Author: Lance

Lance Gates is a know-it- when it comes to the casino industry. He also likes to read contemporary fiction and critically analyze different publications.

Five Poker Twitter Accounts Worth Following

Lance

All right. You’re a poker fan. You try to play with your friends at least once a week, and when the thirst for more action doesn’t die down, you go to Judi online terpercaya to play some more. You watch poker shows on television and begin to see a repeat of professional poker players’ faces. You begin turning into said television shows in hopes for some cheap entertainment, regarding a favorite hobby of yours.

You begin to buy poker books and poker magazines. You start to read about these individuals more and more. You like what you read. Their outgoing personalities along with their talent and success fascinates you, drawing you more into their world. You go online and visit a few poker sites to read up to date news within the community, and then you see that twitter is a really big deal in the poker community. Everyone chirps back and forth to their friends and fans, in-between hands, traveling around the world for tournaments, or while they wait for the cameras to roll during a future television episode recording.

So here are five twitter accounts that I personally find enjoyable to read, both as entertainment, and that I find interesting, that is somehow involved in the poker community. They’re in no particular order, and you might not even like some that I suggest, but they are a good starting point for daily entertainment.

1) Doyle Brunson (TexDolly):

One of the living poker legends from the past, Doyle Brunson is a man who has been around. People respect him, listen to him, follow in his footsteps, and sometimes wish they were him. He’s been playing decades before poker was popular when he would travel the country to find games that weren’t always safe. He’s a real living, breathing poker playing cowboy, and a cowboy’s mentality is now being chronicled online with twitter. To receive a twitter update from a tough guy like this, informing you why to never trust a blonde, is absolutely enjoyable. A man who has seen the good and bad of humanity still has time to joke with you, and I find that classic.

2) Daniel Negreanu (RealKidPoker):

Daniel Negreanu is one of the most popular professional poker players alive, and he’s only in his 30s. His raw talent to read people’s hands exactly is matched by the charisma and positive personality that television cameras catch with him on many shows. His character is so likable, that the online poker company, Pokerstars, gave him his own show where he gives poker contestants advice on how to play against celebrities and other professionals before they make it to the final round, playing against the man himself. The man leads an interesting, high stakes life, and happily remains candid with the world through twitter. The personality that people see on television is reflected here, but sometimes she writes as if he’s writing just for you.

I’ve seen the guy play in person too. He’s in a tournament with only three tables left. Whenever he had something to say to his loved ones waiting for him with the railbirds, tons of fans would try and ask for his autograph. Each time he would agree to sign something for them, and joked to one after looking at the poker table, “Well, sure, I’ll take a photo with you, it’s not like I’m busy!” From that point on, my friend and I agreed that he’s worth being a fan of.

3) Phil Hellmuth (phil_hellmuth):

If there’s one professional poker player that knows how to market himself well, it’s Phil Hellmuth. The man is simply fun to watch because you never know when his “poker brat” persona will come out. While not playing at a poker table, many have said that he’s a surprisingly friendly and charming guy, but if you meet him at a table, lookout. He will mumble what he’s thinking and feeling at the time, not caring how socially acceptable it is. And with that, people will watch him play. You will not find his “poker brat” attitude on his twitter account. What you will see, however, is another trait of his. His huge ego. But this is fun because he has a new toy he loves to play with. His camcorder on his iPhone. Phil will often post little video blogs and link them to his twitter account, showing the world what it’s like to live like him. You’ll see footage of him walking around in a luxurious hotel suite, or just filming behind the scenes clips of NBC’s Poker After Dark, and how there’s an actual process to film a poker game. For his videos alone, his twitter account is incredibly fun to follow.

4) Joe Sebok (JoeSebok):

Son of a legendary poker player, Barry Greenstein, Sebok used to play a ton of poker, but then decided to focus more on the media aspect of the card-playing community, creating PokerRoad.com. A very popular central hub for tons of poker media, including exclusive footage from the life of Phil Ivey (whom many people consider to be the best living player today), he is a highly respected man. That is why he took a huge gamble on his credibility when signing up to be a sponsored pro with Ultimate Bet, currently trying to fix up their own credibility after a cheating scandal was revealed on their gaming site. Joe Sebok is pretty much telling the poker world that by signing up with Ultimate Bet, he’s going to make sure they’re willing to fix the bridge that they burned no matter at what cost. And if they don’t match his approval, then he’s out of there. And if that’s the case, then Ultimate Bet will never be as big as they could be, because of how respected Joe is in the poker world.

