What's the explanation?

Take a look at the first few minutes of Monday's "Poker After Dark" here. At about the 2:25 mark, we start listening in on a conversation between Jean-Robert Bellande and Mike Matusow, talking about a previous hand. The details of the hand don't matter; just listen to Matusow explaining what he was thinking. It goes something like this:

Bellande: I would have snap-folded.

Matusow: I wouldn't have. I thought it was weak. Or strong. I wasn't sure.

I see. So you thought it was either weak or strong. Wow. I wish I had such masterful hand-reading skills.

Continuing our eavesdropping:

Bellande: What are you talking about?

Matusow: I thought at the river we were going to find out if it was weak or strong.

Bellande: It looked like he was begging for a raise. It was just like, mmm, just please, there it is. Raise me. Reraise me.

Matusow: Well, that's why I was shocked when he, I thought he was gonna bet big on the river. I thought it was like I've got three queens.

Bellande: 9800 into a 42,000 pot.

Matusow: That's why I was expecting a big bet out of Phil on the river.

I have posted before about an episode of "High Stakes Poker" in which Matusow's explanation of what he was thinking during a hand was utterly incoherent. This is another example. First he says that he interpreted Hellmuth's small bet as weak. Then he seems to be attacked by a fit of uncertainty and changes it to being either weak or strong. Then, when Bellande scoffs at the possibility that the bet represented weakness, Matusow is suddenly a convert, retrospectively confident that the bet represented strength, which, he asserts, is why he was expecting Phil to follow it up with a big bet.

I'm completely baffled by this. Remember, Matusow isn't explaining what he now thinks Hellmuth had, but is explaining what he was thinking as the hand played out. If he were just arguing with Bellande about what Hellmuth most likely held, then it's perfectly understandable that he might change his mind in the face of Bellande making an argument for a different idea. But what he was thinking at a particular moment in the past cannot change.

It's possible, as I assumed with the previous example, that Matusow's thoughts are so jumbled and incoherent that he honestly doesn't know what he was thinking even a few seconds ago, so an honest explanation of the state of his thoughts can shift fluidly.

But after watching this clip several times, noticing his facial expressions and body language, and listening to his tone of voice, I think there's a better explanation: He's lying.

His first sentence, "I thought it was weak," was the truth. But he quickly realizes that perhaps that was wrong and, if so, he might look foolish for saying it, so he amends it by adding, "or strong," thus covering all the bases. Then when Bellande belittles the notion that Hellmuth was weak, it suddenly becomes more important to Matusow not to lose face than to provide a faithful recounting of what he had been thinking, and he goes to some trouble to revise history in such a way that he will be seen to be in agreement with Bellande.

It seems completely outside of Matusow's capacity to say, "You know, as it was happening, I really did think the bet represented weakness, but you make a good point, and in retrospect maybe I was wrong."

Matusow is hardly alone here. It seems to be a common malady among poker players to want other players to perceive them as having figured out the puzzle that every hand provides. It seems that after every big pot, when the hands are revealed, somebody will claim, "I knew what he had."

Of course that's a lie, or at least a gross overstatement, every time. One never knows what another player has, short of seeing the cards. One might achieve a feeling of a high degree of certitude, but I'm sure we've all had the experience of feeling extremely confident about what another player's down cards are, only to be surprised when they are finally shown. Nobody ever says "I knew he had aces" after the guy shows jacks.

Of more relevance to my argument here, however, is noting that there is only one reason for such crowing: The crow wants the other players to believe he's a poker genius. What other motive could there possibly be for making such an announcement? Maybe I should refer to that kind of player as a peacock rather than a crow, because the bragging resembles an attempt at a gaudy display of feathers.

Whenever I hear somebody claiming to have known what another player's cards were, I have two instant, automatic thoughts: (1) Yeah, sure you knew, buddy. (2) There's somebody to whom it is very important to be thought well of by a bunch of strangers. Poor guy to be a slave to the opinions of every random person he meets.

I don't suppose I'm entirely immune from impulses like that, but I'm glad that they are mostly of such low force that they don't surface. (After all, a guy who routinely goes out in public in a 20-year-old car, a wrinkled shirt, a fanny pack, and a three-day beard is hardly showing desperation to garner the world's approval.) There are only a few people whose opinion of me generally, or of my poker playing specifically, really matters to me, and they are almost never the ones gathered around the table. If somebody thinks I'm an idiot and a bad player, fine, I don't care, and, moreover, I'll try to find a way to use that impression against him.

