Need Twitter help

Bah.

I have enjoyed using Twitter both at home and while out playing poker. But I've hit a major snag that I can't resolve.

My phone is a crappy out-of-date thing, no question about that. Still, it's hardly the oldest piece of technology in use. It has a browser, but is really only happy with mobile-web optimized sites. That has been fine for Twitter; it connects to the mobile version of my home page, omits the photos and some of the options (like retweet buttons), but presents nice, clear, easy-to-read text.

A couple of days ago, though, something changed. It seems that Twitter changed the format of its mobile site. Now the messages appear much longer left-to-right, and to read one on my phone requires left-right scrolling back and forth, which is terribly awkward and time-consuming. I didn't have to do it previously; message lines were broken where they needed to be to fit on my screen.

It's bad enough that if that's what I'm stuck with, I'm basically done with using Twitter on the phone. Scrolling up and down the list of tweets was not and is not a problem, but left-right scrolling is. Not only does it take about four times as long to read each message, but the bad, bad design on my LG phone has the tiny scroll controls right on top of the "last page" and "reload" and "home" buttons, so when I try to scroll I often get one of those functions instead. It's maddening.

This is clearly the mobile version I'm seeing. There are no photos with people's names, and at the bottom of the page is the option to view mobile or standard. I am in mobile. I can switch to standard, and then the page view is the same as I see on my home computer (which just compounds my troubles). The page view is the same whether I go to twitter.com, m.twitter.com, or mobile.twitter.com (unless I specifically click the "standard" view button). In short, the problem seems to be that Twitter for some reason changed how its mobile page appears. Or maybe AT&T sent my phone some sort of firmware update that changed how the browser interacts with the Twitter page, though that seems less likely.

I have looked at the Twitter blog--no announcement about this. I have tried Twitter's mobile help section. Nothing. I tried sending messages to the Twitter mobile help team, and they are being ignored.

I have tried everything I can think of to get things back to the way they were. I don't know exactly what changed or why. I only know that it has taken Twitter on my phone from being a pleasant little diversion to being an experience so cumbersome and unpleasant that I will only attempt it when there is some compelling reason. This isn't a smart phone; I can't just download a different application to do Twitter.

I am soliciting help from my more tech-savvy readers, though frankly I'm not optimistic that it can be fixed.

Poker gems, #367

David Apostolico, in Card Player magazine column, June 2, 2010 (vol. 23, #11), p. 31.


If you're looking for justice, don't play poker.

Night at the Rio

Just home from a session in which I not only made a little money, but I picked up a whole bunch of little stories to tell you. This pleases me.


Feeling famous

The first unusual thing that happened was that I sat down next to a reader, though neither of us knew it for a while. She was chatting with somebody else about blogs, and said she read a lot of them. I asked if she read any poker blogs, and when she said yes, I asked which ones. She said she browses lots of them, but specifically mentioned F-Train and Poker Dealer, both friends of mine. I have to admit it was a slight ego blow that the first words out of her mouth were not "Poker Grump," but when I asked about that blog, she said yes, it was on her list. She got a suspicious look on her face and asked if that was me. I fessed up. She proved that she really does read it by mentioning, first, that "That's the one with all the photos," and, second, that I had recently taken time off to go out of town to a wedding. Right on both counts.

Apparently she has a blogger friend who is an even bigger fan of mine. (I jotted down the friend's blog's name, but now find nothing of the sort, so I must have written it incorrectly. Sorry I can't give a little plug.) She texted her to say that she was sitting next to me. Her friend seemed quite excited back in Ohio, and demanded a photo for proof. I gave her a faux grumpy face. Hope it filled the bill. The whole thing made me feel very slightly (emphasis on those two words) rockstarish.

(I told her that this session probably wouldn't result in a post, because it didn't seem that anything of particular interest was happening. I was wrong. All the other story-worthy stuff happened after she left.)


Angry about--what???

The worst beat I took this session: I raised from the small blind with A-A. Guy who had limped under the gun shoved for about $60. I called. He had A-Q. I'm a 7:1 favorite. Usually that's enough. Not tonight. Flop: K-10-x. Turn K. River J.

"He beat me, straight up. Pay him. Pay that man his money." (OK, I didn't really say that. I believe one has to be highly selective in one's deployment of "Rounders" lines during poker games.)

Anyway, a little while later he did another shove re-raise--a rather ridiculously large overbet. When the original raiser (player to his right) folded, my nemesis flashed him his hole cards before passing them face-down to the dealer. Naturally, I was interested in what range of hands he might do this with, given that his first instance was A-Q. I asked the dealer to show them. She did: Q-Q.

The guy stood up, looked at me, and asked, "Did you see them." I said yes. He said, "So you got what you wanted?" There was unquestionable hostility in his voice. I was a little flummoxed--had I done something wrong?--so I hesitated in answering. I guess I didn't need to respond, because before I could think of how to reply, he picked up his chips and said, "Good. I'm glad you're happy. But bad decision for you." And he stormed off, cashed out, and left.

I'm at a loss to understand what the problem was. Surely he knew that when he showed one player his cards, that opened the door for anybody else to see them. Jeez, dude, if you want to keep it secret, just don't show anybody. It's real easy.

I've only once before seen somebody get that bent out of shape over the completely standard practice of exposing a hand that was shown to another player; I told that story here. I still don't get it.


Table jumper

We were short-handed after a few people left nearly at the same time. We had three empty seats. A new player sat down in one of them, but immediately left to go have a chat with a friend at another table. When she came back, she picked up her chips and announced that she was going to play at that other table instead. The dealer politely informed her that she would need to get the floor's permission first. The woman replied, "He said it was OK."

I watched where she went, and it was to a table that had only one open seat. It seemed very strange to me that the floor guy would approve that move, unless there was some special circumstance that wasn't apparent. So I asked the dealer to call the floor. Turns out that she had neither asked for nor been given permission to move. He fetched her and brought her back. She was not happy to have been caught.

She obviously knew exactly what she was doing and that it was against the rules. Lie, cheat--what does it matter, as long as you get what you want, right? Why should she have to be concerned about what effect her actions have on other people? People are so scummy.


