Premiership betting review - 23 april 2006

Tottenham had one foot in fourth place until Thierry Henry equalised in the North London derby. Robbie Keane gave Spurs the lead after 66 minutes which left Arsenal outraged as their opponents did not play for an injury. However, substitute Henry secured a share of the spoils at odds of 5/2 six minutes before the end.

Newcastle remain on course for an UEFA Cup berth after a convincing 3-0 win against West Brom. Nolberto Solano gave the 4/5 Magpies the lead after half an hour and Shola Ameobi showed there was life after Alan Shearer with a penalty five minutes before the break and a second goal just before the final whistle.

Bolton remain hot on Newcastle’s tail after a 4-1 demolition of Charlton. Vaz Te scored for the 5/6 Trotters after 14 minutes, Kevin Davies on 21 and Jared Borgetti 10 minutes later gave Sam Allardyce’s team a commanding lead. Darren Bent struck a penalty for the Addicks on 76 but Davies netted his second a minute from time to ensure Bolton won by three goals.

Portsmouth left it late to beat relegated Sunderland to edge out of the bottom three. Sunderland, a speculative punt at 8/1 took the lead through Tommy Miller after 70 minutes but Svetoslav Todorov equalised three minutes later. With two minutes remaining, Kevin Kyle gave away a ridiculous hand-ball and Matthew Taylor converted the resultant penalty to ensure a 2/5 home win.

Birmingham gave their survival hopes a boost with a goalless draw at Everton. A dour match with few chances for either side was played out to a 9/4 stalemate.

Being six points away from Portsmouth, West Brom are now 1/100 for relegation while Birmingham City, two points behind Portsmouth, are 3/10. Harry Redknapp’s side are 5/2 outsiders to face the drop, although they have two tough matches remaining in Wigan Athletic and Liverpool.

The FA Cup semi finals were both all-Premiership affairs with Liverpool meeting West Ham in the final on Saturday 13 May.

Liverpool were 16/5 outsiders in their match at Old Trafford but stunned Chelsea by racing into a 2-0 lead. John Arne Riise stuck a free kick after 20 minutes and Luis Garcia fired in a second seven minutes after the break. Didier Drogba took full advantage of a defensive mix-up on 69 but the Reds held firm..

West Ham left it late to dump Middlesbrough out of the cup at Villa Park. Marlon Harewood struck the decisive goal with 12 minutes left for Alan Pardew’s 9/5 outsiders and secured a place in next season’s UEFA Cup as a result.

Mets yankees column

At this point in the season, both the New York Yankees and the New York Mets have nearly identical records, but it is the past that makes these two franchises so different.

The eyes of the baseball world will be on the old and decrepit Shea Stadium this weekend. The two New York baseball teams will meet for the first time in 2006 as interleague play begins.

Ever since interleague play was introduced back in 1997, this cross-town match up has been the highlight for New Yorkers and a curiosity for the rest of the baseball world. No city can boast as much passion and emotion for their respective baseball teams as the Big Apple can.

Speaking from the perspective of a Yankees fan, if one was heading to the Sportsbook to make a wager on these games and wanted to pick the team that has proven itself over the years and one that is always in contention for the playoffs, your choice should be the Yankees.

Bronx Bomber fans have always hated the Boston Red Sox, but the hatred of Mets fans is more tempered with a little bit of sadness, as the team has not done anything significant since winning the World Series back in 1969.

Ok, Mets fans – you did make the World Series in 2000, but you lost to the Yankees. Does losing in a World Series really count for anything? Beyond that, the Mets have wandered woefully through many losing seasons and have suffered because of some inept management and decisions at the general manager level.

A good majority of Mets fans will have to agree that New York is a Yankee town, and the back page of the NY rags will attest to that on most days of the baseball season. I will say that I still enjoy that apple that pops up in the outfield at Shea on the occasion of a Mets homerun.

When these two teams hook up in the regular season, it does become a battle of NY. There is a pointed difference in the hatred for our rivals from Boston as compared to the boys from Queens.

In Yankee fans’ minds, the Mets do not represent much of a threat to take over the town. They have always been the step-cousin or the out-of-town uncle that comes and goes in your life with little regard paid to them. They are more of a curiosity than a constant threat.

