Happy 2-4!

As all of my good acolytes know (the date being circled in red on their calendars) today is the holiest day of the year: 2-4. (European readers are allowed to make April 2 their major celebration, since they tend to write the date in reverse order compared to us 'Mericans.)

More than any other day, you must seek out opportunities to play the deuce-four, bet and raise with it. The poker gods are watching and will reward your fealty.

If perchance you are a new reader and have not yet been introduced to the most powerful hand in hold'em, just click that "deuce-four" label at the end of the post for a list of all the pertinent stories that have been recounted here.

Happy Deuce-Four Day!

Upgrade at Hooters

(With that title, it's tempting to lead with a photo of before-and-after breast implants. But I shall refrain. Besides, I'm an au naturale kind of guy; I think implants usually detract from rather than enhance beauty.)

The last time I was at Hooters was exactly a year and a day before last night's visit: February 2, 2009, a fact that I did not know when I set out across the street after finishing up at the MGM Grand. I just knew it had been a long time.

The main reason I have avoided returning is that Hooters was one of just a handful of poker rooms that still allow smoking right at the table. (The others, to the best of my knowledge, are Arizona Charlie's--Decatur, Boulder Station, Club Fortune, Palms after 2:00 a.m., and Texas Station.)

I was surprised, therefore, when nobody was smoking when I sat down. As more and more time passed without anybody lighting up, I gradually realized that the policy must have changed. When the floor guy substituted in to give the dealer a break, I asked him about it. He said they changed it nearly a year ago.

Mind you, this is still one of the smokiest rooms you'll find; players need only step away from the table about three feet to light up. But it's amazing what a difference that small distance makes. Yeah, you'll still leave with clothes reeking, but it's not the gag-inducing injection right up your nostrils that it was when the sidestream was 12 inches away.

On that basis, I'm moving Hooters from category 6 up to category 5 in my list of degrees of smokiness in Vegas card rooms.

Also on that basis, there's a good chance I'll be patronizing the place a little more often than I have in the past. It's one of the softest rooms in the city, an easy place to make money if you can stand the smoke and the raunchy behavior of the other players. (Having the entire business themed after female body parts seems to eradicate any inhibition customers might otherwise feel about making sex the continual centerpiece of conversation. I can't recall a single mention of a woman in a few hours last night that wasn't about her body and/or sexual performance. It's true: Men are pigs.)

As an added bonus, Hooters poker room now gives $1/hour in comps that can be used at its restaurants or retail shops, like most every other poker room in the city does. They didn't used to do that (as far as I know). They also have a $100 aces-cracked bonus all day every day (highly unuusal), high-hand jackpots, and a bad-beat jackpot ($1000 shared--not sure of the distribution) for aces-full beaten.

The hatred is ebbing

I've been whining lately about sets treating me badly. Tonight the pendulum swung back in the direction I'm more used to. I spent a few hours at MGM Grand, then went across the street to Hooters, a place I tend to hit only once or twice a year. Between the two rooms, I hit seven sets, and didn't lose with any of them. Three yielded only small or medium pots, but with four of them (kings twice, jacks, and fives) I doubled up or felted an opponent. That included my kings cracking aces on a flop of K-Q-9 for the biggest pot of my night. I also never lost a big pot to somebody else's set.

As a result, I am experiencing considerable diminishment of my loathing for flopped sets.

Guess the casino, #408

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




Answer: Caesar's Palace

Guess the casino, #407

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Answer: Sam's Town

Guess the casino, #406

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




Answer: Circus Circus

Guess the casino, #405

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




Answer: Aria

Yes, I'm still hating sets

I already declared myself to be a set-hater, of course. Today I was given two additional reasons for my position.

Reason #1:

Here's how I went out of the WBCOOP final event today, exactly nine minutes into it:




Three of hearts on the river would have been super-sweet, but no.


Reason #2:

Playing at Mandalay Bay today, I picked up 8-8 in middle position, and raised a couple of limpers. They both called.

Flop: 8-9-10, with two spades and one diamond. First limper shoves. Second calls, but is clearly not too happy about it. I reshove, for what is only $14 more, and get called by #2, obviously.

First guy has J-Q offsuit for the flopped straight. Second guy has Kd-10d for just top pair.

I don't remember the exact turn and river, but they were both diamonds that didn't pair the board, and limper #2 takes it all with a backdoor flush.


