Prop bets, dartboards, and poker

I don't do any significant prop betting. One dollar on the pig races at Bill's is about as far as I'll go. But I've been pondering lately about how one can think of poker as a prop bet.

Of course, the key to success in prop betting is setting the parameters in your favor, as well as settling on the maximum amount that your opponent will be willing to go for, if you manage to get the terms of the bet in your favor. You do the same thing in poker. If I have a stronger starting hand, I try to lure you to put money into the pot with your weaker hand--as much as I think you'll agree to.

In many forms of prop bets, the terms can change over time. This happens all the time in golf, for example. As the round plays out, it may become clear that one player is gaining an advantage over the other that will be difficult to overcome. The one with the advantage may try to get more money into the "pot," perhaps with different terms for the remaining holes, pressing his edge. In poker, you are effectively renegotiating the terms of your prop bet with every betting round, as new information is gained, and each party sees that his position has been strengthened or weakened.

But putting aside the prop bet analogy, let me tell you about one of the weird ways in which my brain works. I can't tell you exactly how long I've been thinking this way, but some time after I started playing here in Vegas I began imagining what we might call "the dartboard theory of poker."

Suppose we get all the money in before the flop. I have, say, J-J, you have, say, A-K. Nearly every time I'm in a situation like this, I envision a dartboard divided up into sectors of "me" and "you." We don't have an expert dart thrower on the line, one who could nail any sector of the board he wanted to, but rather a blindfolded drunk guy. The board is really big, so he can't miss, but where the dart lands is random. We have it basically divided 50-50, like this:





Or, more likely, it's about 52-48 (depending on the suits involved), like this:





(Yeah, I know these don't look like dartboards. They're just stupid Excel pie charts. Superimposing the colors over the image of an actual dartboard is way beyond my graphics-manipulation capabilities, so just use a bit of imagination, OK? After all, this whole post is about how to imagine things. Also, I didn't even bother cropping out the surrounding junk, because, well, I'm lazy, and didn't think it would help things, that's why.)

The board playing out is no longer a series of independent events, but a single throw of a dart, which may land in my territory or in yours--we'll have to see.

Once I started thinking of all-in situations in this manner, a fairly natural evolution (well, natural if your brain is wired in the scarily strange way that mine happens to be) is to start seeing the betting as efforts to move the line of demarcation between my dartboard territory and yours, sort of like a tug-of-war, with each contestant trying to push or pull the line his way. Of course, a more accurate description would be that each is trying to control his opponent's perception of where the line is, since usually neither one knows for sure, and it's not something you can actually change.

My vision of success in poker is when I in essence get an opponent to agree to match the money I have put into the pot when the dartboard looks something like this:





It's especially good if that happens when the opponent thinks the board is like this:





In fact, perhaps that's a necessary element, because no rational player is going to put the money in if he knew how the territory was really marked.

Once you have all the money in with one or more cards to come, you have made a deal with your opponent. You have the dartboard surface area divided between you in some manner--basically even, strongly in your favor, or strongly in his. Then a dart is thrown, and neither of you has any control over where it might land.

I realize that this way of looking at it isn't any different from just assigning percentages or odds or outs. But for whatever reason (a visually oriented brain, maybe?), it seems more natural to me to think this way. When I have completed a successful negotiation, and have, say, 90% of the board locked up my way, I feel that I have done my job well. It makes it at least slightly easier to let go of the result when I imagine it as a dart being thrown wildly at the board. I have exerted all of the control that I can before it is thrown, and there is nothing more I can do thereafter. It lands where it lands. It is what it is.

Here, for example, is how the dartboard looked in my hand against the Spewtard:





I can live with that. The object of poker is to get your opponent to put as much money in the pot as he is willing to, when as much of the dartboard is marked off for you as possible, and I did that.

