Info About Poker Card Reader

My name Dutch Boyd. I am a professional poker player and World Series of Poker bracelet winner. I am what I call a third generation of poker players, I mean in poker in Rounders, but before Moneymaker World Series in 2003. Frankly, I can safely call myself an expert in the poker industry. Here are some thoughts that I share. In 1999 at age 18 and fresh out of school law would founder of a poker room online poker site, went in and left more than 1,200 players who have the bag to compensate for their funds. It was a great disaster for all concerned and should be a warning for too much confidence in an area of online games or used to buy the advantage of lead myth. But we have real money multi-table tournaments to come up and try and after almost a year marketing the software to someone, will eventually leave the Open Source software and poker. I hope that helped develop the online poker. After the failure Poker Spot, began to focus on a career as a professional poker player. I supported the 20-40 games in 2002 at Garden City Casino San Jose, CA … Then I saw a great opportunity for poker tournaments, so if I leave the rest, and began to follow the professional tournament circuit. I had my first big break in 2003. I spent the last mega-satellite, the main event, 12 and construction. It was the first year ESPN really do justice, and all had the production of news is not really much to know who was who …. if they focus on results. I was the chip leader during much of the time in this tournament, and the Ten first three days straight … I have more time than I did the camera otherwise. Poker and PokerStars has been amended will be. Some of my friends were born with me, Joey Bartholdi and Brett Gank Jungblut, and crew was that the funded its first guests in 2003. We asked some other children. The Joey Crew, then got Scott. We were quite broke, but found some sponsors for the 2004 WSOP and took some butt. Gank won a bracelet. Scotty has won two. Joey and I are as much as you (got 3rd and 2nd, respectively). ESPN eagerly blowing, Rolling Stone published an article. We also continue to dominate the poker scene. But at this point,tiffany jewelry, we were not really that close to a group. There was internal strife. Friends become enemies. But we all knew that we were always the crew … is more an experiment than anything else. A handful of 7 children who are trying to reach a poker dream. Joey was finally legendary victory,Tiffany & Co, closing the WPT Championship event in 2006 to approximately 4 million U.S. dollars. At that time was the third largest poker tournament in the history of the game. I would like to send me a month later, jumping from $ 2,500 the first six hands event at WSOP. It was a TV event, and had to headsup against Joe Hachem, the champion of last year. Until this event, it would certainly (male) poker player with the greatest glory as a percentage of income. After this victory, but could not say. I noticed a strong change in the way people in my community poker action to win this bracelet. Previously, it was like everywhere I went, Poker Spot was like a shadow. We really feel as if they were admitted to the clique . Several high profile players were quite vocal about their desire for me to leave the poker community behind it. But after the bracelet, I was now in a very exclusive club of players who have proved in winning the competition against the best poker players in the world. There are fewer Super Bowl rings as bracelets. Trivialize and implementation and pubicly critical of players who have crossed the line with gold, the other players in the WSOP this club in some way outside of their own performance. It is definitely a big difference between the poker player who has a bracelet for World Series of Poker and a poker player who has more World Series of Poker. The public is likely to be greater difference between the poker player with a bracelet and a televised speech Poker pays a non-TV. But as you see, is a small club and it’s really a difference between players and players with no bracelet … Anyone who has a poker bracelet will be given at least respect for a very small percentage of the goal achieved. And actually know a few players, it means experiencing a sense reality-TV opera, and that leads to the result of victory. Poker is undoubtedly the most complicated game I ever played, and the hardest thing I’ve tried really great. Most have never in my life, I feel like a big fish in a small pond. I was intimidated, or very rarely felt like I was someone who was much smarter than me. But that changed when I started playing competitive poker. The World Series of Poker, especially the main event is the biggest lake I’ve found. It is the sea and I am quite often at tables with players that I believe that at levels not even know exist. For all these reasons, I like poker. But see, after years of industry and the dark side of the game and the lifestyle I am able to resist the feeling that poker has a rather small and isolated in a huge social problem in social Zion. Every day, the majority of the hundreds of thousands of real money players online lose money. Support Unlike other forms of socially acceptable defects, none is based on money, taxes in schools. Very little is still a minority of taxpayers, can beat the game. No, it is the most money in poker is to offshore accounts of the company has succeeded where I was ten years ago have failed. As a skilled poker player TV, I often wonder how many children are college, the school canceled those sequences ESPN crew is based. And now, long pause, with a little work to try and wreck shit and the role of micro next. It is committed to some … is a very small proportion of very large numbers, the result is still quite intimidating. I am convinced that we have in the future, we will see a radical change in the way online poker is played. I think that poker is a game where it will be impossible to miss. But now, it is possible, instead of winning it now. This is possible because free poker sites continue to grow and eventually conquer the market. It is already the case that there is a much higher percentage of poker players free money to contribute to real money online. As free poker sites ever find a better way to convert the free movement of players of poker for real money, which will ultimately provide the ability to evaluate the potential benefits are higher than the poker rooms with real money. I do not think that will make one of these areas is money from fee for participation, which now seems to be the trend. In my opinion, really does not change the fact that the site is a game in … it’s just a game site, the low loss limit. This type of composition based online poker room is a step in the right direction, though.
I have already entered the ship through the conversion of one of my domain names in poker skin . You can play poker free and win real money. Check it out to see an example where I believe that poker is. And if you want to get my head a little more, read my blog . * Dutch Boyd is a professional poker player with just under 2 million dollars in lifetime earnings. He won a World Series of Poker event $ 2,500 six hands onset Netherlands in 2006. Away from the table, is one of domainers and developers and is constantly buying and selling domain names and poker sites. He has occasional work as a consultant and is available for lessons. Dutch Warrensburg, Missouri, was born and raised in Colombia, grew up (the home of three WSOP bracelets)-winner. He lives now in Las Vegas with his girlfriend, Michele.