Anyway, I'm opening the door to a somewhat different understanding of Matusow's contradictory claims. I'm now thinking that they may be the result of a desperate desire for others' approval instead of (or in addition to) being the result of thought processes that are actually as disorganized as a literal interpretation would suggest.

Confidential to Mike Matusow

The next time they invite you to go on "Poker After Dark," where they use these things called hole-card cameras, you might consider washing your hands and cleaning under your fingernails first.

Addendum

There's a Twitter bot called "Pokerize" that automatically sends a Tweet with the title of any new blog posts I put up. Apparently Mike saw his name that way, read the post, and replied: "for all u idiots that play only online poker its called real poker where you get green on hands from felt #morons"

P L...No

I've been enjoying watching the pot-limit Omaha cash game on NBC's "Poker After Dark" this week. I had also noticed Pokerati's announcement that its regular $1/2 mixed NLHE/PLO Thursday night game had found a new home at the Palms, after some time at Hard Rock and then Aria. That was largely the reason that I chose Palms for my home last night--to at least watch that game for a while and see if it was something I might want to try one of these days.

My only experience with PLO has been as part of an 8-game mix online in low-stakes tournaments. I've also read Jeff Hwang's PLO strategy columns in Card Player magazine for a year or so. But that little bit of education and experience isn't a lot to go on. Wednesday night, anticipating that I might want to try to play in the Pokerati game, I jumped on PokerStars to give it a try. I was playing only $0.05/0.10, buying in for only $10, yet I lost three buy-ins in less than 30 minutes. Ouch! Welcome to reality.

That was enough to make me think twice about the wisdom of playing in a live PLO cash game; I really just don't have enough experience or strategic handle on the game to make it a smart move. But I succumbed to temptation nevertheless, and moved to that table from my $1/3 NLHE game when they were ready to start.

The outcome was fully predictable: I lost my buy-in. I was largely card-dead, and nearly every one of my few good starting hands hit me when I was severely out of position, and somehow managed to completely miss the flops.

But it wasn't a complete loss: (1) I had fun. (2) It was an interesting diversion from my usual poker fare. (3) I got to meet (finally!) Dan from Pokerati, as well as Don, who is the partner of Stacey Lynn at Las Vegas Poker Source. (4) I was reminded of the general wisdom of sticking to games and situations in which I have reason to think that I'm playing with an edge over my opponents, which was most certainly not the case last night. (My only "edge" was that I seemed to be the only one at the table capable of memorizing four cards and thus not having to recheck them a dozen times during the course of a hand. C'mon, folks--it's not that difficult!)

PLO is an interesting and challenging game. Many are of the opinion that it's on its way to supplanting NLHE as "the next big thing" in poker. Whether that's true or not, it's almost surely the case that there are many hold'em players who are getting tired of playing 2-card poker, find that PLO is an attractive next game to try, don't know how to adjust their strategies and expectations properly, and thus are easy pickings for more skilled players. I'd like to be among those able to take advantage of that situation for however long it lasts.

But I need both more solid theoretical grounding and practical (and cheap) experience before I do more than dipping my toe in those exciting but dangerous waters.

I'm suspicious

I just watched the newest episode of High Stakes Poker. Something I've been noticing this season, the first season they've been at the Bellagio, is that the famous fountains seem to be running continuously, as seen through the window.

I'm calling shenanigans.

First, I doubt that the set is in a room that just happens to be facing out on the fountains. I don't know a whole lot about television production, but I would think that actual glass windows would cause all sorts of problems--reflections from the bright studio lights, changing outside light conditions, odd things going on the background, unappealing-looking weather, etc.

Second, the Bellagio fountain shows run for about three minutes, every 15 or 30 minutes, depending on the day and time. Even at peak hours, then, they're running only about 20% of the time. But on the show, they're dancing at least 80% of the time.

I think that the "windows" are actually a screen on which is being back-projected a continuous loop of footage of the dancing fountains. Or perhaps they're added digitally in post to a green screen.