Currently, he’s working as a cohost for a new poker show, a poker news show, to be broadcasted on FoxSportsNet TV. Finally, after all of this is said and done, he is a co-host for a popular podcast that can be found on his site and even iTunes, PokerRoad Radio. The man is incredibly busy, has following surpassing one million, and his twitter account documents what it’s like to be as busy as him. Yikes.

5) The Tao of Poker’s Pauly (tarpaulin):

Now this guy is not a professional player like the other four, but decided to quit his Wall St. life to become a poker player and a writer. His websites, such as The Tao of Poker, are considered some of the best poker blogs that can be found online. He writes in the gonzo journalism format, which as many of you already know, was made popular by Hunter S. Thompson. Now, what if Hunter S. was a poker player? Well then, you’d get Pauly. His gambling stories are incredibly fun to read, with the gruff and brutally honest method of writing he chooses. So when you want more from him, you go to his Twitter account. He’ll let you know when his awesome blogs are updating, but you’ll see the gambler, journalist, insomniac, writer, world traveler, and junkie of who knows what else, update consistently on Twitter.

There are hundreds, probably thousands of people in the poker community that have a twitter account, sure, but hey. I highly enjoy these five. I’m not even sure I can consider them my personal top five, but they’re definitely up there.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some more money to lose at 7-card stud.

Las Vegas Casinos and Very Tall Women

Lance

Very tall women had me glowering with envy during my recent trip to Las Vegas’ casinos. You could hear them talking about 토토사이트. If you’ve ever been to a Las Vegas casino on the Strip, you know how crowded they are; just throngs and throngs and mobs of people. Even with the current economy, the Las Vegas Strip casinos were pretty full — and that means tons of men in the 6-1 to 6-5 range. And many tall women as well. I’m considered a tall woman at 5-8. But my status as a tall woman is slowly disintegrating, as each decade brings forth taller and taller women on the planet.

Today’s grade school and adolescent girls are taller than ever, which means in 5-10 years, there will be even more tall women; that is, more women over 5-10. This all means that at the Las Vegas casinos, I wasn’t exactly a stand-out tall woman. I was, very unfortunately, only above average. And that STINKS. Yes, there are times when I’m in a crowd of women who top out at 5-4.

But in any popular Las Vegas casino, I’m at the bottom end of tall women, because I spotted quite a few women who had several inches on me. My first day at the Las Vegas casinos, I wore my Mudd boots with their 2 and seven-eighths heel, and a one-inch lift inside the heel, making me nearly six feet! And there were STILL women who were taller than me, and I don’t mean by just a tiny hair, either. It drove me nuts. Here I am, in uncomfortable boots all day long, seeing all these women’s heads higher than mine, and they were wearing sneakers or low-heeled shoes!

Las Vegas’ casinos — observe people of all sizes and girths. My feet became so uncomfortable (I hadn’t worn the boots in a very long time and made the mistake of wearing them out of the blue to the airport, standing for long periods, walking all over the place, standing in lines, etc.), that I had to switch to my sneakers, which have a one-inch lift in them. One woman after another loomed over me.

I had to keep reminding myself that I was taller than most of the women I passed or who passed me at the noisy Las Vegas casinos. But that was no consolation, because in any mob of men, I get dwarfed by them collectively. I’d see clusters of men over six feet tall, and feel so puny as I walked nearby, and fantasized that I was their height — their equal!

Las Vegas’ casinos — check out some outlandish clothes and hairdos of visitors. How could any tall women be self-conscious of their height? How can any tall women hate their height? How can any tall women wish they were shorter or “normal”? Are they mad? What woman in her right mind would prefer to be swallowed up by masses of men looming over them in crowded areas?