By Shaymus McLaughlin

If you’ve ever listened to KFAN Radio in Minneapolis or the surrounding area, you’ve probably heard Phil Mackey’s voice (know as P-Mac) coming over the airwaves. Mackey covers both the Minnesota Vikings and Minnesota Twins for KFAN.com while maintaining his love for poker through the magazine he co-owns, Minnesota Poker Magazine and its website, MNPokerMag.com. In part one of a two part special interview, the Chancellor of the Check Raise, as he is sometimes referred, talks about getting started in the radio business, his shift to online media, and what it’s like to call amateur baseball games at the age of 19.

Shaymus McLaughlin: You started your radio career calling baseball games in Buffalo, MN at the age of 19. How did that come about?

Phil Mackey: Actually I played baseball in Buffalo. I tried out for the Gophers and wound up not making it, and had to decide if I wanted to play Division II or III baseball or if I wanted to pursue journalism. I didn’t really wanna go to a school that was less-than-adequate academically, just to chase a baseball dream that would probably never work out. I wound up going to the University of Minnesota because I know they had one of the top journalism schools in the country and I figured well, it would be kind of cool since I’m going to the U of M to get a head start in doing internships. So I literally walked in to KRWC in Buffalo [MN], which is this little tiny house that has a radio station in it, and I asked the guy if he had any internships. He said, “Well no, we don’t have any internships, but I’ll give you a paying job if you wanna work part-time for us.” It turned out, my first day on the job I did some correspondent, like, 30-second updates from a girl’s softball tournament, and the second day on the job the regular play-by-play announcer was sick. The program director said, “Well, this is gonna be your big shot. You’re doing a 9-inning amateur baseball game by yourself, play-by-play, have fun.” And that was that, 19 years old and doing play-by-play my second day on the job. I think I did good enough where he kept me on the whole summer doing play-by-play.

SM: How’d the first game go, calling your first game? Nerve-wracking?

PM: Yeah, not only as it nerve-wracking, but you don’t really know what you’re doing. You hear guys on TV and you try and pay attention to the radio and listen to their tendencies, but when you see amateur baseball games, sometimes there’s no press box. So you’re sitting at a picnic table behind home plate with like, the father and mother of the kid you know? And it’s just, all the fans are sitting around you, so you’re talking to yourself and people are watching you do play-by-play. It’s really awkward. But the third time I had to do it, I had to actually drive a mini-bus to take all the old-school equipment, And I’ve never driven a bus before and there was no interior light so I couldn’t see how fast I was going. After the game was over, I lodged the bus under the overhang of the concession stand because I didn’t realize how tall it was. They had to come and like, push the bus out from underneath the overhang. I thought I was gonna get fired but…

SM: You kept your job, right?

PM: Yes.

