Poker gems, #246

John Vorhaus, in Card Player magazine column, May 6, 2009 (Vol. 22, #9), p. 64.


There's a real danger in seeking to categorize your foes too firmly. Try to put everything into pigeonholes, and all you'll end up with is a bunch of squished pigeons.

Poker gems, #245

Tommy Angelo, in Elements of Poker, p. 21, in list of poker terms he has coined.


POOP -- Acronym for "passively out of position." Sometimes I play POOP.

"I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness"

(John 1:23, King James Version)

So Barney Frank has now introduced his bill to license, regulate, and tax online gambling. People and entities that I normally like and respect are falling all over themselves in celebration--for example, here and here and here. None of those sources, nor even the more journalistic and ostensibly objective story on PokerNews (here) bothers to suggest or quote anybody suggesting that the whole thing might be a really, really bad idea for the poker industry in the long run.

I'm telling you that it is, even though I expect my handwringing to be dismissed with amusement and/or scorn by nearly everyone in the poker community.

First is the general principle. We should be free to play poker (or blackjack or anything else) with our own money from the privacy of our own homes. Period. The word "free" there does not mean, "free, as long as we're using a site that meets the government's approval." It does not mean, "free, as long as both we and the sites pay onerous taxes." It does not mean, "free, as long as our state governor has not decided to 'opt out' of the federal system." It means that we should be left the hell completely alone. This is not an area in which the federal government has any constitutional authority to act, nor is it one in which the federal government has any particular expertise. Do you really think that PokerStars and Full Tilt will suddenly become better-run businesses than they currently are because they submit to several thousand pages of federal regulations?

Second is the pragmatic issue. I would wager all that I'm worth on this proposition: online poker will become less profitable, not more profitable, as a long-term result of this kind of legislation.

I have not yet read anything about what will happen if a site decides not to seek federal licensing. For example, what if PokerStars decides that it sees more disadvantage than advantage to submitting to all the taxes and fees and regulations? They might say, "Y'know, we're doing OK as it is. People in the U.S. can deposit directly from their checking accounts and start playing in a matter of minutes. We can't be kicked out of a state by an anti-gambling governor. We aren't paying U.S. taxes, and don't have to collect personal income tax withholding for our customers. We don't have to open our books to the feds. Our anti-fraud and anti-laundering security is already as tight as anybody knows how to make it. There just isn't much reason for us to change anything."

I don't know whether the Frank bill explicitly addresses this, but sooner or later, the powers that be will decide that this is intolerable, and either attempt to stop and/or prosecute evaders under extant legislation, or pass new laws that make it a crime to offer--and maybe even participate in--online gaming that is not federally licensed. It is a universal truth that governmental licensing bodies will not long tolerate those who sidestep them.

If you have the choice of playing on a federally licensed site or a place like Stars that has decided not to comply with licensing (and I'm just speculating that that will be the case; I have no information one way or the other), it will obviously be more profitable to play on a non-licensed site, because it will have far less overhead operating cost and can therefore charge less rake. The government will not put up with that for very long, I can assure you. The result will be that people like Frank and Alfonse D'Amato will do a 180-degree turn, and in a short time be advocates for prosecuting the scofflaws who are not compliant with the system they have set up--all in the name of "protecting the public," of course. This could easily include making it a crime not only for such sites to operate, but for you personally to play on them.

Furthermore, history shows that the rate of taxation will ratchet up and up and up, increasing the pressure on profitably like an anaconda increasing the tightness of its grip every time its victim exhales. Have you noticed what has happened with liquor and tobacco taxes over the decades? The so-called "sin taxes" are the easiest ones for politicians to turn to when they need yet another junkie's fix of a revenue increase. If you think it's hard to win at online poker big enough to beat the rake, try playing well enough to beat the rake plus, say, a 25% tax on every pot. Of course that's not what it will be to start off with, but give it time. There is no doubt in my mind that the rate will end up on the far side of the Laffer curve. It is the nature of govenments to act that way. They can't help themselves.

I'm telling you, folks, this is wrong and dangerous. I'm not sure I can come up with enough analogies and metaphors to convey it. It's letting the camel's nose into the tent. It's sleeping with the enemy, making a deal with the devil. It is like paying protection money to the Mafia. It is feeding a few drops of blood to the carniverous plant Audrey. It is like planting kudzu in your garden.

Those who are now welcoming the feds as a partner in online poker will, I fear, come to rue the day and wonder how they could have been so short-sighted. Federal licensing, regulation, and taxation will act like a slow poison, perhaps not quite killing online poker, but certainly leaving it far more weakened and unprofitable than it would be if it were just left completely alone (as it should be), and more than it would be if things were just left the way they are now (which is hardly ideal, but satisfactorily healthy and easy to deal with).

Look, I've ranted about this stuff before, here and here and here. I'm running out of ways to express what I foresee happening, so I'll repeat my favorite cinematic analogy from the last-cited post:

To continue my string of bad movie images and analogies, think of the poor
souls in "Dracula" (I'm thinking specifically of the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola
version, though many others show the same thing) who are kept by the
vampires as a source of ongoing meals, rather like farm animals. They are barely
alive, left with just enough blood so that they don't die and can be bled again
later. That is what I am convinced would be the end-game of federally regulated
online poker--taxed to within an inch of its life, marginally profitable for
anybody except the feds.

