What is the Poker Academy?

We are a forum of keen Poker players of all levels looking to improve. It is a place to share ideas, meet new people and have your say on all things Poker. Since we created it in November of 2004 I have been lucky enough to meet some great new people and I attribute a great deal of the improvement in my game to the advice and encouragement received here. I hope you enjoy this forum a fraction as much as I have.

Dan Hofinger

Our forum has always encouraged opinions and thrived on the informed debate shared by our members. We have never had reason to censor posts and I hope this continues to be the case. As of today however only registered members will be allowed to post as I believe that if someone has something to say or contribute they should do so openly. Registering is free and simple and requires only an email address. We guarantee not to pass your e-mail to a third party and to respect your privacy.

Dark

So summer is drawing to a close, the nights are getting longer and colder. Not that it makes a blind bit of difference to me; I rarely see sunlight at the best of times. In fact its testament to my nocturnal life that 5 weeks in the desert and I picked up the kind of tan that, were they to sell in bottles, would likely be called factor one “grubby”.

I have tried to adopt normal waking hours, the problem is that the easiest cash games always seem to take place at 4 in the morning whereas trying to grind out a living playing the daytime crowd is a far less lucrative proposition. I assume its because the types of people who are playing in the early hours of the morning are more likely to be drunk or chasing their money but I have notice a staggering number of people who are just crap.

They tend to sit down with a fraction of the buy in wait for a really good hands, more often than not you can force them to fold almost anything by just putting them all in, after all if they do call and win its hardly going to make a dent in your stack. Then there are the “experts” who having read one or other of the available books on poker sit about waiting for aces. They deal with the boredom of this type of game by commenting on the starting hands all of the bigger stacks are winning showdowns with. “How can you play J2 from early position?”

It is apparently their job to let people know whether they are fish or not and what a valuable service they provide scaring away the actual fish and causing good loose aggressive players to shake their heads and turn the chat off. They are proof of the fact that there is nothing quite so dangerous as thinking you have nothing left to learn.

What they don’t seem to understand is that Poker cannot be played to some formula, well good poker can’t. Real poker is about Putting your opponent on a hand, working out what hand he thinks you have and then deciding what hand you are going to represent. It has little or nothing to do with the cards you actually have. If the table is tight passive then why shouldn’t I raise out from early position with garbage I’m not expecting to have to go all the way to the river in any case.

Its amazing how much money you can make from these experts while they sit around the table as if Poker were a spectator sport. Missing out on the few hours of sunlight we get everyday in England is a small price to pay.

Still no bracelet though I did manage to congratulate John Gale on his, let me tell you he is one of the nicest guys in Poker and this should prove beyond any doubt that he deserves to be taken seriously at the table. Theo was on Dan Harringtons table so I also got to thank the great man for his books - I am reading 3 now and it is better than the first two!

Although Theo went out in 89th he played outstandingly well and just could not catch the breaks when he needed them. The pivotal hand was AK he raised out from third position 6000 (blinds 600/1200) utg who had limped dwelt up then called. The flop came K 10 4 rainbow and first to act checked to him. Now let me tell you that Theo was not playing to finish high up in the money he was playing to win and had built an excellent table image, mostly people were staying out of his way. Having put UTG on a mid or low pair he wanted to slow play for maximum value, when UTG bet out 8000 on a blank Theo min raised it to 16000 confident that he was still well ahead once again the dwell up and a call. The river was an ace that gave him 2 pair but before he UTG pushed all in a call would have crippled him if he lost. What would you do?

Great players can get away from this sort of hand, I am damn sure he was right to fold - it felt to me from the outset that UTG was on QJ and later on one of the railbirds claimed to have seen them. The next big hand was AK again and this time he played it the only way he could have done and pushed all in over the top of a raise only to be called by 7s Anna Kournikova we call it that for a reason.

This was Theo's first event in the WSOP and he made 89th out of 2050 which any of us could be rightly proud of but in common with other real players he was down about it feeling that the title was there to be won and it was. He not only took a pot off Dan Harrington with AQ that he played just right but on several occaisions Action Dan tapped the table as a sign of respect. Jealous I am, green really isnt my colour either. You will be seeing more of the New Yorker they call the "Phenom" and just like Gale when he finally wins a big one - it couldnt happen to a nicer guy

Today is quite possibly the day that we take down a bracelet! Yesterday Theo entered the $2000 N/L along with roughly 2000 other people today he is sitting in 31st with only 144 left and already in the money. When you consider that we were out at a party the G suite at the palms till 6:00 in the am and that I was so hungover that I could barely stand and have no recollection of last few hours of the party whatsoever, his efforts start to look a bit special.