I’m happy to report that most of the tall women I saw at Las Vegas casinos were wearing high heels! I’d always check their feet, and was pleased that they were comfortable enough with their statuesque frames to wear the heels. One woman who was strikingly tall had on four-inchers! I spotted her at a casino restaurant and took to staring at the unbelievably long, ultra-thin legs, and a head nearly to the ceiling!

A busgirl noticed me staring and told me that the tall woman was a Sports Illustrated model. The woman must have been an easy 6-1 in stocking feet. She was one of many tall women proudly wearing high heels, including a hooker who towered over a group of fellow hookers. It’s not uncommon for hookers to enter Las Vegas’ Strip casinos at night and ask any well-to-do-looking man if he’d be interested in some company.

I walked right past this high-heeled hooker and I’d say her barefoot height was 5-10. I spotted about five women at various casinos wearing sneakers or loafers, who were easily 6-2. And then there was the flat-heeled woman on the train that transported people around at the airport, standing behind her husband. She was at least 6-2, possibly 6-3, the second tallest of all the people in that section of the train; what an enviable position she had! She also loomed over her 5-8 husband or boyfriend.

So, once again, after visiting Las Vegas casinos, I must proclaim my utter bewilderment over how it is that some tall women hate their height.

Electronic Gambling Bingo Halls Overpopulating Walker County, Alabama

Lance

In early 2007 the first “charity” bingo hall popped up in Argo, located between the city limits of Jasper and Sumiton. It was the most recent attempt to establish electronic gambling in Walker County after many before it had failed miserably. It soon became apparent to everyone that not only was there no bingo involved, just cheap Las Vegas-like electronic slot machines, not much if anything was going to charity or to the improvement of our community, for that matter.

Since the first bingo hall’s opening, many more have followed in the past 2 years and now there is more than 10 of these establishments in Argo alone, with a few popping up in Sumiton earlier this year. At this rate you can soon officially call our community “Bingo Nation”.

Many groups of people have protested the developments and the growth of electronic gambling in Walker County over the years. One group of people even held signs for several weeks at the city limit signs of Jasper and Sumiton saying such things as “5 miles to Hell”. Christian activist groups have actively battled the local government on the legality of electronic gambling in Walker since mid-2007.

The topic started to get hot earlier this year when the entire state held a vote to govern the bingo halls not only in Walker County but across the entire state, heavily taxing the ones that were indeed deemed legal while if the bill passed hundreds of the establishments would have been forced to shut down. In May the bill was voted on and did not pass.

But let’s be honest here, if proceeds were indeed going to charity, would anyone be so quick to pass judgment or protest? Probably not, proceeds would be going to a good cause. But we have yet to see any evidence that any money has been going anywhere but to the bingo halls’ greedy owners. And probably a little on the side to the Mayor of Argo, of course.

Some throw the fact that these bingo halls are bringing more jobs into the county but they can’t give the salary that much when compared to Sbobet which is an online site of gaming but has significant criteria for giving the staff salary higher. While that statement is true, it’s only a couple of hundred jobs if that maximum and does the paychecks of those couple of hundred people amount to the number of dollars that our towns and this county as a whole is losing in potential revenue for our legitimate businesses like our restaurants, department and grocery stores, car lots, etc. due to these low class scumballs hooking our county’s residents on the thrill of gambling and bleeding their wallets and pocketbooks dry?

At one point Walker County has to say enough is enough and get rid of these places. They are doing us no good. Only giving us a bad name, a tacky look, and an abysmal local economy.

AppGuides: Angry Birds Rio General Guide

Lance

Angry Birds had become a widely popular game among the huge market of apps on the iTunes app store. Its extremely cheap price point and high levels of addiction make it a must-buy for any iPod / Mac owner and its competitiveness for the 3-star race makes it even better for hardcore gamers. Angry Birds: Rio, happens to be the best version of the franchise thus far. This time around, you aren’t attacking and destroying green pigs. Instead, you are focusing on breaking the cages of other birds so that you can set them free. The premise is the same, but the general strategy this time around is only slightly different. Read my other guide here for information on how to use each individual bird for the highest chance of success. Since there aren’t any new birds as of yet (future updates excluded), writing an entire guide about the same thing is hardly necessary. Below will be a list of new ways to go about winning each level.

