halt greyhound racing.

We were planning on ending dog racing on March 28. We shut down March 20, Guzman told The Beacon.

The closedown of dog racing and betting on it coincided with the lockdown on many businesses, schools and other establishments to combat the coronavirus. There was also the matter of finding homes for the racing dogs.

We made the decision to stop early so that all the greyhounds could be adopted, Guzman said. Not all the dogs would have been adoptable at once.

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Orange City OKs more poker players, and Greyhound racing in Daytona is over - The West Volusia Beacon

How Coronavirus changed the perception of Poker – CalvinAyre.com

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For many, the global Coronavirus lockdown has meant a huge change to work, health and life in general. The restrictions of places of work, general public freedom and even familial contact has been a huge change to the routines of millions.

Poker players, however, have always had what might be loosely termed an alternative lifestyle.

Poker players rise at the weirdest times, work long unsociable hours from home and yet only really rely on a strong WiFi signal to be able to make money.

Ideal conditions for a life in lockdown? Its hard to disagree with that when you see players like Ryan Depaulo committed to the game wherever he can find signal, even if it a Whole Foods parking lot.

Playing poker from home requires a lockdown mentality in that you cant leave the computer for more than five minutes every hour, need a relentless focus and drive and have to be comfortable working under pressure. That doesnt just sound like something that can stand up to the demands of pre-lockdown office employment, but potentially look down on it.

Playing poker from home, working from home in any way, is something for which global perception has changed. Many large companies have realized during the COVID-19 lockdown that paying out a vast proportion of their profits towards an office floor has drained money from their profit column. During the lockdown, theyve seen that the same employees can cope from home, can still work to the best of their abilities because their jobs depend on it.

In a City-based office, theres always a coffee run, a cake morning, a birthday card to sign or a meeting to be held for little reason other than to gather in all the gossip. Working from home, delivering to a timetable and organizing a schedule is something that poker players do all year round.

The perception of poker before the pandemic might have been very different for parents, too. If your son or daughter left university and told you that their money-making hobby of playing poker is something that they want to develop into a career before lockdown, you might have been worried. Post-lock down, however, with no immediate sign of a vaccine bringing a restricted lifestyle to an end, the idea has some merit now.

Developing as a professional poker player has, in many ways, never been harder. The opponents are tough, there are professionals who have already made a great start to their poker careers and there are obstacles to overturn as you fight to turn a regular profit. But in other ways, its never been easier to start. There are vast amounts of information at your fingertips to call upon, with podcasts, training videos, coaches and incentives to use in your bid to be the best.

With huge online series put on during the summer and beyond by companies such as PokerStars, GGPoker and the WSOP as well as partypoker and 888poker, playing poker during the lockdown could lead to a better enjoyment of the game in a world after Coronavirus.

Its easy to leave your ambitions in poker to after this is all over, but in reality, its always better to make a start whenever you can and there might never have been a better time to get playing poker on a more regular basis.

As John Lennon once sang, Life is what happens to you while youre busy making other plans.

Perhaps he could have started that famous line with the word poker after all.

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How Coronavirus changed the perception of Poker - CalvinAyre.com

Natural8 2020 WSOP Online Hand of the Week: A Wholesome Hand for Ryan Depaulo – PokerNews.com

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July 21, 2020Chad Holloway

Natural8 is home to the WSOP 2020 Online with 54 Bracelet Events taking place from July 19th till September 6th. Win a Bracelet and join the exclusive Natural8 Winner's Circle where up to $700,000 in Sponsorship rewards are waiting to be claimed. Start your journey by exploring the WSOP Silk Road Micro-Stakes Tournaments or via the $5,000,000 WSOP Giveaway. The opportunities are endless.

The 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) online bracelet events are running now through September 6th. The series is comprised of 85 WSOP gold bracelets on the digital felt across two different clients: WSOP.com and GG Poker.

Each week, well highlight a Hand(s) of the Week, which very well could include bad beats, lucky suck outs, and game-changing swings. In the first week of the 2020 WSOP online series, we shared two big hands played by

PLAY IN WSOP ONLINE 2020 AT NATURAL8

This weeks hand comes from Event #12: $500 The Big 500 No-Limit Hold'em, a tournament that attracted 2,427 entries (1,624 unique players who rebought 803 times). Its from that event that arguably the 2020 WSOPs most popular story sprung the victory of poker vlogger Ryan joeyisamush Depaulo, who captured a $159,563 top prize and his first gold bracelet.