As you can see, if matters not one whit whether the set is in my hand or my opponents' hands. Either way, I lose. They have been my complete undoing this month. And yes, since you ask, I am feeling plenty peeved about it.

Guess the casino, #404

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Answer: Venetian

Poker gems, #343

Steve Brust, as quoted in Chris Wallace's column for Poker Pro magazine, February, 2010, p. 77.


Probably the biggest thing I'm working to overcome is fear--fear of losing money, and fear of looking like an idiot. The answer to fear is math: if the numbers say it is profitable to make a certain play, then you make that play. Math overcomes fear. If word of this gets out, it may change the world.

Guess the casino, #403

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




Answer: Venetian

Problem dealer at Planet Hollywood

In early December, Las Vegas Michael, editor of the wonderful allvegaspoker.com site, posted some notes about the Planet Hollywood poker room, after playing a few sessions there for the first time in a while. Among other things, he wrote:

Many Dealers, though friendly, seem to not be knowledgeable on proper
mechanics. I have too often seen dealers matching stacks on all ins, rolling the
deck, squaring the muck, and significant amounts of extraneous talking and
theatrics. I will grant that the theatrics and talking might be a venue driven
situation, since at PH, the atmosphere is significantly more casual than other
properties, but the procedural issues with stack matching, etc, are
unacceptable.

In reply, I posted this quick observation:

Strange--my experience with the PH dealers is almost 100% positive. There
is one that I would deem genuinely incompetent. A couple of weeks ago I was
involved in a big three-way all-in with a side pot, and she attempted to
completely screw it up. Fortunately, I was paying close attention, and THREE
TIMES in the same pot kept her from making what would have been disastrous
errors (first reading the hands wrong, then trying to shove the whole pot to one
player, then counting out an amount for the side pot from the biggest stack, but
LEAVING that with the player and trying to take the other part of the stack).
She just doesn't pay attention to what's going on. But other than her, I think
the PH dealers are a good bunch. I do notice the technical flaws, but they don't
bother me as much as they do LVM. Keeping things (1) moving, (2) enjoyable, and
(3) under control (i.e., in terms of enforcing rules) are generally done quite
well.

I was there playing again last night, and again had problems with this same dealer--enough now that I'm ready to label her as among the worst in the whole city.

The setup

First I need to tell you how we got to the situations that provoked this post.

My first hand at the table (before the dealer in question joined us) was AA, one off the button. This is only the third time that I can recall getting dealt aces in my first hand in a session. It's a bit of a rush, but also somewhat problematic, in that I have no sense for how people are playing and hence how to get maximum value. I put in a raise to $15. Only the small blind called. The flop was K-10-x rainbow. He checked to me. I bet $25. He check-raised to $105. He was the big stack at the table, and I had to wonder whether he was just bullying. Alternatively, he might have thought that I was trying to take control of the table by raising my first hand with any two cards, and had decided to quash that effort. I'm perfectly capable of folding aces when I'm convinced I'm beat, but he wasn't convincing me. I called. The turn was check-check. On an apparently innocuous river, he bet $100. I still wasn't persuaded. I thought a while, then called. He instantly mucked without showing, so apparently my read was correct. I moved from my $300 buy-in to about $520 in one hand.

Just a few hands later I was in the big blind with the horrible 6-10 offsuit. But the pot was unraised and I flopped two pair. I bet it and got called on the flop and turn by two players, taking my stack to about $590.

First offense

At this point, the former big stack two seats to my left went on an extended break (he didn't return until just before I cashed out), and we were joined by a nice young married couple. I was in seat one, she took seat two, and her husband took seat four, so they were effectively the two positions to my immediate left.

As I've reported here many time, I usually don't talk much at the table--or in any other social situations, either. But I was in an unusually good mood, and I do keep reminding myself that being Mr. Nice Guy is something I really need to work on, for reasons of increased profit. I could tell in a heartbeat that these two were novices to casino poker. They were unsure about all the rules and procedures, and each bought in for the minimum of $50. But they were smiling and laughing, clearly there to have a good time. So I decided that this was a fine opportunity to channel Mike Caro and pour on the Mr. Friendly act.

I chatted them up, asked about their trip, made dumb jokes that they laughed at, etc. Almost as soon as they sat down, the husband noted my chips and said, "Looks like you're doing well." I brushed it off: "Just got really lucky in a couple of good spots."

