Reflections From a Bracelet Winner
by ghostevyta
My name is Dutch Boyd. I am a professional poker player and World Series of Poker bracelet winner. I am what I call a third-generation poker player, meaning I got into poker after Rounders but before the Moneymaker World Series in 2003. I can honestly an confidently call myself an expert in the poker industry. Here are some reflections I’d like to share.
Back in 1999, at 18 years old and fresh out of law school, I was one of the co-founders of an online cardroom, PokerSpot, which went under and left over 1200 players holding the bag for their cashier balance. It was a big disaster for everyone involved and should serve as a cautionary tale to anybody putting too much trust in an online gambling site or buying into the “first-mover advantage” myth. But we did invent real money multi-table tournaments, and after almost a year of trying to peddle the software to someone, we finally abandoned the project and open-sourced the poker software. I like to think this has helped the continued development of online poker.
After Pokerspot failed, I started focusing on making a career as a professional poker player. I propped the 20-40 games in 2002 at Garden City Casino in San Jose, CA… I then saw a huge opportunity in poker tournaments, so I quit the prop ob and started following the professional tournament circuit. I hit my first major break in 2003. I won the very last mega-satellite to the main event, and finished 12th. It was the first year ESPN was really doing it justice, and they had all new production people who didn’t really know much about who was who…. so they focused on results. I was the chipleader for a good chunk of time in that tourney, and in the top ten for three straight days… so I got a lot more camera time than I otherwise would have. Poker was changing and poker stars were going to be made. A few friends were with me, Joey Bartholdi and Brett “Gank” Jungblut, and “The Crew” was born, bankrolled with that initial 2003 score.
We recruited a couple of other guys. Joey left The Crew and then we picked up Scott. We went pretty much broke, but found some backers for the WSOP 2004 and kicked some ass. Gank won a bracelet. Scotty won two. Joey and I both got as close as you can get (3rd and 2nd, respectively). ESPN blew us up, Rolling Stone ran a feature. We’d continue to dominate the poker scene. But by this point we were no longer really that tight of a group. There were some internal feuds. Friends became rivals. But we all knew that we’d always be The Crew… it was more of an experience than anything else. A handful of 7 guys trying to reach a poker dream.
Joey would finally get his legendary win by snapping off the WPT Championship event in 2006 for almost $4 million dollars. At the time, it was the third largest poker tournament in the history of the game. I’d get mine a month later, snapping off the first $2,500 Six-handed event at the WSOP. It was a televised event and had me going up headsup against Joe Hachem, the previous year’s world champion. Up until that event, I was admittedly the (male) poker player with the highest fame-to-earnings ratio. After that win, though, that could no longer be said.
I noticed a stark change in the way people in the poker community treated me after that bracelet win. Before, it felt like everywhere I went PokerSpot was like a shadow. I didn’t really feel like I was accepted in “the clique”. Several high-profile players were pretty vocal about their desire for me to just leave the poker community behind.
But after winning the bracelet, I was now in a very exclusive club of players who have proven in competition that they can win against the best poker players in the world. There are less bracelets than super bowl rings. And by downplaying the achievement and being pubicly critical of players who have crossed that golden line, other players in the WSOP club were somehow taking away from their own achievement.
There is definitely a big difference between a poker player who has one world series of poker bracelet and a poker player who has multiple world series of poker bracelets. In the public eye, there is probably a bigger difference between a poker player with a televised bracelet and a poker payer with an non-televised one. But however you look at it, it is a small club and there is definitely a difference between players with a bracelet and players without one… anybody who has a poker bracelet has to at least be given the respect of having a very small percentage goal and achieving it. And they are among a small number of players to actually know what it feels like to go through the reality soap-opera that leads to and follows the victory.
Poker is without a doubt the most complex game I have ever played and the hardest thing that I’ve tried to get truly great at. Most of my life, I had felt like a big fish in a small pond. I very rarely was intimidated or had the feeling like I was dealing with someone who was significantly more intelligent than I was. But that changed when I started playing competitive poker. The World Series of Poker, particularly the main event, is the biggest pond I’ve found. It is the ocean. And I am quite often at tables with players who make me think that they are thinking on levels that I didn’t even know exist.
For all these reasons, I love poker. But after years of being in the industry and seeing the dark side of the game and the lifestyle, I can’t escape the feeling that poker has turned from a rather small and secluded social problem to a HUGE social vice. Each day, the majority of the hundreds of thousands of real money players online will lose money. Unlike other forms of accepted social vices, none of that money is going to taxes to support schools. Very little of it is even going to minority of payers who CAN beat the game. No, the majority of the money in poker is going into the offshore bank accounts of the operators who have succeeded where I had failed a decade ago.