What really caught the attention of the poker world was that Depaulo, who was a recent guest on the PokerNews Podcast, was literally playing from inside his car in a New Jersey Whole Foods parking lot. It was also a redeeming victory as last summer he finished third in the 2019 WSOP Event #61: $400 Colossus for $208,643.

Depaulos victory wasnt easy as he had to deal with seasoned veteran Jack "EarlGrey" Salter in heads-up play. Depaulo began the match with a nice chip lead but Salter, who has more than $8.4 million in lifetime earnings, used his experience to battle back and claim it for himself. It looked as if the bracelet was going to slip through Depaulos fingers, but then he got a little lucky.

Arguably the most influential hand of the tournament took place in Level 47 (400,000/800,000/100,000) when Salter limped the button and then called when Depaulo moved all in for 17.2 million.

Ryan "joeyisamush" Depaulo: Jack "EarlGrey" Salter:

The board ran out and Depaulo shipped a big double into the chip lead, which subsequently left Salter with 13.7 million.

Salter dwindled a bit before doubling with ace-eight against king-four, and for a moment it appeared as if he was going to claw back. The comeback was cut short though when Salter opened for 1.6 million from the button, and Depaulo three-bet jammed in the big blind. Salter called off his last 17,000,000 and the cards were tabled.

Jack "EarlGrey" Salter: Ryan "Joeyisamush" Depaulo:

The flop and turn meant Salter had to hit an ace to survive, but instead the bricked on the river. Salter had to settle for second-place while Depaulo earned his first WSOP gold bracelet and made history by doing it in a Whole Foods parking lot.

Win WSOP Gold bracelets on Natural8 for up to $700,000 in sponsorships, including a Las Vegas Package and opportunity to join Team Bling as an ambassador

In the days that followed, PokerNews caught up with Depaulo to talk about the whole experience:

Want to play on Natural8? Get a head-start with exclusive newcomer promos like the WSOP First Deposit Bonus, $8 Extra Bonus, and $500 Weekly First Deposit Freeroll. Sign up here.

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Natural8 2020 WSOP Online Hand of the Week: A Wholesome Hand for Ryan Depaulo - PokerNews.com

Flag football shifts to online poker, auction to honour Corey Trudeau – The Kingston Whig-Standard

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Family and friends of the late Corey Trudeau came together for a fundraising flag football tournament at Richardson Stadium on July 21, 2019. This year, an online poker tournament and silent auction will be held in its place due to COVID-19 concerns. (Meghan Balogh/The Whig-Standard)SunMedia

Those closest to the late Corey Trudeau will be swapping the green turf of a football field for the green felt of a poker table, if you will, to honour his memory this year.

Since dying suddenly in November 2014, Trudeaus friends and family have gathered for an annual mid-summer flag football tournament to raise money for his daughter, Jacqueline, who was a young child when he died.

Trudeau was posthumously honoured into the Queens Football Hall of Fame and the Kingston and District Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.

This year, due to COVID-19-related circumstances, the organizers opted to go forward with the celebration through an online poker tournament and silent auction.

(We realized) what we undertook five years ago could still be undertaken in the present, specifically that we can still gather together and remember one of our former colleagues, Mike Johnston, a former teammate of Trudeaus on the Queens Golden Gaels from 2001 to 2003, said.

Nearly five years after his passing, Trudeau is remembered by Johnston as not only a teammate but a role model.

In a personal capacity, we were the best of friends. We worked out together all the time and had a really close relationship, he said. A very important guy in my life, he really took me under his wing and worked hard with me.

The annual tournament has been run to help support Jacqueline Trudeau, but in 2016 it added a charitable segment for the money raised. Since then, a portion of the proceeds have gone to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington. This year, however, theyre dividing the earnings between Jacqueline Trudeau, Queens football, Partners in Mission Food Bank and Lionhearts COVID-19 Street Project.

After raising more than $1,000 in the tournaments first year, Johnston and the events organizers reached $7,353 in total donations last year, 60 per cent of which went to Jacqueline Trudeau.

This years poker tournament will be held on Saturday over Zoom. The tournament wont use real money but requires a registration fee.

Johnston said they elected to give money to four separate causes this year to extend the fundraisers reach in the community.