But are things changing for the Metropolitans in 2006? They come into this series with the Yankees standing alone in first place in the National League East with a shiny record and a new team full of big money stars and a renewed sense of pride.

Everything is in place for these two local rivals to heat things up again for the next several years. The Mets have Pedro Martinez, a gentleman Yankees fans will have no problem hating. Plus, the payroll and the superstar quotient of the Mets almost equal that of the Yankees.

The Yanks have a rising star in Robinson Cano, while the Mets can counter with 3B David Wright. Carlos Delgado is the Mets big bopper, while Alex Rodriquez holds that title in the Bronx. Pedro has the scandalous background as does Jason Giambi, and both bullpens feature a large amount of money invested in closers.

This weekend’s tilt between the two teams will feature large crowds and will be important for the Mets, much more important than that series with the Atlanta Braves.

The Mets now have a good GM, good personnel, and a couple of players in the farm systems that have the potential to be great, if they are not traded away. They must now consider themselves frontrunners and shed the image of being the second most important team in a baseball-crazy town.

At one point in the winter, the Mets were a 12-1 pick to win the World Series, and now, that has been lowered to 7-1. The gap is closing between the Yankees and Mets, but in the end, it probably will not be enough. The Mets were the hot team last year, but faltered at season’s end. The Mets might still be a year or two away in the National League, having to overcome the powerful Cardinals and the flying Phillies.

Either way, the Yankees and owner George Steinbrenner know how important this series and the final set of games back in the Bronx are. It is all about image, and until the Mets can prove year after year that they are contenders and can win down the stretch, New York will always remain a Yankees town.

A quick and easy lesson in calculating outs and pot odds

Calculating outs (the number of cards that could improve your hand) and pot odds (ratio of the money in the pot versus the amount required to make your next call) is often used as a basis for a Texas Holdem Poker player on whether to draw and try to make their hand.

However this in my opinion should not be the sole basis of your decision on whether you should draw for another card.

You also have to decide on whether the hand that you are trying to hit will win you the pot or not.

How to calculate pot odds:

In this example, if the current pot contains $80, and the amount required at the next call is $20, the pot is laying you odds of $80 to $20 or 4 to 1.

As long as your odds of making the best hand are 4 to 1 or better than making the call is the right move. A hand that is 4 to 1 means that you will hit once in every 5 tries. You will hit the draw 20 percent of the time.

This next example takes into account calculating pot odds and outs.

Assume that your hole cards are a six and a seven (for this example suits do not matter) and the flop came down 8-9-3.

In order to complete your hand you need a 5 or 10. You have eight outs – 4-5’s and 4-10’s. Multiply your outs (8) by 4 and you get 32. You have a 32 percent chance of making your hand. If there was only one card left to draw you would multiply by two.

A 32 percent chance of making your hand means you have a 68 percent chance of NOT making your hand. This is roughly 2 to 1 that you won’t make the hand. So, as long as the pot contains $2 for every $1 that you have to call, it is worth going after your straight.

Doing these quick calculations and interpreting them can be very difficult and confusing for a beginner (and many advanced players as well!). But I would recommend that you at least be able to quickly calculate your outs to give you an idea of just how likely you are to make your hand.

Then decide if that hand will win the pot for you or not.

Poker legend doyle brunson biography and information

Early life

Doyles Bruson was born in Longworth, Texas, a town with a population of approximately 100, and was one of three children in his family. Because of Longworth's size, Brunson frequently ran long distances to other towns, and became a promising athlete. He was part of the All-State Texas basketball team, and practiced the one-mile run to keep in shape in the off-season. Although he was more interested in basketball than running, he entered the 1950 Texas Interscholastic Track Meet and won the one-mile event with a time of 4:38. Despite receiving offers from many colleges, he decided to attend Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas because it was close to his home. The Minneapolis Lakers were interested in Brunson, but a knee injury ended his playing days. He had taken a summer job and was unloading some sheetrock at work. When the ton of weight shifted, Brunson attempted to stop the shift with his leg out of instinct, but it landed on his leg, breaking it in two places. His leg was in a cast for two years, and the injury ended his hopes of becoming a professional basketball player. He still occasionally requires a crutch to get around because of the injury. Brunson changed his focus from athletics to education and obtained a master's degree in administrative education.