Premature evacuation

In one dumb hand, I had 10-6 in the small blind--but it was SOOTED! So I threw in the extra $2. There were four of us in the hand. The final board was something like 3-5-7-8-J. I.e., it hit all around my cards, but didn't quite connect. It was checked all the way down. At showdown, one guy just pitched his cards into the muck without waiting to see anybody else's. I flipped over my lousy 10-6, with about zero expectation that it was the winner. The big blind then mucked, so apparently I had him beat. About the same time that I was showing, the woman on the button said, "Ace high," but she didn't expose her cards.

Hearing that, the dealer picked up my two cards, and dumped them face down on top of the muck, and started to push the pot toward the button. I protested: "Why are you killing my hand?" The dealer stopped and fished my cards from off of the pile. Only after all of this did the woman on the button finally show her hand. She did indeed have an ace, and took the pot. The dealer shot me a dirty look, as if I had wasted her time and annoyed her by insisting that we go through the formality of, y'know, having an actual showdown in the showdown portion of the hand.

I suppose if one were to ask this dealer, "At showdown, can a player just announce that he or she has the best hand and thereby claim the pot?" she would answer, "Of course not." But in actual practice, that's exactly what she appeared to be willing to do.

I remember when I was in poker dealer school, they drummed into us over and over again: "Don't kill an exposed hand until somebody shows a better one." It's a rather obvious procedural point.

The less obvious factor in effect here is that given my cards and the texture of the board, it's a situation in which another player could easily think--in error--that I had made a straight. The player on the button has to look at my cards and the board, figure out what my hand is, and decide whether hers beats it. If she is prone to mistakenly thinking that my hand is better and as a result decides to muck hers unseen, well, that's a little bonus pot for me, and I'm happy to take it. The dealer killing my hand when the button says "Ace" is a clear signal to the player that an ace is good enough, without the player having to reach that conclusion on her own. In effect, it violated the "one person to a hand rule" by providing unwarranted assistance.

Of course, the player on the button doesn't have to make that assessment; she can just flip her hand over and let the cards speak. But if she's going to decide whether to show based on whether she decides she has the winner, that is an evaluation she must undertake all by herself. It is also true that the dealer can (and probably should) announce my hand verbally and/or push up the board cards that go with my hole cards to make my best hand. That much assistance to the player on the button is perfectly appropriate. But what she did was beyond that.

I'm not sure I've ever before seen a dealer kill a live, exposed hand in favor of one that was announced but not shown. Strange stuff.


What he was waiting for

I was rather short-stacked (this hand actually marked the beginning of my comeback), and had moved all-in on the turn with top pair/top kicker (A-10 on 10-high board). I had thought my lone remaining opponent was on a draw on the flop, and the turn wouldn't have helped him, prompting my move.

He groaned, made some faces, and clearly had a difficult decision. He eventually showed me his cards: Nut flush draw plus a gutshot straight draw and an overcard (ace, which would be no good if it hit, but he didn't know that).

He was taking a long time to decide. He finally said, "Sorry to take so long. I'm waiting for the alcohol to kick in so I have the nerve to call you."

It's rare that somebody can break my stoicism while in the middle of a hand, but he made me laugh out loud.

He eventually folded, but I had to concede to him that he had delivered the line of the night.

Guess the casino, #531

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




Answer: Tuscany

Poker gems, #366

Annette Obrestad, in an interview with ESPN magazine, as quoted on PokerNews, here.


I've always said that girls suck at poker. I say that because they do.

A humble suggestion

So Faraz "The Toilet" Jaka won WPT Player of the Year, and now I see that James "Flushy" Dempsey just won a WSOP bracelet.

Maybe people should give up on this "year of the woman" thing and start calling it the "year of the commode."

Guess the casino, #530

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




Answer: Suncoast

Count the ways this is wrong (no poker content)

I really do need to start a non-poker blog of all that's wrong with the world, because I desperately need an outlet for this stuff.

Among other errands today, I stopped at my bank to use the ATM. The little gratuitous message at the bottom of the screen said, "You can send as little as $5 from your U.S. Bank account. This Mother's Day, send cash!"

First, it's well past Mother's Day. Second, cash for Mother's Day? Seriously? And third--$5 for Mom?

Who in the hell came up with that little gem of a message?

Poker gems, #365

Steve Fischer, author of When the Mob Ran Vegas, in an article on the demise of Binion's Horseshoe, in Poker Pro magazine, June, 2010, p. 43. The background is that Benny Binion owns the casino, but has to rent the land on which it sits from the Silvagni family, represented by Bill Coulthard. They renegotiated the rate every ten years--this time in 1972.


"You want how much rent, you sum'bitch? declared Benny. "If you think there's anyway in hell that I'm going to sit still for you doubling my rent for the next ten years, you better think again, shyster!"

Coulthard told him he didn't mind if Benny wanted to pack up his casino and get out when their current ten-year agreement expired later in the year. And then Benny told Coulthard what he could do with his new rent. And Bill Coulthard walked out of the Horseshoe into the heat, walked across the street to his car in the parking garage, sat down in his car, turned on the starter, and Bill Coulthard and his nice new 1972 Cadillac were blown all over the second level of the parking garage. The Metro police and the FBI were in agreement that it was probably four sticks of dynamite that blew him and his car to Kingdom Come.

With Coulthard out of the picture, the Binions and the next of Silvagni's relatives sat down with Benny to discuss the terms for the next ten years. For some reason, the Silvagni family, who didn't much like Bill Coulthard anyway, was very eager to reach a new rental agreement with the Binions. It took less than ten minutes to agree to terms.

"Damn shame what happened to Coulthard," Benny said. "Just a damn shame."

Poker gems, #364

Terrence "Not Johnny" Chan, in his blog post today, on full-table tournament limit hold'em.


9/10-handed LHE is a super-lame game, but ... Jerrod wanted me to read Ender's Game, which I found on Kindle and subsequently purchased. I figured that instead of treating it like a poker tournament, I would treat it as just a day of classical music and reading a new novel and every couple of minutes I am interrupted by some relatively straightforward and uninteresting decision. And that's basically what it was.

Live stream

Phil Laak is currently 66+ hours into his 80-hour record-setting challenge. You can watch a live feed of it at the address shown in the screen capture above. Gotta say, he's looking pretty frazzled, but I can't imagine he'd quit this close to making it.

