Way to stay classy, Bluff

So Bluff magazine's managing editor earlier today put up an online piece in which, without further comment or explanation, she casually refers to women as "broads." See here.

Next time, why not just go with "bitches"?

Just in case the page gets removed or altered later, a screen shot is below.

Guess the casino, #881

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

Answer: Stratosphere

You really can't believe how badly they play

I'm thinking about entering the HORSE event at the Binion's Classic tomorrow. Hearing this, Cardgrrl, during our nearly-daily Skype video call, suggested that we do a play-money HORSE sit-and-go on PokerStars. Y'know, for, like, good practice. OK!

From having done this once before, we already knew that the quality of play would be about a thousand times worse than what we used to see in the $5 and $10 games we frequently did together, which was already laughable. But even after being prepared for it, we just couldn't get over what we were seeing.

Here are some examples.

In this first hand, the action was driven by the guy who ended up with tens full. Cardgrrl was obviously correct to call with her strong full house, and ended up taking the pot. But look at what other hands called two bets on the river. On a board with both quads and a royal flush possible, Cardgrrl bet, and a raise by Pol Arky was called by one player with a non-nut flush, one with a straight, and, most astonishingly, by one with a pair of 8s! That's a 53.5 big-bet pot there. (My cards are showing, but after leading out betting I folded to a raise and reraise on the flop.)

Here I raised to two big bets on the river with the nut low. Cardgrrl was still in the hand at the time, so I figured that even if I got quartered I would break even, having put in only one-fourth of the chips. When that raise got called in two spots, she reluctantly folded her AAxx, assuming that somebody must have a full house, a straight, or at least trip 7s. Nope. In addition to having the nut low all to myself, my top/top took the high, which was as much a surprise to me as it was to her. (It's possible that she uttered a naughty word when the hands were revealed. I'm not saying.) 31 big bets in that one.

Here's my final example. This other guy and I got into a raising war starting. With top set on the flop and top boat on the turn, I was happy to keep throwing as many chips into the pot as he would match. I expected to see K-Q or Q-8 at the showdown. Nope. Another 18 big bets my way.

Predictably, Cardgrrl and I finished in the top two spots, just like last time.

Now if only my opponents tomorrow are this clueless, next time you hear from me I'll have made a nice score!

People are so rude

For the past couple of months I've had a stiff, sore shoulder. It seems to be getting better gradually, but it has required a slow, painful process of frequent exercise and stretching. (If you play poker with me and see me pull on one arm with the other while making unpleasant faces, now you'll know why.)

Because of it, yesterday while playing poker I decided to pop a couple of ibuprofen. A segmented pill case is among the many items I routinely carry in what Cardgrrl calls the Fanny Pack of Great Awesomeness. I keep with me ibuprofen, Tylenol, aspirin, some allergy pills, and one megajolt of caffeine. A couple of minutes after I had swallowed the Advil with a sip of water, the guy on my left--who had not said a word to me since joining the table--leaned over and asked, "What kind of pills you takin' there?"

I don't know about you, but that's a question I would ask only of somebody with whom I had a very close relationship. Anybody else, it's none of my business. To compound the rudeness, he waited until I was in the middle of playing a big pot to ask.

The answer was innocent enough, so I gave him the one-word brush-off answer without turning to look at him. He followed it up with, "Whatcha takin' it for?"

That one I ignored.

People's brazenness frequently astounds me.

But I'm going to be better prepared next time somebody interrogates me as to what medication I'm taking. I'm going to lean in close to him and say, "I can't remember the name, but it's something really strong for my tuberculosis [cough, cough]."

New book from Tommy Angelo

I loved Tommy Angelo's first book, Elements of Poker (EOP), as you might have guessed from the number of snippets from it that I posted here. It's wise, pithy, insightful, memorable, unique, with the most inventive and clever use of language ever put into a poker book.

I was therefore excited recently when Angelo contacted me and asked if he could send me, gratis, a copy of his newest work, A Rubber Band Story and Other Poker Tales. Why, yes, as a matter of fact, you may. I finished reading it last week.

As advertised, it's a collection of 55 stories, all but six of them nonfictional, most or all of which have been published in various print or online venues over the last ten years. I had read maybe three of them before, but the rest were new to me. A couple are quite well known, such as his adventure in folding aces before the flop for no reason other than to prove to himself that he could do it, and his celebration of the beauty of the buy-the-button rule.

The tone ranges from grumpy (rant about the stupid "I want to see that hand" rule) to whimsical (stories of animals playing poker) to affectionate (those about his wife, Kay, and his best friend, Alex). Several made me laugh out loud--especially the punchline to a story in which he managed to make Alex positively apoplectic over how Angelo played a tournament hand. Some of them celebrate his best ideas and plays, while in others he pokes fun at his own foibles, such as acting out of turn because he was busy revising an article on the importance of paying attention.