All of this goes way beyond the relatively petty disputes that I expect to see garner most of the attention: the state opt-out provisions, the details of how taxes and withholding are done, etc. None of that matters much to me; it's like the proverbial rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic. The whole business is a disaster waiting to happen, and it seems that virtually everybody in the poker world is somehow blinded to that.

Sadly, I don't expect anybody to pay me any mind. They didn't listen to Noah, either, when he told them that those were not merely spring showers. But when what I have foretold comes to pass, you won't be able to say that you weren't warned.


Addendum


See the first comment. Jim S raises thoughtful points that I think are worthy of response.

1. Jurisdiction. This isn't the place for a drawn-out debate about the proper scope of congressional power under the commerce clause. I'll just say that I am persuaded that the majority of what Congress currently does under the claim of regulating interstate commerce is constitutionally infirm (despite the Supreme Court capitulating to Roosevelt's court-packing threat and thus basically waving the green flag for Congress to do whatever the hell it wants to these days). I am persuaded by, e.g., the work of Randy Barnett in his fine book, Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty. (See especially chapter 11, "The Proper Scope of Federal Power: The Meaning of the Commerce Clause.") I fully recognize that this is a minority view, but I'm convinced that it is legally, philosophically, historically, and pragmatically correct.

2. Non-licensure. I'm not sure why Jim thinks I'm "misguided" here. I said I didn't know whether there was explicit prohibition of operating a non-licensed online gaming operation, but that if there weren't, there surely would be before too long. The upshot is that supporters of this legislation (assuming Jim is right that a provision similar to the one he quotes from a previous proposal is in the current bill) have to agree that they want the operators of, say, PokerStars to be thrown in federal prison if they refuse to either quit accepting U.S. players or submit to the licensure process. (I'm guessing, without bothering to check, that, as in previous versions of such legislation, that would include moving their servers and management to the United States.) People who think that have a very, very different concept of what constitutes "liberty" than I do.

3. Taxes. Again, I haven't checked the details of the new Frank bill for what, if any, new fees and taxes are contained therein. But I would be stunned if there were none.

It is clearly erroneous, though, to say, as Jim does, that "bill supporters who talk about collecting more tax revenues are talking about collecting taxes that are owed today but are not being paid because the IRS doesn't know they're owed." While that's included, it's definitely not all that is being asserted. The most frequently cited source for claims about tax revenue being missed is the PricewaterhouseCoopers report of December, 2007. You can see the executive summary of it here. It says, "In each case, about 56 percent of the revenue is attributable to individual income taxes, 22 percent is due to the wagering tax, 18 percent is due to the licensing fee, and 4 percent is due to the corporate income tax." Additionally, the study assumed that each state would be free to impose its own specific taxes on the sites, whether or not the businesses had a physical presence in that state.

Incidentally, I suppose that some readers will accuse me of laziness for not bothering to research in more detail what Frank's bill does and does not contain. OK, consider me guilty, but with this explanation. First, whatever it says is obviously subject to enormous change as it works its way through the enactment process. More importantly, though, I just don't care much. I am philosophically so utterly opposed to the whole idea of federal licensing, regulation, and taxation that the details of any particular scheme simply don't matter much. I remember once reading from Isaac Asimov that on a regular basis he received earnest schematics of inventors' perpetual motion machines, or elaborate "proofs" about squaring the circle or the invalidity of the second law of thermodynamics. He said, sensibly, that he wouldn't bother finding the flaw in the arguments--and in some instances he might not be able to. Still, he knew that a flaw must be there, because of how rigorously and thoroughly the contrary facts had been established. It's kind of like that for me here. I don't need to dissect the legislative language to know that the whole thing stinks to high heaven. Put the game I love under the thumb of the feds? I'm agin' it, no matter how much Lysol Frank and his supporters might spray trying to cover up the stench.

Now, if y'all will excuse me, I need to go do a little bolstering of the defensive perimeter on my cabin in Montana.

Guess the casino, #135

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Answer: Excalibur

Poker gems, #244

Tommy Angelo, in Elements of Poker, p. 3.


[D]uring that time I came up with a foolproof method of avoiding huge losses. What I did was I made sure I never had a huge amount of money to lose. I did that by culling my bankroll now and then, using sports betting, blackjack, and other bad ideas. And if that didn't work, I'd just jump in a poker game that I couldn't beat or afford.

PAD

If you're not watching this week's "Poker After Dark," you're missing out. It's among the most entertaining they've ever put on. Both the poker and the table talk are well above average. Go here to catch up on the first two days' worth. Trust me on this.

Rack 'em up!

Last night as I was negiotiating the driveway to the Riviera parking garage, I noticed several people entering the casino with strange-looking tubular packages slung across their backs. It took me a few seconds to recognize what they were: pool cue cases!

Why is that exciting? Because pool players typically make enthusiastic but lousy poker players. I am indebted to my friend The Vegas Flea for first pointing this out to me. He's right.

My intention had been to try to put in 20 hours at the Riviera this week and thus qualify for their weekly Saturday freeroll tournament, which, by all accounts, is some of the easiest money in town. The obvious downside is that you have to sit your butt in the fairly icky Riviera poker room for 20 hours (though they have some double-hour times, which cuts down on the total amount of ickiness), which is exactly why I've never done it before.

