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Carlo Tevez has reiterated his desire to leave Manchester City, 7/2 with bet365 to win the Premier League title this season. The 27-year-old, currently on Copa America duty with Argentina, wants to leave Eastlands so that he can be nearer his daughters, but says he will be going with regret. At the weekend it was reported that a proposed deal with Inter Milan to exchange Samuel Eto’o for Tevez had fallen through and it could now be that the striker returns to Argentina, who are 5/1 to beat Colombia 2-0 in the Copa America on 7th July. In a statement, Tevez confirmed: “It is with great regret that I have to inform Manchester City of my wish to leave the club.”

The modern online poker game is a very tough one in which to try and make a lot of money. Some years ago then limit hold’em was the game to play as this game was the first real poker game played online. NLHE wasn’t around in online poker as the sites didn’t have the software to play any form of poker that didn’t have a structured betting system in place. But when they did then NLHE exploded in online poker and with it an avalanche of coaching sites and coaching material.

But what happened over the next few years was that a huge shift in how people played poker took place and this meant that the loose fish money dried up massively. If you had any problems with your game or your discipline then you basically had no chance in the new online poker world. Very few people were recording massive earn rates and so this knocked on to the number of people who were playing the game for a living. There are optimal strategies though that have to be employed in a game of poker but I think that an individual poker game is in fact a microcosm of the entire poker environment itself.

The optimal game theory for any poker game is to select individually optimised strategies for each opponent at the table. This is easier said than done when you are multi-tabling. It also means that when you multi-table that you are probably never going to reach a GTO solution. The best that you can possibly hope for is to reach a situation where your play is solid but playing low enough means that you can make money from rakeback and other types of bonuses. However it is getting difficult to make money in the actual games themselves because players are making fewer mistakes and so the effect of the rake becomes paramount or at least of far more importance! Now there are two ways to go in this situation, I think you can play as many tables as you can at far lower levels so as to maximise earn rate by rakeback and ensuring that you capture value from as many fish as possible.

Or you could in fact play at the other extreme of the scale and single table and play higher up but accept more variance. Playing a single table allows you to be able to watch your opponents far more acutely and this allows you to pick up vital playing patterns that you would have missed had you been playing more tables. You can almost feel a players “heartbeat” when you single table but this is even more so when you play against opponents who multi-table. You can put plays down on these people without them even realising it simply because they are multi-tabling so many tables that they cannot make the adjustments required to defeat your more GTO (game theoretically optimised) strategy.

Supernova progress is well on track for 2011. Ideally I will make it by mid December so that I take some time off before the holidays. A friend recently pointed out to me that it’s also good to take time off because games get tougher around this time.

Intuitively, it seems like games should get easier around the holidays because pros take time off for Christmas and recreational players have time off work and school. The problem is that I play on PokerStars, and the end of the year means the Supernova/Supernova Elite deadline, as well as the end of the Tournament Leaderboard race.

Games in December are gonna be filled with regs trying to get in as many games as possible anywhere they can because they need the VPPs.

I didn’t play as many games as I’d have liked to since I last blogged. Here were the numbers:

Hey I made more than minimum wage this time!

As I talked about last time, I did end up getting sucked into playing a few high buy-in Sunday MTTs. This obviously hurt the bottom line quite a bit. The rest of the MTT losses are mostly from $35 180s. I just lump these into MTTs because the variance is so much higher than with the other SnGs I play.

The SnG results are pretty much as positive as I can expect for the volume I played. My average buy-in is $40 right now, and I can’t really expect to achieve an ROI greater than the 9% I have here. So I just need to increase my volume (easier said than done for me, unfortunately).

I’m going to be spending a portion of the next couple weeks playing in the BC Poker Championships, a series of tournaments taking place at River Rock in Richmond. I live around 30 minutes away from the casino, so it’s nice to have some worthwhile tournaments close by. I haven’t really played any live tournaments since WSOP.

They have a $550 event (which starts today), a $1,100, a $3,000, and a $5,000. My bankroll can support the first two no problem. I haven’t decided about the $3,000. I could just sell half my action if I’m worried about my bankroll, but I’m leaning toward staying home to play online instead. I’m skipping the $5,000 no matter what happens because I think it’s going to be a very tough field.

If you are also playing in the BCPC, good luck to you. I’ll try to update again soon with a summary of online poker in October. Thanks for reading!

Microgaming is the pioneer in online casino software. Right from the time it launched Gaming Club online casino it has taken a lead role in shaping the online casino software industry. Today the industry is at a point where sweeping changes are being made, both in response to regulatory requirements and in the way online casinos are structuring their games. The new Microgaming web site indicates that it has restructured in response to these requirements and is ready to take the next leap. Microgaming software is available in 24 languages, with multi-currency options. Players have the ability to switch to an alternative language.

The “Our Technology” page of the web site indicates how the different elements of the software are linked. There are three elements. The first is the Viper software. This is the core software for Microgaming online casinos. It offers the largest portfolio of download games. The obvious flip side to this is a large hard drive memory requirement. The other drawback of the Viper software is that it is compatible with only Windows operating system.

The second element of the software structure is the Flash casino. This is compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems and is thus able to cater to a much larger number of online casino players. The Microgaming Flash casino can also be used to target players with machines specifications at the lower end with lower memory, slower processors and lower bandwidth conditions. One reason is that the Flash casino is built using the latest technology. The second reason is that it offers a smaller selection of games but covers the blockbuster titles. Most dedicated Microgaming online casinos offer both the download Viper software and the no download Flash casino. Both these systems come with complete casino management tools and systems.

One of the changes in the online casino industry is the emergence of operators offering games from a number of software providers. This increases the competitive advantage of the operator many times over. Microgaming has realized that unless it addresses this issue its online casinos will be at a disadvantage and in the long run this may even lead to loss of business volumes. Therefore Microgaming has developed an Extended Third Party Interface (ETI) that allows game content developed for other software providers to be integrated with the Microgaming account system. Microgaming online casinos have just started receiving the best games from other software developers through ETI.

Simultaneously Microgaming has seen an opportunity in offering its premium games to online casino operators on other software platforms. For that it had developed the QuickFire platform many months ago. QuickFire has succeeded in reaching out the many leading online casino operators. Originally it offered a selection of games from Microgaming Flash casino to its clients. But now it has added content from ETI as well.

Another facet of its operations that Microgaming has chosen to highlight at its new web site is its ability to offer flexible and strategic partnerships in newly regulated markets. Because Microgaming has been in the first wave of entrants into newly regulated markets, it has the experience to develop fully compliant solutions that leverage its reputation for quality.

Keith Senior hopes to carry on playing in Super League despite confirming that he will leave Leeds Rhinos, 16/1 with bet365 to win this year’s Grand Final, at the end of this season. The 35-year-old was told he will play no more rugby this season after picking up a serious knee injury in the 40-20 Challenge Cup fifth-round win over Harlequins in May.Senior will make one final appearance for Leeds, who are 10/1 to secure this year’s Challenge Cup, in the traditional Boxing Day Charity Festive Challenge match.”I understand the club’s desire to look to the future but I can play two more seasons in Super League,” he said.”My recovery is coming along well from the knee operation and the biggest disappointment for me is that I will leave the club whilst injured.”