The tales make for light reading--but if you're not careful, he'll slip in a lesson that might help your game, one about strategy or mindset or bankroll management.

I'll list here the handful of flaws I noticed, even though it's nitpicky of me to do so. Once a copy editor, always a copy editor. Besides, I know that Angelo values getting these things right.

• There is a missing quotation mark on page 22, and another on page 90.
• "BBPH," which can stand for several different things depending on context, is an abbreviation or an initialism, not an acronym (page 44), though, to be fair, there is some disagreement on these labels (see here, e.g.).
• On page 104, a question mark should be after the quotation mark, rather than before it.
• Pages 105 and 106 are reversed in order.

That's a pretty small list of pretty minor quibbles, compared to most of the badly edited stuff I read.

A Rubber Band Story is a fun, interesting read, full of amusing stories and unforgettable characters, told in Angelo's distinctive style. If you expect it to be EOP 2 you'll be disappointed. It's not. But accept it for what it is, and I think you'll have a rollicking good time reading it. (Available from Amazon.com here.)

To give you a sample of the tone, I'm going to close this post with some excerpts from my favorite chapter, titled, simply, "Folding," written in 2006:

I played poker for ten years before I discovered folding in 1984. That's when I met Bobby. He had a big belly, a big beard, and a big laugh. Bobby was like Santa Claus, minus the giving. He just kept throwing his hand away, and he didn't seem to mind. Then he would carry the money away, and the players didn't seem to mind.

So I started folding more often, to see what would happen.... It was so new, so exciting. I was high from it, like an explorer.... But it didn't stop there. Oh no. Before long I got hooked on the hard stuff, like folding on the river when I had a good hand.

Soon I went to Vegas. After a week in the desert, I felt like Charles Darwin must have felt on the Galapagos Islands, having traveled to an isolated land, where he found strange new ecosystems populated by bizarre species. What I discovered on Las Vegas Island was that in the poker ecosystem, at the top of the food chain, sat the folders....

I couldn't get over how comfortable the folders were, with all of it, with the folding, with the comments [about their tight play], and they'd just sit there, behind their tall stacks and long smiles, and muck, one more time.

I was like, okay, I see how this works now. It's like a club. The folders club. Well, whatever it was, I wanted in.

After my first taste of big-time folding, I felt that if I could get really good at it, I could quit my job....

By 1990 I was folding enough to support my food and rent habit. This freed up lots of time for more folding....

My path became a gentle incline that coaxed me up to a sunny ledge where I stopped, and sat, and I looked around in wonder, for I could see the top of the mountain far away and high above, and I could see the bottom, waiting for me, should I neglect my folding.

Wild tournament

When I first saw this, I thought it was a joke. But a check of the Riviera poker room's Facebook page and Twitter feed confirm it:

Starting tomorrow night...and continuing throughout the summer on EVERY Monday night...is MONKEY'S MIDNIGHT MADNESS at the Riviera Poker Room. Ready for the details?

Time of tourney: 12:00 midnight.
Entry Fee: $125. $10 add on gets you $2000...all $10 of those dollars WILL go to the dealers.
Bounty: Whack the Monkey...win $100.
Structure: $12,000 chips (with add on) 15 minute levels. Very few levels left out.
Expected time needed to Win: 4 to 5 hours, max.
Rules: NO RULES! I have arranged to have ZERO rules enforced. Showing cards, talking in the hand, offensive language (within reason)...anything goes.
Prize Payout: A very unique 'Winner Take All' format. However...the players will have the right to chop the money any way they can all agree to.
High Hand Drinking Torture: Every orbit...the person with the highest hand...will be required to pound a red snapper (or shot of their choice). A few excuses will be accepted to avoid this. A membership card in AA. The presence of a glucometer (diabetes) or a table side liver dialysis machine (liver failure) would be good examples.
STRIPPERS: The ladies of Vegas who earn their living slip sliding their way up and down poles and not on the felt, will be afforded a complimentary entry. We already have two confirmed entries, as well as one from a porn star. Yup...Kai Landry and I have gone the full distance to make sure all of you late night, poker drunks have everything to make your experience at Monkey's Drunkfest a night to remember.

Source: http://pokermonkeytalk.blogspot.com/2011/06/sundays-monkey-recapxanax-please.html

I can't make up my mind what to think about this. It certainly sounds...interesting.