While I'm at it, last week was a new batch of "Poker After Dark," and I noticed that the pile of cash they occasionally show in the foreground as part of the set looks like bundles of fake $100 bills. Not much detail is shown, but just inside the portrait oval the shading is much darker than it is on real $100s. I suspect they are using the same movie-prop fakes that the World Poker Tour does (see here and here).

Is nothing real anymore?

PAD annoyances

I just finished watching last week's "Poker After Dark" episodes. It's the first time I have downloaded and watched them in high definition, which was nice. People look different in hi-def, that's for sure. Other good things about the week were that it was a cash game (usually more interesting than tournaments), they had on two players I've never seen on TV before (Greg "FBT" Mueller and Olivier Busquet), and Eli Elezra and David "Viffer" Peat drove some crazy-diseased action.

But there were three things that kept annoying me through all five installments. In ascending order of irritation:

3. Helicoptering

For some reason, every time Mueller mucks his cards he does so by lofting them in a high, twirling arc. I see this frequently in the games I play, done by rank amateurs who don't know any better. It usually stops pretty fast after once or twice I tell the dealer that he or she needs to expose one of the cards to the table because I saw what it was when it was in the air. Dealers get annoyed at having to do that, and ask the player to knock it off. It's one of many bad habits people develop in casual home games and inappropriately bring to the casinos.

Mueller is a long-time, experienced pro. How can he not know that this bit of silliness frequently exposes one or both cards, and thus potentially affects the subsequent action?


2. Like it--or not

It's been about 30 years since the "Valley Girl" phenomenon introduced the use of the word "like" as a meaningless verbal tic, and, sadly, ever since then a large percentage of children, teens, and young adults have been infected by this terrible virus. I have heard some astonishing examples of likeorrhea (yes, I just made up that word) before, but I think that Peat's case is worse than any I have encountered before. It's incredibly jarring and annoying to listen to. Do these people not ever monitor their speech, and hear how stupid they sound? It got so bad that even Ali Nejad started making fun of him.


1. Laak-down poker

But the hands-down, far and away most annoying aspect of the week's shows was, well, basically everything about Phil Laak. Normally I like him a lot. I enjoy his stories, games, and prop bets. I'm amused by his quirky observations about poker, life, science, philosophy, investing, or whatever else is on his mind. But this week he was completely out of control. He had been drinking enough that his speech was slurring--something I've never seen in any of his countless previous TV appearances. He even admitted (rather confusingly) at one point, "Libations have inflected me a little bit."

He just Would. Not. Shut. Up. It was five hours of constant, non-stop, stream-of-consciousness verbal babbling. No mental filter, just free expression of every thought that was crossing through his mind. Peat once even begged for somebody to bring a muzzle for Phil.

But it wasn't just his talk. His ethanol-induced disinhibition spread to his conduct. He was obviously irritating the others at the table as well as the viewers. Here, for example, he gets into a wrestling match with Peat:




Then, a few seconds later, he pushes all of Peat's chip stacks over into a mess:



His poker was horrendous, too. He definitely does not play better drunk. He was playing stupidly and losing badly. He frequently lost track of whose turn it was, who was in the hand, what the action was, etc.

I guess I'm glad that he's a happy drunk instead of an angry drunk, but for entertainment purposes, a smart, sharp, sober Laak is a lot more fun to watch than the inebriated version. When he's not drinking, he's funny, interesting, one-of-a-kind. When he's drinking, he's just one big heap of annoying in every possible way.

At least he's educably retarded

Since the last time I saw him play the Mighty Deuce-Four on TV, Tom Dwan has clearly picked up some pointers--here forcing Phil Ivey to fold. (A 5 was coming on the river, obviously.)

Not as simple as it looks

My favorite magicians, Penn and Teller, have for decades had in their act a routine in which Teller does something that looks simple, but is actually difficult and intricate. He appears to crush out a cigarette, take out another and light it. But what's actually going on is a complex series of sleight-of-hand moves. Take a look:





I was reminded of this just now when watching Wednesday's Poker After Dark. Tom Dwan has A-5 and raises. Phil Galfond reraises with A-K. Dwan calls. The flop is 9-2-3. Galfond bets. Dwan raises all-in. Galfond tanks for about 30 seconds, then settles on a call. (You can watch the hand play out here; it's Wednesday's segment 3.)

