What would you pick?

Earlier this year I read somewhere--and now I can't remember where, but perhaps in one of Phil Laak or Jennifer Tilly's columns in Bluff magazine--about how the players in this season's PartyPoker Big Game series got to pick their own entrance music, the theme that would be played upon their grand entrance to the poker rooom.

It's not especially likely that I'll be invited to play on that or any other televised poker show anytime soon, but upon reading that, surely I'm not the only one who starts imagining what music I'd pick should that miraculous day ever come.

It didn't take me long to decide. For as long as I can remember, there has been one piece of music that for me most perfectly embodies the idea of triumph, which is what I would want to convey in that kind of setting. No, it's not the theme from "Rocky" (though that's not half bad). It's the final movement of Beethoven's Symphony #7.

So if you ever hear that the Poker Grump is going to be appearing on the Big Game, here's what you can expect to hear as I am seen walking through the casino door. This is a performance conducted by the man who could put the brio in an allegro con brio like nobody else, the late, great Leonard Bernstein. Enjoy.

Thought for today

Hell hath no fury like a nit with aces cracked.

Guess the casino, #623

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Answer: Sam's Town

'Nuff said

This is a screen shot from the final hand of a recent episode of the PartyPoker Big Game.

I don't like Tony G, but the man obviously understands the power of the Deuce-Four.

Yeah, that's the ticket!

I was playing today at Caesars Palace. During one hand, a player put out six red chips ($30), in two stacks of three chips each. For some reason, the dealer saw only one of them (probably because the second one was kind of close to the pot, and he thought it was already part of the pot). He announced the bet as $15. I asked him to check that. He looked again, realized his error, and said, "Make that $30."

A few seconds later he quipped, "I'm just so used to those two-and-and-half-dollar chips."

Guess the casino, #622

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Answer: Palms

The Bruce Buffer Post

A week ago, I had never heard of Bruce Buffer, as far as I can recall. Then I watched the most recent week of "Poker After Dark," which featured him, two mixed martial arts fighters, and three poker pros. Mr. Buffer acquitted himself rather well, I thought, finishing a close second to Howard Lederer. He was also pleasantly chatty and unfailingly polite. I learned from this that he is a ring announcer for MMA fights, and that he does a cute little move called the "Bruce Buffer 180," which, frankly, I don't get, but which seems to drive fans wild. You can see it in action here.

So that exhausted my knowledge of Bruce Buffer.

Imagine my surprise upon walking into the Luxor Poker Room today and finding that it was, in fact, no longer the Luxor Poker Room, but had been redubbed the Bruce Buffer Poker Room.

There seem to be some additional tables (or perhaps my spatial memory is on the fritz again):





Here's a close-up of a Bruce Buffer Poker Table:




Here's a Bruce Buffer Poker Dealer, wearing a Bruce Buffer T-Shirt:




This is the Bruce Buffer Wall. The two monitors on either side of the big sign cycle through a slideshow of Bruce Buffer Photographs.




On another wall is a small collection of Bruce Buffer Art:




Midway through my session, I had to take a break to visit the Bruce Buffer Men's Room. On the way there, I passed the Bruce Buffer High Stakes Poker Lounge (or at least the sign for it):




A few steps away was the Bruce Buffer High Stakes Poker Zone:




Not too surprisingly, within it one can find all manner of Bruce Buffer Merchandise:




This player was sporting the Bruce Buffer Combover:




OK, that was just mean and uncalled for. I apologize.

Anyway, the one obvious touch that appeared to be missing was the Bruce Buffer Poker Chip. Perhaps it's in production.

My understanding--and it's possible I'm mistaken on this point--is that the all-you-can-eat dining area has been renamed the Bruce Buffer Buffet.

I have another suggestion for the Luxor. They need a clear demarcation between the gambling/drinking/adult-only portions of the operation and the parts of the casino that are open to minors. They should set up kind of a no-man's-land between these two areas and call it (you're way ahead of me here, aren't you?) the Bruce Buffer Buffer Zone.