There have, of course, been many situations where I was 100% to win, even with one or more cards yet to come--for example, when I flopped a straight flush. I think that the closest I've come to 100% without actually being there was this hand at the Rio, in which a guy made an all-in bluff into me with nothing when I held the nuts on the flop, and he had to go perfect-perfect just to get a chop. My dartboard that day looked like this:





On the other hand, I have been in a few truly horrible situations, but had the drunken dart-thrower deliver me a miracle. For example, when I was the one making an ill-timed all-in bluff into two opponents who had flopped flushes, I was unknowingly agreeing to a dartboard approximately like this:





Oops. But I think the worst I have ever gotten it all in with, and yet had the dart land in that tiny sliver of area with my name on it, was a tournament hand at the Venetian, in which the dartboard looked like this:





Once in a while, those drunk, blindfolded dart throwers can really thread the needle!

I don't have any profound conclusion to draw from any of this. I just thought I would share a couple of the odd visions that flash through my brain when I'm in certain poker situations.

Guess the casino, #105

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.




Answer: Hard Rock

Readers' tournament, second reminder

Coming up three weeks from today. Full details here. Six entrants already signed up. Better hurry--it's capped at 5000!

Poker gems, #233

Gabe Kaplan, on the 4/5/2009 installment of "High Stakes Poker." (For more on Hickok and his final hand, see here. To see the biggest pot in televised poker history ($919,600 cash), watch part 2 here.)


I had a big rivalry with Wild Bill Hickok. Bill used to come over the top of me all the time. I was sad when he got shot, not because he got shot, but the flop on that hand came A-10-8, and I had A-10. I thought I was gonna win a lot of money finally, y’know, and boom, and it was over. Flop top two pair and the guy gets shot in the back.

Call of the century

From the razz portion of a HORSE sit-and-go recently completed.




I was just so convinced he was stealing that I was determined to call him down, almost no matter what. I knew making the call on 7th that if he had just one unpaired card lower than a 10 among his three down cards he would win. I decided that the chance that he didn't was worth the call. And whaddyaknow--I was right.

Or I might just be an idiotic calling station.



That's all I have to say about the hand. Now I have to say a word about how I got this animated for you.

I have lamented several times that there is no poker hand replayer that works for stud and razz hands. Tonight I did another search to see if perhaps that had changed, and found one here: http://www.universal-replayer.net/. It's kind of clunky, but it does a job that nothing else does (as far as I know), and even simulates the skin of whatever major poker site the hand occurred on.

The problem with it is that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't save or export the videos in any standard video format. So I downloaded a trial version of CaptureWiz here. That enabled me to make an .avi file from the replayer, upload it to YouTube, and then embed it above. Way more steps than such a task should require these days, but I don't know of any more straightforward way to accomplish it. Suggestions welcome. (CaptureWiz also apparently picked up whatever was coming in through my computer's built-in microphones and transferred it to the audio track, so that's the computer fan you hear whirring in the background. There's probably a way to stop that, but it's not important enough to me to spend any more time on it right now.)

Full hand history below for the obsessively interested:

*********** # 28 **************
PokerStars Game #26778907976: Tournament #153656543, $10+$1 HORSE (Razz Limit) - Level III (40/80) - 2009/04/06 3:41:53 ET
Table '153656543 1' 8-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Rakewell1 (1995 in chips)
Seat 2: Brandon518 (2178 in chips)
Seat 3: YaDunSon (1664 in chips)
Seat 4: Cardgrrl (836 in chips)
Seat 5: STERGEON (1250 in chips)
Seat 6: tuckmaniac (1631 in chips)
Seat 7: Qn58903 (1421 in chips)
Seat 8: fluffyflo (1025 in chips)
Cardgrrl: posts the ante 8
STERGEON: posts the ante 8
tuckmaniac: posts the ante 8
Qn58903: posts the ante 8
fluffyflo: posts the ante 8
Rakewell1: posts the ante 8
Brandon518: posts the ante 8
YaDunSon: posts the ante 8
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [6h Ah Ks]
Dealt to Brandon518 [Qh]
Dealt to YaDunSon [6d]
Dealt to Cardgrrl [Ac]
Dealt to STERGEON [4h]
Dealt to tuckmaniac [8s]
Dealt to Qn58903 [7h]
Dealt to fluffyflo [2d]
Rakewell1: brings in for 12
Brandon518: folds
YaDunSon: folds
Cardgrrl: folds
STERGEON: folds
tuckmaniac: folds
Qn58903: folds
fluffyflo: raises 28 to 40
Rakewell1: calls 28
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [6h Ah Ks] [4c]
Dealt to fluffyflo [2d] [3d]
fluffyflo: bets 40
Rakewell1: calls 40
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [6h Ah Ks 4c] [Ts]
Dealt to fluffyflo [2d 3d] [7c]
fluffyflo: bets 80
Rakewell1: calls 80
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [6h Ah Ks 4c Ts] [2h]
Dealt to fluffyflo [2d 3d 7c] [5h]
fluffyflo: bets 80
Rakewell1: calls 80
*** RIVER ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [6h Ah Ks 4c Ts 2h] [As]
fluffyflo: bets 80
Rakewell1: calls 80
*** SHOW DOWN ***
fluffyflo: shows [Jh Qc 2d 3d 7c 5h 3h] (Lo: J,7,5,3,2)
Rakewell1: shows [6h Ah Ks 4c Ts 2h As] (Lo: T,6,4,2,A)
Rakewell1 collected 704 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 704 Rake 0
Seat 1: Rakewell1 showed [6h Ah Ks 4c Ts 2h As] and won (704) with Lo: T,6,4,2,A
Seat 2: Brandon518 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 3: YaDunSon (button) folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Cardgrrl folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 5: STERGEON folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 6: tuckmaniac folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 7: Qn58903 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 8: fluffyflo showed [Jh Qc 2d 3d 7c 5h 3h] and lost with Lo: J,7,5,3,2

Guess the casino, #104

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.




Answer: Flamingo

Today's helpful hint

Today I was one of several people starting a new table at the Venetian. As things were getting underway, the cocktail waitress arrived. She asked for identification from one young man before taking his drink order. I thought he looked mid-20s, but you can never be sure. I couldn't quite hear the ensuing conversation, but there was some sort of problem. It concluded with him saying something like, "If you can't bring me a drink, fine, it's no big deal."

Since the drinking age and the gambling age are the same, I thought it was peculiar that they would deny him liquor but allow him to continue playing poker. But it was none of my business, so I didn't say anything. Soon, however, the poker room shift manager came over and asked to see his ID. Again there was some sort of problem, the nature of which I couldn't quite ascertain. But I heard him being instructed to have the situation checked out at the main casino cage. The floor guy said something like, "If they say it's OK, they'll give you a wrist band so you won't have any more problems. But if they say no, we'll have to ask you to cash out your chips and leave."

After several minutes he came back, apologized to the table for leaving so abruptly. The problem was that his driver's license (I thought I saw "Illinois" on it, but I could be mistaken) had expired. The casino personnel apparently had no difficulty believing that the license had been valid, the photo was really him, etc. Furthermore, the birth date shown would confirm him to be of legal age. But I am left to infer--and this is news to me--that when there is sufficient doubt of legal age that they have to check one's ID, an expired license does not constitute valid proof. I do not know if this is just a Venetian house policy or a Nevada gaming regulation, though I'm sure I have plenty of readers who are required to know this stuff and can speak up in the comments.

So, if you're planning a big trip here, and you want it to include drinking and gambling, and you are of an age that you still tend to get carded, then you should add to your pre-trip list of things to check that your license or other state photo ID card is up to date, not expired.

You're welcome.

Guess the casino, #103

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.




Answer: Green Valley Ranch

Guess the casino, #102

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.




Answer: Circus Circus

McDonald's, Vegas-style

Because I'm so rarely awake before noon, and because McDonald's, unlike some of their competitors (e.g., Jack in the Box) refuses to serve their breakfast menu at the hours that we normal people would actually want to eat breakfast, it is not often that I get to indulge in one of my favorite delights: a Sausage McMuffin. But this morning, once I had decided to put in an early poker session at the Venetian, I knew that I could snag myself this treat.

I was about to head to my usual place (Sahara and Maryland Parkway), but then I realized that I could just head down the Strip, without too much fear of heavy traffic, and catch the McDonald's that is just south of Circus Circus. It had a big renovation and re-opening a few months ago. (See, e.g., VegasRex on it here.) I had never been in there before, either before or after the remodeling.

