The Association for Women in Computing (AWC) has also hosted a few poker-related events, including this semester’s Texas Hold Em Poker Night. The event had over 40 participants with first and second places both receiving gift certificates to the video game store GameStop. Virginia Tech also used to have its own poker club, named Aces Up, which was established to help student poker players meet, schedule, and organize poker tournaments and events. The group has irregular meeting sessions, but has a listing in Yahoo! Groups.

The Virginia Tech campus has been home to many small-stakes tournaments and cash games for students who would rather spend their time playing poker for money than freerolls. The games normally aren’t at the nosebleed level, but they do offer up a great social experience. Most of these regular games meet early in the week, on Mondays and Tuesdays, and see typical buy-ins of $5 for both tournaments and cash games. The cash games can see several rebuys, with regular winners for the night taking home over $50. While these small-stakes games may lean toward friendly environments over big action, they serve as an ample way for both beginners and improving players to have fun.

Free tournaments off campus have become scarce over the years, with the Blacksburg Poker League coming to a halt last year; the league formerly saw regular games held at the She-Sha Lounge in downtown Blacksburg. The closest leagues now are far north of Blacksburg, with regular events held by the Stars-and-Bars poker league in areas such as Broadlands, Dulles, Herndon, Leesburg, Sterling, and Vienna all of which are too far for VT students to consider on a regular basis.

Unfortunately for students at Virginia Tech, the idea of hitting the felt inside of a nearby casino just isn’t much of an option. The state has no casinos at the moment, so that students looking to play with professional dealers and floor staff would have to drive over ten hours to reach the closest facility. One of the closest options – if you want to call it that – is the Foxwoods Casino and Resort. It is 630 miles from the VT campus and houses over 100 poker tables and runs standard blinds for Hold’em, Omaha, and Stud. The poker room itself is amazing for any poker player to behold, let alone the typical college students living in a state which has no casinos to speak of. Foxwoods also has several poker tournaments throughout the year, including the WPT events, so if you’re intending on making the drive, plan ahead accordingly to get the most out of your trip.

Students attending Virginia Tech, when it comes to poker, have certainly had to make do with the hand they’ve been dealt. With plenty of campus-sponsored poker tournaments and steady ring games, VT students have enjoyed a solid year of playing cards, even in a state lacking a casino-based poker room.

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Students enrolled in any of the 16 NYU system schools have competed in several great school-sponsored poker events this year. Take the Fourth Annual Sterns Charity Poker event, for example, which was put on by the NYU Stern School of Business on February 24th. This year’s event generated over $3,500 to
benefit child literacy. In years past, donations have been used to help build libraries in India and Ecuador, along with helping the project “Read it Up,” a New York based initiative that encourages literacy among at-risk youth. This year’s tournament had a buy-in of $25, and also included a $10 re-buy option for players eliminated in the first hour. The event staff went all out for the 120 students, faculty, and staff competing in the event, including giving away a lavish first-place prize of a Caesars Total Luxury Experience: a trip for four to Caesar’s Atlantic City, round-trip limo rides, a $100 gift certificate for The Pier Shops, $100 in chips for the tables, and dinner for four at Buddakan. As if that wasn’t enough, second place took home a pair of suite tickets to a NY Knicks game. On top of such generous prize support, players who were wanting to take part in the event but were unsure of their poker skills were able to take part in poker lessons put on by professor Harry Chernoff weeks before the tournament.

There were many other poker events put on by different campus organizations around NYU this year, including casino nights hosted by the student council, dorm-sponsored tournaments, and fraternity and sorority poker nights. Other events included an IAG poker tournament held on March 30th. The IAG tournament had a buy-in of $10, with all the proceeds going to help the American Cancer Society. Prizes were given away to top finishers, which also included qualifying for a larger, final tournament held on April 1st. This event was co-hosted by NYU’s chapter of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society.

The surrounding area was a great locale for students who weren’t interested in spending their time competing in large-field freerolls. Cash games and tournaments could be found almost any night of the week during both semesters, offering a variety of stakes and games for student poker players. NYU students looking for a casual game among close friends, or high-stakes action, didn’t have to look very hard to find the right game.