I have to admit that I don't really see the point in all of this folderol, but it seems harmless enough.

As I sat down and prepared to play, I thought I heard a voice in my head saying, "Llllllllllllllllllet's get rrrrrrrrrready to rrrrrrrrrun bad!" But I might have just been imagining things. You'd probably only hear that in the Michael Buffer Poker Room, wherever that may be.

Good show

The most recent episode (Week 6, Episode 5) of PokerStars's "Big Game" is worth watching, here: http://thebiggame.pokerstars.net/

This week's "loose cannon" was horrible. Fortunately, he was busted on Thursday, and replaced by Jason Mercier, so for Friday we had an all-pro game. The most satisfying part of the show is a classic display of Hellmuthian bad play, bad luck, whining, swearing, and bragging. Oh, and LOSING! Hee hee hee!

Cheating and more cheating

Cheating in poker

I refer you to this rather remarkable post on the Pocket Fives forum, containing several stories of apparently shady goings-on in the Partouche Poker Tour:

http://www.pocketfives.com/f7/cheating-accepted-partouche-poker-tour-598429/

I obviously have no way to verify any of the accusations. I await further eyewitness accounts. For the final and longest story, I checked Michael Binger's blog, because he is named as a vocal objector to the ruling made, but there's nothing about it there yet. Binger is unquestionably one of the brightest minds in poker, and, from everything I can tell, a completely ethical straight shooter (except for the fact that he agreed to be a pro for the cheatingest online site on the planet, and except for the fact that he knocked Cardgrrl out of the HORSE tournament at the WSOP on a horrendously bad beat, which is even more unforgiveable).


Cheating in blogging

I first learned of this story from Richard Marcus's "Poker Cheating and Casino Cheating Blog," here. It rather nauseates me to have to post that link, but integrity requires it. It's ironic to speak of integrity in the same paragraph as Marcus's name. On several occasions I've called him out on his dogged refusal to follow ordinary ethical practices in blogging; see here, and then follow links backwards. He's a slime bucket. I continue to subscribe to his RSS feed because it does serve as a useful aggregator of news on the subject; if there were another that did the same but treated its source material with normal respect, I'd use it instead.

In this case, Marcus does not name the source, does not link to it. In fact, he tries to make it sound as if he has personally been hearing these stories from the French poker tour from his own private sources, and his publication of them is original. I did a Google news search for "Mike Matusow Partouche" and quickly found the Pocket Fives post noted above. I then discovered that it contained in one place all of the allegations that Marcus names. His post tries to make it sound as if he is compiling them from multiple independent sources, but in reality, he has just plagiarized one pseudonymous post.

I have zero hope of reforming Marcus; I believe him to be an unredeemable thief and cheat. But I feel some obligation to point out his ethical violations when I become aware of them.

Guess the casino, #621

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Answer: M Resort

What's in a screen name? #4

Another excellent selection, this one found on Bodog.

Safe for now

I periodically tire of preparing the "Guess the casino" posts, and think about killing the feature. It gets repetitious, people don't comment on it, it takes time to do, and sometimes I just think, "Meh, let it go." But then something comes over me and I buck up and do another batch of them.

Today was one of those days. So, after putting in a marathon session of pasting up GTC posts in advance, fans of the series (all three of you) can now rest assured that your game is safe for the time being. No matter what happens to me (run over by bus, stabbed by angry tourist whose aces got cracked, etc.), "Guess the casino" will continue to automagically appear daily at least through November 3.

After that, we'll see.

Going nuts with the nuts

Can anybody explain the betting in this hand--or lack thereof?




Nice value check with the royal flush on the river.