SM: Then you moved on to KFAN [ESPN Radio in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region], and what year was that, that you went to KFAN?

PM: Let’s see… January 2005. I took an unpaid internship for Dan Barrierro’s show, and I still did play-by-play for KRWC that summer, so I overlapped, and they didn’t care because I wasn’t getting paid at KFAN. So it didn’t’ matter. And then I gradually started doing more and more. I’d go up to the Metrodome and get Twins audio, and then I eventually became the intern for the Mike Tice Live show on Wednesday nights, and that led to me doing game day Vikings internship duties collecting audio and being at the games and eventually after 11 months of an unpaid internship, which normally they only give you three months, but if they like you they keep you around, they finally hired me on Christmas Eve of 2005 to do Board Op and part-time stuff.

SM: Nice. Merry Christmas, right?

PM: (Laughs) Exactly, Merry Christmas, now we need someone to work Christmas day for ten hours.

SM: You seemed to start doing a lot of Vikings and Twins coverage right away for the [KFAN Radio] website, is that correct?

PM: Well actually, I didn’t do any website stuff until probably 2007. I started off as a night-time board op guy where I would produce the Sludge & Lake Show, I would produce and run the board for football games, and some baseball games. And then after maybe a year and a half of that, I practically begged the program director to let me be the Sludge & Lake producer. Not full time, but where I would produce it every day because they have rotating part-timers. That happened in early 2006, or maybe it was like mid-2006, where every day I was their producer and I started booking guests. I was trying to take that show to a new level, even though I wasn’t getting paid much. We booked like, Rex Lee from Entourage, Chris Moneymaker the poker player. Some pretty high-profile guests. I was kind of proud of that for the first couple months, but then that turned into the KFAN.com job in early 2007.

SM: So how did that come about? What was your reaction when they told you they wanted you to write stuff for the website now?

PM: Well they… You know, I graduated in May of 2007, so I had my eyes open, and I graduated with a degree in advertising and PR. Because I was working at radio stations, I really didn’t think it was necessary to do a full-blown journalism, broadcasting degree because I would learn all that stuff on-the-fly. So I wanted to cover advertising and PR on the side. I was looking for advertising and PR jobs, because I wasn’t sure if they’d have room to hire me at Clear Channel full time. To this day, I’m still not full-time at Clear Channel, believe it or not. I am a part-time employee so after I graduated, my program director said, “Hey, you do some writing don’t you?” And I’m like, “Well yeah, I went to Journalism school,” He said, “Well, we’re gonna have an opening for the KFAN.com job. You’ll get 30 hours a week and you’ll cover the Vikings beat and all that stuff.” I couldn’t pass that up because, even if I wasn’t getting paid a lot of money, it was just fantastic experience and awesome to put on my résumé.

SM: At this point though, it’s been a few years. You seem to have a pretty good grasp of the online medium, with the KFAN coverage, your personal website, MNPokermag.com, and you’re a fairly active Tweeter as well, so what do you think are the biggest advantages of working online?

PM: Well for one, it’s so much different than ten years ago, because almost anybody can have a presence and anybody can have their voice be heard. I point to local Twins blogosphere, and I’m a Twins blogger sort of, but you have guys like Aaron Gleeman, Seth Stohs, Nick Nelson, John Bonnes, bona fide good writers who work regular jobs and go to school, and ten years ago they would have zero platform. It’s not like these guys are gonna get hired to work the Twins beat for the Star Tribune. There’s only so many print and/or TV and radio jobs available. So I think if nothing else, online gives you a chance to just have a voice when you wouldn’t, and you can basically pave your own path to wherever you wanna go. For instance my Twitter account it has nothing to do with KFAN. In fact, not once has my Twitter account been promoted on KFAN.com. In fact, I don’t think my Twitter handle has ever been said. We’ve talked about my Twitter on the air before with Paul Allen. Not once have they ever mentioned that it’s PMac21. It’s never been mentioned, my handle, Pmac21. But I still have almost 1,000 followers. Whether it’s through my blog or through MN Poker Mag, people find the link. You can build a large following without a traditional platform. That’s the biggest advantage I think for just the common folks, who wanna get their stuff out there.

SM: I’m glad you brought up Twitter at the end there, because that’s really sort of exploded just in the last eight or nine months. I mean, I personally hadn’t even heard about it even a year ago, until my sister started doing it. So how did you first hear about it, and why did you decide to get involved with it?