Guess the casino, #529

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




Answer: Sandia

It's official: I'm a moron

Despite excellent grades in school and on various intelligence tests, I have, in fact, always harbored secret doubts that deep down, I'm actually a moron. Well, there is no longer any need to wonder. The proof is in.

I was just playing a HORSE tournament on Full Tilt. The screen shot above shows the result, though the down cards are scrambled; just reverse the Ah and the 8h and you'll have it as it actually occurred.

I had the bring-in, then made a loose call of the completion, basically just hoping for the low half of the pot. Fourth street was a good card for me, giving me four to a low, plus three to a wheel and three to a flush--enough good potential to call one small bet, especially since only one other player (Lord Jaborg) had a possible low going, and that wasn't as good as mine, and since he was the aggressor, it seemed unlikely that was his direction.

Fifth street completed my low. It didn't help my straight or flush possibilities, but since I now clearly had either the best or the only low, from this point on I raised at every opportunity. The Kh on 6th just egged me on more, with the nice flush draw.

Seventh street seemed like I might have hit the perfect card, giving me the ace-high flush to go with my probable low winner. I was definitely thinking there were scoop possibilities here. We capped it yet again.

When the hands were opened, I immediately saw Jaborg's quads, which obviously killed my scooper. Oh well, I thought--half of that huge pot is good enough.

I was puzzled when the whole thing went his way, and nothing to me. I had to open the "last hand" window and scrutinize it to figure out what had gone wrong. I thought Jaborg must have snuck in a better low on the river. I counted his low cards: a 5, a 6, a 7, and an 8--only four of them. That can't be it.

Finally, finally, it dawned on me. THIS WAS STRAIGHT STUD, NOT STUD 8 OR BETTER!!!!

That's right. I put in virtually all of the 1635 chips with which I started this hand (and would gladly have put in the remainder, if the betting structure had allowed it) without knowing what game we were playing, putting all my confidence in a hand which is of no value in this particular form of poker.

And that, my friends, is a more accurate IQ test than any I have taken before, I'm afraid.

Come to think of it, is there any category lower than "moron"?


Full hand history below, for those who want to scrutinize my every boneheaded decision.



Full Tilt Poker Game #21374042163: $4,000 Guarantee (164597496), Table 15 - 60/120 Ante 10 - Limit Stud Hi - 23:06:50 ET - 2010/06/04
Seat 1: xkm1245 (1,705)
Seat 2: Lord Jaborg (2,675)
Seat 3: Satans Potatoes (1,635)
Seat 4: j pepper (1,910)
Seat 5: taps1961 (1,825)
Seat 6: Rakewell (1,635)
Seat 7: wallythegh (1,930)
Seat 8: ABetty (5,240)
xkm1245 antes 10
Lord Jaborg antes 10
Satans Potatoes antes 10
j pepper antes 10
taps1961 antes 10
Rakewell antes 10
wallythegh antes 10
ABetty antes 10
*** 3RD STREET ***
Dealt to Lord Jaborg [7s]
Dealt to Satans Potatoes [9d]
Dealt to j pepper [Jd]
Dealt to taps1961 [9h]
Dealt to Rakewell [8h Ad] [3h]
Dealt to wallythegh [Qc]
Dealt to ABetty [9c]
Dealt to xkm1245 [Ac]
Rakewell is low with [3h]
Rakewell brings in for 20
wallythegh calls 20
ABetty calls 20
xkm1245 calls 20
Lord Jaborg completes it to 60
Satans Potatoes calls 60
j pepper calls 60
taps1961 folds
Rakewell calls 40
wallythegh calls 40
ABetty calls 40
xkm1245 calls 40
*** 4TH STREET ***
Dealt to Lord Jaborg [7s] [8c]
Dealt to Satans Potatoes [9d] [6s]
Dealt to j pepper [Jd] [Th]
Dealt to Rakewell [8h Ad 3h] [2h]
Dealt to wallythegh [Qc] [5d]
Dealt to ABetty [9c] [4c]
Dealt to xkm1245 [Ac] [5s]
xkm1245 checks
Lord Jaborg has been disconnected
Lord Jaborg has reconnected
Lord Jaborg bets 60
Satans Potatoes calls 60
j pepper calls 60
Rakewell calls 60
wallythegh calls 60
ABetty calls 60
xkm1245 folds
*** 5TH STREET ***
Dealt to Lord Jaborg [7s 8c] [5c]
Dealt to Satans Potatoes [9d 6s] [Qh]
Dealt to j pepper [Jd Th] [8d]
Dealt to Rakewell [8h Ad 3h 2h] [6c]
Dealt to wallythegh [Qc 5d] [Ts]
Dealt to ABetty [9c 4c] [Qs]
wallythegh checks
ABetty checks
Lord Jaborg bets 120
Satans Potatoes calls 120
j pepper calls 120
Rakewell raises to 240
wallythegh folds
ABetty folds
Lord Jaborg raises to 360
Satans Potatoes folds
j pepper calls 240
Rakewell raises to 480
Lord Jaborg calls 120
j pepper calls 120
*** 6TH STREET ***
Dealt to Lord Jaborg [7s 8c 5c] [7d]
Dealt to j pepper [Jd Th 8d] [Jh]
Dealt to Rakewell [8h Ad 3h 2h 6c] [Kh]
j pepper checks
Rakewell bets 120
Lord Jaborg raises to 240
j pepper calls 240
Rakewell raises to 360
Lord Jaborg raises to 480
j pepper calls 240
Rakewell calls 120
*** 7TH STREET ***
Dealt to Rakewell [8h Ad 3h 2h 6c Kh] [Ah]
j pepper checks
Rakewell bets 120
Lord Jaborg raises to 240
j pepper calls 240
Rakewell raises to 360
Lord Jaborg raises to 480
j pepper calls 240
Rakewell calls 120
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Lord Jaborg shows [7h 7c 7s 8c 5c 7d 6d] four of a kind, Sevens
j pepper mucks
Rakewell mucks
Lord Jaborg wins the pot (5,300) with four of a kind, Sevens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5,300 Rake 0
Seat 1: xkm1245 folded on 4th St.
Seat 2: Lord Jaborg showed [7h 7c 7s 8c 5c 7d 6d] and won (5,300) with four of a kind, Sevens
Seat 3: Satans Potatoes folded on 5th St.
Seat 4: j pepper mucked [As Td Jd Th 8d Jh 8s] - two pair, Jacks and Tens
Seat 5: taps1961 folded on 3rd St.
Seat 6: Rakewell mucked [Ah Ad 3h 2h 6c Kh 8h] - a flush, Ace high
Seat 7: wallythegh folded on 5th St.
Seat 8: ABetty folded on 5th St.