Maybe one orbit into their time at the table, we now have Bad Dealer in the box. I'm in the big blind. Wife limps from under the gun. Husband raises to $6. There's a couple of other callers. I have K-6 offsuit. I call. Flop is J-7-6, giving me bottom pair. I check. Wife checks. Husband bets $6. It's folded around to me. I call. Wife calls. Turn is a king, giving me two pair and the likely winner. I check. Wife checks. Husband bets $12. He's now into the hand for $24, has only about that much left, and there is about $55 in the pot. I assume he'll feel pot-committed, so I check-raise to $50, which, of course, is enough to cover both of them. Wife folds. Husband folds, surprisingly.

I don't want to look like a bully, so I show the two pair. While doing so, I say, "I'm sorry--I just got ridiculously lucky on you. This is a terrible hand. I should have folded before the flop, and I should have folded again on the flop."

I meant it as a phony self-deprecating remark.* I specifically had in mind Caro's suggested script, which I liked and remembered from having posted it here:

You should never deliberately upset opponents.... So, immediately after
you've tricked an opponent and won a pot, utter something friendly that
indicates you were just having fun. I like to say things that suggest I played
the hand badly and simultaneously enhance my loose image, such as, "I was hoping
you'd call, because I've been out of line so many times. You're way ahead of me
overall, but I'm still trying the same stupid tricks." Just giggle and move on.
Your opponent isn't likely to be offended, because you're talking about your bad
plays, not how superior you were with this one.

The husband took it well, smiled, and said, "Oh, nice hand!"

To my shock and chagrin, at this point the dealer injected herself into the conversation. She turned to me and said, "But he didn't raise before the flop." Before I could regain my composure and figure out how to respond, she corrected herself. "No, wait--he did, but it was only a small raise, so it was OK for you to call."

GAAAAAAAAA! Is she really this clueless? Well, yes, apparently she is. First, she has no business commenting on the play of a hand, whether it's in progress or completed, period. Editorializing is not in the job description. It is virtually certain to annoy somebody who was in the hand. Second, she's trying to assuage me, apparently, because I'm saying that I played the hand badly. But the result is that she is implicitly--and darn near explicitly--criticizing the guy that I'm trying to assuage and be friendly with! Her remarks serve to (1) alert him to raise more to prevent the kind of play I made, and (2) make him feel that he misplayed the hand. How can she think this is a good thing to be doing?

Second offense

A short time later I'm on the button with A-10 offsuit. There are a few limpers. Sometimes I'll limp along in this kind of situation, but this time I decided to raise, maybe pick up dead money, maybe narrow the field. I made it $14. An early-position player (let's call him A) called. A middle-position player (let's call him B) looked at his diminished stack and decided to move all in, for a total of $27. I quickly did the math to confirm that I could legally raise. I preferred to isolate and play against just the all-in guy, without having to be faced with more decisions to make with such a mediocre hand. I also didn't think that A would want to keep putting more money in. So I announced a raise: another $30 on top of B's all-in bet.

I put in the amount of the call, but before I could add the extra $30, the dealer stopped me. She said I couldn't raise because my original bet was $14 and the all-in was $27, which wasn't quite double.

I wasn't too surprised by this. It's an easy mistake to make, and the amount was so close that I had had to silently double-check myself before I was certain that a raise was legal. I pointed out that my original raise was $12, and B's reraise was $13 more, so that reopened the action to me.

This kind of situation has happened a few times before, and every previous time that I can recall, the dealers immediately recognize their mistake and we go on. Not this time. She continued to argue with me. She wasn't even a little bit uncertain, as far as I could tell from her words and tone. She was absolutely positive that all that mattered was that my bet was $14, and B's raise was to $27, which wasn't a full raise, so I was not eligible to reraise. I had to go through the whole thing twice more, explaining that my $14 bet was a raise increment of only $12 over the big blind, which was what mattered. She finally caught on and allowed the raise, as I was on the verge of asking her to call the floor over, on the assumption that she was too thick-skulled to ever figure it out.

This seriously annoyed me, her insistence on sticking to an incorrect conclusion even in the face of being told differently by somebody who, if she had a lick of sense, she would realize seemed like he might actually know what he was talking about. I also resented that I basically had to come out of "hiding"; the interaction made it perfectly clear to everybody at the table that I was very experienced and understood the rules of the game better than the dealer did. That is not the image I was shooting for.