Brunson had begun playing poker before his injury, playing five card draw and finding it "easy", and he began to play more often after being injured. His poker winnings paid for his expenses, and he obtained a bachelor's degree in 1954 and a master's the following year. After graduating, he took a job as a business machines salesman, but on his first day in the job he was invited to play in a seven-card stud game and earned over a month's salary in less than three hours. He soon left the company and began a career as a professional poker player.

Poker career

Doyle Brunson started off by playing in illegal games in Exchange Street, Fort Worth, and Texas with a friend named Dwayne Hamilton. Eventually they began traveling around Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, playing in bigger games, and met fellow-professionals Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts. Hamilton moved back to Fort Worth, while the others teamed up and traveled around together, gambling on poker, golf and, in Doyle's words, "just about everything". They pooled their money together for gambling, but after six years they made their first serious trip to Las Vegas and lost all of it, a six-figure amount. They decided to stop playing as partners but remain friends.

Brunson finally settled in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Brunson continues to play in the biggest poker games in the world, playing $4000/$8000 minimum bets and also at the World Series of Poker. He won his ninth gold bracelet in a mixed games event in 2003 , and in 2004 he finished 53rd (in a field of 2576) in the No Limit Texas hold'em Championship event. He won the Legends of Poker World Poker Tour event in 2004 (garnering him a $1.1 Million prize), and finished fourth in the WPT's first championship event. Early in the morning on July 1 , 2005 , less than a week after Chan had won his 10th gold bracelet - setting a new record - Brunson tied the record by earning his 10th at the 2005 WSOP .

As of 2005 , his total live tournament winnings exceeded $4,200,000.

World cup 2006 preview - czech republic

Outright Odds: 33/1

Group E Winners: 9/4

The Czech Republic may be ranked by FIFA as the second best team in the world behind Brazil and the best in Europe but they made hard work of qualifying for the finals. Pitted against Holland in qualifying, they lost home and away and also suffered defeat in Romania to finish second in the group. They won both home and away 1-0 against Norway in the play-offs to secure their place in Germany.

Despite a nervous qualification, expectations are high this time around for the Czech’s first appearance in the finals since they entered as Czechoslovakia in 1990. The side have not been out of FIFA’s top six since 2004 and can no longer be dubbed underdogs or outsiders. Under their old guise they twice finished runners-up in both 1934 and 1962 and they have the ability to go one better this time around.

For many of the current squad, it’s now or never, as the attacking force of Tomas Galasek, Karel Poborsky, Jan Koller and Pavel Nedved, back out of retirement, are all entering the veteran stage of their careers. All made their mark a decade ago as the Czech Republic surprised everyone by reaching the final of Euro 96 and taking eventual winners Germany into extra time.

Under manager Karel Bruckner, who took charge in 2001 after a successful spell as under-21 coach, the Czechs can be a real force to be reckoned with. Nobody scored more goals in the European qualifying campaign than Bruckner’s side and it’s hardly surprising, given his choice of tactics.

The Czechs play a cavalier style of attacking football that can be breathtaking to watch. Who can forget their classic Euro 2004 against Holland in which they battled back from 2-0 down to win the match 3-2?

With Nedved, Galasek, Poborsky and Tomas Rosicky, the Czechs boast one of the most creative midfields in international football. Jan Koller struck nine times in qualifying to take his tally to 40 goals in 66 appearances but he is in danger of missing out on the finals after suffering cruciate ligament damage in September 2005.

While almost unstoppable in attack, where the Czechs fall short is in defence. Full backs Marek Jankulovski and Zdenek Grygera offer plenty of attacking support from the back but are prone to being caught out. But given their overall ability they are worth a shout to win the tournament at long odds.

Recommended Bet:

At odds greater than 2/1, the Czechs offer much better value than Italy to win the group given their potency in attack. According to FIFA the Czechs are Europe’s top side yet the bookmakers don’t fancy their chances given the odds on offer. At 33/1, the Czechs offer good each-way value to win the tournament outright.