We have all seen a zillion calls that superficially resemble this. Most of them come from bad players. Their thought process is no deeper than approximately this: "I have ace-king. I'm not getting many good hands. He might be bluffing. I think I have to go for it."

I think we can safely assume that Galfond's thought process was vastly more complex and nuanced. He knows Dwan's play very, very well, as they have played against each other for countless hours. He knows that Dwan has the positional advantage and a big chip lead in the tournament, and deduces that Dwan will be using those factors to force Galfond to difficult decisions. He obviously knows that it's possible that Dwan has a monster hand, such as a flopped set, or even a medium-strength hand such as A-9 for top pair/top kicker. But he runs some quick estimates about Dwan's range, how often he is bluffing with complete air, takes into consideration that it's a winner-take-all format (which requires taking more chances), checks the size of the pot and his stack, perhaps stares deep into Dwan's soul, and the end result of crunching all of that information is a conclusion that a call is a worthwhile gamble--paying off often enough to be worth going broke if he's wrong.

What I find fascinating is that the call made by the fishy amateur and the one made by the top pro look externally identical, but there is almost no similarity at all in what is actually taking place inside their heads. One is flailing wildly, with more hope than sense. The other is drawing upon his years of experience, his memory of the thousands of hands he has played against this opponent, the facts of the specific situation, some complicated math, and an incredibly well-honed intuition, using it all as inputs for a black-box algorithm so complex that the best poker software in existence would not be able to replicate it.

When you make a call for all your chips with ace-high, which thought process would we see if we could look inside your head?

Who's the real devil?

If you read much from the bunch of poker bloggers that cover the World Series of Poker, you've probably heard about the guy that several of them refer to as "The Devil." He pops up in the blogs after doing something new to freak out the writers--especially Otis and Pauly. For prominent examples, see here and here. He confirmed his demonic status with the believers this summer by getting Table 66, Seat 6, in a WSOP event. The date was 6/6. You have probably seen the guy (briefly) on television: He has discovered that ESPN will put him in the beginning of the first Main Event show if he bangs a pair of cymbals to start off the event. And you thought the devil only played the violin.

James Akenhead, though, is conceding the title to nobody. On Monday night's "Poker After Dark," a flop of 6-6-6 got him talking about some of the stranger points of his life. First, he was born at 6:00 on 6/6. But wait, there's more!

I came second last year in Event #2, and that took all my prize money, my
total prize money, to 666,000. Two days later, on my birthday, I cashed in the
2K at Bellagio, and that took me to 666th in all-time money winners.

He goes on to report that the day before the taping he had played a sit-and-go at the Venetian, and was assigned to Table 66, Seat 6. In London, at the World Series-Europe, he says, he was in Seat 6 and won 66,600 pounds.

So bang away at your cymbals, fake Poker Satan. The real Prince of Poker Darkness sits in London, ready to claim your soul for having the impunity to impersonate him.

Dwan vs. Hellmuth

Well worth watching, IMO.

Next best

I'm watching a "Poker After Dark" cash game from June that I had not previously seen. Phil Laak starts with 8h-9h, flops trips, turns a full house. Phil Hellmuth calls Laak's ever-larger bets on every street, including $22,200 on the river, losing something like $37,000 on the hand--with ace high.

After stewing for a few minutes, Hellmuth finally mutters, "I should have played back, actually."

At this, Gus Hansen pipes up: "Well, at least you found the second-best option."

New nickname for Matusow

I'm watching this week's "Poker After Dark." In Wednesday's first segment, Jean-Robert Bellande is short-stacked and moves all-in with K-Q offsuit. He is called by Mike Matusow, with 10-10. Bellande catches a queen on the flop, but Matusow hits his two-outer on the river for trips.

As you may know, for the past couple of years Matusow has been on a "positive thinking" kick. From various interviews and on-camera statements during televised tournaments, it's clear that he really, sincerely, genuinely believes that keeping his thoughts positive affects for the better not just his decision-making, but how the cards come.

You all know by now how I feel about this kind of hooey, don't you? If not, go here to read what I wrote about Jason Alexander, and here to read what I wrote about Shannon Elizabeth, both of whom have publicly espoused similar nutty ideas about poker.