Being a highly-televised poker player, I often wonder how many college kids out there have dropped out of school because they were inspired by ESPN footage of The Crew. And now, long busted, are grinding away at a crappy job and trying to scrap together their next microroll. There’s bound to be a few… when you’re dealing with very small percentages of very large numbers, the result is still pretty daunting.
I’m convinced that in the future, we will see a fundamental change in the way online poker is played. I believe that poker will become a game where it’s impossible to lose. But at the same time, it will be possible to win much more than it is now. This will become possible because free poker sites will continue to develop and will eventually capture the market. It is already the case that there is a much higher percentage of free money poker players than real money payers online.
As free poker sites get better at figuring out how to convert their free poker player traffic into real money, they will eventually be able to offer higher potential rewards than real money cardrooms. I don’t believe that any of these sites will be making money off of a “membership fee”, which for now seems to be the trend. In my opinion, that really isn’t changing the fact that the site is a gambling site at all… it’s just a gambling site which imposes a very low loss-limit.
This type of membership-based cardroom is a step in the right direction, though. I’ve already even joined the boat by converting one of my poker domain names into an NLOP.com skin. The site is PokerZero.com you can play poker for free and earn real money. Check it out to see an example of where I think poker is going. And if you want to get inside my head a little more, please check out my blog at DutchBoyd.com.
*Dutch Boyd is a professional poker player with close to $2 million in lifetime winnings. He won a world series of poker event in a $2500 Six-handed NL event in 2006. Away from the tables, he is a domainer and web developer and is constantly buying and selling poker domain names and websites. He also occasionally does work as a consultant and is available for speaking engagements.
Dutch was born in Warrensburg, Missouri and raised in Columbia (home to three other WSOP bracelet winners). He currently lives in Las Vegas with his girlfriend, Michele.
For further information, please visit Dutch Boyd personal site and Poker Zero to learn more about poker.
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Graduate Education, Is It Really Worth It?
by Dean Lim
Education increases a person’s ability to comprehend issues better with a better outlook. It also increases the perspective of a person. The result is that the person’s ability to seek information for itself and look for literature for better alternative ideas improves considerably.
Back to School?
In this economic crisis what we need is to plan our finances for long term achievements. Students increase their future opportunities for better salary packages and better prospects only after further education. Good career has roots of a good educational background. Higher education not only improves the remuneration figure but also gives an individual job satisfaction and expand his or her business network as well. A good quality graduate education helps to improve not their personal progression as an individual, but are highly beneficial to their organization and even at a national level as well. This is especially so in countries like Singapore, Sweden and Finland where human capital development are their main competitive asset in the global economy. Education should not be considered as a means to an end but as means to enrich their lives and of those around the.
Graduate Education is worth far more than for a fiscal reason.
In tough economic situation like today, people sound miserable when they talk about recession they are in reality deceiving themselves by promoting negative views on how the economic turmoil is devastating peoples’ life and this prediction is actually stopping them living their lives. But they must understand the fact that it is precisely in times like this that the more qualified you are the better it is for your career. To say that education is not worth it in this financial climate proves how short sighted we are. The need of the day is to educate individuals so that similar recession can never recur. The value of a quality graduate education ranks much higher in the mind of prospective employers, graduate schools like INSEAD, Chicago and The City University of New York are flourishing in Singapore, attracting experienced professionals across ASEAN.
The forecast — the recession might be temporary and variant, but higher education is compulsory to enjoy a better life when the downturn fades out
If acquiring a degree requires three long years of investment of time and money, it is bound to scare the students. However, students can avail of student loans from the various banks today and start studying for a higher degree course. In the three years’ time, they would get enough time to prepare and ready themselves for a job after the completion of the course. By the time they will finish their degrees, the recession is going to be over and there will be enough jobs for them to grab and make it big!
Students, however will have to be more conscious about their financial situation. Several finance companies offering loans which are to be repaid only when they start earning over 15,000 GBP and the repayments start at 5 GBP per week, favor the case of students. Student debt, hence is one of the safest loans to opt for, while the best fight against the recession is to opt for higher studies. Furthermore, the success lies in taking advantage over those who have wrong reasons and ideas against further studies.
We can overcome!
Lastly, The Tripartite Centre for Fair Employment has given the WPP agency a plan to transform the approach of employers to adopt “fair and merit-based workplaces”. The WDA has also structured the WPP agency to craft a national education campaign to give confidence to Singaporeans so that they do not hesitate to enter further education. This is to boost their morale and get ready as employment is supposed to rise above 3 million by this year itself! WDA also launched a series of graduate diplomas and post graduate diplomas under the Professional Conversion Programmes (PCP) which helps Professionals, Managers, Engineers and Technicians (PMET)s to explore career switches and advancement.