But as soon as I saw that there was a pool tournament going on (which you can read about here), the prospect of grinding it out at the Riviera no longer seemed so daunting.

As it turns out, they have cancelled the freeroll promotion for this week because they can't afford to tie up their cash game tables with a tournament on Saturday when they are anticipating having so many more people wanting to play poker than usual. Although this is not what I anticipated when arriving last night, it's even better. It means that the place is virtually free of the local nits who clog up the tables on most weeknights, putting in their freeroll hours. The only way to make money from them is to pilfer their chips when they step away from the table, or assault them in the parking lot and steal their Social Security checks. With them gone and the stickmen in their place, it should be happy hunting for a while.

My general observation has been that people in town to participate in any sort of sporting competition (bowling, archery, darts, pool, etc.) make even more excellent--and by "excellent" I mean "terrible"--poker opponents than Joe Tourist or Joe Conventioneer, because they tend to have a keener competitive edge and a bigger spirit of adventure, without necessarily having the poker acumen to go with it.

I think that this is especially true of pool players, most of whom presumably have had to learn how to hustle their marks. They have to disguise their true skill until the big money is in. That's obviously a skill that is highly pertinent to poker, which, I suspect, tends to make them think that poker is a perfect pasttime when they're not shooting pool.

But while they may well have an exquisitely honed sense of how their pool skills rate relative to those of any opponent, in general they seem not to be nearly as sharp at figuring out when a poker opponent is a better player.

All of which means that they are excited to be in Vegas, they have spent the day showing off their world-class pool skills, they are brimming with self-confidence, they want to play poker for a break, and they will bring to the table their desire to hustle unsuspecting opponents. But in reality, they are the unsuspecting ones.

It's all perfectly delicious.

Of course, these are broad generalizations, and there are plenty of exceptions. Daniel Negreanu was a pool hustler before he took up poker seriously, for example. I know I've read of other poker pros who are also significant threats with a cue stick, though offhand I can't recall which ones.

So I won't be going to the Riviera this week complacent. But I will be going there.

As I was racking 'em up last night (the chips, that is), preparing to leave after an easy, profitable session, the dealer said to me, "See you tomorrow night." This struck me as odd, because if he recognized me as having been there before, which is likely, he would know that I tend to stop in only occasionally; I'm not what one would call a regular there. I don't think he says this to everybody, because I hadn't heard him say anything similar to other players as they left. I think he simply recognized from my general demeanor and style of play that (1) I'm there to take the money, (2) it was easy pickings, and (3) the good conditions are likely to be there again all week, and thus, (4) I wouldn't be able to resist coming back. Damn. I hate it when people read me so well.

Guess the casino, #134

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Answer: Bellagio

Deuce-Four haiku

While waiting for a game to start tonight at the Riviera, I was more bored than usual because they didn't have any poker magazines I hadn't already read. An idea occurred to me. OK, well, actually I shamelessly stole the idea from Pauly (here) and, more recently and specifically, Julius Goat (here). But even though both of them are better writers than I am, I knew that neither of them would or could pen a truly loving ode to the Deuce-Four. I knew that as the world's designated evangelist of the Great 2-4, the job fell on my unworthy shoulders. And so, right there in the Riviera poker room, I put pen to paper and this is what flowed out:


Just six pips total
Yet makes the nuts ev'ry time
Tiny but mighty

Play it for a raise
Flop comes four and four and deuce
Nobody suspects

Cardgrrl won't play it
Says it loses her mobneys
Unbeliever, she

Aces, kings, queens, jacks
All powerless to win hand
Drawing dead pre-flop

Praise the poker gods
For enlightening the Grump
Deuce-Four forever

Movie review: "The Poker Club"

I saw a notice about this direct-to-video film in Poker Pro magazine. See imdb.com entry here. The magazine copy (obviously written by the production company) describes it as a "terrifying new thriller," featuring "intense performances, taut direction and a shocking ending in which all bets are off."

Uh, no.

If I were asked to write a four-word review, I'd have a hard time choosing between "A piece of crap" and "Don't waste your time."

It wasn't listed with Netflix, so I found a torrent of it on a site of questionable legality. A good hint about the quality of the film was that the uploader had labeled the file "gaygaytpc."

There oughtta be a law that if you put the word "poker" in the title of a movie, the movie must contain some actual poker. If there were, the production team here would all go to prison. For life.

Where do I fill out the forms to request getting an hour and a half of my life back?

Book review: Elements of Poker

This morning I finished reading Tommy Angelo's Elements of Poker. I knew in advance that I would like this book, based on others' reviews and excerpts published in Bluff magazine and elsewhere--for example, this gem, one of the fittest descriptions of the game of poker I've seen. (Read all his Bluff contributions here.)

To be sure, there were parts I could have done without: a discussion of tournament equity, a big section on starting-hand selection, pages and pages about breathing. Maybe there's stuff there that I should know, and I don't know what I'm missing, but they didn't seem useful to me.

Way more than making up for those spots, though, are the dozens of places in which he made me think in new ways about old issues and problems. There are few writers that can accomplish that, given the breadth of reading I've done about poker. His way of both thinking and writing is quirky and highly original, traits that I admire. His writing reflects long and deep thought, and exquisite care in the choice of words. (If any poker book has ever contained more clever wordplay, I don't know what it was.)