Although New York may be a hot spot for anyone interested in poker, students at NYU can’t dismiss the idea of taking a weekend drive down Garden State Parkway to Atlantic City. Though the drive from most NYU campuses will take around two hours, the trip is certainly worth it for any student yearning for casino poker action. Caesars Atlantic City is a great place to start for any student poker player. The casino is home to 24 poker tables and holds regular $1/2, $2/5, and $5/10 NL hold’em games, along with $2/4,$3/6, and $4/8 limit hold’em. Caesars is currently working on their weekly Gladiator Games poker tournaments where, in addition to typical tournament payouts, players earn points to compete in the Colosseum Games held in Feb. 2009. The top 100 point earners in 2008 will be invited to the Colosseum Games, where players will compete for ten 2009 WSOP Circuit Event seats. Whether for daily tournaments or great cash games, Caesars Atlantic City is a must for any NYU poker-playing student.

With so many poker choices available for NYU students, it’s been a great year of poker, and students who aren’t able to hit the felt over summer break should be very anxious to return in the fall.

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In their conclusions, DeDonno and Detterman stated that “the reason that poker appears to be a game of luck is that the reliability of any short session is low.” They noted that with their second study which featured a sample size of 720 hands, simulating approximately 30 hours of casino play, reliability was markedly improved. They went on to conclude, “Luck (random factors) disguise the fact that poker is a game of skill. However, as these studies show, skill is the determining factor in long-term outcome.”

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There are also plenty of casino options around the Fullerton area for students interested in putting their poker skills to use. Students may want to spend the weekend out in nearby Ynez, to enjoy the cozy and comfortable Chumush Casino Resort. Chumush’s poker room runs games 24 hours a day, houses 14 tables, and offers a variety of poker games including, hold’em, five-card draw, Omaha H/L, plus daily and weekly tournaments. On Tuesdays and Thursdays the poker room runs a guaranteed prize pool event, with $4,000 guaranteed on Tuesdays and $3,500 on Thursdays, with the Tuesday night tournament being a no-rebuy for $70 and Thursdays a rebuy event for only $30 to start. Students won’t want to miss out on the Chumush Saturday Guarantee, where a $20 buy-in (with $10 rebuys) brings entry to a $6,000 guaranteed event. Students not interested in fighting through a big pool of players in an effort to make the cash will want to hit up their daily, single-table shootouts. These events have a buy-in of $57, with an extra $8 added to the pool by the casino for every player entered.

Students attending the Cal State–San Diego State University campus might not have their own bimonthly tournament on campus, but enjoy other poker opportunities instead. The International Security and Conflict Resolution Student Society hosted a successful Poker Night last semester for their members. The school’s Student Accounting Society (SAS) has also announced a Poker Night for their members coming in April, with the specific time and location still waiting to be announced. Several campus organizations have offered poker events in recent years, so students eager for campus poker should keep their eyes on event calendars.

Just 40 miles away from the beautiful San Diego State University campus is Harrah’s Rincon Casino and Resort, a mesmerizing casino with a nice poker room perfect for students looking for soft, easy action. The poker room has 12 tables with Texas hold’em typically the game of choice. Students interested in tournament action will love Rincon, with deep-stack tournaments being run twice a day, every day of the week. A $35 buy-in buys 2,500 in chips, giving players plenty of time and opportunity to wait for hands, make moves, and play solid poker.

Students fortunate enough to attend Cal Poly–San Luis Obispo have also seen plenty of poker around campus over the last few years, including the school’s third annual ASI Poker Tournament. This year’s most recent tournament was held Feb. 1st, had a $5 buy-in, and has had fields as large as 200 players. Past events offered drinks, music, and food. The campus also held a Cal Poly Poker Championship last year which itself drew over a hundred entrants.

With so many places throughout California for students to enjoy poker, students attending school on any of the Cal State University campuses have an abundance of poker options at hand. Whether it’s a campus-sponsored freeroll event, an inexpensive ring game, or a nearby casino’s offerings, Cal State students need never search far for a game.