I'm pretty forgiving of occasional dealer errors. Nobody's perfect. I don't ask that dealers never make mistakes. I only ask that they respond appropriately after making one: fix it, call the floor if necessary, apologize, and move on. But this particular dealer has now exhausted my tolerance. She doesn't pay attention to the game and she makes critical errors at a much higher frequency than anybody else that works there. Now, on top of that, she goes out of her way to interfere with me trying to make another player feel good about his play, then irritates the bejesus out of me by refusing to acknowledge that she was wrong until I finally had to badger her into recognizing the situation for what it was.

(Incidentally, here's how the hand played out: Player A surprised me by moving all-in. It was only $11 more than my $30 reraise, so of course I called. I showed my cards, as did my opponents. I was up against K-Q and K-J. It hardly mattered, though. The flop came an incredible A-10-10, giving me a full house, and leaving both opponents drawing almost dead. This not only won me a nice little pot, but gave me a chance to make further jokes with my target couple about how skilled I was to be able to flop full houses when I needed to.)

In general, I think that the team of dealers Planet Hollywood has on staff is one of its strongest assets. But this one dealer is a black mark on a room that I otherwise like quite a bit. I don't like the thought of anybody losing his or her job, but she just isn't up to the task, and there are scads and scads of unemployed dealers who would handle the responsibility far more professionally than she does. I hope she is replaced by one of them.



*In retrospect, however, what I said was probably true. In light of the low implied odds being offered by the short stacks this couple had, I really should have folded that crap.


Addendum, April 14, 2010

In retrospect, I should not have check-raised the tourist couple. Another of Caro's frequent teachings is that check-raising carries a high risk of destroying the light spirit of a friendly game. It's too war-like and aggressive. It might maximize profit for that one hand, but it will tend to make the opponents much more wary of you thereafter, thus reducing profits for the whole session. He suggests betting out or check-calling instead. That rings true with me, and if I had it to do over again, I would just bet out on the turn, after having made two pair.

Aria

Last night I finally made it to City Center for the first time. I must be the last local to set foot in the place.

I won't bother with a full review of the Aria poker room; if you're interested, then by now you've either been there or read what everybody else has written about the place (e.g., here). I'll just add that it is indeed as nice as they all say. Aria is simply the most lavish, gorgeous, visually compelling casino I've ever laid eyes on.

With pictures as with the commentary: others have already done it far better than I could, so I'm keeping them to a minimum. (The first four are actually from Crystals, the shopping mall through which I passed on the way from the pedestrian bridge across the Strip to Aria. But hey, it's all City Center.)

It's a beautiful room, certainly on par with Wynn and Venetian. It seems somewhat louder than either of those places, though, with slot-machine and pit noise more prominent. I hate noise. Other than that, it's hard to find fault.

I was tired and played for only an hour, winning just over $100. That was mostly on a rather daring all-in check-raise bluff on a big scare-card turn; it completed both trips and a possible flush, and I was pretty sure my opponent was on an overpair and wouldn't dare call. He tanked for about three minutes, but then folded in disgust. Thankyouverymuch.

I will most certainly be back there many times.

Draggin' the pot?

I saw this amusing card protector in use last week at Caesars Palace and forgot to post about it at the time.

Guess the casino, #402

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Answer: Caesars Palace

WBCOOP #4

I wasn't really feeling much like playing today, and it showed in how I went out, a mere 20 minutes into the thing. I won't even try to defend my play here.




But, just as an aside, how many crubs were in that deck anyway?

Tomorrow: 8-game mix, which should be amusing.

Feel for the man

You may remember when Pauly discovered turbo pot-limit Omaha sit-and-go tournaments. A true action junkie, he described them as being as addictive as "smoking crack dipped in chocolate and wrapped in bacon."

In retrospect, that was nothing. He has now discovered Rush Poker. And it has finally been his undoing. Read here, then send an email to Full Tilt asking if you can contribute to their rehab charity fund for players who can't stop.

Guess the casino, #401

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

And yes, this really is at a casino in Las Vegas!




Answer: South Point

OK, so I'm not exactly a world traveler

I was reading Card Player magazine earlier today. Todd Brunson's column talks about some hands he played in a tournament in Venice. Illustrating the column is a photo of a tower in San Marco Square, Venice.