The whole thing is obviously a product of the author's decades-long struggles with the game--and with himself. The dominant theme is how to tilt less, how to "lop off" chunks of your C-game so that you spend more time playing your A-game. Anybody who claims not to wrestle with this problem is deluding himself.

Another interesting, recurring theme is profit from reciprocality. That is, if every player does everything the same, nobody makes any money in the long run except the house. So in order to be a winning player, you have to do things differently from other players, and differently in a way that makes more money than they would make in the same situation. This is obvious when it comes to purely strategic decisions, such as whether and how to play A-10 from under the gun. But Angelo extends it to essentially everything involved in playing, including how you buy in, how you enter the game, how you speak, how you sit, how you move, how you breathe. Eye-opening stuff.

Rather than cite a few examples here, I'm going to embark on a series of "Poker gems" posts featuring the bits I liked best, maybe one a day or so. It will take a while to get through them, because this book ended up more heavily underlined than anything I've read in a long time.

I should also note that the book is admirably free of grammatical and typographical errors. In fact, I spotted only one (an extraneous apostrophe in "DVDs"--an extremely common mistake). I can't remember the last time I read a book that error-free. It would be an accomplishment for a work from a major press; for one that is apparently self-published, it's extraordinary.

Elements of Poker has its detractors, predictably. See Shamus's discussion of the haters here. Nothing works for everybody, I suppose. But Angelo hits me where I live. His book has already become one of my all-time favorites.

It's the swine flu! Head for the hills!

It has finally come to Las Vegas. See here. I will still bravely go out among the masses to play poker later today. But I will not inhale.

Guess the casino, #133

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Answer: Sunset Station

Now PokerStars is making EVERYONE grumpy

For six days I have been effectively unable to play on PokerStars due to a glitch in last week's software update. I have also been unable to get any meaningful help from their support people. I posted about it twice. There was little said on the forums, apparently because such a small fraction of users were affected.

Today there is another software update. I guess you could say it was not ready for prime time. The forums are erupting in new threads of people describing their problems. Do a Twitter search for "PokerStars," and you see a bunch of "WTF is the problem?" type messages, agony about doing well in a tournament and then the system crashing, etc. It's not clear yet whether there are two separate issues (i.e., a client software problem and a central server problem), or whether it's all one big interconnected mess.

Either way, I'm experiencing an ugly but delicious bit of schadenfreude. See how it feels to get screwed and be helpless to do anything about it? Maybe now they'll actually get around to making it work right.


Addendum

There is joy in Mudville now. The games are back. The software runs without quitting. I just turned $0.80 in $1.81 in about 45 minutes playing $0.04/$0.08 Omaha-8.

The art and science of deception

I just read this interesting article about what magic is teaching science about the flaws in human perception. Here's what I thought was the part most relevant to poker:

Teller designed his own house in the Las Vegas foothills, and he delights
in showing first-time visitors around. He starts the tour by pointing down a
hallway at a window, through which I see a beautiful view of the sprawling neon
city below.

"Go take a look," Teller says. I amble down the hall and—just before
reaching the end—smack into something hard, leaving a wet mouth-print on
polished glass. The "window" is merely a reflection; the hallway ends in a
precisely angled, mirrored door. "You didn't see the illusion because you
weren't expecting one," Teller says. "You assumed I wasn't fucking with your
head and that this hallway is actually a normal hallway. Those assumptions work
great until you walk into a wall."

The fake window is only the beginning. The house also has a bookcase
that's actually a door, lightbulbs that appear to change color mysteriously, and
a bronze bear statue that tells you what card you're thinking of. After
demonstrating that last prank, Teller watches as I try in vain to figure out how
it's done. He relishes the confusion of his audience—and even fellow
illusionists: "I had Criss Angel over here; he couldn't figure out how the bear
worked, either." Unless Teller sees the symptoms of astonishment—mouth agape,
eyes widened, pupils dilated—he doesn't consider the trick a success. "The magic
show is a competition," he says. "The audience is trying to figure you out. They
aren't suspending their disbelief—they're trying to expose you as a scam
artist." This is what makes magic so difficult: The magician must sell people a
lie even as they know they're being lied to. Unless the illusion feels more real
than the truth, there is no magic.

Isn't that how poker is? You have to convince your opponent that your hand is something other than what it actually is, because if he correctly deduces what your cards really are he will play perfectly against you and make no mistakes, in which case you can't make any money. But you have to sell this lie even as your opponent knows he is being lied to. You have to make the illusion feel more real than the truth.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've walked into plenty of walls. It hurts. Then again, I've planted a fair number of walls and lured opponents into smacking into them. That mostly makes up for the pain.

Sometimes it's as simple as betting a strong hand and letting your opponent deceive himself as to its meaning. He might think, "If Grump had flopped a set, he wouldn't bet out here. He'd slow-play it to trap me, so he probably just has top pair with a queen, and my pocket kings are still good." That is, if your opponent is so strongly expecting to be lied to that he will interpret everything you do as deception, then you exploit that by being straightforward rather than deceptive. Jamie Gold, for all his faults, practiced this to perfection during his run to the Main Event championship in 2006, always telling opponents the truth about what he had and/or what they should do. Because they were expecting him to try to deceive them, they tended not to believe him.