It's the only McDonald's that I know of that advertises on billboards and taxicabs the same way that casinos and shows and strip clubs do. It is, apparently, something of an institution. So I felt it my obligation to give it a try.

It's surprisingly nice, both inside and out--easily the spiffiest McDonald's I've ever set foot it. Of course, I realize that that's not exactly the highest praise one can give an eating establishment. Whatever.

Here's a shocker: The Sausage McMuffin tasted very, very much like every other Sausage McMuffin I've ever had, the hash browns tasted a whole lot like hash browns from other McDonald's, and the large Coke was, well, kind of big and kind of Cokish.

It is just as Rex has ranted about here:

You hop on an airplane, fly 3,000 miles to the entertainment and dining
capital of the world, hop off the plane after a 5 hour flight, and head to
McDonald’s?

Really???

Perhaps I am missing something, but what is the point of leaving the
trailer park in the first place?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no food snob. I eat Ramen noodles for dinner
all the time … but if my ass is going to plunk down airfare and I am going to
book a hotel room in a distant city, my ass is not eating at McDonald’s.

What, do you think they give us the “good” Big Macs?

It’s the same shit (literally) as it is in Des Moines … I assure you.

Of course, I get a pass, what with being local and all. This is my trailer park (no, not literally). I can't help it if my local McDonald's happens to be lit up with enough neon to raise the entire planet's core body temperature.

But I can share the experience with you vicariously. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Now, when you come here, you can just walk by this place and think, "Oh yeah, I read about that. Nothing special, past the surface," then keeping walking, and find somewhere more interesting and memorable to dine.

Unless, of course, you're just dying for a Sausage McMuffin, in which case this place will do just fine.

Morning poker

If you pay attention to the time stamps on these posts, you may knit your brow in puzzlement at why a short time ago I posted about coming home from the book store. As I type, it is 1:35 p.m., which is usually about the time I'm hitting the shower after having been awake for maybe 30 or 60 minutes. But for once, I'm not only out of bed, but have already been out into the world, played poker, and come home again!

I think this is only the third time in almost three years of playing now that I have tried a morning session. The idea is to catch those who have been playing (and, often, drinking) all night. They will often be desperately tired, stressed out, drunk, and/or losing badly and trying to get back to even. The down sides are that (1) it can be difficult to find a game, and (2) many of the local retiree nits come out of the woodwork at those hours, and they are not the target audience. One time I tried this at Caesars, with good success. Another time I tried it at MGM, and failed. There was a game going, but I stupidly failed to adjust my tactics to the opposition, and attempted a couple of big bluffs at people that I should have known were basically unbluffable because of exactly the factors (as listed above) that made me seek them out! D'oh!

I sat down at the Venetian poker room at 9:05 a.m. Yes, surprisingly, the world actually exists at that hour--who knew?! You can see from the photo above that it was pretty dead, even though this is one of the busiest poker rooms in the city and they are in the midst of the Deep Stack Extravaganza, which vastly increases the number of players on an average day. There were four tables in operation.

This was my first time playing since Saturday. I ran into a pretty bad spell the last couple of weeks of March. I was starting to feel the same horrible mental wooziness that I was trapped in last August, when I was in the midst of my worst-ever losing streak. I decided that I needed to take more than my usual one day off to reset, because I had already done that two or three times, without anything improving. So I took an actual vacation from poker (except for a little online, mostly for funsies). I did other stuff that had been neglected: taxes, reading, Netflix movies, watching TV shows I had videotaped but not viewed, cleaning, grocery shopping, catching up on other blogs, etc. It felt pretty good not to play for a while, but the last couple of days I have definitely been getting back my itch to play, so today was the day. I thought the change to a morning session might feel sufficiently different from my usual evening play that it would help the whole situation feel new again. It did.