Guess the casino, #620

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Answer: Golden Nugget

Monster of a game

I just had an idea for a poker home-game variant: Double-flop Omaha (which, despite the name, means two full boards), high-low, with mandatory run-it-twice turn and river. That makes a total of four boards, and pots that can be split eight ways, even if there are only two players. If there are more than two players, and some tie for some portion of some pot, it might get split, oh, I dunno, about 32 ways. The best part is that you'd get through about one hand an hour--play the hand, then spend 55 minutes arguing over who won which portion(s) and how the chips get divided.

"N0, no, no. Look, it's very simple. I get 7/16 of the top and 3/8 of the bottom, Jim got quartered on the top and eighthed on the bottom, Suzi gets 5/16 of the top and 1/8 of the bottom. No, wait--her two pair got counterfeited on the second river on the bottom, and she tied for the nut low with Randy and Lisa, so she only gets 1/3 of 1/4 of 1/2...."

Doesn't that sound like fun?!

Just don't make me the dealer.

Guess the casino, #619

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Answer: Club Fortune

WET

Interesting article on WET, the company that built the Bellagio fountains, the several water features at City Center, the new Mirage volcano, and other stuff:

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2010/mar/17/how-wets-water-features-give-gravitas-vegas-strip/

Never give in. Never give in.

It's pretty cheeky and melodramatic of me to coopt Winston Churchill's famous address to his childhood school. After all, he was talking about Hitler attacking Great Britain, and I'm talking about a $15 online poker tournament. But I'm going to do it anyway:

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great
or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good
sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of
the enemy.

I was reminded of that speech because I just won the HORSE tournament that the last couple of posts were about--and I did it after being severely short-stacked for a very long time. I think this marks the best tournament comeback I've ever made, from nearly being out on the final table bubble (9 left) with only one big bet left in my stack, to taking first place of $435.

When we were first into the money, I was cruising high, one of the chip leaders. Then I got this devastating hand:





(PokerStars does not scramble stud hands, so the order that you see is how they came.)

That was almost the end of me. But just a couple of hands later I won this squeaker:




That put me back into play, at least marginally. But then I got hosed again:



Yes, I bet it hard all the way. The guy who won that hand was an absolute maniac. Actually, that proved to be my salvation, after this. He was very, very, very slow to catch on to the fact that I was only putting my last chips in with strong hands. When I had just one or two bets, he'd call and I'd win. When I had a bit more, he'd try to push me off of hands when I had a third or more of my stack in. As the doctor says at the end of Bridge on the River Kwai (which I just watched again last week--one of the greatest movies of all time), "Madness!"

We were, at this point, on the final table bubble, with a pay jump of an extra $20, so I made myself an expert at folding. Once at the final table, three others went out lickety split before I had a chance to make a move. Here's the thing that is for me unprecedented: I remained the short stack for almost the entire time from the nine-handed final-table bubble until well into three-handed play. (Had to say "almost" because I did have one brief jaunt up to 4th/8, but then promptly got swatted down again.) At that point the maniac finally spewed off so many chips that I caught up to him and got into second chip position.

I was picking up a pot here and there when I had something good, but mostly biding my time to let the others knock each other out. What's surprising is that it actually worked! I was like the "little rat" that Daniel Negreanu condemns for playing timidly, sneaking up the money ladder. But when the big stacks are throwing huge raises at each other in every pot with marginal hands (which they were), it made perfect sense to me to sit back and watch the fur fly. I was really quite surprised to see myself surviving one elimination after another, when they didn't have the sense to wait for me to get blinded off. One guy was sitting out for the last hour or so, and coasted into 5th. It was only after he was gone that I really started playing again.

Anyway, after we had played three-handed for a long time, the other guy finally knocked out the maniac, and started heads-up play with a 2:1 chip lead. I did not think that I was likely to win. My opponent had been aggressive, but not insanely so. He was not going to be a pushover, that was for sure.