As an interesting juxtaposition, just before reading this article I watched this week's "High Stakes Poker." The most entertaining part was Phil Laak trying to untwist Tom Dwan's actions, especially with a tiny value bet on the river. Laak knows instantly that he's not going to raise, so it's just a question of calling or folding, which means that he feels free to think out loud about his decision. He goes through not just what cards Dwan might have, but what Dwan's actions were attempting to say and do. He mentions that against a bad player his decision would be easy, but because Dwan is a genius player, he might be thinking one level deeper and pulling a double-reverse on Laak. In reality, Dwan is being straightforward this time, and both his bets and his words are honest reflections of his hand strength, which Laak just can't quite convince himself is the case.

Deceiving somebody who knows you're trying to deceive him is a fascinating game, as is trying to separate truth from lies when you're on the receiving end of possible deception. Maybe that's why I can't get enough of either poker or of Penn and Teller, who, better than anybody in the world, explicitly invite their audience into that Wonderland (Wondurrrland?) of smoke and mirrors, which you can't see, even when they're telling you that it's smoke and mirrors.

Guess the casino, #132

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




Answer: Sam's Town

Binion's sees the light

Yesterday at Binion's I was shocked to find non-standard, commemorative chips floating around the table. Last time I was there was March 20, and none were in evidence then. In fact, the reason the discovery was so surprising is that Binion's has been one of the few holdout casinos, never issuing any special chips (as far as I know) during the almost three years I've played there. (The remaining ones that I can think of offhand include Wynn, TI, Bill's, and a handful of locals joints.)

Apparently some genius in upper management realized that they could have these things made for about a quarter, and sell them for $5, and that doing so might create a bit of profit. Since Binion's isn't even able to make their rent payments lately, this was probably a good thing to finally figure out.

Now they just need to get somebody to work on making their new-issue chips less, well, goofy-looking.

Guess the casino, #131

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




Answer: Riviera

Things people ask me, #4: Where I sit

A recurring question in comments and emails is why I favor seats 1 and 10 (or 9, at nine-handed tables; for this post, I'm just going to always call them 1 and 10), next to the dealer. I've mentioned this preference many times in my stories, and for most players those are the least favorite positions, so it's a natural question.

Let me start by asking you to ponder this question: Is there any position at the table that has an intrinsic strategic or tactical advantage over the others?

I first came across this concept in a column in Card Player magazine when I was still living in Minnesota--probably early 2006, though I've searched for it in the online C.P. archives and can't find it, so I can't give proper credit. The answer is yes: Seat 1 has the clear advantage. That's because you want to be looking at the players on your left to see if they are telegraphing information about their intentions. Because of the curve of the table, you can do that from seat 1 more easily and naturally (i.e., without craning your neck and otherwise being obvious about it) than from any other position. Depending on the exact size and shape of the table and positioning of the seats, seat 7 or 8 might offer a similar advantage, but it's less consistent, and the angle usually isn't quite as good.

After that one objective advantage, all of the rest of my reasons are purely subjective personal preferences. In no particular order, they include:

--There are many dealers that I like, and it's much easier to chat quietly and semi-privately with them from one foot away than from across the table.

--I fairly often find a need to point out something to the dealer (pot not right, button not right, foreign language being spoken, improper talk about the hand in progress, etc.), and it's easier to do so from close at hand. Again, I like being quiet and discreet when possible, rather than having to make myself heard above the din of the casino and voices of the other players.

--With the exception of the player on the other side of the dealer, I usually have an excellent view of everybody else.

--For reasons not entirely clear to me, players in the 1 and 10 seats sort of disappear from the sight--at least the conscious sight--of the other players. From a couple of seats (2 and 9, especially) this is partly a function of blocked sightlines. But there's something weird psychologically, too, that I can't really put my finger on. I can tell you this for certain, after many, many hours of observation: The players who most often get skipped in the action are those in the 1 and 10 seats. I.e., seat 1 will tend to act before seat 10 has, seat 2 will tend to act before seat 1 has, etc. It seems that the occupants of those positions just fade into the background. Since being unnoticed is the effect I want most of the time, those two seats are a natural match.

--Because most other people ditch seats 1 and 10 as soon as something else opens up, they are the two most likely to be the open ones when you join a table. It's convenient to like the thing that you will most often be forced to take.

--As a corollary of that, you can often get seat 1 or seat 10 even if there are no vacancies. (This happens if, e.g., one of the players in them wanted to change, but didn't notice or was away from the table when another seat became available, so he missed his opportunity.) You just ask their current occupants if they'd prefer to sit where you are, and if the answer is yes (as it often is), make the swap.

--I have the shortest possible distance for mucking cards, for putting chips within reach of the dealer, passing tips, etc. No overshooting, no undershooting, no accidentally flipped cards while mucking.

--Nearly every poker room has the tables oriented so that the dealer is facing the front desk, to facilitate communication with the floor, brush, etc. I like kind of keeping an eye on what's going on in the whole room (well, not the big rooms, but the smaller ones), so picking the 1 and 10 seats automatically puts me where I can see what's happening.

--Conversely, if there are any disadvantaged seats for watching television, it will tend to be those two. The casino doesn't need its dealers watching football. I don't care what's on, and it's better for me not to be distracted anyway.