PM: Actually, it was Pete Bercich, who used to play for the Vikings, used to be a coach, and he’s the color commentator for the Vikings’ broadcast on the radio. He was filling in for somebody, and I was gonna co-host with him literally like a year and a half ago, and he said, “Hey, I’ve got this idea, I’ve got a couple friends who brought it up, it’s called Twitter.” And I had no idea what he was talking about, and he said, “It’d be cool if I could have a Twitter account during the Vikings games and keep people posted on what’s happening during the game and behind the scenes,” and  my first thought was, “Well, I doubt this is ever gonna catch on Pete but, maybe you can ask somebody.” And sure enough, it’s blown up. So Pete Bercich was way ahead of the curve on that. I don’t think he ever started a Twitter account, a year and a half ago, but he brought it up and my must have started buying it sometime in the spring, and I just started tweeting sarcastic things about the Twins. I don’t know, a lot of my tweets are really sarcastic and I find that they get the best reaction from people, to be funny, sarcastic and negative. But I’m not like that in real life, just my Twitter. It’s kind of addicting, where you can just follow games. I think it’s used more in the sports world for not only sports news updates, but it’s basically replaced blogging altogether. Although it’s only 140 characters. But you can be watching a game on TV, following the tweets of others, beat writers who are covering other games on NFL game-day, or you can be watching a Twins game during the playoffs, with the Tigers, and you have 15 or 20 different writers or sports personalities that are all chiming in, and it’s almost like a side commentary. It’s super fun and addicting.

SM: I’m the same way, I was really surprised how quickly it caught on, but it just seems to be, those short spurts seem to just be perfect for people whose attention span is getting shorter, no?

PM: Yes, and another example, Erica Schoenberg, she’s a model and a poker player, she used to be a professional blackjack player. I met her through one of my good friends and a publicist out in Las Vegas, and she represents Erica. Erica was blogging regularly for our FAN Poker Lounge show page at KFAN.com, and she was blogging on my website for awhile. But once she discovered Twitter, she literally stopped blogging altogether, and even wrote a blog six months later saying, I’m sorry I don’t blog anymore, but Twitter basically has taken over for all of my blogging. So what you’re noticing with Twitter and, even if blogging sticks around for awhile, with Twitter, Facebook, blogging, and the traditional forms of media, you’re not exactly just working for one organization anymore. If you’re working for KFAN, you’re being heard on KFAN.com, you’re being heard on KFAN airwaves, you’re being heard on Twitter, on your blogs or, in my case, technically I work for KFAN but I’m also writing for PhilMackey.com. I think that so many more options and it’s becoming a gray area. Instead of having, if I can explain this right… Instead of just working for a media outlet, it’s almost like you’re using a media outlet to leverage your own personal image, if that makes sense.

SM: You also work in print too, with Minnesota Poker Mag. What are the big differences between a print magazine and doing your online duties?

PM: Well I’ll tell you what, we launched Minnesota Poker Magazine in the Spring of 2009. It’s myself and Bryan Mileski as the co-owners. And when he approached me about the idea, my first thought was, “Why would we ever start a print magazine during this economy?” And I know full-well that print is absolutely dying, so there’s no reason to really start something in print and really have that be the focus of your business model. That would be stupid. But what’s different about a poker magazine, and you can apply this to different niche magazines or different waiting room magazines, not only are poker magazines read in a different context. You’re reading them at the table while you’re being dealt a hand, or you’re waiting for a table. But I think it’s important when you’re starting off, whether it’s starting a blog or starting a business that has to do with media, you have to reach as many people as possible and if it wasn’t for us distributing 3,000 copies of an actual print magazine, nobody would know about us. So what we’re gonna do is kind of use print as leverage to be heard. To basically spread the word. And at some point, I’m guessing, once we cover up maybe, 10,000 people and they all know who we are, we’ll probably scale back at some point. But we’re using print as leverage to grow web hits, to grow image, and to grow reach basically.

SM: So you’re almost using print to get people more to the website. So your long-term goal is to make it more website-focused than magazine focused.

PM: I wouldn’t say our long-term goal is to make it web-oriented. I would just say we’re just being real. It costs a lot of money to print, and at some point, when print dies, you need to be prepared to make the shift to the web, and that’s why we’re tweeting, that’s why we have exclusive content on the website, and it’s important to always be driving people to websites. You should always be leveraging old-school traditional forms of media, to get people to go to your online stuff.