I dont want to sound arrogant, just the idea of providing a small example that small acts of kindness or generosity, even if theyre comparatively small, over the long term can make a difference, Johnston said.

Were just hoping thats what were able to accomplish here.

While the event will provide help to various groups, Johnston said the messaging behind remembering Trudeaus name is equally, if not more, important.

This isnt so much financial as it is emotional. Its showing people in the community that they have people they can rely on, Johnston said.

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Flag football shifts to online poker, auction to honour Corey Trudeau - The Kingston Whig-Standard

"LC Packaging helps female Bengali employees gain control of their finances with digital salary payments" – FreshPlaza.com

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To contribute to the further economic development of women in Bangladesh and to improve their financial independence, LC Packagings SA8000 certified production facility Dutch-Bangla Pack Ltd. (DBPLI) has implements a digital payroll system for all of its Bengali factory employees.

With this system, every DBPL employee has been assigned a bank account to which their salaries are directly deposited. Additionally, all employees have been supplied with a chequebook and bankcard. allowing them to cash out their wages at their own convenience or to directly transfer funds to pay their bills. The bankcards can also be used for payments at the on-site fair priced supermarket; the Happy Shop.

Financial independence Apart from transparency and control over their expenditure and savings, these digital payments give employees access to formal financial services, such as insurances and loans, which will give them more control over their own finances.

The expectation is that moving to digital wage payments will contribute to the further economic empowerment of female employees, by giving them greater control over how their money will be spent. As a final step of implementing the digital wage payments, an ATM booth has been installed right outside the gate of the OBPL production facility. Employees can use their bankcards for withdrawing and depositing money from this booth.

Female empowerment Bangladesh has witnessed steady economic growth over the last decade and is gradually moving towards middle income status. That does not take away from the fact that- like many other countries - it is a patriarchal society in which women remain subordinate to men.

However, women make up over half of the world's population and the majority of the world's poor. It is therefore important, and it makes sense, to address women and their economic empowerment and contribution when trying to reduce poverty and further the economic development of Bangladesh.

LC Packaging strongly believes in empowerment of its employees and will continue to implement initiatives to further empower each and every one of them. At Dutch-Bangla Pack Ltd., LC Packaging works daily on improving the well-being of people through the Employee Commitment Programme. The efforts have been acknowledged by the Sedex Responsible Business Awards.

For more information:Manon Rood, Communication RepresentativeE-mail: mrood@lcpackaging.comTel: +31 (0) 615 57 65 11 Web: http://www.lcpackaging.com

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"LC Packaging helps female Bengali employees gain control of their finances with digital salary payments" - FreshPlaza.com

Biden needs a battle plan to defend modern government – The Advocate

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Cass R. Sunstein, Bloomberg

Some conservative legal thinkers speak of a "Lost Constitution" or "Constitution in Exile." By that they mean the Constitution as it was understood before President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal helped form the modern regulatory state.

Their Constitution in Exile would invalidate key parts of contemporary government. Some conservatives want to revive the long-dead "nondelegation doctrine," which was once taken to forbid Congress from granting broad discretion to regulatory agencies.

The Supreme Court made a strong movement in the direction of the Constitution in Exile in its most recent term, when it ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may not be made independent of the president.

The court stopped well short of upending the regulatory state. But it was just a preliminary skirmish. Bigger battles are brewing. Those who want to defend modern government - including Democrats if they regain power in November - will need to think hard about appropriate reforms if the Supreme Court begins to invalidate larger features of the U.S. government as it exists today.

A Supreme Court bent on resuscitating the nondelegation doctrine would put important parts of the Clean Air Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in jeopardy.

Those who believe in the Constitution in Exile also have trouble with the idea of independent agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. The president has limited control over the heads of such agencies; he cannot fire them simply because that's what he wants to do.

Critics of independent agencies argue that the Constitution gives the president unlimited power to remove and control officials who are in charge of implementing federal laws - a power that, in their view, the Constitution grants to the president alone and that Congress cannot compromise. If the Supreme Court agrees with them, American government is in need of radical reform - by constitutional mandate.

The Federal Reserve Board might become the president's pawn. That would be a problem because it could end up playing partisan politics with the economy and perhaps ensure a sitting president's re-election. And if the president had full control over the FCC, he could undermine freedom of expression by ordering the agency to punish his political enemies.