Looking at it, I thought it seemed familier. Then it clicked: The Venetian has one that looks just like that!

I had had no idea that it was modeled after actual structures in Venice. I thought they had just taken the name, threw in a few fake canals, and left it at that.

I had an IM chat open with Cardgrrl at the time I made this astounding discovery, and shared my new-found insight with her. Since it wasn't a video chat, I can only imagine the rolled eyes and snorts that might have been going on. She proceeded to point out to me that the whole facade of the Venetian is copied from San Marco Square.

Who knew?

Well, apparently just about everybody except me, that's who.

I can be really slow to catch on to things sometimes. (I admitted that to Cardgrrl. She didn't disagree, but she did say that I'm cute, which makes up for it.)

In closely related news, this new discovery sent me scurrying to the interwebs, and guess what else I found out? You know that tall steel tower thingy in front of the Paris Hotel and Casino? There's another one just like it--except even taller--in Paris, France!

WBCOOP #3, in which the Deuce-Four reigns

Today was WBCOOP event #3, back to no-limit hold'em. By far my best performance so far. As you can see, I finished 45th out of 1843. I'd call that doing tolerably well, though short of impressive. I did outlast all of my poker blogger friends, so I suppose I gain the world's most minor bragging rights as a result. I also won a $16.50 ticket to a bigger tournament later.

Once again, the first 60 to 90 minutes was just a joke. There were only three players actually at the table, the rest were no-shows, getting blinded off. It was so bad that it tempted one player into no-no land, as this chat snippet reveals:

acehighness: lets take turns in raising
acehighness: and just rape their blinds
Rakewell1: Um, it's probably best not to attempt overt collusion via chat
Rakewell1: It's called "cheating"
acehighness: is it cheating if they are not playing? really ?

I didn't bother replying. I don't know whether the guy was really that unethical or just completely clueless. (Also: I love the casual use of the word "rape" there, don't you?)

Because the thing lasted for 4 1/2 hours for me, I'm too tired to try to do anything like a full evaluation of what happened. Instead, I present to you a comprehensive account of how the Mighty Deuce-Four played for me today. I had it eight times, and you can watch the results in a single Flash movie. Take particular note of #3, in which the 2-4 takes down not just a pocket pair of queens, but a flopped set of queens. Ho-hum, all in a day's work for 2-4.





There are four other hands that I thought interesting or dramatic enough to present separately.

First, there was this bizarre blind-versus-blind confrontation. I don't want to spoil the drama by telling you what happened in advance. Just watch:





Remember what I wrote recently about never wanting to see or have a set again? Well, OK, I rescind that now.

Next up is this one, which I think was the worst I played during the whole tournament. I always try to confess my mistakes, and give you my ugliest plays as well as my prettiest ones.




I probably misplayed that about as badly as possible, with the exception of not losing any more on the river. I had been cruising consistently in the top 10% or so of the leaderboard until this hand cost me a big chunk of my chips, taking me down to just under average, and it was an uphill struggle from there to the end. One badly played hand can really undermine your whole tournament.

Here's the other spot where I escaped potential disaster with a touch of good luck:





I don't know why the hand animator software screwed this up, but that big ol' side pot actually came to me, otherwise I would have been out. I lucked out on the river with a bigger two pair than my big-stacked opponent had made on the turn. Of course, I did have 13 outs on the turn (eight clubs, two 3s, and three kings), so I wasn't in completely horrible shape.

Finally, there's the hand that I went out on. Watch it, then I'll discuss it a bit:





This one is actually pretty interesting. Goral is a PokerStars pro. He hadn't been at my table too long, but he had been making a lot of small raises to steal blinds from the shorter stacks, as one might expect. Both times that I had been in the big blind and it was folded to him, he did such a raise, making it a pretty clear pattern. I was ready to shove with just about any two cards if that happened again. But this situation came up first.

My buddy Cardgrrl tells me she would have shoved pre-flop. It almost certainly would have won, because I can't imagine him calling that much with A-4 offsuit. But it wouldn't have helped my standing in the tournament very much. In my view, a push there is one of those moves that only gets called when I'm either a huge underdog or, at best, a coin flip if he has A-K or maybe A-Q. I really wanted a big move forward, instead of hovering near the basement. On the flop a shove is still a huge raise, but not as ridiculously so as on the flop. I did think about it, but decided that I was willing to risk losing the hand in order to try to milk more out of him. It was a calculated chance, and it backfired, but I don't think it was a bad way to play the hand.