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While Yale doesn’t have a specific poker club, students did form the Yale Law Poker Team, which competed last November in the First Annual Harvard-Yale Poker Tournament. The tournament was organized by each university’s Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society chapter and was a great accomplishment for both schools. Each of the schools brought five players to compete in a
team format tournament, where opponents played heads-up in best-of-three matches, with the winner of the match scoring one point for his team. Harvard ended up taking a narrow three-to-two win. The team tournament played out the night before the schools’ football teams matched up on the field, bringing added hype and excitement to the event. Students seeking more ways to compete in tournaments around campus should keep their eyes peeled for any upcoming events, as some of the school-sponsored organizations have previously hosted freeroll tournaments.

Yale students have been prominent in poker, ranging from great tournament and cash-game players to authors. Back in 2006, Alex Jacob, then a senior at Yale, scored big when he competed in the Foxwoods Poker Classic, also a World Poker Tour event. The $10,000 buy-in championship event lasted for four days with over 400 people competing. The event aired on ESPN and highlighted Jacob’s strong second-place finish, which brought him a $655,000 payday. Since the Foxwoods event, Jacob has gone on to cash in 12 major tournaments, including wins at the Ultimate Poker Challenge and the United States Poker Championship.

Matt Matros, who earned his BA from Yale, has also seen great success at the tables. Matros has garnered 20 cashes in major tournaments, including a third-place finish in the WPT Season Two championship, where he competed in a field of over 300 players. The $28,000 buy-in championship offered nearly $9 million in prizes, with Matros taking home over $700,000. That tough field included Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Lee Watkinson, Dan Harrington, David Pham, Jennifer Harman and TJ Cloutier. Matros recently published the book The Making of a Poker Player, which aims to teach strategy and probability by highlighting certain hands and situations Matros has found himself in through his career.

Vanessa Selbst attended Yale as a Fulbright Scholar, and was very successful playing in home games and at the Foxwoods Casino and Resort before competing professionally. Selbst has had seven major cashes, including the World Poker Tour Ladies Event at the LA Poker Classic, as well as a third-place finish in last year’s WSOP $5,000 NL Heads-Up Championship Event. Selbst scored big back in 2006 when she took seventh among a field of nearly two thousand entrants in the $2,000 buy-in WSOP Event #6, which aired on ESPN. The final table saw Selbst competing against several professional players including World Champion Juan Carlos Mortenson, Toto Leonidas, and Mark Vos (who went on to win the event).

But not all students at Yale are Jacob, Matros or Selbst. Students interested in building up a solid bankroll won’t be disappointed by the ring games found on and off the campus, as several take place during the week and offer alternatives to raked casino action or freeroll competitions.

For students who prefer casino action, Foxwoods quickly becomes one’s proverbial home away from home. It’s a one-hour drive from campus, but well worth it, with its deep selection of games. The poker room houses over 100 poker tables and runs daily NL and limit hold’em games, plus Omaha and seven-card stud. For those who prefer tournament poker over ring games, the room also runs regular, daily tournaments including a 9am $60 buy-in, an 11am $100 buy-in, plus weekly tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $100 to $560. The Foxwoods is also home to the popular Foxwoods Poker Classic, which regularly sees many professional poker players in attendance. For those willing to make the hour’s drive, the Foxwoods Casino Resort will serve up one of the best poker experiences a student could want.

Students at Yale University continue to enjoy poker, and it’s easy to see why. Many bright players have advanced from the school to great achievements, on and off the felt, leaving many students eager to accomplish the same success.

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Students really looking to enjoy poker action elsewhere also won’t really have to look too hard. There are plenty of games held on and off campus, and finding the right one shouldn’t be a problem. While it may be easy to get several friends together on the weekend for a fun, and inexpensive game, students looking to build sizeable bankrolls may have to look a little harder for something more profitable. Many of the campus and local games are for smaller stakes and may be a bit too laid back for students interested in paying off their student loans.