There was only one drunk guy, not half a table, as I had kind of hoped. But he was drunk enough for the whole table, so that compensated. He annoyed everybody with constant, repeated, loud, profane, and looney diatribes about the Federal Reserve system, 9/11 conspiracies, and one-world government. I quickly put in the ear buds with Elvis as my respite. He was sitting right next to me and kept attempting to engage me in his madness. I just kept pretending I couldn't hear him, and he eventually gave up, and returned to trying to warn the rest of the table about the impending collapse of civilization as we know it.

I left WINNAH after less than two hours. In this kind of situation, it's pretty important to my psychological well-being to take the money and run, rather than give it all back and chalk up yet another L in the spreadsheet (I first wrote "ledger" there--but who am I kidding?) via a bad read or an unlucky turn of a card.

My entire profit came in basically two hands:

1. I was on the button and looked down at the nappy-headed hos. I had raised both of the previous two times I had had the button, and had won both hands with a continuation bet on the flop when it was checked to me. Once was with garbage that hit bottom pair, once with two Broadway cards that completely whiffed, but were apparently good enough. I knew, therefore, that any attentive players would be highly suspicious of a steal when I put in a button raise (to $13, I think) for yet the third time.

I got just one caller, the big blind, a guy I've played with once or twice before and I know to be smart, with no shortage of bluffing and trickery in his arsenal. Before calling, he asked how much I had behind--about $120, which he had covered. This made me think that he had some kind of speculative hand, and he was wondering about his implied odds. Unless his question were a deliberate attempt at deception (always a possibility), this suggested that he was not slow-playing kings or aces.

The flop was A-J-5, rainbow. He checked. I bet $25. I was not at all suprised when he check-raised me, because I knew that somebody would be wanting to challenge me on my third button raise/c-bet combination. Normally I would just give up at this point, but because I had been expecting an attentive player to draw a line in the sand with me pretty much no matter what he might be holding, and because this was definitely a smart, attentive player, I had substantially less reason to fear him having me beat than I usually would. Besides, he only min-raised me, which could be begging me to make a move, but could also be just sticking a toe in the water to see if I was full of it. Hard to say which.

This was a tricky spot, given the stack sizes, because if I shoved all-in, he would be getting better than 2.5:1 on a call--another $70 to win a pot of about $195 (about $25 pre-flop, plus my $120, plus his own $50). That's not enough if he has, say, a medium pair and he becomes convinced that I have an ace or a jack. But it obviously won't get him to fold any set or two-pair combination, and he might not even fold either an ace or a jack. It was really hard to gauge what my fold equity might be.

But I pushed it anyway. He called quickly. Lucky for me, the queen of hearts on the turn settled essentially all of my worries. He flashed a 5 before mucking his cards. It's hard to believe he would have called me pre-flop with J-5, and with either 5-5 or A-5 in the hole, I think he would have shown both cards rather than just the 5. So my guess is that I really was ahead the entire way, and didn't need the third queen, but I'll never know for sure.

2. Big blind with 5-5. A bunch of us all limped in. Flop was a very lovely 7-5-7. Yes, that's how talented and experienced I am at poker--I can flop a full house whenever the mood suits me. I am a skillbox.

I was first to act, and bet $6, about 2/3 of the pot. My goal was twofold: (1) Sniff out who might be sitting on a 7, and (2) convince such a person that I didn't have a big hand, on the guess that he or she would expect anything beating trips to slow-play it. Ding! A middle-aged woman new to the table called. Everybody else folded. The turn was a king. I bet again, this time $15. She min-raised me to $30. Oh yeah, baby--we've got ourselves a 7 out there!

Of course, with the lowest possible full house, there is always the possibility that she has 7-5 or 7-K or will hit on the river with whatever her kicker may be--or, God forbid, 7-7 in the hole. But the situation is so likely to be in my favor that I have to be willing to get it all in here, or not bother playing no-limit. I stalled a bit, trying to look as if I'm trying not to look worried (I wish I had videotape of myself in these moments, so that I could see whether I really pull off such acting), then called, with what I hope was just a shade of faux reluctance.