I'm not sure I understand Goran's shove on the turn. He couldn't really want a call, but what did he think I had that I would fold? If I had flopped two pair or a set or a flush draw (which seem to me the most likely things with which I would have called his flop bet), he can't except me to fold. Seems like a bad move to me. Anyway, as it was, he had 13 outs (nine hearts plus three 3s), and hit one. So be it. I got my money in as a 3:1 favorite to not only double up, but become the table chip leader and be in strong position to go very deep in the tournament. I'm OK with the decision, though disappointed in the outcome.

Oh, and that thing about never wanting to flop a set again? It's back on.

Women at the table

If you are, like me, perpetually fascinated by the differences--real and perceived--between how men and women behave at the poker table and get treated at the poker table, you may be interested in the juxtaposition of these two posts, which were consecutive in my RSS reader this morning:

This time I made someone else at the poker table cry (and don't miss the links to other "crying at the table" stories at the end of the post)

Boys will be boys

I think it's in my best interest to post these links without further comment. What I agree with, what I disagree with, and what I might want to smack somebody for saying or writing, well, you'll just have to guess at that. I'm keeping it to myself.


(Thanks to Wolynski for the photo, taken during the 2009 WSOP ladies event, sent to me at the time, and used here without permission but hopefully without objection. And see her VegasImages blog, too.)

Guess the casino, #400

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




Answer: Venetian (Thanks to Cardgrrl for the photograph.)

Poker gems, #342

Dalai Lama, as quoted by David Apostolico in Card Player magazine column, January 27, 2010 (vol. 23, #2), p. 25.


To be aware of a single shortcoming within oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in somebody else.


[Note: Mr. Apostolico did not provide a reference for the quotation. I'm always suspicious of such things. Sure, one can find this attributed to Dalai Lama all over the web, but is it genuine, or a misattribution? Fortunately, with a little probing around I found the source. It's from The Path to Tranquility, by Renuka Singh and Dalai Lama, 2002, page 5. Although less relevant to poker, the rest of the thought is also worth considering: "Rather than speaking badly about people and in ways that will produce friction and unrest in their lives, we should practice a purer perception of them, and when we speak of others, speak of their good qualities. If you find yourself slandering anybody, first imagine that your mouth is filled with excrement. It will break you of the habit quickly enough."]

WBCOOP/PLO/OMGWTF

I've never done a pot-limit Omaha tournament before (at least not that I can remember). But that's what the WBCOOP schedule called for today, so that's what I did. I had no serious hope of performing well, with so little experience in the game, but it was a fun diversion.

I did get a couple of lovely-looking hands, though they didn't pay off at all well:







The game was easy at first, with hands like that. I also got AAxx hands ten times in the first 143 hands. Most remarkably, I won every one of them, mostly with a pre-flop raise, but once felted an opponent with KKxx when we both flopped sets.

That frequency of AAxx starting hands seemed kind of high to me, so I ran some numbers. If I've done my math right, there are 14,700 starting hands containing exactly two aces, and 270,725 possible Omaha starting hands, yielding an average probability of being dealt two aces of 0.0543, or about 1/18. My 10/143 is 0.0699, or about 1/14, so only slightly higher than average. And then I went card-dead, never seeing them again, so my overall tournament frequency was 10 in 209 hands, or 0.0478, or about 1/21, slightly less frequently than would be expected. (No, I'm not thinking that AAxx is necessarily a monster hand in Omaha. I get how it's different from hold'em. If you don't, see here for a primer.)

My first table might have been the easiest one in the whole tourney. There were five people sitting out who just got blinded off. Of the other three players, none was tricky. They would bet when they had something good, check otherwise. Even better, when I was on the button, the small blind was sitting out and the big blind would only defend his blind when he had a really big starting hand. When I was in the cutoff, the button and the big blind were both sitting out, and the small blind was that same non-defending player. I was thus able to steal relentlessly. When I was in the small blind, the big blind was sitting out, and when I was in the big blind the small blind was sitting out, with not too many steals going on, so I got lots of walks. Easy poker! I chipped up nicely and was sitting pretty for the first hour and a half or so.

But then things all went south. The sitter-outers got blinded off, I went card-dead, and some of the tourney monster stacks with hyper-aggressive styles got moved to my table, pretty much all at once. That's a bad combination. Predictably, my stack stayed pretty much static while the tourney average rocketed up. And I was toast.

