Ask citanul anything:

[chumdawg]

Hi, Citunal. I was wondering if you could tell me more about this Magic the Gathering game. I have heard mention that several Magic players have become rather extraordinary poker players, and I wonder why that is.

A) In general, how is Magic played?

B) What skills are necessary to excel at Magic?

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

[IHateKeithSmart]

Hey Citanul:

I actually have a serious AND poker related question RE: this forum.

I have started playing the HU SNGs at Stars some. Lurking in the HUSH forum on 2+2, it seems like it's 95% talk about 6max games.

Which forum should I post HU SNG questions on, and do you have any thread pointers for HU that are similar to the SNG FAQ? I am not schooled in HU theory, though I think I have a decent feel for the format.

Your humble forum member,
IHKS

[kevstreet]

Citanul,

I 4 table the 22s on Party w/ way too much overlap on my 17" Dell monitor. In lieu of this unfortunate situation, I've had a few mis-clicks. On a scale of 1-10, how much will it be worth it to invest in the Dell2001FP?

Any chance you know the line on Gigabet vs. Gank for the August standings bet? If so, can I tease it w/ the "Raptor Car Challenge" over/under proposition.

Thank you.

[citanul]

chumdawg,

MTG is a card game played with collectable cards. You can google it or find a wiki to tell you much more about its history, etc.

The play of the game is quite complex, but it is just like any of the other games like Pokemon card games or whatnot. It's a turn based deck game where the players create their own decks.

The skills that are necessary are being able to out-think, (out-buy, since the good cards are often expensive), out-adjust your opponents, and to not make errors. It requires keeping up to date on what cards are out there, what common strategies are (and uncommon as well) so you can make better guesses of what is in your opponent's deck before you see all the cards, and others. I never became very good or anything though. Fun game.

citanul

[citanul]

IHate,

Sadly there's no great answer to your question, and I don't think that there's a good resource really for HU play around in terms of FAQiness.

Honestly I think that the HU sngs play more like HU freezouts with non escalating blinds than they do like SNGS, in terms of individual hand analysis. It's very likely the best help you will get will be in the HUSH forum. Just because most of the hands are posted from 6max doesn't mean they won't be able to help out a HU player. It's just that 6max is a much more common format on the internet these days.

Once you have a feel for how to change your strategy just based on the fact that the blinds will/have increased as a fraction of your stack, it really is just a heads up match with no rebuys.

citanul

[mlagoo]

citanul,

if i were to look at the past posts of five users for great SNG advice, whose posts would you recommend?

[citanul]

kev,

While the 2001fp is a nice monitor, it might be less of a "good buy" for someone who is playing the 22s at the moment. There are plenty of CRT monitors that are far, far cheaper that will give you 1600x1200 or greater resolution, at least to tide you over. When you're moved up to the 55s or 109s and instead of taking 40 hours or work to pay for a 2001 it takes 10 or 5 or whatever, it'll make more sense to buy one, no?

I don't know if there is a line on Gigabet/Gank. From what I know from having played with both of them quite a bit, and from having spoken or read both of them a fair amount, I would say that Gigabet is a) a superior player b) willing to play longer harder hours for higher stakes c) clearly if it were a heads up matchup in terms of leaderboard points we were looking at, the big favorite.

The interesting thing about the bet is that it is in fact a bet for him v all of stars, not just one or 10 people. Sadly I don't know enough about sports/prop betting to know what tease means, but Raptor's car quest is over in the bad way =(

citanul

[Wes ManTooth]

Citanul,

Clearly the best poker program ever created is Poker Prophecy, nothing will ever be better then this. If you had to pick a program that would be a far, far distant second what would it be and why?

Also the best alcoholic beverage ever is Mike's Hard Lemonade. Granted I wish I could drink this ALL the time but sometimes supplies just run out, if you had to drink something else what would it be?

-ManTooth

[citanul]

mlagoo,

I might miss out here just by virtue of being non-thoughtful right now, but:

Eastbay, Lorinda, Adanthar are the biggest ones I believe for a beginning and middling player.

The next tier, who get moved down just because of their lack of recent posting (until recently) are I would say: Aleomagus, Prayingmantis, and ChrisV.

If I could give a cheating response, I would say the shadow. But that would be cheating.

citanul

apologies if i've made any really stupid glaring omissions.

[citanul]

Wes,

In general, I think that Pokertracker is a fantastic piece of software, but just not ideally suited to sit and goes. I think that amongst the most useful things I've seen are the sng power tools, and pokerstove. Hood's program, though I'm not very familiar with it, is very good as well. For certain games and certain types of players, these heads up display things are quite good.

I'm a big fan of vodka tonics when using good vodka. In terms of bottled beverages, it being summer, I'm a big fan of Bell's Oberon, an american Wheat beer, though there are other very good things to drink out there. Snakebites amongst them. My answer changes based on outdoor temperature though.

citanul