Czech Republic to win Group E @ 9/4

E/W Czech Republic to win the World Cup @ 33/1

Slot machine myths

Slot machines are a popular draw in casinos around the world, and even though each country has their different varieties of slot machines, the basic notion behind them all is the same. Traditionally, slot machines are coin-operated machines with three or more reels that spin whenever a lever on the side of the machine is pulled and released. Slot machines are affectionately nicknamed “one-armed bandits” because of their one-armed appearance.

Newer variations of the machine allow players to insert cash or even paper tickets with barcodes in order to play slot machines. Some of the more recent slot machines will even have a touch screen that starts the reels spinning.

Now, on to debunking some of the more popular myths about slot machines:

- The average slot machine never gets hot or cold. This is because the odds of a person hitting a winning combination of reels are determined by a random number generator that is built into the slot machine’s software. The odds never change.

Amusement with prizes (AWP) machines in Britain are the exception to this rule. These AWP machines are progressive, meaning that the chances of someone hitting a winning combination increases over time if the machine has not paid out yet. Some of these machines will also grant winning combinations if it will help the machine to meet certain payout percentages.

- Though there is a logic behind where slot machines are placed out on the gambling floor, higher paying machines are not placed in areas with more traffic. Machines with similar payout percentages are put together.

- The temperature of the coins inserted into the slot machine will not affect the payout received. Slot machines do not sense temperature and payout different percentages depending on the temperature of the coins used.

- Using a slot club card will not affect the slot machine’s payout. The card only allows the casino to monitor how much a player gambles with and the corresponding amenities that should be granted.

- In most jurisdictions, slot machines cannot have their payout percentages altered depending on the time of day or day of the week by punching in some numbers into a computer. To do this would require the replacement of parts inside of the slot machine and in many areas it would also require regulatory supervision.

Once again, British AWP machines is an exception to this rule, as these machines have percentage keys and dip switches, and changing the percentages does not require any supervision.

- Contrary to popular belief, a slot machine that has not paid out in a long time is not “due to hit.” It is impossible to determine when a machine is due to hit since each spin is a random event and has no dependency on the spin before.

Is offline gambling a dinosaur

Over the past twenty plus years internet technology has developed and attracted millions. It has transformed the way people live. The way people consume products or services has changed drastically. People want instant information and service and by extension, people demand instant cash.

In cyberspace a gambler can have easy access to online gaming. Online gaming plays like a real casino but instead of interacting with a dealer at a table you use a web-based software instead.

What’s missing online?

Apparently the lack of atmosphere or ambience when gambling on the Net was cited in a study as one of the most important aspects of offline gambling that is missing online. The online games on the internet try to imitate the real deal by featuring graphics and text animation. Even including verbal interaction.

With every mouse click, the program gives a corresponding sound like coins in a slot machine. The software-dealer starts talking if there are no action or commands given. Despite all of this though, the atmosphere of a casino hasn’t been recreated.

The adrenalin rush in a real casino cannot be recreated online either. Playing at home, an online gambler is playing alone and no amount of tinkering in the program can create an atmosphere. The lack of atmosphere prevents a person from gambling with friends.

The live casino has been associated with a socializing ambience and a lot of gamblers feel an attachment to the environment.

Hey Big Brother!

The main reason people give for not shopping in the internet is a perceived risk in security. That perception is much higher for online gambling. Although most sites give an information link to the existing security technology, still the perception remains.

Most people experience great discomfort in using a credit card on online gambling. Not only the perceived security issues that gamblers feel uncomfortable with, it is also the lack of any kind of control on the outcome.

Online people cannot move from one table to another and make crucial decisions. The reality of losing money on the internet is distorted, most people cannot feel that they are losing money. Simply because of the idea that you’re just sitting at home, how can they lose so much money.

All the light shows and sound effects an online casino can muster, it cannot substitute for the action happening inside the halls of a casino. People feel more in control when playing inside a casino, whether it’s strategizing or managing his money. The thrill of having a crowd and the joy of companionship is also a very important plus. Dinosaurs? Maybe, but they are still giants and very much alive.