In short, I can play PLO really, really well when (1) you hit me with the deck, and (2) put me at a completely passive and straightforward table. Give me some card trouble and aggressive opponents, though, and I wither away. Yep, that's me, the big-time pro player!

Here's how I went out:




At first I thought that he had check-raised me on the turn with nothing but the king-high flush draw (and I tweeted to that effect). It was only in looking at the replay that I noticed that he had a made straight there, too, so I can't fault him. But I had two pair, straight draw, and queen-high flush draw with a below-average stack, so I think that my shove was pretty defensible, and maybe the only sensible thing to do there. After all, even if I gave him credit for the straight, I wouldn't think that he would be so lucky as to also have one of the only two flush draws that would beat me, and even if he did I had the boat possibility. The odds calculator at cardplayer.com tells me that I was 58% to win before the flop, 67% on the flop, then only 25% on the turn. But I think it would be hard to be sufficiently confident of being in that badly at that point so as to make the fold, and, besides, it would mean being left with a really short stack in a fast-moving tournament. Players with more PLO experience are welcome to comment about whether I blew this hand or handled it reasonably.

Ah well. It was kinda fun anyway. Back to hold'em for the events of Wednesday and Thursday.

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?)

EULAs

Huh?

Yeah, that's what I said when I saw the abbreviation, too. But it's the central point in this interesting article by "business and technology lawyer" Daisy Yu in E-Commerce Times, to which I was alerted by Richard Marcus's blog about poker and casino cheating. Go see what it's talking about, and how EULAs may relate to the various online cheating scandals our favorite game has produced in recent years.

Incidentally, the last time I mentioned Marcus's blog was when I discovered that he was ripping off other people's material and pretending it was his own. Now it seems that he has partially reformed, and at least names a source before reposting--presumably without permission--entire articles. I think it's generally preferable to give a link to the original, rather than reproducing whole works.

Guess the casino, #399

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Answer: Stratosphere

Who's got the nuts?

Saturday I was playing at Caesars Palace. A hand in which I was not involved had a final board of 3c-6c-7c-Qh-3d. At showdown, a woman tabled Ac-Jc (giving a wave to BWOP), and won.

This is where it got interesting. One guy at the table said, "She had the nuts." The guy next to him said, "No, straight flush would be the nuts. She only had the second nuts." First guy said, "Well, yeah, OK, but she had the nuts if you don't count the straight flush." Second guy said, "That's right."

At this point, I feel like giving them both a dope slap.

For the record, the woman with Ac-Jc had the ninth nuts. She would be beaten by any player holding:

1) 4c-5c
2) 3h-3s
3) Q-Q
4) 7-7
5) 6-6
6) Q-3
7) 7-3
8) 6-3

No, I did not speak up to correct the dopes. Not my job to teach them how to read the board. Better for me if they can't figure it out.

Not a great start

Today was the first event of the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker (WBCOOP). I lasted 15 minutes. Here's why:





Ugh. What else can be said?

Guess the casino, #398

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Answer: Planet Hollywood

Guess the casino, #397

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Answer: Paris

Guess the casino, #396

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Answer: Palace Station

Guess the casino, #395

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Answer: M Resort

Guess the casino, #394

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Answer: Luxor

Just wondering

Is there any reason you couldn't run a tournament in the new "Rush Poker" format? On a first run through my brain, none occurs to me, but I might easily be missing something really obvious.

Guess the casino, #393

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Answer: Imperial Palace

Poker gems, #341

Steve Zolotow, in Card Player magazine column, January 13, 2010 (vol. 23, #1), pp. 72-74.


[Zolotow's friend Ray] was playing in a $2-$5 cash game [at the Borgata], and made the nuts on the river against an obnoxious opponent. He shoved for around $300, and his opponent said, "OK. What do you have?" Ray, as would many players not used to angle-shooters in casinos, assumed that this meant he was calling. He turned up his hand. His opponent mucked, but insisted that he had never said, "Call," or put his chips into the pot. The floorman made the obvious ruling: Ray hadn't been called. Later in the session, this same player was sucking on a lemon drop (to sweeten his disposition). Somehow, he managed to inhale the lemon drop, and couldn't breathe. Ray leaped out of his seat, remarking, "I can't believe I have to save your miserable (bleeping) life!" He walked around the table and performed the Heimlich Maneuver. The lemon drop shot halfway across the room. The man's life was saved. Someone else remarked, "Ya should have let him choke." But Dr. Ray did the right thing.

