Alan's Poker Page

[Pic of Alan's friends playing poker]

I started playing poker when I was 12 and a camper at Camp Bournedale in Cape Cod. I then played again at almost every camp I ever went to, but did not play often again until my junior year of high school. Then, a few of my friends (some pictured above) started playing one day after school, and it then progressed into an almost daily occurrence. We have since moved on to college, but still play at least once during every vacation.

Since I turned 21, I've been going down to Foxwoods Casino on a semi-regular basis in order to play some poker in a real card room. I do keep a very accurate log of my winnings and losings, but I choose not to publish that on-line.

I recently taught a class on poker to a group of high schoolers as part of the MIT Educational Studies Program's SPLASH program. The class gave me an opportunity to design a curriculum for teaching poker, which, in turn, allowed me to create a focused, concentrated summary of my learning in the area over the years. I've made most of the course material available (in text format) here:

Of course, there's much more to be said, but I think most of the other important points are covered in the rec.gambling.poker FAQ, which contains an outstanding section on poker eitquette and great references for further learning.
Poker, of course, isn't poker without a ton of gibberish being spoken between players. I consider it a small measure of insanity that I can think nothing of someone saying something like: "I was dealt a pair of bulletts in the hole and played them like a maniac only to be chased to the river by this calling station who managed to hit broadway with the case ace". Of course, there isn't just colorful language. There's also some very useful terminology you need to know in order to keep up with what's going on in a casino game. For that reason I've included a link to Conjelco's r.g.p. poker glossary, a long (yet incomplete) list of poker terms.
Casinos only play the most popular poker games. Most home games include many, many varieties, whose names are almost as imaginative as their rules. Anyone can come up with a poker variant, so keeping track of them is hard, but there is a fairly large Guide to Various Poker Variants available on-line, or the entertaining Pokerist's Cookbook.

For New Year's I took my first trip ever to Las Vegas, and played in all of the poker rooms out there. While none impressed me with the sheer size of the Foxwoods poker room, the Mirage Resorts poker rooms (Bellagio, Mirage) were clearly the nicest places to play.

And finally, for those who need some more to look at, here is my obligatory list of poker links:

Have fun, and I'm always looking for at least 3 other people to play with :-)

© Copyright 2007Alan Wood.
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