--Seats 1 and 10 nearly always have the most elbow room at the table, the least chance of that awkward, silent struggle for control of the no-man's-land between seats. Similarly, unless you get somebody with unusually long legs in the adjacent seat, the foot area tends to be less contested than other table positions.

--You only have to sit next to one other player. Since poker players frequently smell of B.O., stale cigarette smoke, booze, bad breath, etc., cutting in half the number of them you have to share personal space with is a boon. You also halve your chance of sitting next to a chatterbox who will want to prattle in your ear about every thought that passes through his feeble and/or drunken brain. In those two respects, it's a lot like the advantage of a window or aisle seat in a commercial jet, compared to the center seat. We misanthropes leap at the chance to cut in half the number of our unwanted contacts with the great unwashed.

--When the dealer isn't looking, it's easy to reach into the tray and steal a few chips.

(Just kidding! Relax!)

To be fair, there are also some disadvantages that you have to put up with:

--I have banged my knee on the damn rake collection boxes more times than I can count.

--If you're playing when security comes around to change those boxes, you'll probably have to move out of their way.

--Other players will muck their cards in your direction and accidentally kill your hand if you don't keep it well protected.

--Similarly, unprotected cards sitting that close to the dealer are in greater danger of being prematurely scooped up into the muck if you don't cap them.

--You have one other player that is really difficult to see when you need or want to. The guy in the 1 seat often has to rely on the dealer to indicate when it's his turn, because sometimes you just can't see anything of what the 10 seat is doing.


Overall, I find that the advantages greatly outweigh the disadvantages, and I'm rather glad that mine is the minority view. It is rare that I have to compete with anybody else to claim one of my two preferred spots.

I'm going to stop short of encouraging readers to try the unfamiliar positions with an open mind, because I'm afraid everybody will discover that they really are superior, and it will foul up my little secret. So just forget everything I've told you, OK?

I am easily amused

Every time I walk to one of the downtown poker rooms I pass this tarot/psychic wagon just west of Las Vegas Boulevard. The sign always amuses me. Usually it's late at night and too dark for my flashless cell phone camera to take a picture, but I took a rare trip out in broad daylight today, so I can now share it with those of you who don't hang around these parts.

I wonder what the conditions are for the money back guarantee. If she tells me the lottery numbers to play, and they lose, do I get a refund?

I always feel like sticking my head in the wagon and asking for a "broacher." I've never seen one before. I don't even know what it is. I know what a "brochure" is, but not a "broacher."

Genomeboy makes a funny

I played for a while at the Venetian last night with a reader, Genomeboy. (Obsessive readers with Rain Man-like memories may recall that he got mentioned herein once previously, in this post. N.B.: He is not the same person as the one that runs the http://genomeboy.com/ web site.) Great guy, smart and funny.

The game was largely fueled by one spewtard, who had a roughly $800 stack when I joined the table at 7:45 p.m., and was broke by about midnight. He played virtually every hand, most often for a raise to either $6 or $8. I took one big chunk from him when, after being terminally card-dead for an hour or so, I took a flyer and raised with 8-6 offsuit, got several callers, and saw a beautiful flop of 8-8-2 (with a 6 on the turn for good measure). It was checked to me, and I made the same continuation bet that I would have if I held two big overcards or an overpair. The spewtard check-raised me all in with just a deuce. When I called (duh!), he sheepishly explained that he thought I had A-K or A-Q and had missed the flop completely, just as I had hoped my opponents would think. Much later, I took the last of his dwindling stack when he missed the flop but shoved a big overbet anyway, and I fortunately read the situation right and called him with top pair. (It wasn't too difficult--he had long before proven that he made smallish value bets when he was strong, and much larger bets when he had little or nothing. Typical spewtard pattern.)

Anyway, somewhere in between those two hands, I raised with A-Q, got a couple of callers. Flop was queen-high. I bet when it was checked to me. Two callers--a completely straightforward, conservative, untricky guy in one of the blinds, and the spewtard. I think we checked around on the turn. River was a king. Spewtard made a small bet here, and both I and the other player called. He had A-Q, too. Spewtard had K-6 offsuit. He had sufficient self-awareness to be a little embarrassed for having called my pre-flop raise from out of position with such trash, and having called with nothing on the flop, too.

Even though nobody criticized him for his play, he apparently felt a tad defensive about it. He said, "Hey, I had other cards that would win it for me, too."

Withoug missing a beat, Genomeboy quipped, "Where--in your pocket?"

It was the funniest moment of the night, I thought. (If it doesn't come across that funny in writing, well, maybe you had to be there.) Didn't quite make up for losing $50 or so the way I did on that hand, but I still ended up net positive from the spewtard, so it was OK.

Guess the casino, #130

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




Answer: Rio

Another zero-level thinker

In between random shut-offs of the software, there was some serious head-scratching going on for me in last night's HORSE SNG on PokerStars. This was the fifth hand of the tournament:





My first thought was that this looked suspiciously like chip-dumping, although a $5 STT seemed a strange venue for such shenanigans.