Of course, if I were genuinely concerned, I would follow that call with a check on the river, no matter what came. So when a 10 hit (no straights or flushes possible to scare her), that's what I did--think a bit, then check, trying to appear as if I would welcome her to check behind. She bit, putting out another $30. I had hoped for a little more, but decided that she was practically pot-committed (another $90 or so behind), and moved all-in. She insta-called and showed me 7-4.

I'll take those chips now, please. TYVM!

Not exactly rocket science, but very satisfying. I scored me a decent W for the session and felt pretty much back in the saddle again.

Giddyup!


Addendum

I forgot to mention something. When I saw the Q-Q and knew that I would now be raising the button for the third consecutive time, I had a flashback to this column by John Vorhaus about this exact thing: opponents anticipating a pattern of yours the third time you execute it, and how you can and must be prepared to exploit their attempt to exploit you.

Serves him right

In the newest (April 13, 2009) issue of Poker Player newspaper, a page 1 story covers the finale of the Wynn Poker Classic, won by Keith Ferrera. It contains this interesting anecdote along the way:

On the tournament's second day, Scott Seiver presumably learned a costly
object lesson about the importance of not releasing one's hand on a showdown
until the cards are turned face-up when he played a hand against Jimmy Fricke.
At hand's end, the board was K-10-8-K-4 and Seiver moved all-in. After a lengthy
deliberation, Fricke called.

Assuming he was beaten, Seiver pushed his cards towards the dealer, saying
"You win." Fricke flipped over A-Q for nothing more than ace-high. Seiver
screamed that he had pocket deuces, but the dealer had already raked in Seiver's
cards. The tournament director confirmed the dealer's decision and awarded the
pot--along with all of Seiver's chips--to Fricke.

Wow. It's hard to overstate the utter stupidity of this move. What on earth does Seiver have to lose here by the simple act of turning his cards face up on the table? He is an experienced tournament pro, not some noobie taking his first crack at live poker. Sure, most of the time he gets called there he will lose. But if so, he's out of the tournament, meaning that there isn't even the usual argument for keeping secret how one has played a particular hand. Suppose there is only a one in a thousand chance that he is being called by a worse hand--isn't it still worth turning over your cards the 999 times that you lose in order not to be knocked out of the tournament that one time? I just don't get it. How brainless can one get?

Even in ordinary cash games if I have a bluff called on the river I don't just muck, the way I see so many people do. I'm only very mildly embarrassed to get caught, so I might as well get the advertising value out of it by showing the table how out of line I might be, hoping they'll remember it the next time when I actually have the goods. As I expose my cards, I often even say something like, "You called, so I guess you must have the winner." (Note that I'm careful not to phrase this in a way that is actually conceding the pot. It shouldn't matter, because at the showdown the cards speak and verbal declarations of one's hand are not binding. But I still don't want to be unintentionally misleading. Being intentionally misleading is highly unethical and often grounds for various sanctions, and I don't want anybody to mistakenly think that I was doing it on purpose.) But maybe 5% of the time I'm stunned to then see the caller muck without showing, and it turns out that I was bluffing with the best hand (e.g., ace high, or bottom pair, or an underpair). On at least one occasion, the caller misread my hand and accidentally mucked the winner. I don't mind taking the pot that way, either, as long as I did nothing to induce his error.

Mr. Seiver, please explain: What the hell is so difficult or onerous about turning up your cards? What were you trying to accomplish that was worth blowing a $10,000-entry tournament for?

More about soup for books

This morning I posted a quick note about the Gambler's Book Store offering free poker books in exchange for a donation of a can of soup for local food banks. I stopped by there on my way home (it's only a few blocks from where I live) to see what was going on.

I didn't really think they would have it wide open to any poker book; they'd go out of business too fast if they tried that. (Heck, I'd rush to Albertson's, buy a case of soup, then clean out the bookstore's poker shelf!) They had arranged on the counter maybe eight different titles one could choose from, mostly about poker, but also one on keno and one on baseball handicapping. They all appeared to be older books.