Victory Poker responds

About two months ago I posted a rant about a full-page ad for Victory Poker. Change100 also recently leveled her guns at them for the flagrant sexism in the ad. One of the comments to her post led me to this take on the subject, which I wouldn't have seen otherwise.

I just saw a post on Wicked Chops Poker that includes their latest podcast. One of the guests they interview is Dan Fleyshman, CEO of Victory Poker. They ask him specifically about the criticisms of their ad campaign made by Change100, by me, and by unnamed others. He is shocked, SHOCKED! that anybody would think him or his company or his ad campaign to be sexist. Go listen if you're interested in how he spins it. The interview starts at about the 14:35 mark.


Addendum

See Change100's partial transcription of and response to Mr. Fleyshman's comments here.

Guess the casino, #528

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

Answer: Red Rock

Ted Forrest is a rigtard

Pretty remarkable hand dealt at the WSOP a couple of hours ago. I first read about it on Daniel Negreanu's Twitter feed. Then a tweet from F-Train pointed me to the full post he wrote about it for PokerNews, which you can read here. The bottom line is that Forrest escaped elimination from the $10,000 stud event only because of a dealer error, compounded by a questionable floor decision, combined with a four-outer. Keith Sexton took the bad end of that one-two-three punch.

But I was most interested and amused by the account of the ensuing conversation:

"I hate poker for sh*t like this," said Sexton.

"THAT's why you hate poker?" asked David Grey. The table then started discussing how, at least online, there are no dealer errors. That prompted Forrest to state his wish that Full Tilt Poker would use a "real deck" the way PokerStars does.

"How can Dustin Wolfe beat me heads-up playing limit hold'em online every single time? The worst player in the world should win some. I won't even play him online anymore. Live is a different story." Forrest felt that some people have learned how to "time the algorithm" online, or at least have a good feel for it.

That conversation caught the attention of Perry Friedman, sitting one table behind. "Unless you can outsmart quantum randomness, it's impossible to time it," said Friedman. "If you hit the button at the exact same millisecond in a parallel universe, you'd get a different card."

Forrest didn't seem so certain about that, but it's hard to argue Friedman's knowledge of the FTP software. Whatever the story, Forrest is still in the tournament due to Kojo's error. He has 15,800, and a very pissed off Sexton has about 36,000.

A little background is in order. It may seem that Forrest is talking in oxymorons when he refers to a "real deck" for an online site. What he is surely referring to, though, is that PokerStars randomizes the entire deck at the beginning of the hand, then deals cards out sequentially from the top of that shuffled deck (I keep wanting to put all those words in quotation marks, because obviously it's not a real deck with a real top or a real shuffle, but it gets monotonous to put them everywhere they would be needed) wherever and whenever they are needed without further randomization.

Full Tilt, conversely, deploys a randomization algorithm to select a card every time one is needed, without first doing a virtual shuffle of the entire deck. Put another way, on Stars the deck is "set" after the "shuffle" before any cards are dealt, while on FTP a card is selected at random from the remaining available cards only when one is needed. One method is not intrinsically better than the other; they're just two different ways to skin a cat. For all you'd ever want to know about this, see Shamus's posts here and here.

So apparently Forrest, knowing this, has come to believe that he gets beat when playing on Full Tilt because somebody out there has figured out how to time the click to close the action (and thus have the next card put out on the board) in such a way as to get a favorable card dealt.

As Shamus reported four years ago, PokerStars uses multiple seeds (input variables) for its random number generator, one of which is the thermal noise in a resistor with a voltage applied across it. This is just one of many ways that one can get some sort of signal that is ultimately determined by the randomness of quantum mechanics. (See here for an intro to that subject.) I assume that Friedman's remark means that FTP does something similar. (If memory serves, he was one of the founding members of Tiltware, the company that wrote the software that underlies Full Tilt Poker.) Assuming he is right about that--and I have no reason to doubt him, and reason to think he's being truthful--then it would indeed be impossible for anybody to knowingly influence what card the RNG spits out next.

It is, frankly, pretty hard to believe that FTP would have such an obvious security hole as letting a player get the card he wants by how he times his mouse click. So it starts off being pretty stupid for Forrest to have bought into the idea in the first place. For him to doubt Friedman's explanation, however brief, and assurance that what he's imagining is impossible is, well, borderline loony.

But apparently Forrest would rather believe something that implausible than either of the alternatives: That he has just run very unlucky, or that somebody has played better than he has. Thus we must conclude that Ted Forrest is a rigtard--the term commonly used in online poker forums for the looneys who believe that online poker is rigged, but (1) keep playing anyway, and (2) never have any hard statistical evidence to back up their wacko theories.

Because I kind of like Ted Forrest, and deeply admire his astonishing poker skills when he is in top form, I have done him a favor and made him his own virtual tinfoil hat. It should help keep the government--or his online opponents--from reading his thoughts. It's the best I can do.





(If you all knew what a stretch of my digital technical skills that little bit of paste-up was, you'd be impressed. Let's just say that it was rather akin to getting a chimp to draw up the machine code for Windows. Photo of Forrest lifted from here. Tinfoil hat image found here. Basic idea of tinfoil hat for rigtards borrowed from Shamus here.)

The poker world does not need this

Of course deer--even dead ones--are allowed at the poker table, if they can come up with the buy-in. But not, I repeat not, with extra cards stuffed (so to speak) in their pockets!

(I assume they're playing Omaha here. Lots of deer in Nebraska.)



Image from the Crappy Taxidermy blog, here.

What goes around comes around

Last Friday night I was playing at the Rio, sitting on about my starting stack of $300. I had a J-10 of diamonds on the button, so decided to call the under-the-gun raiser, whose stack was nearly identical. Flop was J-10-6, giving me top two pair. He bet $25. I raised to $75, largely because of the draw-heavy board (two hearts in addition to the obvious straight draw). He looked unhappy about it, but called. Turn was another 10, making my boat. He led out for $100. I moved all-in. He again looked not thrilled about the situation, but gave me the resigned shrug, and said, "I call." I showed my hand. He winced and turned over A-10. Looks like a double-up for moi. But don't count your chickens before they hatch. River: Ace. Bye-bye stack.