But for students looking to take their game to the next level, two casino options are available. Students wanting to stay as close to campus can visit the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, NY. The casino is just a short, 40-minute drive from campus, making it the perfect getaway after a long day or week of classes. The poker room at the Turning Stone houses 29 tables and runs almost any variation of poker, including limit and no-limit hold’em (high-stake NL is offered as well), Omaha H/L, and 7-card stud. Turning Stone especially shines when it comes to tournaments (which include daily, weekly, and monthly tournament events) to sit-and-goes, plus qualifiers to the World Series of Poker during March and April.

Students can also make a longer drive to the west to the beautiful Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara, NY. The Seneca poker room features 24 tables and runs hold’em, 7-card stud, and Omaha H/L as well. The Seneca also features daily tournaments, including a bounty tournament run on Tuesdays dubbed the “Terminator” tournament, which sees players earning “terminator” chips by knocking out other players in the event. The player with the most terminator chips in the end receives seven percent of the total prize pool. The Turning Stone is clearly an easier choice for students, if not just for the shorter drive, but for students wanting to take a nice trip and enjoy the scenery, the Seneca Niagara Casino makes for a fine weekend road trip.

Students at Syracuse University have long enjoyed the game of poker, and the options around the city aren’t drying up anytime soon. Whether one is looking for great casino action or just a fun and easy way to enjoy the game, Syracuse is great for any student poker player.

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The university is well known in the world of poker, most recently thanks to Dr. Tuomas Sandholm, a computer scientist for the university. Dr. Sandholm developed the poker program GS1,which beat two of the best poker programs available in a competition, and Sandholm quickly worked on creating the GS2 to compete in the American Association for Artificial Intelligence’s first Computer Poker competition. The GS2 came in third place during the Series Competition, a competition meant to focus the machines on holding their own against all other players, not just heads-up against other machines. Besides the poker program, Dr. Sandholm is able to use his knowledge and skills with computers towards “making the world a better place,” and last year helped design a program which helps aide in successful kidney transplants. Also in the spotlight is Audrey Kania, a Carnegie Mellon graduate, who in 2004 became co-founder and executive vice president of the World Poker Tour. Students may also know the name of Jeremy Olisar, a fellow student who in 2005 won Absolute Poker’s “Win Your Tuition” online tournament and secured an entire semester’s worth of tuition.

What once was a dominating bar scene around the ‘Burgh, with leagues and regular weekly play, has slowed some of late. Outside of bar leagues and tournaments, some area games have been raided, and thus there has been a recent decline in the amount of regular, easy-to-find games. With the opening of new casinos in the region, students once able to pull up a seat at local establishments for freerolls now find these games fewer in number. Students willing to risk traveling a bit off campus won’t be too pressed to find nice $10/20 home games, however.

If not in the mood for private games, students can enjoy the great atmosphere at the new Mountaineer Casino and Racetrack, where the play is soft and the games are plentiful. Students willing to make the drive to the tip of W. Virginia won’t be disappointed, as the casino hosts 37 tables, with hold’em, Omaha and stud running regularly. Friday and Saturday nights are reserved for the big game, a $10/25 NL Hold’em affair that starts late and runs until early, and serves as a great opportunity for those students looking to make some serious bank. The casino also features plenty of regular tournaments, some sit-and-go style, along with a daily, $75+25 deep-stack tournament (4,000 starting chips) that runs Monday through Thursday. Students over the age of 21 looking for casino action need look no further than Mountaineer. Whether you’re looking for high-stakes action or regular tournaments, the Mountaineer will become your home away from home, even if you have to drive over an hour to get there.

For those students who see Mountaineer as a bit too far of a drive, there’s always Wheeling Island Gaming and Downs (in Wheeling Downs). The Downs houses a 20-table poker room which sees hold’em, stud, Omaha H/L and Omaha Hi played regularly, and it isn’t as far a drive as Mountaineer.

With the winter weather finally beginning to break, students looking to get back to their regular poker games will find traveling easier. Whether seeking the occasional campus tournament or longing for casino action, students attending Carnegie Mellon can certainly look forward to spring.