So exactly how much value can be placed on further education today?
Talk to anyone in the industry, everyone recognized the value of a quality graduate education. An enhanced education will play a significant role cause regardless of economic conditions, time tested attributes like experience, qualifications and right attitudes always survives.
Once you’ve done all that you’re in great shape. Start early, pay attention to details and deadlines, and do your research and you’ll find the college admission process far easier than you’ve imagined. Master Programs Singapore | Best graduate school in Singapore
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Increasing Demand For Web Designers In Norwich
by Kris Smith
Today everything in the world has transpired into a cyber place. From human necessities to corporate business, all runs with the help of web media. Thus, it becomes necessary for this medium of information to be broadened so that it can be used efficiently and with this comes the need of professionals such as web designers who can guide us through the entire process. A web designer is a person who has the ability to transfer ordinary data into electronic means with the help of special tags and techniques. They are also responsible to give a professional touch to the websites by developing them in a graphical form. Norwich is such a place in the world which has been known for maximum corporate ventures and so it has the highest necessity of web designers. Along with the popularity Norwich web designers there is also a great demand for SEO professionals, content writers, graphic designers and animation specialists.
If you are thinking of hiring the web designing services, then the web designers in Norwich can be a solution. Neo Optic in Norwich can be one of the best sources for designing and developing, thereby fulfilling the designing needs of its several clients. The reason for the popularity of this company is that the company believes in providing some of the best quality designs and that too at affordable rates. The user has only to give them a brief description of their requirement and that is all -the project is done in a flash. The company creates simple but highly professional projects and has lots of templates for the clients to choose from. The company has made a place for itself in the industry within a very short span of time. One can visit the website of Neo Optic and browse through the pages and find out how excellent their work is. Not only this, the company has the power to bring several customers to its websites who ultimately get several benefits from the website.
Norwich web designers are well suited for any kind of assignments given to them by the company. They are not only experts in web designing but also in search engine optimization which helps websites to get a good ranking along with online marketing to sell a products. They are also skilled in web programming to deliver some type of client interaction over the net, creating corporate ids for the companies, flash designing for small applications, building online community, web hosting, e- commerce, that is doing transactions over the net. The web designers in Norwich are also expert in creating some of the best Blogging sites and other websites that are much popular among the users. So we find a whole lot of creativity in the hands of these people and safeguarding the web industry as well. If you are still trying to think, whether you should hire the services, then you should give it a try- and you surely won’t be let down.
This is the main reason for Norwich Web designers to be in great demand today with so many designers being hired by several corporate houses today. Soon Norwich would become an outsourcing hub for the web design industry. It’s a tough job for them to implement a lot of languages such as flash, html, CSS, PHP, SQL server etc in an authentic way. Users can get in touch with these web designers, any time they feel like and hire the services as per their requirements.
Kris Smith is one of the eminent writers who has been deeply involved in the business of web designing in Norwich. The author has written several journals and informative material on web designing tips that have helped individuals all over the world. The author is the best person to be consulted in this field. For more information visit Neooptic.
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Things To Consider Before Sending Flowers On Valentines
by Francis K Githinji
There are many things that you should consider before sending flowers on Valentines. When you are in love, you will always have an urge to do all the right things in regard to your relationship. When it comes to the special day of love, more and more people will be eager to outdo themselves and look for the greatest ideas for gifts to their loved ones. When it comes to flowers, you need to take time before you send them because they mean much more than you can imagine. It is common knowledge that flowers have meanings and you want to send only those flowers that will make an impact to communicate your feelings. It is pretty awesome how the process of looking for flowers manages to bring a smile to faces of all lovers. This is what flowers do and their job is to add life to dull moods and set the atmosphere for love and romance. Flowers will make a huge difference and it is not just the kinds of flowers to send but also their colors and arrangements. Before sending flowers on Valentines, consider this carefully.
Before sending flowers on Valentines, it is vital that you open your eyes to read into what their meaning is. If you love the person you are relating with, you will have an easier time of looking for the right flowers to say this. If you are not sure whether there is true love, you more than anything need to make flowers reflect this. Many people who are not sure of their love commitment celebrate Valentines together because it is a time to explore love and look for a deeper understanding. Your choice of sending flowers on Valentines is not bad at all when you are in a relationship where you are not sure of love. The best thing about falling in love is that it takes the willingness of people and with the right commitment; you will be in a position to breed love and get to celebrate it. Flowers are a good choice and they will definitely speak. For people who wish to announce that they love the other person, it is very much possible to use the right colors of flowers to ensure that the message goes through pretty well.