Tuesday night I was at Luxor, again with almost exactly my $300 starting stack. Under-the-gun player raises to $10. I'm next in line with A-A, and push it to $30. There are very few pre-flop reraises in this game, and the move practically turns my cards face-up, but I still thought it was the best choice, on balance, since this passive table could easily all call $10 and leave me in a very difficult predicament. Everybody folded to the small blind, who called. The UTG player moved all-in. Unfortunately, it was for $48--$2 less than would have been required to re-open the betting, so I could only call. BB called, also.

Flop was J-8-3. BB quickly grabbed a $100 stack and put it down in front of him. (He had me covered by a little bit.) This caught me off-guard. I didn't think he would call a reraise--especially from out of position--with 8-8 or 3-3. I also didn't think he would lead with J-J. He was a good enough player to realize the limited range with which I had put in the reraise before the flop, so surely he would expect me to make a substantial c-bet if he checked to me, and, given the stack sizes, I'd be pot-committed. Therefore, if he had flopped a set, I'd think that the check-raise would be the better play. This line of reasoning made me conclude that he most likely had Q-Q or K-K, and was making this bet to take the pot if I had A-K (it seemed possible that he hadn't done the math to realize that I couldn't raise again pre-flop after the UTG shove, and on that basis decided that I might have only A-K instead of a big pair), or find out if he should get away from it if I shoved, on the assumption that this would mean he could be fairly certain I had aces.

So I shoved. He called immediately. I showed the aces. He showed 8-8. Oops. I don't know exactly what his thinking was, but I had misread the situation somehow. But I had little time to stew about it. Two seconds later, we both saw the dealer give me a fourth-street ace-ball, and that was that.


It's pretty uncommon that I win or lose $300 in a single hand. When it happens, it's really, really rare that the outcome is decided, either way, on the basis of somebody hitting one of just two or three possible winning cards after all the money is in the middle. But I guess that this week the universe decided that it should set things right on the first three-outer by giving me the second one.

Blackjack players are idiots

I admit that I don't understand the whole gambling thing. For whatever reason, I'm just not wired to get any thrill out of playing games that I know will lose me money in the long run. I probably average about $20 a year total on non-poker gaming. Even that is just a few bucks in a machine with a friend while we're waiting for a show to start or for our names to be called for dinner, or the required contribution for one of those two-for-one coupons, which are +EV. I realize that this makes me something of a freak among the poker players of the world, but that's how it is.

I played blackjack for about an hour once while here on vacation, maybe 15 years ago, never before or since. So my knowledge of the game is truly rudimentary. Basically, all I know is little bits and pieces picked up from TV shows, overheard conversations, incidental mentions that come up in my poker reading, etc.

A couple of years ago, Vegas Rex mentioned in a post (and, sorry, but I spent about 20 minutes just now searching for the post in question but couldn't find it) that once in a while he likes to split 10s, even though he knows that this reduces his expected return. He does it because it increased the little thrill he gets from the game. His post was about the dirty looks and hateful comments that this move draws from the serious blackjack players at the table with him. My recollection (though my memory could be tainted by subsequent stories I've heard) is that he mentioned that sometimes people even get up and leave in a huff because they don't want to share the table with somebody who does that.

I didn't exactly doubt his veracity, but I sure wondered why anybody would have this reaction. However, since then, I have at least four times overheard conversations in which "serious" players have said that they can't stand playing at a table with somebody who doesn't know what he is doing, and will leave to find another table to continue playing at. I'm bringing this up now because the most recent of these conversations was just last night, while playing poker at Planet Hollywood.

These complaints have not all been about "bad" players splitting their 10s specifically, but more generally about players who hit when the math clearly favors standing. The complaint is universally the same: the "bad" player gets a small card that helps him, but results in the "good" player getting a high card and busting, when he would have received the small card instead.

Every time I hear this, I want to have the complainer sent for mandatory psychiatric evaluation. If they pass a battery of mental health testing by a panel of experts, then the least that they should have to endure is a remedial course in probability and logic.

In the long run, it makes no difference whether you play blackjack by yourself or with a full table, nor does it matter how anybody else plays. You could have somebody at your table who takes hits every single time until he busts, losing 100% of the time, and it still would not affect you. Furthermore, it makes zero difference where you are at the table, with the allegedly "bad" players to your right or to your left. (This isn't true in tournament-style blackjack, however, because there the amounts that others bet affect what your best decision will be. That's a special case not relevant here.)

Of course it is true that what other players decide will affect what card(s) you get on this hand, but it does so in a completely value-neutral way. Yes, sometimes the guy hitting on 18 will catch a 3 that otherwise would have made you a winning hand, and instead you take a king that busts you. But so what? Exactly as often, the king and the 3 in the deck will be reversed in order, and he will erroneously hit, taking the king that instead would have gone to you, and you get the 3. It seems that the idiot blackjack players I've heard whining have highly selective memories, and only remember cases where they get hurt by the "bad" player's decision, and either don't notice or don't remember the equal number of times that they are rescued by such decisions--even though the math says that the number of events must be exactly the same both ways.

Naturally, it works the other way, too--i.e., if the "bad" player stands where he should hit, the "good" player will get a card that would have gone to the "bad" player if he were playing optimal strategy. Sometimes that change of fate will work to his favor, sometimes to his detriment. But the cumulative effect over time must be exactly zero, with just as many of the former as the latter.

This basic truth is so simple and obvious that I'm stymied to figure out how somebody could spend hours honing their mastery of optimal strategy for every possible combination of cards, and yet fail to understand it.

Getting upset at another player for how his play affected your blackjack outcome is every bit as looney as getting upset because the dealer (or a player) cut the deck too high or too low. Of course it affects everything that happens thereafter, but it does so in a way that has no systematic positive or negative value. The only difference is that you can see the "what would have been" outcome for how another player affects the current hand, and you cannot know the "what would have been" for how the deck was cut.