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Students 21 or older who are interested in freeroll events that aren’t sanctioned by campus organizations will want to check out Ringers Sports Lounge for weekly tournaments boasting cash prizes. On Wednesday nights, Ringers holds two NL hold’em events, at 7pm and 10pm. The first session offers players the chance to win gift cards for the lounge while the second session offers cash prizes, including $100 for first place. Students interested in other free bar events can check the website lonestarfreepoker.com for information on where to play in Austin. Lonestar currently runs events at Applebees, One-2-One, Rockin Tomato South, and Clicks Billiards. Students looking to hone their poker skills should not take these events lightly, as they serve as a great and inexpensive way to practice one’s game before investing the big bucks.

Students looking for a nice profit won’t have too hard of a time finding a soft, local game around the UT-Austin campus. Most of the games won’t help pay your tuition, but an occasional $50 buy-in tournament isn’t out of the question, nor is a game where a night’s entertainment might cost $10… not including drinks. These nights also serve as a way to meet other student players and find more regular games.

For those students who need a taste of casino action, there’s always the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino, located a little less than four hours from Austin. While the drive may be staggering to some, students willing to make the trip will find a solid poker room, filled with 16 poker tables and regular action. The poker room holds regular $3/6 and $5/10 limit hold’em, as well as a regular $2/5 NL game. On Mondays the casino offers a $40 buy-in tournament, on Tuesdays a $50 buy-in tournament, and Saturdays see their big tournament, with a $130 buy-in. The poker room serves as a great excuse to plan a weekend trip, and is certainly a trip worth making once a semester or so.

While UT-Austin might not offer a specific club for poker, students still have plenty of poker action at hand. Although most of the local action certainly won’t make a student rich and the nearest casino is a distance away, students can still easily find ways to enjoy the game.

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Indiana students who enjoy freerolls should check out indysharks.com for info on great Indiana games. While many of these tournaments are free to the public, some do have age-21 minimums, while a few others also include a cover charge. Just make sure to double-check the web site before heading out. Students on the Indianapolis campus should also check out deadmoneyinc.com for a list of local, free tournaments located around the city. You won’t want to miss out on the Monday and Tuesday free tournaments at Main Events, nor the Wednesday and Thursday free tournaments at Rookies. Both of these bars are great venues to enjoy the game, enjoy a few drinks, and socialize with a good group of friends. But just like before, make sure to call in advance and get the specifics before you make the drive.

Students looking to invest a little bit more than just their time also have plenty of options available to them on and off campus. Some of these games are invite-only, so it certainly helps if you can make friends. Students will be hard-pressed to find any real high-stakes action happening around the campus itself, but if looking for just a good night out with friends, and a cheap and affordable way to enjoy the game, any of the eight campuses will do.

If all these options simply aren’t enough, or if you’re looking to pad your bankroll with high-stakes casino action, the state of Indiana has plenty of options to suit your style. While the Argosy, Majestic Star and Blue Chip casinos are all viable options to students looking to run to the tables, many students claim that Caesars Indiana has the best poker room around. Caesars Indiana may be quite a drive from campus, but it is certainly well worth it. Its 33 tables offer games including hold’em, stud, and Omaha, and students will find many games to their liking. Limit hold’em choices range from $2/4 to $20/40, while stud starts at $2/10 and goes up to $40/80. Omaha starts at $5/10 pot-limit, while NL hold’em has the standard $200 mininum buy-in for $2/5, or $100 minimum for $1/2 stakes. Both stud and hold’em feature a bad-beat jackpot as well. The poker room also boasts daily poker satellites from 11AM until 11PM, and rebuy tournaments on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, with buy-ins ranging from $20 to $85. On Sundays, Caesars runs a regular 3PM tournament with a buy-in of $60 and an optional $5 add-on.

Although the spring semester has just started at the University of Indiana, students have plenty of poker to look forward to for the next four months. Whether it’s the occasional campus-based free-poker tournament or a regular cash game on or near campus, students at the University of Indiana will surely enjoy the game in the months ahead.

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