What's done is done

As I've mentioned previously (http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/07/hopelatrons-and-seeing-future-non.html), I think Phil Laak is one of the most interesting professional players to watch and read about. But though he's smart and, for the most part, highly rational, he occasionally reveals bits of unexpected irrationality.*

On an episode of "Cash Poker," (from which the above screenshot is taken), Phil initially limps in, along with several others. Then a player behind him puts in a large raise. Phil folds, as does the player on his left. Phil then says to the other guy who folded, "This is where you pray the flop doesn’t connect you, now that you’ve folded. This is the time for a small prayer."

I've heard this sort of comment many times before. For example, players are raising and re-raising each other before the flop, and a third player drops out of the action after the bets get too high for him. The two remaining players both get it all in, and the last one who folded announces that he mucked pocket 7s, and says, "Dealer, don't you dare put another 7 out there on the flop." Sometimes, when there is betting yet to come after the flop, a player who folds to a raise will not declare what he had, but will still give a generic warning to the dealer: "You had better not put out the cards that would make my hand."

This is insane! After you've folded, it can't possibly make any difference to you what community cards get revealed. A decision to call or fold before the flop isn't made retroactively correct or incorrect based on what three cards the dealer puts out. It was correct or incorrect based on the strength of the starting hand, your position, the number of opponents, your table image, your read on opponents' strength, the size of the pot, the size of the raise, and a myriad of other factors. But what happens after the point at which you have to make the decision is utterly irrelevant to any rational assessment of whether the decision to fold was correct.

I assume that Phil's implication is that if cards come on the flop that would have made him a powerful hand, had he stayed in, he will regret his decision to fold. That's ludicrous. Why would you chide yourself for not taking into account information that is unavailable at the time you had to decide what to do? Would you pride yourself on being a great player if you called a big raise with 7-2 and the flop was 2-2-7? I should hope not. So then how can it make sense to kick yourself for folding the 2-7 when that flop hits?

It's perfectly natural to see a flop that would have turned a garbage hand into a stealth monster and think something like, "I wish I could have my cards back." But you know that isn't how the game is played, so you shrug your shoulders and let it go.

(You might also take the opportunity to look back at your decision to fold and re-evaluate whether it was the smartest move, given the information you had at the time--not given what the flop was. The reason this is smart is that, if you conclude again that it was the right play, you can give yourself a little mental pat on the back to counteract what might otherwise be the insidious tendency to remember the 2-2-7 flop the next time you look down at 7-2, and play it in the futile hope of history repeating itself. I find that reassuring myself that my fold was correct helps neutralize any temporary sting of regret that I feel when the would-have-been miracle flop comes.)

However natural it is to feel a momentary twinge of regret for the mathematically and strategically correct fold that, in retrospect, would have been a lucky spot for an unorthodox pre-flop call, it strikes me as completely ridiculous to think--let alone say out loud--that you hope the flop isn't one that would have helped you. What, you can't handle that twinge of remorse, so you have to pray, beg, and threaten the dealer that circumstances don't come up that will cause you to feel it? That's just childish. Grow up already.

When I was in fifth grade, our class learned and performed a highly abbreviated (like, 30 minutes, I think) version of Shakespeare's "MacBeth." It was a great experience for me, especially since I landed the title role. I've never forgotten many of the lines I had to memorize back then, even though it has now been about 35 years.

After MacBeth has murdered King Duncan, in order to assume the throne himself, he is tormented by guilt. His wife, Lady MacBeth, says to him (Act 3, Scene 2),

How now, my lord! why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on? Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done is done.

Even more famously, later Lady MacBeth herself becomes unhinged, and starts sleepwalking, reliving in her dreams the night that she pressed MacBeth to kill the king in his sleep (Act 5, Scene 1):

To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate:
come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's
done cannot be undone.—To bed, to bed, to bed!

You can't go back and unfold your hand. You can't make your decision whether to play based on what the unknowable flop is going to be. Therefore, it's silly to anguish over having made a correct decision. It's even sillier, in anticipation of such regret, to make threats or propitiations in an attempt to prevent seeing a flop that will trigger such anguish. It is a "thing without all remedy," and "should be without regard."