Want to see how stupid this crap is? Consider how it has affected Matusow. Upon seeing that lucky river card, he tells Bellande, "Now you just lost to a guy who hasn't won a coin flip in the last 30 coin flips, and was sitting there expecting to lose."

I see. So that positive thinking is pulling in great results, eh? The outcome of the channeling of your mental energies has been that you now win 1 out of 31 of your 50/50 propositions. Wow. Yeah, that's how I want my tossups to turn out, so, sure, sign me up for this awesome program that you've embraced. I wants me some results like that!

Matusow continues uninterrupted: "But, see, I stayed quiet and stayed positive."

Uh, OK. So you were sitting there "expecting to lose" while you "stayed positive." The man is so stupid he can't even utter two sentences in a row without contradicting himself.

Want another example? On this week's "High Stakes Poker," he and Daniel Negreanu both move all-in on the flop. Negreanu has an overpair--tens--while Matusow has Ac-Qc, for two overcards and the nut flush draw. Matusow says to somebody (not clear who he is addressing), "That's the worst hand he could have had." That's actually about right, given how the betting went. OK so far.

But Negreanu hears that comment and asks, "You're upset I called, Mike?" Matusow replies, "No. I knew what you had. I thought you had nines."

Right. So first you say that pocket tens was the worst hand that Negreanu could have had to make the all-in call. Then you say that you knew what he had (tens). Then you say that you thought he had nines.

It gets better. When the hand ends, they cut to an interview with Matusow conducted later, in which Kara Scott asks him his thoughts during the hand. He says that when Negreanu called his pre-flop raise, "I at this point for sure put him on tens or jacks, maybe even queens. I was hoping it wasn't queens."

So let me get this straight. You were "sure" that he had tens or jacks. Unless he had queens. Or unless he had the nines that you thought he had. But you "knew" what he had.

Matusow, do you even have enough brains to realize how idiotic you are?

Matusow is such a dunderhead that I propose dropping his nickname. I shall no longer refer to him as Mike "The Mouth" Matusow, but instead as Mike "The Moron" Matusow.

Small talk

I'm about eight minutes into last night's "Poker After Dark," and it's already driving me crazy.

The theme for the week is "He Said, She Said." They have gathered players who are known for being chatty. Here's how NBC's web site describes the concept: "It’s another battle of the sexes this week on Poker After Dark as three men well-known for their gift of gab in Jean-Robert Bellande, David Grey, and Mike Matusow take on three ladies also known to be chatty at the table in Erica Schoenberg, Karina Jett, and Annie Duke."

It didn't take long for the verbal cacophony to begin. As I said, just a few minutes along I'm already sick of it. There are routinely four people talking at once, with, obviously, nobody really listening. They're talking about stupid stuff that nobody could possibly really want to hear about: the weather, housing prices, Florida's poker scene, where somebody might move to, food eaten on a recent trip, blah, blah, blah.

No matter how long I live, I will never grasp some people's propensity to say whatever comes into their little peabrains, without stopping to consider whether anybody is listening, or whether anybody will find it interesting or amusing. What kind of massively distorted ego does it take for such people to think that every thought they have will be of interest to anybody who happens to be sitting within earshot? Put a bunch of these clucking hens (and roosters) together, and they're each in their own little worlds, yakking away mindlessly, paying no attention to what anybody else is doing or saying. Very few things are more perfectly tailored to drive me straight up the wall.

You know how annoying it is to spend any amount of time near one of those little dogs that's yapping away non-stop? Put six of them together, and that's how grating this week's PAD guests are to my ears.

Years ago I was in marriage counseling with my ex-wife. After a few sessions, from out of the blue, our counselor asked me, "Do you get more easily distracted by noises than by visual things?" It was a question I hadn't considered in exactly that way before, but the answer was an obvious yes. She had guessed that just based on some other personality traits of mine, which she later explained tended to be correlated with easy aural distractability. I have not looked into the subject since then, but I'm frequently reminded of it. Have you noticed how in my reviews of poker rooms I will mention, prominently and near the beginning, my impressions of how smoky and noisy it is? Both of those things matter a lot to me, though for completely different reasons. I hate cigarette smoke, and I hate being constantly bombarded with noise, whether of human or mechanical origin.