Question of the day

Who would make the better poker player--Special Agent Seely Booth, or Dr. Temperance Brennan? Booth: Wily, suspicious, ruthless, and psychologically insightful, but emotionally volatile, easily tilted. Brennan: Wicked smart, cool under pressure, unflappable, analytical, calculating, fearless, but with no insight into others' feelings and motivations, uncomfortable using deception.

Discuss.

Non-fans of "Bones" need not apply.

Guess the casino, #880

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

Answer: Monte Carlo

I guess he did a 180

Last September when I played at the Luxor, it had suddenly been renamed the Bruce Buffer Poker Room, and his name was all over everything. See the post I wrote about it here. It was still like that the last time I played there, which was in February.

Today, however, I paid another visit and POOF! Bruce Buffer has vanished from the premises. No dealer t-shirts, no name on the felt, no big-screen TV with a slideshow of his photos, no gift shop, no lounge--nuthin'. Compare these pictures, taken today, with those in that post from September:

What happened?

Bizarre story from the WSOP

Go read it here. "Apollo" is somebody I know personally and trust to be telling the tale accurately and honestly.

Another personal milestone

Last July I related my history of doing Sunday New York Times crossword puzzles, and gradually getting better and better at them. I did that post when I had finally achieved a goal I had set for myself years earlier: Completing one of those puzzles perfectly from start to finish, not a single error along the way.

Since then, though it hasn't become quite routine, I have managed the same feat six additional times. I want to get to the point that it is, in fact, what I can pull off routinely, rather than being the exception. For the last year I have managed it once about every 30 or so puzzles, which means that I fail far more often than I succeed.

This morning, though, I passed my next goalpost: I finished a second perfect one in a row. (They were #134 and #135 from the NYT Sunday Crossword Omnibus 200, Volume 8, to be exact.)

Playing pub trivia a couple of times recently has reminded me acutely how dramatically my ability to recall facts has slowed. I could now only compete on "Jeopardy" if they gave the contestants about five minutes to answer each question. In the face of objective evidence of some declining of mental acuity, it is reassuring to be given this nugget of proof that in at least one area my brain continues to learn and improve.

Another little thrill in my life

In order to understand the photograph that follows, you'll first need to read (or reread) this post from November, 2009: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2009/11/everyday-probability.html.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Done? Good. Now you're prepared to understand why the following otherwise ordinary-appearing package of pills so thrilled me when I discovered it yesterday:

Yes, it's the elusive 1/512 package that by pure chance has all ten pills turned with the same side up.

On the road again

As I was driving to Green Valley Ranch on I-215 yesterday, I was passed by this car. In case you can't see it, the license plate is "BIGSLIK."

Poker gems, #424

Alec Torelli, in Bluff magazine column, June, 2011, page 96, on what American online poker professionals should do now that the game is mostly gone.

The way I see it, when you have nothing to do, you are free to do anything you want!

...Just relax. Take a few breaths. The sun is still going to rise tomorrow. Take some time to be grateful for the countless options you have at your disposal. If poker is something you still fancy, what better opportunity to take advantage of living in Europe and experiencing something totally new? Or if you want to digress, you are free to take that trip you always wanted, learn an instrument or language, write a book, or climb Mount Everest. Remember, the only loss suffered here was monetary. Personally, I'm always comforted to know where the ingredient of money fits into my recipe for happiness, and it's usually no more important than a pinch of salt.

Guess the casino, #879

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

Answer: Hooters

Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt

(Photo from here.)

Last night I had the rare treat of seeing Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt in concert at Green Valley Ranch. The tickets were free, thanks to my House Seats subscription. To be honest, I had somehow never heard of Hiatt, though I did recognize one of the songs he played--the lovely "Have a Little Faith in Me"--maybe from a movie or TV show somewhere. (Now that I'm looking it up, I see that it has been covered by Delbert McClinton and was sung by Jewell in the movie Phenomenon, so I've probably heard it from both sources.) Looking over the basic facts of his career now, I find it remarkable that I had somehow overlooked him.

Lovett, though, I had not overlooked. I have several of his CDs and like them a lot. I enjoy his quirky voice, quirky lyrics ("And if I had a boat, I'd go out on the ocean/And if I had a pony, I'd ride him on my boat"), and quirky synthesis of country, jazz, and blues traditions.

The concert is pure simplicity: Two men, each equipped with a guitar, a microphone, and a chair. That's it. They've been doing these joint recitals for years, and they work splendidly together, with distinct but highly complementary styles. They take turns performing, with a little light banter between songs. Each occasionally does a little backup vocal or guitar, but mostly sit back and yield the stage to the other. It seemed clear that they didn't have a set order of pieces, but played whatever came to mind, triggered by a theme or idea in the other's previous song.