I have a good feeling about today I know he has a good game - we have been playing heads up all week - I am well ahead hehe however the good players can raise their game when needed and that is just what he has been doing. So far he has built a tight table image and has the respect of everyone on it and that includes "Action" Dan Harrington!

The players sit back down at 14:00 and by the early hours this young New York "Phenom" may take down his first bracelet and the first by a Syndicate player, my only concern is that I am going to have an even worse hangover after the party that would follow a win!

P.S. I won the $1k guarantee on William Hill yesterday as well but that hardly compares does it.

Academy On the Road

Its the night before John and I drive from New York to Las Vegas baby and with a 6:00 a.m. start we are both getting an early night. I am of course excited by the prospect of travelling through America and have romantic visions of a Kerouac style Odyssey, not encouraged I feel I must add by John pointing out that we will not be stopping unless the car needs to - so in short if the car is full of fuel and I am then I may find myself filling an empty snapple bottle or two on the way.

What a car it is too I only wish my flight over had been as comfortable. I know there are those among you who will look down your noses at us for driving a Hummer, I have been told that it requires a saudi oil field to operate day and night just to provide the fuel for us to have the AC on, but let me tell you when those speakers kick its all worth it baby! The Sin mobile is the closest thing to Knight rider I have ever sat in there is a navigation system in it that can order pizza for you and automatically orders rescue for you if the airbags deploy! We will be arriving in Vegas in style we even have flags to attach to the front of the car.

We have with us a DVD camcorder to record our time in Vegas so I will keep you all posted on where to see the footage, please bare in mind though that I am in charge of getting it to work and I struggle with mobile phones so patience may be necessary.

Thanks to all who sent me best wishes for the trip, I will be keeping a diary on here to keep you all informed.

Wagons Roll!

The Forum Rivals Cup

The future starts here!

Most of you will be aware that I have been working on a project which has occupied a lot of my time and attention, one which I have felt would change the face of Poker. I have'nt gone into any details because we have been working to a launch when all would be revealed, a day when everything we have been planning would be explained. Today is that day. The future starts here.

What this means for Academy members is that we now have a site we can play on, and own! I will be creating private tournaments, free rolls and can finally establish Aledans Idea of an interforum competition.

I am more than happy to answer any questions or hear any ideas and feedback and can be reached on the pokeracademy forum or via email pokeracademy@gmail.com or AIM ThePokerAcademy

Hofinger

Press release.

Poker Syndicate Announced Today the Acquisition

& Consolidation of Imperial Poker

LONDON, UK, March 27, 2006 / -- IGV Limited, (privately held), which owns and operates the web site, www.PokerSyndicate.com, announced today the acquisition of www.ImperialPoker.com. Imperial Poker will undergo a re-branding and will be consolidated with the company’s www.PokerSyndicate.com web site.

Founded by a determined group of poker professionals that grew tired of seeing the poker player taken advantage of, www.PokerSyndicate.com has launched a novel, proprietary concept that will revolutionize the industry.

www.PokerSyndicate.com is a “For Players….by Players” player friendly site. It is the only site in the world that is 100% owned by those who play on the site. It is not only the site you play on. It is the site you own. The concept is simple. Poker sites make money by charging, either, a rake at the cash game tables or a tournament entry fee. Every time one of the players logs on and plays at www.PokerSyndicate.com, they will receive a credit back of 50% of all of the rake they paid and the entry fee they paid, in the form of stockholder equity ownership in the site. “The more you play, the more you own”.

It is hard equity ownership, not a profit sharing scheme, nor a participation of profits that go into a trust, where the players receive a small participation percentage. The shares earned are the players to keep and do with as they please. If a player stops playing on the site, the player still retains the shares they have earned and will continue to receive dividends. In fact, not only do the players participate in the appreciated value of their share ownership, the Company has announced that it will continuously distribute a minimum of 50% of all profits derived, to shareholders on a quarterly basis, beginning the end of the third fiscal Quarter, September 30, 2006.

The company is very optimistic as to its future success. The reception from the Poker Community has, thus far, been very favorable, and specifically, the Company’s proprietary concept has been extremely well received.

____________________________

CONTACT:

shareholderinformation@pokersyndicate.com

mediacenter@pokersyndicate.com