You may be fascinated by the sound of your own voice, no matter how devoid of content your speech is. I am not. Spare me.

I would genuinely, seriously rather watch a week of poker from a silent bunch. Give me John Juanda, Allen Cunningham, Chris Ferguson, etc. Give me people who make some minimal effort to have something interesting, witty, and/or otherwise worthwhile to say before they open their big fat mouths. I don't think I'm going to be able to tolerate five hours of the current crew of idiotic chatters.

Class, or lack thereof

I'm watching the second week of NBC's heads-up poker championship. I was impressed with Orel Hershiser's grace in his exit interview after losing to Annette Obrestad: "I knew I was behind the whole way as far as intelligence and ability in the whole match, so I was always gonna look for a place where maybe I was 55/45 dog but I could get a shot at least at making her fold. She didn't fold. She had the better hand and she's the better player."

I love how Obrestad beams in reaction to those kind words:




She returns the graciousness (after being forced to admit, a bit sheepishly, that she has never seen a baseball game and hadn't known who Hershiser was coming into the event): "I thought he played extremely well and I felt like I was getting run over for most of the match, I wasn't getting any hands, and then, y'know, things kept going my way at the end, and I think I was just lucky to win."

Let's compare that little festival of politeness with how Phil Hellmuth went out after a prolonged heads-up battle with Jens Voertmann on last week's "Poker After Dark." He does the obligatory, "Good game, man," with a handshake, but then says, "Four fucking races in a row," before Leeann Tweeden gets over to him for the formal interview:

"He gave me all his money with king-eight. He just gave me fifty, sixty thousand. He had 9000 left, so I know it's, I mean, I know I'm gonna win, but I'm gonna have to just continue to play my best poker. And then he had 6-7 and I had Q-2, and he won that...and then I had him all in again and he won that, and he had me all-in one time and he won that. He won four races in a row after giving me all his chips. I mean, I feel like, uh, I feel like it wasn't, y'know, thank God it's not a World Series of Poker tournament.... It just doesn't feel fair to me. But he played good."

I thought that Voertmann was impressive throughout, clearly outplaying Hellmuth, with the exception of the one major misstep where he first lost the chip lead. He also remained above the fray, never resorting to insults or negativity in reaction to Phil's insults and tirades. He continued that pattern in his interview: "First of all, for me it feels fair. Phil, of course, is a very good player." At this point, Hellmuth interrupts: "It feels fair? Wanna play again for $100,000?" Voertmann just laughs that off and continues: "If I would say anything against Phil, it would be ridiculous. So many bracelets, he's a great player, famous player, and so I wouldn't say anything else." He goes into some detail about what his thinking was in the hand in which he lost the chip lead, then concludes, "I was wrong, I lost that hand, but at the end I was lucky."

Four players, three showing class in either victory or defeat.

And then there's Phil.

The cruelest game

Warning: Contains spoilers.

On this week's "Poker After Dark," four qualifiers (two of whom are actually professional players, but not well known) are taking on Phil Hellmuth and Chris Ferguson, the latter of which was the first one to be eliminated.

In a hand last night, the two shortest remaining stacks belong to Craig Ivey and Steve Bartlett. Each of them has a suited ace and ships it in. Hellmuth looks at 8c-3c and folds:




The first cruelty is that they both flop two pair:



Bartlett is reduced to one out. Only the 8 of hearts can save him now.

So what comes?



His 8s full of aces can now only be topped if Ivey catches one of the two remaining queens, or the sole remaining ace.

So what happens?




If the producers were to stack the deck so as to produce maximum drama and maximum pain for both players, that's how they'd do it.

Steam coming out of the ears

If, like me, you enjoy watching Phil Hellmuth boast about being the best in the world and then get his face rubbed in doggie doo, I highly recommend watching this "Poker After Dark" segment, particularly the two consecutive hands between Hellmuth and Brandon Adams, starting at about the 7:00 mark. Hilarity definitely ensues.

Vengeance is mine, saith Jesus

Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
--Romans 12:19, King James Version


Warning: Contains spoilers.


Last night's "Poker After Dark," a cash game, contained what was for me one of the most emotionally satisfying hands of televised poker I've ever seen. You can watch it here.