I had brought two cans of good ol' Campbell's (one tomato and one chicken noodle--can't go wrong with those), and exchanged them for the two volumes shown above. The former is a collection of essays, rants, stories, and observations about playing poker in Vegas--a lot like a blog turned into a book, though done back in 1992. Stated price was $16.95. The second is one of Mike Caro's oldest volumes, published in 1984. It's mostly about home-game variations of poker, about which very little solid strategy writing has been done, so I thought it would make an interesting addition to the library. Besides, pretty much anything written by Caro will be a worthwhile read, IMHO. Stated price was $5.95.

While I was there, I thought it would be nice to thank the propietor for running the food-bank promotion by actually purchasing something, so I bought one other book (all poker books are currently on sale at 15% off): Winning Omaha 8 Poker, by Mark Tenner and Lou Krieger (2003)--an autographed copy, even. I still feel somewhat lost during the Omaha section of my almost daily HORSE sit-and-go tournaments. Moreover, Krieger has several times ventured his opinion that O/8 is one of the most profitable, beatable games there is these days, because so many hold'em players have no idea how to adjust their play to it. (See, e.g., here.) A solid introduction/foundation seems called for. (A new edition is in the works, if you don't mind waiting a bit.)

TSA thugs even worse than casino security thugs

Because, of course, they operate with greater ability to deprive you of your liberty and property, whether you have done anything to deserve it or not.

A reader kindly sent me a note about this post on Terrence Chan's blog. A libertarian (his politics are probably not irrelevant here) was detained by the TSA thugs simply because he was carrying about $4700 in cash, with no other grounds for suspicion of illegal activity. Their treatment of him, which he cleverly recorded, was not exactly the courtesy and professionalism we would want from our law enforcement. Watch the YouTube segment, and be outraged.

Is this relevant to poker? Absolutely. Besides the general interest that all U.S. citizens should have about the erosion of freedom, poker players are at substantially greater risk than the general public for this kind of abuse. Both tournament players and the cash game specialists who go to where tournaments are to play in the juicy side games tend to carry (perfectly legally) larger sums of cash than the jack-booted thugs of the TSA will consider to be "normal." They also often book flights at the last minute (because of a late decision to play a tournament, or busting out earlier than anticipated, or lasting longer than anticipated and thus having to book a later flight, etc.). These factors wave red flags in front of the TSA and DEA bulls. There are already many, many stories on record of poker players getting harassed in just the manner that this young man was. For the most recent one that has made the news, see David "Viffer" Peat's account here. Read Daniel Negreanu's story from 2006 here.

By the way, if you are ever being questioned by law enforcement and it's not clear to you whether you are free to go, you can certainly ask exactly that question (as this guy did), but don't expect a direct or honest answer. The way to find out is to announce that it is your intention to leave, stand up, and walk for the door, being careful not to make any sudden moves (like reaching into a pocket) that could be interpreted as threatening. If they don't stop you, you are free to go. If they physically prevent you from leaving, you have your answer, and at that point they will not be free to claim in later legal proceedings that you had never been "seized" under the Fourth Amendment. As soon as it is clear that you are not free to go, you have, in fact, been "seized," whether or not you are under arrest (which is a related but narrower category of action).

Soup non-Nazi

See http://www.lvrj.com/news/42378582.html.

According to this story, Howard Schwartz will soon be moving the famous Gambler's Book Shop (now at 630 S. 11th St.) to a yet-unidentified new space. In order to help reduce the mountain of inventory to be transported, he will give away a poker book in exchange for a can of soup (or, apparently, other canned food) to be donated to local food banks.

Not clear from the story is whether the donor gets to pick any poker book off the shelves, or if there is just one or perhaps a few titles for which the load of copies is too great to have any hopes of selling, so that one is stuck with, say, a five-year-old Playing Poker Like the Pros by Phil Hellmuth, or perhaps the wretched Act to Win in Texas Hold'em Poker by Chad Brown and Stephan Kalhamer. But I think I'll stop in and find out.

For much more about the Gambler's Book Shop, see the series of posts by Shamus here and here.

Thanks to my friend Lisa for the news tip.

Guess the casino, #101

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Answer: Texas Station

Poker gems, #232

Mike Eikenberry, in Poker Player newspaper column, April 13, 2009 (Vol. 12, #21), p. 10. He is recounting his top ten poker moments.