In poker, all sorts of things affect what cards you get: how the cards are gathered after the previous hand, the dealer's precise shuffle method, where the deck gets cut, who leaves or enters the game just before the cards are dealt, whether there is a card flashed during the deal, whether there is a misdeal, etc. But they all affect the outcome in an absolutely neutral way over the long haul, even though the change will be either for good or ill on any given hand. It would be completely insane to bitch at a player for sitting down to your right just before the deal on the grounds that he just changed what your hole cards will be. It's definitely true that his arrival did change everything (including what the board cards will be), but not in a way that affects your long-run expected value by even one red cent.

The next time I overhear a "serious" blackjack player griping about how some novice player spoiled the game for him, I'm going to put in a call to the Moron Police and have him hauled away for public stupidity.


Addendum

While writing the above, I had a vague recollection that I had written something along the same lines before. Why didn't I check? First, it was because I thought it had just been an offhand couple of sentences as a tangent while writing about something else. Secondly, well, frankly, because if I'm repeating myself, I think that deep down I don't want to know about it.

But then I was just chatting with Cardgrrl, and she asked, "Didn't you do a rant on that same subject already?" Dammit. That meant I couldn't avoid checking. And, of course, it turns out that I did. See here for that post, as well as a lot of useful comments from readers.

Oh well. At least I'm consistent in what bugs me and in the conclusions I draw.

Bellagio Conservatory

I went to the Bellagio yesterday primarily to take a gander at Phil Laak's enduro record attempt, but while I was there I took a stroll through the spring display at the conservatory. Lovely, exotic flowers everywhere. I couldn't resist taking some pictures. No commentary, no further explanation, no poker association--just some bits of beauty to brighten up your day. (They were taken with my good camera, so giant-sized views are just a click away, if you want.)

Sisyphus in Vegas

As I was entering Planet Hollywood yesterday from the Strip (having just been across the street at Bellagio), I noticed this poor guy.

His job is cleaning the fingerprints off the glass doors. PH provides big handles, but lots of people push or pull on the door itself instead.* As soon as he finishes getting one door back to its pristine state and steps to the next, somebody comes along and smudges the one he just did. (I was going to make a reference to the Golden Gate bridge painters having to start over again as soon as they finish, but it turns out that that's not true.)

He is more patient than I would be. I would lose my job within the first hour, because I'd be yelling at people, "Hey, I just cleaned that! Can't you use the handle, you twit?"

There are many unpleasant, thankless jobs in this city. His is one of them. Tip o' the grumpy hat for doing it well and without complaint (as far as I know).



*I'm not necessarily faulting them. There are sometimes good reasons, such as the metal door pulls becoming literally too hot to touch when in direct sunlight.

Guess the casino, #527

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




Answer: Aria

Laak at the Bellagio

Phil Laak is attempting to set a poker-playing endurance record, complete with documentation for the Guinness Book of World Records. You can read about it on his blog here. For more on how he got the idea in the first place, see here. To read about the charity tie-in, see here.

It got underway this afternoon, and I stopped by briefly to take a look. They don't make it easy to snap pictures of him, I'll tell you that much. But after a few failed attempts, I got this one shot, which will have to do.

I've also been following his Twitter feed, which is sort of amusing. I think it might get even more so round about Saturday, when he's even loopier than usual from extreme sleep deprivation.

Stupid policy

For the past several months, Luxor and Excalibur have had a "no photos" policy in place, complete with signs. Of course, everybody wants to take pictures of the signs as a gag. Well, it appears that the powers that be have recognized how pointless and unenforceable this policy is. Read more about it here:

http://www.vegaschatter.com/story/2010/6/2/125221/9352/vegas-travel/Luxor_and_Excalibur_Have_Lifted_the_No_Photos_Rule

Unclear on the concept

Early in my epic HORSE battle tonight, I saw a pair of bizarre razz hands played by a guy calling himself "nelly1961."



Here's the full hand history, so you can see how the very strange betting went. As you'll note, KurtDog500 (my maniac opponent in heads-up) was being his usual hyperaggressive self, and nelly1961 was just calling him down--and it worked!

PokerStars Game #44948706570: Tournament #278495893, $10+$1 USD HORSE (Razz Limit) - Level III (40/80) - 2010/06/02 2:37:58 ET
Table '278495893 1' 8-max
Seat 1: nelly1961 (404 in chips)
Seat 2: KurtDog500 (2455 in chips)
Seat 3: Rakewell1 (1229 in chips)
Seat 4: TheVault54 (2629 in chips)
Seat 5: Jorgyboy (1139 in chips)
Seat 6: Clemson1979 (1108 in chips)
Seat 7: whitespur (1234 in chips)
Seat 8: wogfir (1802 in chips)
nelly1961: posts the ante 8
KurtDog500: posts the ante 8
Rakewell1: posts the ante 8
TheVault54: posts the ante 8
Jorgyboy: posts the ante 8
Clemson1979: posts the ante 8
whitespur: posts the ante 8
wogfir: posts the ante 8
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to nelly1961 [Qc]
Dealt to KurtDog500 [2h]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [Jh 8h Ad]
Dealt to TheVault54 [Td]
Dealt to Jorgyboy [6d]
Dealt to Clemson1979 [Ts]
Dealt to whitespur [9h]
Dealt to wogfir [2d]
nelly1961: bets 40
KurtDog500: raises 40 to 80
Rakewell1: folds
TheVault54: folds
Jorgyboy: folds
Clemson1979: folds
whitespur: folds
wogfir: folds
nelly1961: calls 40
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to nelly1961 [Qc] [Jc]
Dealt to KurtDog500 [2h] [5h]
KurtDog500: bets 40
nelly1961: calls 40
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to nelly1961 [Qc Jc] [3d]
Dealt to KurtDog500 [2h 5h] [2c]
nelly1961: checks
KurtDog500: bets 80
nelly1961: calls 80
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to nelly1961 [Qc Jc 3d] [3h]
Dealt to KurtDog500 [2h 5h 2c] [8s]
KurtDog500: bets 80
nelly1961: calls 80
*** RIVER ***
KurtDog500: bets 80
nelly1961: calls 80
*** SHOW DOWN ***
KurtDog500: shows [8d 6h 2h 5h 2c 8s 6c] (Lo: 2,2,8,6,5)
nelly1961: shows [3c 5s Qc Jc 3d 3h 6s] (Lo: Q,J,6,5,3)
nelly1961 collected 784 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 784 Rake 0
Seat 1: nelly1961 showed [3c 5s Qc Jc 3d 3h 6s] and won (784) with Lo: Q,J,6,5,3
Seat 2: KurtDog500 showed [8d 6h 2h 5h 2c 8s 6c] and lost with Lo: 2,2,8,6,5
Seat 3: Rakewell1 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 4: TheVault54 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Jorgyboy folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Clemson1979 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 7: whitespur folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 8: wogfir folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)


I was so stunned by that action and outcome that I took some time to review the screen shot of it, trying to make sense of it. I concluded that most likely nelly1961 just had no idea how razz is played or how the winning hand is determined. I believe he thought that he won because of having trip 3s.