The background is crucial. At the beginning of the first installment Monday, everybody wanted to play the 7-2 bounty game: if you win a hand with 7-2 in the hole, everybody else pays you $500. Chris Ferguson was the only holdout, so it was not on. Mike Matusow was outraged at this refusal. He harped on it repeatedly, calling Ferguson the biggest nit of all time, and so on. His haranguing was so intense and prolonged that it became seriously uncomfortable for me to watch. It was way, way beyond a friendly needle between colleagues. Ferguson politely explained a couple of times that he wasn't comfortable with the game because he had never played it and hadn't had a chance to think through what strategic adjustments might be called for. He even tried a compromise, agreeing to play if they would lower the bounty amount to $200. The others thought that smaller amount would not make it worthwhile. After these responses failed to shut Matusow up, Ferguson just sat there and took the verbal abuse without replying further.

But then on Friday's show, he got his chance to stick it to Matusow. Matusow open-raised with A-8. Ferguson reraised with 7-2. Matusow called. Ferguson then proceeded to bet every street with complete air. Finally, Matusow was faced with a $12,000 bet on the river, holding top and bottom pair. But, as Ali Nejad explained in his voiceover commentary, the only hand in Ferguson's typical pre-flop reraising range that Matusow could now beat was A-K. (You might add K-K to that, though with that hand and an ace on the flop it seems less likely that Ferguson would continue to fire both the turn and river after being called.) A-A and Q-Q would have made sets; any hand with a jack in it would all have made a straight; A-Q and A-10 would have a higher two pair.

Matusow goes into the tank and is obviously having an agonizing decision:




Finally, though, he reluctantly folds.

Ferguson shows the bluff and, to stick the needle in a little further, says, "I really like this 7-2 game."




He is visibly pleased with himself:




The other players find considerable humor in the situation:




Well, all except one, that is:




After that, Matusow, who has, as usual, been chatting up a storm, becomes noticeably more quiet for the rest of the show.

I love, love, love this. On the most basic level, Ferguson takes advantage of his tight reputation to pull a fast one and win a pot that he could not otherwise take. But it's patently obvious that he chose this particular situation because of the specific cards he held, the specific opponent he was facing, and the history of what had transpired earlier in the filming day.

He could have justifiably gotten angry at Matusow's relentless taunting--which really was over the top. Ferguson's IQ is probably, oh, I dunno, about 200 points higher than Matusow's, and he has just as great an edge in verbal fluency, should he choose to get into a war of words. But he didn't. He held his tongue, and instead waited for his chance to reply in the language of poker, which proved to be far more eloquent and effective than any verbal retort he could have contrived.

I'd like to think that I would handle the situation the same way--don't try to sink to the needler's level and get into a pissing contest. Instead, keep quiet and just outplay him. After all, taking his money is ultimately a lot more satisfying than getting the most clever rejoinder in could ever be. If you happen to get a chance to rub his face in your win a bit, well, that's icing on the cake.

Nh, wp, sir!

Hypocrites R Us

When I watched the third season (the first one that I had seen) of "Full Tilt Poker's Million-Dollar Cash Game," one of the little incidents that stood out for me was Phil Ivey snapping at Mike Matusow because Matusow folded out of turn. He explained that he didn't know that the other player was still in, because his cards were partially hidden by his chips. Phil chided him for not knowing who was in, and claimed that he always knows who's in a hand with him. (Sorry, but it's too much work to go back through all 12 or so hour-long episodes trying to find this moment and give you the exact details and quotations.)

I thought this was dubious. Nobody can fail to make this mistake once in a while. I just don't think it's possible to maintain perfect focus forever. Particularly with Phil always watching sports, keeping track of prop bets about the flop cards, etc., I didn't believe him when he said that he always knew who was in or out of a hand.

Just now while eating lunch I was watching "Poker After Dark," which is a rerun this week, but one I haven't seen before. It's "Top Guns II," Tuesday's installment (when they do reruns, the entire week is available all at once), segment 4. In the screen shot above, you can see Ivey attempting to either call or raise a bet. But it's not his turn. Action is on Howard Lederer, immediately to Ivey's right. You can see the alert dealer's hand as she tries to wave Ivey off, recognizing what's about to happen. At the same time, Lederer chirps up: "Wait a second, sir!" Ivey replies, "I didn't even know you had a hand." Lederer's cards are in plain view out in front of his chip stacks.