The court did not go so far as to say that independent agencies are unconstitutional in its ruling last month on the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, an agency created by Congress in 2011 to guard against abuses by banks and credit-card companies; it left that question for another day. But it concluded that because the CFPB is headed by a single person, and not a multi-member commission, it cannot stand.

Let's put the technicalities to one side and note two pressing questions: What's the legal status of the CFPB, exactly? Should Congress try to change it?

The first question is easy. All of a sudden, the CFPB is an executive agency, just like the Departments of State, Treasury and Transportation. It is fully under the president's control, whether his last name is Trump or Biden.

A less obvious point is that the CFPB's rule-making activity can be made subject to the process of review overseen by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which is part of the Office of Management and Budget. (Disclosure: During President Barack Obama's first term, I served as an Administrator of OIRA.)

In practice, that means that the CFPB won't be able to issue new rules unless they survive careful scrutiny, usually including sustained attention to both costs and benefits. It also means that any presidential effort to promote deregulation, typically overseen by the regulatory-affairs office, can be applied to the CFPB as well.

From the standpoint of President Donald Trump, this isn't a problem. Actually it's a gift. The White House can supervise and manage the CFPB however it wants.

But what about from the standpoint of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, or congressional Democrats who are enthusiastic about the bureau's mission? Before long, they might call for new legislation turning the CFPB back into an independent agency. As a matter of law, Congress can probably do that simply by replacing the single director with a five-member commission.

That's tempting, but it's a good temptation to resist.

If Biden is elected, he can immediately shift the CFPB in his preferred direction, not only by choosing its head, but also by supervising its policy decisions. He can give the agency new energy.

Those who like the idea of independence might respond that it makes sense to empower a less political body, free of the White House, to protect consumers from financial misconduct. But independence is a matter of degree.

Before the Supreme Court's decision, the CFPB was an independent agency, and because Trump appointed its director (first Mick Mulvaney and now Kathy Kraninger), its decisions and approaches were generally aligned with his policy preferences. That's generally true of independent agencies headed by multi-member commissions, simply because the sitting president gets to appoint the chair (and to fill vacancies).

All things considered, it's probably best for Democrats, and others who embrace consumer protection, to allow the CFPB to remain an executive agency - and not to stress all that much about presidential control over its decisions.

But make no mistake about it: This is just an early strategic choice that defenders of modern government have to make in response to the emergence of the Constitution in Exile. The next ones are likely to be tougher.

- - -

Sunstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the author of "The Cost-Benefit Revolution" and a co-author of "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness."

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Biden needs a battle plan to defend modern government - The Advocate

EDITORIAL: Bill needed to protect free speech – The Daily Gazette

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And one of the biggest threats to our democracy is the ability of the wealthy and powerful to silence free speech.

They do so by using the peoples own court system to file frivolous lawsuits against journalists, authors, bloggers, documentary film makers, civic organizations, protesters, political candidates and others.

Such suits are called SLAPP suits, which stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

Usually used by government bodies to silence citizens, more and more these suits are being used by political campaigns and other individuals to silence critical viewpoints.

Most recently, the Trump campaign and the Trump family have filed frivolous litigation to try to stop news organizations from publishing critical articles, opposing political campaigns and broadcast stations to stop running ads critical of the president, and a member of the Trump family from publishing a book critical of the president.

The goal of these suits is to discourage people from speaking out for fear of being dragged into court, where they then would be forced to spend money on legal fees, go through the time and hassle of a court fight, and risk losing a large monetary verdict.

That kind of intimation is effective and contagious, serving as a chill factor on potential criticism in the future.

Thats not just a threat to individuals; its a threat to our entire democracy. And government must do all it can to protect the peoples right to free speech.

State lawmakers have an opportunity to help preserve our free speech by expanding the states anti-SLAPP statute.

The new bill (A5991/S0052A) would cover any communication in a place open to the public or a public forum in connection with an issue of public concern and any other lawful conduct in furtherance of the exercise of the constitutional right of free speech in connection with an issue of public concern.

To discourage SLAPP suits, the legislation would compel the courts to award court costs and attorney fees in actions proven to be without a substantial basis in fact or law and that could not be supported by a substantial argument.

The bill has the strong backing of the New York News Publishers Association.

And a New York State Bar Association committee urged the full organization to support the bill, noting that it does nothing to affect legitimate claims.

The Legislature only expects to be back in session a short time.

Its vital to the free speech rights of New Yorkers that lawmakers in both houses pass this legislation before they leave for the summer and that the governor signs it when it gets to his desk.