I became less suspicious over time, because the same character (kolorfish) spewed just as badly to everybody else, including me. For example, here's a stud hand (not high/low) where he called my bet on the river with nothing but queen-high. I had a well-hidden full house, but I did have an ace showing, and he couldn't even beat that. Here's the hand history:


PokerStars Game #27688006030: Tournament #160069666, $5.00+$0.50 HORSE (7 Card Stud Limit) - Level IV (60/120) - 2009/05/01 3:13:34 ET
Table '160069666 1' 8-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: tanani1 (2112 in chips)
Seat 3: Cardgrrl (653 in chips)
Seat 4: xxCHEExx (3032 in chips)
Seat 6: Rakewell1 (1173 in chips)
Seat 7: boogerbam (2578 in chips)
Seat 8: kolorfish (2452 in chips)
xxCHEExx: posts the ante 12
Rakewell1: posts the ante 12
boogerbam: posts the ante 12
kolorfish: posts the ante 12
tanani1: posts the ante 12
Cardgrrl: posts the ante 12
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to tanani1 [8d]
Dealt to Cardgrrl [Kc]
Dealt to xxCHEExx [Td]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [9s 9d 9h]
Dealt to boogerbam [3d]
Dealt to kolorfish [3s]
boogerbam: brings in for 18
kolorfish: calls 18
tanani1: folds
Cardgrrl: folds
xxCHEExx: calls 18
Rakewell1: raises 42 to 60
Rakewell1 is disconnected
boogerbam: calls 42
kolorfish: calls 42
xxCHEExx: calls 42
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to xxCHEExx [Td] [Qs]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [9s 9d 9h] [As]
Dealt to boogerbam [3d] [Th]
Dealt to kolorfish [3s] [5h]
Rakewell1 is connected
Rakewell1: bets 60
boogerbam: folds
kolorfish: calls 60
xxCHEExx: calls 60
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to xxCHEExx [Td Qs] [Ks]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [9s 9d 9h As] [5s]
Dealt to kolorfish [3s 5h] [Qh]
Rakewell1: bets 120
kolorfish: calls 120
xxCHEExx: calls 120
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to xxCHEExx [Td Qs Ks] [6h]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [9s 9d 9h As 5s] [Jc]
Dealt to kolorfish [3s 5h Qh] [7h]
Rakewell1: bets 120
kolorfish: calls 120
xxCHEExx: calls 120
*** RIVER ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [9s 9d 9h As 5s Jc] [5d]
Rakewell1: bets 120
kolorfish: calls 120
xxCHEExx: calls 120
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Rakewell1: shows [9s 9d 9h As 5s Jc 5d] (a full house, Nines full of Fives)
kolorfish: mucks hand
xxCHEExx: shows [Kh 5c Td Qs Ks 6h Tc] (two pair, Kings and Tens)
Rakewell1 collected 1572 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1572 Rake 0
Seat 1: tanani1 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Cardgrrl (button) folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 4: xxCHEExx showed [Kh 5c Td Qs Ks 6h Tc] and lost with two pair, Kings and Tens
Seat 6: Rakewell1 showed [9s 9d 9h As 5s Jc 5d] and won (1572) with a full house, Nines full of Fives
Seat 7: boogerbam folded on the 4th Street
Seat 8: kolorfish mucked [4d 2s 3s 5h Qh 7h 8s]

OK, so maybe the poor schmuck thought it was Stud/8, right? I doubt it, based on what happened a short time later.

During a Stud/8 round, my four visible cards were QQ33. He had four small cards showing, so when he called my bet on the river, I naturally assumed he would take the low and we'd split the pot. Nope. I scooped. I checked the hand history, and he had had one pair--aces--and no qualifying low. He couldn't beat what I had showing, and called a bet on the river. Well, at least he didn't raise that time, so he was getting a little bit smarter than he had been at hold'em. Here's that hand history:

PokerStars Game #27688083753: Tournament #160069666, $5.00+$0.50 HORSE (7 Card Stud Hi/Lo Limit) - Level V (80/160) - 2009/05/01 3:19:19 ET
Table '160069666 1' 8-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: tanani1 (2120 in chips)
Seat 4: xxCHEExx (1550 in chips)
Seat 6: Rakewell1 (3978 in chips)
Seat 7: boogerbam (3184 in chips)
Seat 8: kolorfish (1168 in chips)
xxCHEExx: posts the ante 16
Rakewell1: posts the ante 16
boogerbam: posts the ante 16
kolorfish: posts the ante 16
tanani1: posts the ante 16
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to tanani1 [2h]
Dealt to xxCHEExx [Ts]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [As 9s Qs]
Dealt to boogerbam [7s]
Dealt to kolorfish [6c]
tanani1: brings in for 24
xxCHEExx: calls 24
Rakewell1: calls 24
boogerbam: folds
boogerbam is sitting out
kolorfish: calls 24
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to tanani1 [2h] [6d]
Dealt to xxCHEExx [Ts] [7c]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [As 9s Qs] [Qd]
Dealt to kolorfish [6c] [Ac]
Rakewell1 is disconnected
Rakewell1 is connected
Rakewell1: bets 80
kolorfish: calls 80
tanani1: folds
xxCHEExx: calls 80
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to xxCHEExx [Ts 7c] [Qh]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [As 9s Qs Qd] [3c]
Dealt to kolorfish [6c Ac] [4d]
Rakewell1: bets 160
kolorfish: calls 160
xxCHEExx: calls 160
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to xxCHEExx [Ts 7c Qh] [Jc]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [As 9s Qs Qd 3c] [3d]
Dealt to kolorfish [6c Ac 4d] [7h]
Rakewell1: bets 160
boogerbam has returned
kolorfish: calls 160
xxCHEExx: calls 160
*** RIVER ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [As 9s Qs Qd 3c 3d] [8s]
Rakewell1: bets 160
kolorfish: calls 160
xxCHEExx: folds
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Rakewell1: shows [As 9s Qs Qd 3c 3d 8s] (HI: two pair, Queens and Threes)
kolorfish: mucks hand
Rakewell1 collected 1696 from pot
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1696 Rake 0
Seat 1: tanani1 folded on the 4th Street
Seat 4: xxCHEExx folded on the River
Seat 6: Rakewell1 showed [As 9s Qs Qd 3c 3d 8s] and won (1696) with HI: two pair, Queens and Threes
Seat 7: boogerbam folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 8: kolorfish mucked [Ah Js 6c Ac 4d 7h 9h]