But I got lucky in a couple of key spots, with the big turning point being a hand in which I caught quad queens (hand #23). Forty hands after we had started heads-up play, I had him. Here's the whole gruesome battle, if you want to watch. He seriously turned on the afterburners on his level of aggression, as you'll see if you watch this playback. My best strategy appeared to be to lie in wait with better hands and let him hang himself. It worked well enough, I guess. I can show you the whole thing because it coincidentally all transpired during a hold'em round.



My opponent had been not only a decent player but a decent sportsman all the way through. He didn't complain about bad beats, didn't boast when winning a hand, didn't engage in trash talk, even gave out a few "nh" messages. But I lost all respect for him when, after the final hand, in which my K-K held up against his A-2, he signed off with this farewell:

ImLoveInErja said, "gg nigg3r"

Yeah, I think I'll forward that one to PokerStars. Jerk.


Just playing this tournament was weird in the first place, because it started at 6:45. I'm almost never up then. I was today only because I had been lying in bed for the previous couple of hours unable to get back to sleep. This may be the first time in my life that I'm glad I had a bout of insomnia.

You can put the deck back in the freezer now

Here's something I've never seen before: rolled up over rolled up. Glad I was on the good side of that one. Currently in chip lead in HORSE tournament, 48 left, 24 get paid.

What's in a screen name? #3

I couldn't sleep, so I entered an early-morning HORSE tournament (currently in 3rd, with 59/126 left).

I like the defensive nature of this guy's screen name. What are you gonna do--insult him by calling him an idiot?

Guess the casino, #618

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Answer: Bally's

So close

I came in second place in the Very Josie tournament tonight. OK, so second place in a $10, 13-person tournament won't exactly have the poker media's attention for more than a few days (pray tell, what good is it to have all these poker media friends when they won't report my triumphs?), but hey, it's what I was doing tonight, so I might as well report it.

I played pretty well overall, and never got insanely lucky or unlucky before the one-on-one portion started (well, OK, except for the little royal flush thing). Picked up a couple of $2 bounties in addition to the prize money.

When it got down to heads-up, I didn't like my chances. I was down 6:1 in chips, and facing Memphis Mojo, who was not only probably the strongest player of the last handful left, but was running red-hot all the way through the tournament. I had consistently stayed in second or third chip position for much of the game, but he was usually one notch ahead of me.

I did turn the chip lead around, due more to luck than skill (as you'll see in the first three hands here), but then couldn't seal the deal, even after getting my own 6:1 chip lead. Furthermore, I got 2-4 three times in the first 50 hands or so. Though I won them all, how kind does the deck have to be to me before I can win?

I blew it in a crucial spot where I made my most common online mistake: thinking somebody is bluffing when he isn't. I shoved on the flop with bottom pair and MM called with top pair (hand 59, I think). From there it was just a war of attrition, which he won. Got the last of it in good, but couldn't make it hold up. Good game, sir.

I thought the heads-up part was fun and challenging, and maybe even a little bit interesting to others who know either of the participants, so here it is, blow by blow. (Please do not feel compelled to watch. It's not like a Scorsese film or anything.)

Something REALLY beautiful

Now where's my high-hand bonus?

This is, by the way, the first royal I've hit since living in Vegas, live or online.

Full hand history below, though it's not especially interesting.

Life fail

I made some yummy stuff for my lunch today, but while eating the first of what should have been about four meals' worth from it, accidentally left the rest sitting on the stove. With the burner still on. Realized it only about 15 minutes later. Rest of stuff ruined.

Ironically--or perhaps fittingly, given our advanced ages (I'll be eligible for the old folks' event at the WSOP next year)--Cardgrrl did nearly the same thing once while I was visiting her. At the time, I teased her that leaving stove burners on accidentally is the classic sign that one's mental acuity has diminished to a point that it is no longer safe to live alone. Now it doesn't seem quite as funny.

I expect my family to intervene and cart me off to an assisted-living facility (completely devoid of dangerous implements such as stoves) any minute now.

Guess the casino, #617

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Answer: Sunset Station