Because the tickets became available only on very short notice, I put out an offer on Twitter to give away the extra one. Good move, me. The call was answered by one "CoolDave88," who turns out to be a reader, a fellow grinder, somebody who had shared the final table of a HORSE tournament with me, and an all-around enjoyable person to get to know. He was a Hiatt fan but had not listened to any of Lovett's stuff, so we came at the concert from opposite perspectives. We each left feeling glad to have been introduced to another interesting artist worth exploring.

The music was marred only by our seats being surrounded by people who seemed to think that we came to listen to them rather than to the performers. They chatted away freely, as if watching television in their living rooms, and sometimes sung along to let everybody else see that they knew the lyrics. It's so annoying how self-absorbed and inconsiderate people can be. A couple of rows back, two guys actually got in a fight over something or other and got hauled out by security.

Also, on our way in, security confiscated the bottle of water I had started drinking while playing in the poker room before heading downstairs to the concert venue. They said that no outside drinks were allowed. I pointed out that this wasn't an "outside" drink, it was a Green Valley Ranch water bottle, given to me just a few minutes earlier by a Green Valley Ranch employee. They were not moved, so I handed it over. I really wanted to ask the goon, "Do you feel good about spending your life harassing people on the enforcement of such idiotic policies?" But I bit my tongue. A stupid bottle of water that I had been given at no cost wasn't worth a confrontation.

Those minor irritations aside, it was a far more pleasant way to spend a couple of hours than sitting at a poker table. If Lovett and Hiatt's show passes your way, you might want to give them a try.

World-class rant

It's Jesse May, on the astonishing incompetence of the Full Tilt Poker PR team.

Key excerpt:

Just take the case of British Petroleum, as an example. BP faded a six billion dollar lawsuit, the wrath of Greenpeace and the US government, the extinction of half of the planet’s ocean wildlife and one of the largest disasters in the history of the universe. They didn’t wait six weeks to release a statement. They didn’t tell the public that they had no idea how they were going to stop the oil. What they did do, and wait for this one, they did the only sensible thing in the circumstances… They BLUFFED!! How is it possible that a poker company, supposedly endorsed and run by the finest poker minds that have ever been produced, couldn’t run a simple bluff for six weeks while they figured out what the hell they were going to do. It’s not rocket science. Smile a few times in public, pay out a couple of the five dollar accounts, let everybody else know the checks are in the mail, grab a photo op next to the Statue of Liberty, send your sponsored pros out on the talk show circuit, villianize the US attorney and run a freaking two barrel bluff like any poker player who’s only just learned the game and is playing 1-2 Hold’em at the Excalibur. How is it possible that these great minds couldn’t just keep a poker face for six damn weeks? How is it possible that at the first sign of opposition they folded, ran, and tried to see if any casino was still cashing Bellagio chips? It’s only a few indictments and a couple of hundred million dollars in frozen assets. If businesses couldn’t bluff their way out of these spots, there’d be no America in the first place.

Guess the casino, #878

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

Answer: Tuscany

Guess the casino, #877

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

Answer: South Point

Decorate your home or office cheap!

My wunnerful and talented girlfriend Cardgrrl has launched her newest project, a baby she's been working on for weeks: It's "Frame This" magazine, each issue to contain 16 lovely photographs ready to cut on the dotted lines and slip into inexpensive 8" x 10" frames. For $20 to her, a few bucks to Ikea or Wal-Mart for frames, and ten minutes of work, you can transform a bare wall or room into something beautiful to look at. No subscription or other commitment required.

I am, as always, just absurdly proud of her.

Guess the casino, #876

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

Answer: Mirage

The future of online poker funding?

See here.

It's an introduction to Bitcoin, which seems to me like a revolutionary means of conducting online financial transactions. They are anonymous, secure, untraceable, and immune to being regulated, investigated, or blocked by any governmental agency. They do not go through or rely on any existing bank or other financial institution.

In theory, anyway, this obviously solves a lot of the legal and practical problems that bedevil online gaming these days. I've read Bitcoin's FAQ, but I'm still pretty murky on a lot of the operational details, so don't submit comments asking me to elucidate how coins are generated, etc.

The system is clearly not ready to be adopted to online poker right now, if only because the amounts available are small. It looks to me like there's no way they can handle transactions worth the equivalent of thousands of dollars each, which would be necessary. But the idea is interesting and exciting. It could well be that, if not Bitcoin per se, some larger, better implementation of the same general concept will someday rise as the online currency of choice. If that day comes, then there won't be a damn thing that meddlers like Bill Frist and Preet Bharara can do about it.

Guess the casino, #875

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

Answer: Harrah's