I managed to finish in 2nd place despite the frequent software glitches. With people like this guy populating the tables, it's something of a wonder that I ever fail to cash in these things.

PokerStars is making me VERY grumpy

Tuesday night, after downloading the latest software update, the PokerStars client began giving me fits. It shuts itself off every three to six minutes or so when I'm playing. Wednesday I wrote about my initial contacts with the support team.

Nobody who left a comment on that post has been having the same problem. Nothing I have tried has remedied the situation. The subject sure doesn't seem to be burning up the chat forums, as it undoubtedly would if a large percentage of users were affected.

Last night I tried my usual nightly HORSE sit-and-go, and the software quit at least a dozen times. EXTREMELY annoying. Intolerable, actually. I won't do that again until they get this fixed. They will not be getting my daily $1-$2 in tournament fees. That'll show 'em! I will bring them to their knees by withholding my mobneys in protest!

To make matters worse, PokerStars support, for the first time ever in my contact with them, is acting about as incompetent as the average counter person at McDonald's.

After the maddening experience with the SNG last night, I fired off another email to support, asking them for a progress report. This is what I received in return:

Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that we have not had people reporting similar problems. Can
you make sure that your computer is not infected with a virus or other similar
program that would cause this to happen. If that is for sure not the case then I
am afraid that we need to wait until the programmers have investigated the
problem from your log files. I am very sorry for the inconveniences.

Thank you for your patience and understanding, meanwhile, if you have
any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us again. Good
luck!
　
Best Regards,
Tarvi R
PokerStars Support Team

Huh? First they told me that the problem was, in fact, due to their software update, and now they're saying it's not.

So I wrote back:

Yes, I am very confident that I have no virus or other malware. Why was the
previous message (see below) that the problem was related to the recent update?
And when will your programmers investigate the log files?

A short time later, this message hit my inbox:

Thank you for your email.

I am sorry for the confusion, the message was true. Apparently we have been
reported similar issues from a few other players, I am sorry that I was not
aware of this!

I mentioned the virus possibility just to make sure, as this has been a
case in the past. Good that that is cleared.

Now I can only apologize again for not being informed enough and also
apologize for the inconveniences. I hope the issue will be handled soon.

Good luck!
　
Best Regards,

Tarvi R
PokerStars Support Team

So first it was due to their software update, then it wasn't, then it was again. Whatever is going on over at Stars, it seems that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. I love the wording that the writer can "confirm" that nobody else has the problem, followed, upon my further questioning, with a retraction. Thanks for that in-depth investigation you did before announcing what you can "confirm," Tarvi R. First-rate work you're doing there.

This does not inspire confidence that they have their A-team working day and night to get the issue resolved.

I didn't really think it would accomplish anything, but I wanted to express my irritation at the completely useless wording of that last message, so I sent this back:

With all due respect, your "hoping" that the issue will be resolved soon and
wishing me "good luck" accomplishes nothing. I need answers and time frames. Are
we talking tomorrow? A week? A month?

Predictably, I got basically a bedbug letter in reply:

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately I cannot promise you anything as this is out of my hands. As
you were told, our programmers team is working on it. I am very sorry and I hope
for understanding. We understand that nobody benefits from the issues and the
team is working hard in order to have it solved as soon as possible.

Again, I am sorry, and thank you for your patience and
understanding.
　
Best Regards,

Tarvi R
PokerStars Support Team

Yeah, right. The team is "working hard." So hard they didn't even bother telling you, Tarvi R, that there was an issue. So hard that they haven't put up any sort of notice on the sign-in page explaining to customers what's going on, thus leaving us to waste time with steps like I took, thinking the problem might lie in my own computer.

The claim that the team is "working hard" to resolve the issue made me think of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Toward the end, Indiana Jones tries to find out what the government is doing to locate the Ark:

Maj. Eaton: We have top men working on it now.
Indiana: Who?
Maj. Eaton: Top. Men.

You may recall that that last line is uttered with a withering, shut-the-hell-up look and tone, leaving no doubt that the subject is closed. Permanently.

Stars is handling this in about the way I would expect from UltimateBlecch--sweeping it under the rug and pretending like nothing is going on, while lying to its customers--rather than in the straightforward, up-front way that I would have expected based on my previous dealings with the company. To say I'm disappointed and disillusioned would be a gross understatement. I am, frankly, appalled and disgusted.

And very, very grumpy.

Guess the casino, #129

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




Answer: Red Rock