5. Bad Beat/Not. In a super satellite for the 1995 WSOP, I found myself down to the final seven players. Only six of us would win a seat and it appeared that I would finish seventh. I went card-dead and almost out of chips. I found myself with half my chips on the big blind. Everyone folded around to former world champion Hamid Dastmalchi on the small blind. He hardly looked at his hand before putting me all-in. Going to the river, the board was a rainbow 9-9-9-A and I was in bad shape with 5-4 suited. I was crushed when a deuce fell on the river and stood up to leave, throwing my hand face up. Amazingly, Hamid reluctantly turned over the only hand that I could beat--a three and a four. A few hands later another player was eliminated and I had my ticket to the show.

Gordie Brown

Late yesterday afternoon I scored a free ticket to see Gordie Brown last night at his new home at the Golden Nugget (after finishing his run at the Venetian, then spending a while at Planet Hollywood). This impressionist show is one I've been wanting to see the entire time I've lived here.

I liked it. I was in the fourth row, so a nice, close-up view. The obvious comparison is to Danny Gans, since their acts are very similar. I think that Gans is a better mimic, with more impressively spot-on vocal imitations of various singers and celebrities. But Brown, I thought, was overall funnier and more entertaining. If I had an out-of-town visitor who wanted to take me to see one or the other of these guys, I'd lean toward Brown.

It's really difficult to explain with text what bits were funny and why--sort of the essential "ya had to be there" sort of thing. But I thought the best moments were (1) a duet between Cher and Joe Cocker (Brown doing both parts, of course), (2) switching between Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achey Breaky Heart" and Barney the Dinosaur doing his "I love you" song to show how amusingly similar the melodies are, (3) Aaron Neville's rendition of the national anthem at a baseball game (complete with stadium reverb) that is so slow it lasts through an entire double-header (Brown rapidly moving back and forth between the never-ending song and the announcer's play-by-play).

Well worth seeing, if you get a chance.

Marking the day

Today is April 2, the American shorthand for which is 4/2. That makes this the second-holiest day (after 2/4, obviously) in the liturgical calendar of the Holy Order of the Deuce-Four. Those of us who have sworn allegiance have a sacred obligation to play the hand at least once today, full of faith that the poker gods will reward our devotions.

Do your proper obeiscances and propitiations (religious thought is full of such wonderful words!) on this holy day. Blessed be the Deuce-Four. Amen.

Guess the casino, #100

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Answer: Luxor

Poker gems, #231

Mike Caro, in Poker Player newspaper column, April 13, 2009 (vol. 12, #21).


Poker played properly isn't about pride or entertainment. It's about money. And if you're playing it for other reasons, you've probably chosen the wrong game.

Zero-level thinking

I swear, this is not an April Fool's Day post. Well, it is that day, but this post is in earnest.

I just finished a HORSE SNG. The following was the most amusing hand from the session. (Well, Cardgrrl thinks another hand was more amusing, and she is writing that up as I do this one. Edit: It is here.)

A couple of months ago, Shamus wrote a post about zero-level thinking, in which it is not possible to attribute even the most rudimentary poker reasoning to a player's action. This falls into that category.

Usually when I post hand replays, I have all the cards exposed from the outset. This is an occasion where I think you will enjoy it more if you see them at the same point in the hand that I did.



I folded a full house on the river. Not everybody thinks the same way.

Guess the casino, #99

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Answer: Caesars Palace

Poker lessons from non-poker movies: "Cool Hand Luke"

Next up in my Paul Newman film festival is "Cool Hand Luke." It arrived in the mail today. Haven't watched it yet, but I've seen it before, so I know what's coming. And what's coming is an exceptionally fine poker scene. Its lessons--about reading opponents, about pot odds, about how to bluff by telling a consistent story from the outset of the hand, about the usefulness (or lack thereof) of friends' advice, about the power of raising rather than calling ("Kick a buck!")--are too obvious to need elaboration from me. So just sit back and enjoy the next three minutes:





"Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand." One of the best movie lines (and best bits of poker advice) EVAR!