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EDITORIAL: Bill needed to protect free speech - The Daily Gazette

Signs not regulated, but permitted as free speech – The Inquirer and Mirror

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Dean Geddes I&M Staff Writer @DGeddesIM

ThursdayJul16,2020at9:57AM

(July 23, 2020) Yard signs have been sprouting up on public property all over Nantucket this year, advocating for causes ranging from social justice to limiting development on the island.

There have been a lot of questions posed to the town about the legality and regulation of these signs, said Erika Mooney, the towns operations administrator. But ultimately, they are allowed and protected by free-speech laws.

We are advised that the power of the town to regulate speech in a public way is limited. Public streets and sidewalks are generally recognized as public forums. They are generally considered to be publicly-owned areas where individuals have the right to traverse, speak freely, protest and assemble. So, we are not taking them down. Mooney wrote in an e-mail.

(Restricting signs because they are not) visually appealing is too subjective and cannot be considered even if people want that.They can be moved or relocated if causing sight-line or clear public safety issues but the town must be very confident of this and apply the same standards islandwide and consistently.

To read the complete story, pick up the print edition of this weeks Inquirer and Mirror or register for the I&Ms online edition byclicking here.

For up-to-the-minute information on Nantuckets breaking news, boat and plane cancellations, weather alerts, sports and entertainment news, deals and promotions at island businesses and more, Sign up for Inquirer and Mirror text alerts.Click Here

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Signs not regulated, but permitted as free speech - The Inquirer and Mirror

Letter: Why doesn’t everyone have right to free speech? – Reading Eagle

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Editor:

How come free speech isnt free for everyone?

How come the police cant use choke holds or excessive force, but criminals can?

How come flying a Confederate flag is seen as a problem, but burning an American flag is not?

How come some of our statues must be taken down, but not others?

How come burning, looting and rioting is regarded as peaceful protesting?

How come ordinary citizens go to jail when they commit a crime, but many politicians and celebrities dont?

How come news from conservative sources is scrutinized for accuracy, but news from the liberal side isnt?

And last but not least, I wonder why President Donald Trump is considered a racist but columnist Leonard Pitts is not.

Consider these questions food for thought. Wake up, America.

Keith Folk

Gilbertsville

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Letter: Why doesn't everyone have right to free speech? - Reading Eagle

The White House Is Attempting to Circumvent the CDC on COVID Data – Futurism

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The Trump administration is trying to take control over national data about coronavirus patients by ordering hospitals to skip the US Centers for Disease Control and send all data to a database in Washington, DC, The New York Times reports.

Critics are worried that the White House might be attempting to politicize the pandemic. Access to the database could allow the administration to be selective in its approach to publicizing data, or to manipulate it in order to paint a flattering picture of its response.

White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx argued that hospitals werent reporting their data adequately. But its highly abnormal to cut out the CDC, the body that usually oversees the gathering of public health data.

Centralizing control of all data under the umbrella of an inherently political apparatus is dangerous and breeds distrust, Nicole Lurie, assistant secretary for preparedness and response during Obamas terms, told the Times. It appears to cut off the ability of agencies like CDC to do its basic job.

In a Washington Post opinion piece, four former CDC directors argued that changing the way data was released is inherently shady.

The only valid reason to change released guidelines is new information and new science not politics, they wrote.

They also took aim at the Trump administrations response over the past few months.

Public servants have been harassed, threatened and forced to resign when we need them most, they added. This is unconscionable and dangerous.

The news comes after the Trump administration pushed to have schools reopened in the fall. Education Secretary Betsy Devos even threatened to withhold funds if schools didnt welcome students in September.

The White Houses distrust in its own scientific advisors was also on display over the weekend, as White House staffers attacked top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci.

Last week, president Donald Trump said Fauci was a nice man, but hes made a lot of mistakes, during a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity.

The United States efforts to curb the pandemic have arguably failed, with the virus spreading uncontrollably in a large number of states. The country is still seeing exponentially rising numbers of new confirmed cases, particularly in the South.

Roughly 3.4 million cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in the US, with over 136,000 deaths, according to John Hopkins data tracker.