Regular readers know by now that I'm not particularly keen on the idea that prayers at the poker table are of any efficacy. (See http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/07/mr-destiny.html and http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-on-religion-at-poker-table.html.) As irrational and embarrassing as I think it is to offer up prayers to try to affect the outcome of a hand that one is in, it is ten times more foolish to offer them up to try to affect the outcome of a hand that one has already exited.


*I'm obviously aware that he's eccentric and does strange things. Some of that, I'm sure, is for show, and some is just his oddball personality. But peculiarity does not equal irrationality, and here I'm only talking about the latter trait.

Eric Doore is a doofus

I've been watching episodes of "Cash Poker: The Ultimate Gamble." In the one I just saw, we have a new player, introduced as Eric Doore. I've never heard of him before, and can't find anything about him with a Google search. Here's what I know: He came to a televised poker game wearing a big fish hat. Not a fishing hat, but a fish hat.

I assume he thinks this is funny. Maybe his closest friends think it's funny. But it's not. It's just stupid. It is "extra double super loathsome." (See http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/11/poker-gems-48.html.)

I realize that his purpose was primarily to garner attention, and that now I've given him more of it. Given the sparseness of web references to him, this post may quickly become the first Google hit when searching for his name. Fine. Let the world know that he's a doofus.

The only good thing that came out of this was the announcer's closing line for the episode: "A $27,000 pot being pushed to a man with a fish on his head will end this session of Cash Poker."

I joke around a lot, and I'm not always serious in my posturing and outrage over stuff. But let me be competely serious here. Dude, this is just bad taste by every possible measure. Really. No, I'm not kidding. It's dreadful. Deplorable. You look like an idiot. You make everybody at the table look like idiots for sitting down with you. You make the show's producers look like idiots.

Now, if you're already pretty well known in the poker community, and you make a silly prop bet--picking random examples, that the loser has to show up for the WSOP wearing a superhero costume (http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/pokerblog/archives/002920.php) or a bear costume with a diaper (http://www.pokervoice.com/pics/bearnappy.jpg) --OK, so be it. But if this is the way you decide to introduce yourself to the poker world, then you're just a creepy, pathetic loser.

While I'm on the subject, a few words about "Cash Poker." It's a syndicated show (translation: not even the most desperate cable networks would pick it up) that tries to copy the success of GSN's "High Stakes Poker," but misses in every possible way. They have mostly mediocre players playing a boring, mediocre game. The usual commentator, Brian Mollica, is mostly intolerable, sounding like a Saturday Night Live parody of the worst poker-show host ever. (The show had one bright spot, when Barry Greenstein came along as a guest co-host, and inserted thoughtful commentary.) He's not funny, not particularly insightful, and annoys me by trying to use exaggerated voice inflection to make the most mundane things sound exciting. "Brandon Adams picks up a PAIR OF EIGHTS!!! WOW!!!" Give it a rest, pal.

Here's another example of the wonderful commentary you get with this program. Kristy Gazes (http://www.kristygazes.com/) was a guest co-host for Episode 5. In one hand, Todd Brunson removes his baseball cap just before betting. Gazes says, “That’s a nice bet, and he took off his hat. I don’t know if I like that, superstitious-wise. He took it off in the middle of a hand. That might go against him this hand. I’m just saying for all you luck fiends out there like myself.” Brilliant, Kristy, just brilliant. First there are the grammatical gaffs. "Superstitious-wise"? "Like myself"? ("Like me" would be the correct construction there.) Really--you might try learning the language before taking on another hosting job. But even overlooking that, do you seriously believe that whether a player doffs or dons a hat in the middle of a hand affects whether he will win it? What is your IQ--12? That's the kind of cutting-edge poker analysis this show gives its viewers.

The production values are about what you'd expect from a high school class putting together their first experimental show as they learn how to use video equipment. The table they're using sounds like it's made of metal every time chips get tossed on it. The table chat is inane. The hostess, Brandi Williams, is unbearably dumb. I actually attended a taping of one of the episodes at Binion's back in February, and it was just as boring live as it is on TV.

Oh, and did I mention that they let players on wearing fish hats?

I hear that the show got cancelled after its first season. The world will not miss it.