Poker Celebrities – Tony Cascarino

Anthony Guy "Tony" Cascarino better known as Tony Cascarino was born on the 1st September 1962 in St Paul's Cray England. Tony Cascarino is a former association football player. His father was Italian and his mother English. Regardless of his background Tony Carscarino played 88 times for Ireland. His name was made whilst playing as a striker for a number of British and French football clubs. Tony Cascarino furthered his name by playing for the Republic of Ireland National Football Team.

Tony Cascarino has now retired from football. Tony has also presented on TalkSport radio and written for The Times and the Irish magazine Hot Press.

It is unknown how long Tony Cascarino has been playing poker for but his cashing started back in 2004 and to date he has cashed 12 times with two first place finishes. Tony Cascarino's poker tournament record is as follows:

• Nov 27, 2008 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour - Grand Final No Limit Hold'em 6th $54,795
• Nov 21, 2008 Caribbean Poker Classic 2008 Main Event - No Limit Hold'em 12th $4,400
• Sept 11, 2008 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Leg 7 (GUKPT) Main Event - No Limit Hold'em 1st $99,078
• Sep 29, 2007 European Poker Championships / EPT Event Season 4 Event #7 - EPT No Limit Hold'em Championship 14th $41,993
• Nov 27, 2006 Caribbean Poker Classic No Limit Hold'em 1st $28,400
• Nov 26, 2006 Caribbean Poker Classic No Limit Hold'em 2nd $4,800
• July 29, 2006 Bellagio Cup II Tournament No Limit Hold'em 20th $1,460
• Nov 29, 2005 Caribbean Poker Classic No Limit Hold'em 9th $2,820
• Oct 30, 2005 The Irish Winter Tournament - EPT/Pokerstars Season 2 No Limit Hold'em 17th $786
• Feb 19, 2005 The French Open - EPT/Pokerstars Season 1 No Limit Hold'em 7th $3,866
• Oct 17, 2004 Ladbrokes Poker Cruise No Limit Hold'em 11th $8,000
• Apr 10, 2004 Irish Open No Limit Hold'em 9th $4,469 

The sheer talent of Tony Cascarino meant that he transformed from a successful football player to a great poker player and therefore he features on our list of poker celebrities.

Overcoming bad beats in Texas Hold'em

In order to win at Texas Hold'em or for that matter at any poker game, you need to have the right strategy. The kind that helps you win pots of money. Your poker strategy could be based on any aspect of the game ranging from specific in-game theory to the psychological aspects of play.

A major setback to any poker players' game is a bad beat. The kind that drops you from the high of being all in on the flop with top set against two over cards, to the low of being outdrawn to a runner-runner flush. This is where your strategy comes in, where you have a game plan before playing your next hand.

Losing a lot of money in the game can be pretty frustrating. An aggressive player will determinedly chase after it for the rest of the session while attempting to pull off huge bluffs and losing more money in the bargain. Some beats are so bad, they drive you insane and you waste the rest of your chips on that ten-high flush draw.

Do not lose heart; there are ways in which you can avoid such an obvious leak of chips:
Take a break: Cool off. Poker is a mind game, and your mind needs some rest, sometimes. If you return to the game in a rational frame of mind, the probabilities of you playing at the top of your game and winning your money back are higher.

Think in terms of expectation: Think of the money you had expected to win on the hand that you lost with. As for instance, if you hold an AA against an AK pre-flop, there are 90% chances that you could win the hand. You could use an odds calculator to figure this out. You can now say that you won 90% of what was in the pot, the 10% chance of losing being an occasional situation that caught up with you this time. Okay, maybe you lost this particular hand but later on you will be winning more.

A poker lover will come across bad beats at some point of time in his play. It is what makes the player sharpen his skills at the game and not just depend on luck alone. What is important is that we overcome the bad beats by playing the right strategy.

Poker - Skill or Chance ?

I have always wondered if in poker – skill or chance matter. In December 2008, the eastern division of the Danish High Court ruled that poker is a game of chance. There have been similar rulings elsewhere wherein poker has been defined by law to be a game of pure luck, where the player has very little chance to influence the gaming. Even the scientific fraternity has also challenged the long-held notion that poker is a game of luck, where instruction and strategy are immaterial - by showing that the card game is based on pure skill.

In 2008, Michael DeDonno, a doctoral student from Case Western Reserve University, had 41 college students play eight games, totaling 200 hands, of Texas Hold'em, a computerized simulation of 10-player Hold'em poker. Overall most of the students had little experience playing poker. Half of the students in the first group were given charts that ranked the two-card combinations from best to the worst and also learned that professional poker players typically play about 15 percent of the hands dealt them. The other group was given background on the history of poker with no strategies. The findings were that students given some strategies and basic online poker rules to make decisions did better than those without the strategies.

To statistically verify the results from the first study, DeDonno conducted a second study, but had students play 720 hands. Again the group was divided into those provided with strategies and those with just a history of playing poker. While all students improved their playing with practice over the large number of hands, the group given strategies continued to do better than those without the added information. With this he was able to prove that skill wins out in playing poker.

Personally speaking I question the very idea of poker being a game of luck alone. It may take a couple of hours to learn a game such as Texas Hold'em in theory. Hand rankings and game play is pretty much standard save a few variations on rules and regulations. However it takes a lifetime of playing to really master it. Poker – Skill or chance looks to be a continuing debate for me. The existence of professional players proves that chance is not the determining factor, skill and dedication is. In the game of cricket any and I really mean any idiot who can swing a bat has a chance of hitting the ball but only a few can use the bat as a professional can. Also one would not find countless poker strategy books or web pages devoted purely to poker strategies.

A poker game is not won merely by the strength of your hand. A poker player needs to consider a lot of indicators - tells, pot odds, probabilities . before deciding on a move. A brilliant player could even make a statistically incorrect play in-order to fool the opponents into thinking that he has a stronger hand.

So, Poker -Skill or Chance ? ….the debate goes on.