  1. Focus on the surroundings instead of the target this time around. There are plenty of boxes in the beginning stages especially, and they are extremely easy to break through. The red bird can fly through five or more boxes through one flight, so aim for the support underneath the birds cages rather than the birds themselves.
  2. Use that blue bird as accurately as you can. In Rio, the blue birds are probably one of the most effective of the crew. The spread damage really comes in handy with box filled levels, because the boxes are just so weak and all three birds could potentially destroy all or most boxes in one sling on some levels.
  3. The speed birds are already one of the strongest, so in this game, they are even more powerful because of the fragile nature of most of the barriers in the game.
  4. Bombs are pretty much invinisble in this installment. They do way too much damage. And the same goes for the white bird.
  5. If you have to aim for the birds cages, try to aim for them with either the red bird or the yellow bird. Using the blue bird on one cage isn’t really all that intelligent unless it is the only bird you have left (which can be the case in some situations)
  6. As a general rule, don’t give up on a level until you get three stars. Sounds boring and annoying, but unless you’re someone that just wants to breeze through the game for no apparent reason or you just don’t care about your score, you should try to get three stars per level.
  7. This should have been mentioned in my previous article (located here) but use those dots as a guiding line on situs judi casino online terpercaya because it already has the feature that lets the user to gain significant knowledge about the gambling. I know, shouldn’t even have to be mentioned right? Well, yea, it does. My girlfriend for one likes to aimlessly shoot based on her perception of where it will go, rather than evaluating where the bird went on the previous sling based off of the guiding lines, and actually using that to accurately decided where to shoot the birds next. It’s funny how many people don’t usually follow this general rule.

There are plenty of other things to mention about the game, and yes, there are also more strategies. But, at the time being, since the game is new and there are still many updates before the game is actually complete, this is all of the basic information you need to know about the game until future enhancements and strategies come out.

How to Market iPhone Apps

Lance

The iPhone has changed how people use and think about their phone. Not only is this a sleek piece of technology but it allows people to customize their phones with applications or apps. Most people run various Pkv games on their phones and it seems that there is a way to run them on iPhone as well. The problem is that there are many iPad apps and iPhone apps from which one can choose. A developer trying to market a new app may face some difficulty since the market is robust with options. Marketing is more than just listing products in the app store. Instead, it involves being smart about this investment. The following are some key tips for how to market iPhone apps.

First, it is important to show people why they need this specific application to do everything from stay organized to have fun with new games. This is where it pays to release free news releases via email lists, blogs, websites, and social networking websites. This could also be the time to offer the application for free for a limited amount of time. Any news release needs to explain what makes this specific iPhone or iPad app special and unique. How will it affect users? How will it improve their lives? These questions should be quickly answered. Getting the app out there with a few free releases will help to spread word-of-mouth buzz, which in turn could pick up sales. This may mean giving the app to bloggers and writers so that they can then write about it at a later date.

In-app advertising is also a viable option. Here, people are able to advertise their new app by developing fun images and short videos that can be distributed on a national or local basis. This is a chance to spread the word about a new application both online and in video game releases as well as in traditional advertising forums. People want to know what their phone can do. Marketing an iPhone app with such advertising is memorable, especially if well-executed.

Social networking sites are easy to use and free. Thus, one can definitely create a fan page or even a profile for its new iPhone or iPad app. This helps a group or developer better spread the word about what an app can offer users of all types. Additionally, one can also decide to go the paid route and invest in banner advertisements on these websites. People spend more and more of their time online. It pays to target potential customers by using such spaces.

The key to marketing iPhone apps is to think about how to best explain such options. An individual wants to know what an application can offer him or her. Thus, one needs to provide a detailed explanation of how the application works and how it could change a person’s life. If there is space, one should try and include a screen cap or visual of the app in use. A clear and specific explanation is one that can go far in spreading the word about what the latest apps offer. Of course, it is important to also think about who will most likely use these products. Some items are universal whereas some iPhone app games may be better suited to specific age groups. Understanding this will help a developer better market the application.