Before sending flowers on Valentines it is vital to look at the colors of flowers and the various meanings they might have. For example, when you choose to go with white roses, you will be communicating some innocence and that you are willing to keep love a secret. It is also associated with purity which is a very interesting way of announcing that you value the sanctity of your love and relationship as a whole. There are so many things that white roses will stand for and, your lover will definitely get the message. When you wish to state that your heart belongs to them, you will go with carnations. They are able to really communicate the deep feeling that is best described from the heart. To show good cheer, you can choose to go with daisies. When you decide to put a thought beforehand, you will be in a position to communicate all you want in a simple manner.
Francis K. Githinji Is A Researcher And A Writer on Life and Society Issues. His Latest Project Free Online Dating Service Shows How The Power Of Online Dating Can Be Harnessed Internationally and With Great Success, Or You Could Post Your Valued Comments On His Blog At Sending Flowers On Valentines
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Pet Waste Disposal
by Jeff Spring
Most people already know it's not a good idea to throw traditional plastic bags in the trash. In fact, some cities in the U.S. are already banning the use of plastic grocery bags so they won't end up in landfills.
What most people don't know is that using environmental bags instead of plastic only addresses half of the problem with pet waste disposal. The fact is, landfills were never created to deal with the bacteria and parasites in pet waste. Using environmental bags to pick up after your dog is really not the best solution for the planet.
You need to FLUSH dog waste so it can be treated as sewage and decontaminated - along with human waste - before it leeches into the ground water, polluting our rivers, lakes and streams. Using common environmental bags - even those made of biodegradable plastic -doesn't address all the issues of pet waste disposal.
Never put doggie doo in the trash. The contaminants are real. According to The USA Today, dog waste is an environmental pollutant:
“It doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out that dog do is nasty. But it took science to determine how nasty it is.
“From mutt to blue-blooded champion, all dogs harbor so-called coliform bacteria, which live in the gut. The group includes E. coli, a bacterium that can cause disease, and fecal coliform bacteria, which spread through feces. Dogs also carry salmonella and giardia. Environmental officials use measurements of some of these bacteria as barometers of how much fecal matter has contaminated a body of water.”
According to EPA studies that go back several decades, pet waste is often a source of serious environmental harm.
According to more recent studies, non-human waste represents a significant source of bacterial contamination in urban watersheds. Current genetic studies conclude that 95 percent of the fecal coli form of bacteria found in urban storm water is of non-human origin. These bacteria can pose health risks to humans and other animals, and can lead to the spread of disease.
The same bacteria that make pet waste dangerous in parks and common areas can make water unsafe for swimming or drinking. Children can become ill when they dunk their heads or accidentally get a mouthful of polluted water. And when waste gets into shellfish beds, it can make clams and oysters unsafe to eat.
The release of nutrients from the decay of pet waste also promotes weed and algae growth in lakes, limiting light penetration and the growth of aquatic vegetation. This in turn can reduce oxygen levels in the water, affecting fish and other aquatic organisms.
Proper pet waste disposal requires more than just biodegradable plastic. Obviously, using biodegradable plastic bags won't help much with proper pet waste disposal - unless you dump the waste out of the bag and into your toilet when you get home.
That's precisely why using a 100% flushable dog waste bag makes it easy to pick up dog poop - without ever touching it. And they stay intact until you toss them in the toilet. Then they dissolve quickly in water, so you don't have to worry about clogging.
Most importantly, you don't have to look at or touch your pet's waste again after you pick it up! Flushable bags provides the only safe, sanitary, environmentally sound solution for dealing with doggie doo.
PetHabitats makes an outdoor pet waste disposal system for your yard that doesn't even require the use of FlushEze bags.
You (or your community) can get sick through improper pet waste disposal
Following is a short list of the most common bacteria transmitted via pet waste and how it affects people.
Campylobacteriosis:
A bacterial infection carried by dogs and cats that frequently causes diarrhea in humans.
Salmonellosis:
The most common type of bacterial infection transmitted to humans by other animals. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, headache, vomiting and diarrhea.
Toxocariasis:
Roundworms usually transmitted from dogs to humans; may cause vision loss, rash, fever or cough.
Toxoplasmosis:
A parasite that can cause birth defects if a woman becomes infected during pregnancy. Can also be a problem for people with depressed immune systems.
It's best to flush it, not dump it!
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