01 February 2012

» How to get rich playing poker Part II: Exploiting the Matthew Effect

Last month I looked at how to get rich playing poker. I considered there to be two ways: 1) the Joey Knish way – of grinding, day in day out, until you’ve made enough to call yourself rich; or 2) the easy way.

01 December 2011

» How to get rich playing poker, part 1: The Matthew Effect

A regular reader of my column might accuse me of cynicism. I’m always banging on about how there’s more luck in poker than most people realise, and that everyone should get a bit less carried away with a good string of results. Well, I’m changing tack this month. This time, I’ll tell you the easy way to get rich playing poker.

01 November 2011

» Alex Rousso on the Full Tilt scandal, Ponzi schemes and The Wire

First it was the headline about November Niner Sam Holden in The Sun: “Jobless Brit eyes £5m poker prize”. At the time, we all thought it was funny. Those silly people, they just don’t get it. Sam Holden isn’t jobless – he’s a pro poker player! It should have been a wake-up call for us. Those silly people have some control over what we do, and they’ve been flexing their talons for some time now.

29 September 2011

» Marginal hands in shoving situations

By Alex 'Pickleman' Rousso


One situation every tournament player finds himself in often is the decision to shove or not with a marginal hand when down to a stack of between five and eight Ms.

07 September 2011

» Brace-aments are too much of a gamble

Brace-ament: n. Bracelet event which is essentially a crapshoot with an edge. The large field $1k and $1.5k WSOP events. Derived from the words “bracelet” and “donkament”.

01 August 2011

» Bust Out Babies and other Characters

While in Vegas for this WSOP, I’ve studied the various types of bust-outs there are, from the crazy outbursts to the reserved introspection. Playing in one of the WSOP $1k NLHE tournaments is an education in itself. The phrase “dropping like flies” is an understatement. About once a minute some forlorn looking figure shuffles past your table to the rail, manically typing away on their iPhone.

04 July 2011

» How profitable is live poker?

A question I get asked a lot is, how much can pro players make playing live? At this time of year, many players heading off to the WSOP are looking to play in the live arena for a month when their day job is grinding online. Especially after Black Friday, live poker is more likely now to become their day job.

02 June 2011

» The Skill Game Paradox

By Alex Rousso


A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post on my Unibet Ambassador blog entitled “Apokerlypse 2: Black Friday”. I’m thinking you can guess what the subject material was. A reply I received to the post was what prompted me to write this month’s piece.

05 May 2011

» Life Variance

You may have heard of “Life Tilt”. This month I want to introduce a new term: “Life Variance”. I love poker terms which cross over into general life. They allow us poker obsessives to assert that our pastime has actually helped us grow as people.

06 April 2011

» The Shape of Things to Come

March 3rd could have been a momentous day in the history of online gaming. It was the last day New Jersey Governor Chris Christie could have vetoed a bill allowing internet gambling in his State. If he had not acted by the end of the day, the bill would have become law.