But I didn't really have time to figure it out, because three hands later, just as I was reaching my conclusion about nelly, the next big confrontation arose, and I was in the middle of it:




This time, nelly1961 was the aggressor, with that excellent razz hand of his: Q9Q, made all the better by a king and a second pair to follow.

Here's how he bet it:

PokerStars Game #44948754521: Tournament #278495893, $10+$1 USD HORSE (Razz Limit) - Level III (40/80) - 2010/06/02 2:40:54 ET
Table '278495893 1' 8-max
Seat 1: nelly1961 (752 in chips)
Seat 2: KurtDog500 (2059 in chips)
Seat 3: Rakewell1 (1321 in chips)
Seat 4: TheVault54 (2605 in chips)
Seat 5: Jorgyboy (1103 in chips)
Seat 6: Clemson1979 (1172 in chips)
Seat 7: whitespur (1210 in chips)
Seat 8: wogfir (1778 in chips)
nelly1961: posts the ante 8
KurtDog500: posts the ante 8
Rakewell1: posts the ante 8
TheVault54: posts the ante 8
Jorgyboy: posts the ante 8
Clemson1979: posts the ante 8
whitespur: posts the ante 8
wogfir: posts the ante 8
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to nelly1961 [Qs]
Dealt to KurtDog500 [2s]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [Ad 4c 6s]
Dealt to TheVault54 [Kc]
Dealt to Jorgyboy [Js]
Dealt to Clemson1979 [9s]
Dealt to whitespur [7h]
Dealt to wogfir [5s]
TheVault54: brings in for 12
Jorgyboy: folds
Clemson1979: calls 12
whitespur: folds
wogfir: raises 28 to 40
nelly1961: raises 40 to 80
KurtDog500 said, "you do know what razz is right?"
KurtDog500: calls 80
Rakewell1: raises 40 to 120
TheVault54: folds
Clemson1979 said, "shhh"
Clemson1979: folds
wogfir: calls 80
nelly1961: calls 40
KurtDog500: calls 40
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to nelly1961 [Qs] [3h]
Dealt to KurtDog500 [2s] [4d]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [Ad 4c 6s] [Td]
Dealt to wogfir [5s] [4s]
KurtDog500: bets 40
Rakewell1: calls 40
wogfir: calls 40
nelly1961: calls 40
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to nelly1961 [Qs 3h] [Kd]
Dealt to KurtDog500 [2s 4d] [6h]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [Ad 4c 6s Td] [2h]
Dealt to wogfir [5s 4s] [4h]
KurtDog500: bets 80
Rakewell1: raises 80 to 160
wogfir: folds
nelly1961: raises 80 to 240
KurtDog500: raises 80 to 320
Betting is capped
Rakewell1: calls 160
nelly1961: calls 80
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to nelly1961 [Qs 3h Kd] [3c]
Dealt to KurtDog500 [2s 4d 6h] [Jd]
Dealt to Rakewell1 [Ad 4c 6s Td 2h] [As]
Rakewell1: bets 80
nelly1961: raises 80 to 160
KurtDog500: calls 160
Rakewell1: calls 80
*** RIVER ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [Ad 4c 6s Td 2h As] [5h]
Rakewell1: bets 80
nelly1961: raises 24 to 104 and is all-in
KurtDog500: raises 56 to 160
Rakewell1: raises 80 to 240
KurtDog500: raises 80 to 320
Betting is capped
Rakewell1: calls 80
*** SHOW DOWN ***
KurtDog500: shows [9d 5c 2s 4d 6h Jd Ah] (Lo: 6,5,4,2,A)
Rakewell1: shows [Ad 4c 6s Td 2h As 5h] (Lo: 6,5,4,2,A)
KurtDog500 collected 216 from side pot
Rakewell1 collected 216 from side pot
nelly1961: mucks hand
KurtDog500 collected 1240 from main pot
Rakewell1 collected 1240 from main pot
nelly1961 finished the tournament in 8th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2912 Main pot 2480. Side pot 432. Rake 0
Seat 1: nelly1961 mucked [Qc 9c Qs 3h Kd 3c Ts]
Seat 2: KurtDog500 showed [9d 5c 2s 4d 6h Jd Ah] and won (1456) with Lo: 6,5,4,2,A
Seat 3: Rakewell1 showed [Ad 4c 6s Td 2h As 5h] and won (1456) with Lo: 6,5,4,2,A
Seat 4: TheVault54 folded on the 3rd Street
Seat 5: Jorgyboy folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Clemson1979 folded on the 3rd Street
Seat 7: whitespur folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 8: wogfir folded on the 5th Street

Epic

I enjoy reading Wil Wheaton's blog, even though he rarely writes about poker anymore. (He was for a year or so a member of Team Poker Stars, which is every bit as cool as being one of the main characters on Star Trek.) On Monday he posted an outrageous painting that includes him in a clown sweater, mounted on a shrieking unicorn pegasus kitten, about to spear sci-fi writer John Scalzi, who is depicted as an Orc with an axe. Yeah, you kind of have to see it to appreciate it.

Accompanying this magnificent piece of art, he wrote, "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "I will never again in my life see something this epic, so I may as well pluck my eyes out with a spork right now.""

Well, I almost did the spork thing right on the spot. But I'm glad I didn't, because a mere 24 hours later, it turns out that I lived to see something even more epic (or, as my friend Cardgrrl likes to say, "epicer"): One of my $10 PokerStars HORSE sit-and-go tournaments ended with the longest heads-up battle I've ever seen in one of these things--and I won it.