SM: Do you worry at all that it’s been kind of tough for people to find a sound financial, online model? It’s seemed to be really difficult for people to find a way to almost monetize the internet, in a way that consistently works. Do you worry about that at all going forward or no?

PM: Not specifically for us, because what we’re doing is more leveraging. We’re leveraging the magazine and the website and we’re building a platform so people know who we are and what we represent. And we’re leveraging that into other business opportunities. So we started the Minnesota State Poker Tour, for example. And that launches in December, so if it wasn’t for starting the magazine and building a following there, we wouldn’t have the credibility to start the Minnesota State Poker Tour. I’m not saying that everyone’s gonna be able to leverage their media visibility into other business opportunities, but if I had to recommend a career path for somebody going into college or coming out of college a journalism student, I wouldn’t expect to be making 50 grand a year as a writer or a radio host because that’s just not how it is right now. You’re not gonna walk out of college and make a good living in the media right now unless you are a rock star and have connections. The fact is, most people don’t, so what you should be doing is using media to build a brand, build an image, build credibility, and then use it as a platform to do other things.

SM: When you’re doing a lot of online stuff, what sort of legal ramifications do you have to be aware of?

PM: As far as like, copyright stuff or…

SM: As far as copyright stuff and, there’s been a sort of, catching-up. The online world has had to catch-up to the print world in terms of journalistic standards, ethics, defining libel, and all of that kind of stuff. That still sort of seems to be forming at this point. Is there anything you specifically have to keep in mind when you’re doing an online work?

PM: I think you hit it on the head with the word ethics. I think there’s a really blurred, gray area when it comes to Twitter, when it comes to blogging, as far as credibility and ethics are concerned. For instance, the concept of re-tweeting. A lot of people don’t understand what re-tweeting means. I don’t remember exactly what it was, it must have been a few months ago, but the Associated Press came out and attributed a quite via Twitter from an athlete. It must have been a player bashing a coach or something to that effect. You go back, and you look at the player’s Twitter account, and he was simply re-tweeting what somebody else said. The Associated Press thought, because they didn’t know what re-tweeting meant, that the player had made the quote himself. It always goes back to, you have to be responsible. Just because it was said on Twitter doesn’t mean you shouldn’t investigate and do your due diligence. AT the same time, even though newspapers are dying out and radio to a certain extent might be dying out, those are the most credible sources for news. The Star Tribune might be bleeding money all over the place, or the Chicago Sun-Times, whatever newspaper you wanna look at. They might be bleeding money but they’re still the most credible. If Lavelle E. Neal III, whose been covering the Twins for almost ten years, if he says something on Twitter, it should be taken as more credible than if Joe Blogger said something about the Twins on Twitter. Even though they’re both saying it on Twitter, the fact that Lavelle is working for the Star Tribune and Joe Twins Blogger isn’t working for anybody, there’s certain standards and certain levels of credibility that go along with it.

SM: What advice would you give to someone who is looking to start online?

PM: Just be realistic. I would also say, if you’re looking to start anything online, if I could go back to college I would have taken classes. Understand how to design basic websites, hot to maintain website. Understand all of the products in the Adobe Suite, whether it’s InDesign, Photoshop, because the more things you can do, the more valuable you are to anybody you work for. In my case, starting a business, you save a lot of money when you don’t have to pay somebody to maintain your website. If you can maintain all that stuff by yourself, you save money, you’re more valuable, and it’s better to have those skill sets. If you’re looking to work online for another company, you’re just flat-out not gonna get paid very much in this economy. So use it as experience, and use it as leverage to try and get your name out there and open other doors.

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Stay tuned for Part II, which is 100% Minnesota Vikings talk. Will Antoine Winfield play against the Packers? How has Berrian’s game changed? And of course, Brett Favre talk! Part II will be posted Sunday morning, so make sure to check TheSportsBank.net for the rest of the exclusive interview.

You can follow Phil Mackey via his Twitter Feed @PMac21, and read his work on KFAN.com (Click Here for Twins coverage, and Here for Vikings coverage). You can also read about the poker world at MNPokerMag.com, and keep up on everything P-Mac related via his website, PhilMackey.com.

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