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The White House Is Attempting to Circumvent the CDC on COVID Data - Futurism

Churchill: Troy preacher has the right to offend – Beaumont Enterprise

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Reverend John Koletas preaches on Troy, New York street corner at 4th and Broadway. July 26, 1990 (Arnold LeFevre/Times Union Archive)

Reverend John Koletas preaches on Troy, New York street corner at 4th and Broadway. July 26, 1990 (Arnold LeFevre/Times Union Archive)

Photo: Arnold LeFevre, Times Union Historic Images

Reverend John Koletas preaches on Troy, New York street corner at 4th and Broadway. July 26, 1990 (Arnold LeFevre/Times Union Archive)

Reverend John Koletas preaches on Troy, New York street corner at 4th and Broadway. July 26, 1990 (Arnold LeFevre/Times Union Archive)

Churchill: Troy preacher has the right to offend

TROY John Koletas has been testing this city's First Amendment resolve for a very long time.

Three decades ago, the controversial pastor of the Grace Baptist Church in Lansingburgh was best known as a street preacher who tried to save the souls of passersby in downtown Troy. In a not-quiet voice, he'd demand that they repent for their sins.

The shouting wasn't always appreciated, unsurprisingly, and Koletas was repeatedly charged with disorderly conduct. Eventually, Koletas filed a lawsuit arguing that he had a First Amendment right to preach on the street and that his repeated arrests amounted to unconstitutional harassment. Two national TV shows Fox's "A Current Affair" and NBC's "Inside Edition" even came to Troy to report on the controversy.

Koletas ultimately lost in court, when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1995 that police did nothing wrong by arresting him.

Had I been a columnist for this newspaper back then, I generally would have been on Koletas' side. I would have argued, in other words, that he did in fact have a free speech right to preach outside, at least within reason.

No, a person shouldn't be allowed to holler on the street at, say, midnight. People do need to sleep, after all. Laws against unreasonable noise are justified.

But certainly, the city needed to accommodate the preacher's free speech rights without needless harassment. Koletas had the right to preach, even if few passersby wanted to hear it.

Fast forward three decades, and Koletas is again attracting attention. AR-15 rifle giveaways at Grace Baptist and Koletas' consistently hateful rhetoric toward Blacks, Jews, Muslims and Catholics have attracted Black Lives Matter protesters to the Fourth Street church in recent weeks.

As I noted in a column published Sunday that focused on Koletas' attacks on Catholicism, protesters aren't coming to Grace Baptist to attack Christianity or religion, as some in conservative media would have you believe. They're protesting what Koletas says, and justifiably so.

As has been well documented by bloggers and others, Koletas has referred to Blacks as "termites" and "savages." He has described himself as a racist who "believes the races should be kept separate as much as possible." Koletas says Catholicism, like the Muslim faith, is incompatible with democracy and the Bill of Rights.

In response to Sunday's column, a few supporters of Grace Baptist claimed I was attempting to silence or "cancel" Koletas' freedom of religion or speech. But I suggested no such thing.

I believe strongly that Koletas has the First Amendment right to pray and preach as he wants, assuming he stops short of advocating violence. Likewise, his followers have a First Amendment right to listen. And yes, protesters, columnists and Facebook commenters all have a First Amendment right to object to what Koletas says.

Free speech for everybody! What a concept.

Freedom of speech seems to be falling out of fashion, though. We increasingly hear that some words are too harmful to be spoken or that listeners have the right not to be offended. On college campuses, even relatively dull speakers such as economist Art Laffer can find themselves "deplatformed" for supposedly offensive views.

The shift, if widely accepted, will redefine free speech rights as we've long understood them. Actually, it would all but eliminate true freedom of speech. After all, if you can't say something that somebody might find offensive, you can hardly say anything provocative. You're limited to a fairly narrow range of expression.

The result would be a stifling monoculture of thought, devoid of intellectual diversity or compelling debate. And as any good gardener can tell you, there's nothing interesting about a monoculture.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear, wrote George Orwell in an essay planned as the introduction to "Animal Farm" that also included this gem of a line: "People don't see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you."

Had I been walking down a street in Troy in the early 1990s, I suppose I wouldn't have wanted to hear Koletas' call that I repent for my sins. I wouldn't want to sit through one of his sermons today. (Happily, I don't have to.)

But we allow Koletas to speak so that we all may speak. We counter his words with our own words.

Freedom of speech for everybody! It's a crucial concept.

cchurchill@timesunion.com 518-454-5442 @chris_churchill

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Churchill: Troy preacher has the right to offend - Beaumont Enterprise