The entire tournament took 1 hour, 46 minutes; the heads-up portion was 36 minutes of that. That might not seem like much, but I'm confident it's the longest I've ever had to fight for the #1 finish. Because hands go so much faster when there are only two players, the heads-up duel actually featured the majority of the whole tournament's hands: 115 out of 206, to be exact. It started in Omaha, and lasted through razz, stud, stud/8, and finally finished in hold'em. As long as the Wil Wheaton thing started me on a Star Trek theme, I'll say that the fight felt like I was Frank Gorshin in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," with a madman at my throat for all eternity.

Below you can see how the chip stacks fluctuated. We started off about as close to even as possible: His 6038 to my 5962, with blinds of only 75/150, so we were about 40 big blinds deep.



By my count, the chip lead changed hands 17 times. I survived six all-ins with calls; he survived two, but not the third.

Can any word but epic really do this justice? I think not.

As usual, I can't animate (at least not easily) the razz and stud hands for you, but I made a Flash movie out of the hold'em portion, which was the last 22 hands. I think it gives you a flavor of our different styles. He was on the maniacal side, so I tended to concede a lot of small pots, and make my chips back by playing off my tighter image and stealing when it looked like he didn't like his situation on later streets, and by him paying off my big hands more than I paid off his. I.e., he won more pots, but I tended to win the bigger ones.

The Mighty Deuce-Four makes a couple of appearances, as you'll see.





Overall I was pretty darn pleased with myself. I played about as well as I know how to do, didn't panic or get impatient, picked spots well. Yes, I got lucky to be bailed out of bad situations a couple of times, but not obviously any more than he did.

I definitely earned that $40 uptick the hard way.

Guess the casino, #526

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




Answer: Palace Station

HORSE of a different color

On March 11, 2009, I reported the following:

WARNING! Boredom alert! I talk herein about my poker results, which nobody
cares about.

I have now played 125 single-table online HORSE tournaments. About 2/3 of
those have been $10 entry, most of the rest $5, with a few others ($20, $15,
etc.) scattered in. Most have been on PokerStars, a handful on Full Tilt. I have
tried signing up for them on Bugsy's Club (see here for why), but never got one going. A few have been turbo, most not. All have been eight-seat deals with three places paid.

If the outcomes were totally random, I should expect to cash 38% of the
time, or 47/125 events; I have actually cashed 44% of the time, or 55/125
events. Similarly, if all players were of equal skill and luck as each other,
one would expect to claim first place 13% of the time, or 16/125; I have
actually taken first 16% of the time, or 20/125.

In other words, I have proven to be just slightly better than the average
of my competitors--something like a 15-20% edge, depending on how you figure
it.

...

All of which means that this is now a large enough number of tournaments that I can be reasonably confident that the results I'm seeing are a real reflection of a difference in how I'm playing, relative to the other players, rather than just random variance. I can have something like 85-90% confidence in that conclusion.

In short, I am Lord of the $10 HORSE.

I have spent $1186.40 on entrance fees, and taken $1312.00 in prizes, for a net profit of $125.60, which represents a return on investment of $1.11 for every dollar put in. However, my guess is that my average time investment is roughly 45 minutes each, so that's coming out to not much more than $1/hour. What's that they say about a hard way to make an easy living?

Over the last several months, I have really slacked off on these HORSE SNGs. But last night Cardgrrl suggested we do two of them together, a $5 and a $10, which seemed like a good idea. As luck would have it, I finished first in the former and third in the latter. It's not rare that I play two of these suckers at a time, but it is rare that I cash in both when I do. I was one busy boy there at the end, playing heads-up in one and three-way in the other. I know that my results in the $10 suffered because I was so concentrating on the two-way action in the $5; my opponent there was hyperaggressive, and it felt like all I could do to watch him and pick my spots well, with little attention left to devote to the other game.

Anyway, when I entered those cashes into my spreadsheet, I noticed that I had just over double the number of games under my belt as the last time I announced my results here, so it seems an opportune moment for another report.

The bottom line: I have gone from Lord of the HORSE to Lord of the Idiots (with apologies to George Costanza). I got worse, not better.

I have played 258 HORSE SNGs, with the following distribution of finishes:

1: 34
2: 34
3: 40
4: 27
5: 23
6: 40
7: 28
8: 32

If the order of finish were determined purely by luck--i.e., if all opponents were of equal skill--I'd expect about 32 in each category. As you can see, the actual standings don't deviate very far from that.

Similarly, I should expect to cash about 97 times, with the actual number being 108. This is, obviously, a little better than chance alone would dictate. It does not quite reach statistical significance, however; the p value for 108 or more cashes by chance alone is 0.08, a little over the 0.05 that is traditionally used to determine real versus fluke outcomes. (Let me once again put in a little plug for the wonderful binomial calculator you can play with to run such numbers here.)

Here's how the same analysis looks if I limit it to the games I've played since my previous report, i.e., just the last 133 of them:

1: 14
2: 16
3: 23
4: 17
5: 8
6: 19
7: 17
8: 19

By chance I would expect about 17 in each slot, and there's not much deviation from that. I should expect about 50 cashes, and got 53.

Bottom line: There is no evidence that I am systematically playing better than my opponents. It stings to admit that--especially in light of the phenomenally, inexplicably abysmal play that one often sees in these things--but it's an inescapable conclusion. How can I not be better than these people? I hang my head in shame. But I always try to tell you the truth here, even when it's not pretty.

It might look like I avoid 4th and 5th place finishes by buttoning down to survive into the money, with those games turning into 3rd places. But I really don't play that way. I know full well that all the money is in first and second, with third giving me just slightly more than my entrance fee back. I'm not interested in that. Much more plausible--and consistent with what it feels like I'm doing--is that once we're into the money, I turn up the aggression, trying to get a dominating stack for going into heads-up play, but overdoing it and instead fizzling out for the min-cash, thus explaining the excess of third-place endings.

What sucks even worse is that I'm not beating the rake. I have slipped over the break-even money line--in the bad direction. I have spent $2260 on buy-ins, and been paid just $2204, for a net loss of $56, and a ROI of a dismal 0.98. It's a trivial sum in the grand scheme of things, but, geez, it would sure be nice to have something to show for all those hours spent.

There is hope, though. I'm reasonably confident that I know what my two biggest leaks are. Plugging them is just a matter of relatively minor discipline, not some huge overall change in game plan.

Will I manage to actually do it?

I'll let you know in another year or so.

Guess the casino, #525

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




Answer: MGM Grand