Mr. Ivey, would you like to revisit your claim that you always know who is in the hand with you, and that you never make the mistake for which you so soundly criticized Mike Matusow?

Liar.

(As a side note, don't you love how I captured Patrik Antonius snorting a line of cocaine?)

All you have to do is ask

I'm watching the last two nights of "Poker After Dark" from last week. They're four-handed. Joe Sebok opens with a raise holding A-4. Mark Gregorich reraises with A-K. Howard Lederer says, "This would be a good time to pick up like ace-king. Just letting you guys know." He checks his cards: A-A. He moves all in. Gabe Kaplan says, "This would be a good time to pick up 7-2 so I can get out of here." He checks his cards: 7-2.

Televised poker is totally rigged!

Hellmuthian schadenfreude

"Poker After Dark" was a big cash game this week. It contained a moment that caused me as much poker schadenfreude as I have ever felt when, as you can see above from the stills, Phil Hellmuth lost his stack to Phil Ivey in a massive cooler of a hand, with P.H. flopping top set and P.I. a straight. Nuts versus second nuts. [Edit: OK, 2nd nuts versus 3rd nuts, as some commenters have correctly pointed out.]

It's hard to see how anybody could get away from that set-up without going broke, so at least this time the loss wasn't because Hellmuth did anything particularly dumb. But he so richly deserves to lose just on the basis of being such an enormous embarrassment to the game of poker that I don't really care if he takes his licks through bad play or bad luck.

Of course, he could have controlled how he handled the loss. He could have chosen to be philosophical about it and determined to continue playing his A-game. Or he could have recognized that he wouldn't be able to play as well after such an incident, or simply decided that it wasn't going to be his night, and walked away from the game (that's my usual approach). But no. He put another $100,000 on the table and donked off much of it thrashing around with his arm cut off in a tank full of sharks. He swore. He blamed the dealer and asked to have her replaced.

The schadenfreudiest part, though, was that Daniel Negreau was booking him for this session, meaning that if Hellmuth walked away winner, Negreanu would have to pay Hellmuth an amount equal to the win, but if he finished loser, Hellmuth would have to pay Negreanu the amount of the loss. The arrangement effectively doubled the magnitude of any win or loss. So from my perspective it was the perfect time for Hellmuth to get kicked in the nads by the poker gods--because it cost him twice as much.

Both before and after the loss, Hellmuth repeatedly said that he wished he could get Negreanu to book him for many such sessions. But he seemed to tune out that Negreanu was practically jumping up and down to say, "I will!"--every night for the rest of his life. In fact, Negreanu was willing to put a multiplier on the deal: book for 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x, even 30x the amount of win or loss. He is, obviously supremely confident in his assessment that Hellmuth is a huge underdog in deep-stacked cash games against a lineup such as was featured in this show (Gun Hansen, Patrik Antonius, Tom Dwan, Ivey, and himself). Hellmuth's ego just won't let him hear what a deafening warning bell that judgment is.

Hellmuth obviously has an impressive record playing large-field tournaments against mostly amateur opponents. But in deep cash games against the small number of people who play the highest stakes spread day in and day out, he's a complete fish. Everybody at the table understood that fact thoroughly--except for one.

(I no longer remember who the commentator was, but during one tournament when Hellmuth was struggling against a table brimming with talent, it was noted that he is a great player against mediocre opponents, but a mediocre player against great opponents. Seems about right to me.)

I can't decide which "Rounder" quotation to close this with, since so many are applicable, so I guess I'll just list them all:

Teddy KGB: It hurts doesn't it? Your hopes dashed, your dreams down the toilet. And your fate is sitting right besides you.

Mike McDermott: [Narrating] But this isn't a gunfight. It's not about pride or ego. It's only about money.

Mike McDermott: It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money.

Mike McDermott: Are you satisfied now, Teddy? Because I can keep busting you up all night if you like.

Mike McDermott: Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.

Poker gems, #333

Daniel Negreanu, on NBC's "Poker After Dark," Monday, December 7, 2009, about how Phil Ivey looked playing poker on television during a tournament.


You look like a crackhead, especially that day. He did! He had his hyperfocus crack eyes going.