Folding aces

In Tommy Angelo's blog post today he links to a story he wrote in 2003 about deliberately folding aces before the flop, just to experience what it felt like. It's a great read. Go check it out here.

Quick take on quick poker

I just tried Full Tilt's new game format, "Rush Poker." There's a full tutorial available here, but the basic idea is this: You enter a large pool of players, and as soon as you either win or fold one hand, you and eight other available players from the pool are instantly assembled into a new table, in random positions, and play a new hand. If you don't like what you are dealt, you click "fold," and you're whisked off to yet another new table with new opponents and new position.

I lost my first $10 buy-in in a $0.05/0.10 no-limit hold'em game when my pocket queens went down in flames on an all-undercard board to a flopped set of 8s. I then lost another couple of bucks when my pockets 10s lost to a flopped set of 6s from a short stack. Have I told you lately how much I hate sets? I have? Oh, well, then never mind.

Anyway, the action is just as fast as promised. In one stretch I folded about nine trash hands in a row, and it couldn't have taken more than about 45 seconds total.

Obviously you have to adjust by giving opponents credit for bigger hands than usual, because people will be folding junk much more frequently, when they don't have to wait around for a premium hand anywhere near as long as would ordinarily be the case. Just as obviously, you don't have the luxury of watching opponents' patterns over time. Basically you're reduced to playing your cards. At least it seems so to me after a grand total of about ten minutes of experience.

It is indeed quite a "rush." In the video introduction, Phil Gordon says that it feels like multitabling at one table, and that's a pretty good description of it. For me, it's a cute and extraordinarily clever novelty, but I'm not going to spend much time playing that way. I'm not an action junkie by any stretch of the imagination. I think I have my edge by being more patient and analytical than most of my opponents, and those attributes are not what gets rewarded in this game format. But I have to give Full Tilt's programmers credit for yet another novel and interesting variation on hold'em.

Guess the casino, #392

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Answer: Harrah's

Gimme a break!

I played two HORSE sit-and-go tournaments on PokerStars tonight, simultaneously. I came in first in the $10 one, and third in the $5 one. Big double cash for me.

One hand after we got down to three-handed in the $5 game we switched to razz. We played 33 hands of razz, then switched to stud. We played 37 hands of stud before I was eliminated.

I got the feeling that I was being assigned the bring-in an unusually high frequency during this stretch of 70 hands. But such perceptions can be misleading--you get a few in a row, then really start noticing every bring-in you have to make, even if it's only about one out of three (as it should be three-handed). So I checked the hand history to see if I was just overreacting.

Nope. Out of 70 hands played three ways, I had the bring-in 36 times, just over half.

How unlikely is that? Let's turn to our old friend the binomial probability calculator! We input 70 for n, 36 for k, and 0.333 for p. In a flash, we learn that the probability of getting the bring-in 36 times or more in 70 hands of three-handed play is only 0.00134, or about 0.1%. That is, if you played 1000 blocks of 70 hands, you'd expect to have to bring it in 36 times or more in a block only one of those 1000 runs.

I was not imagining things. PokerStars really was sticking it to me in a major way.

It's all totally rigged, you know.

It's not my birthday, but I'll cry if I want to anyway

Saturday I wrote about a difficult hand at Caesars Palace in which I arguably could and/or should have folded a set on the flop, and lost all my chips because I didn't. (The most common reaction from commenters seems to be approximately, "Yeah, maybe you could fold, but I would have gone broke, too.")

I went back to Caesars yesterday (Sunday) and tried again. Here's how that session ended: I'm sitting on about $250 in a $1/3 NLHE game. I've had a long dry spell, so when I find Ks-Js one off the button, I put in my standard-for-the-day raise to $13. The big blind calls, as do two of the previous limpers, making a pot of about $47 after the rake.

Flop is J-9-5 rainbow. It gets checked around to me. I bet $35. The only caller is an older, quirky gentleman that I've played with a few times before. He could call here with any piece of this flop, so I'm not worried. Turn is the jack of the fourth suit, giving me trips with a king kicker, no straights or flushes, no flush draws, and only minimal straight draw potential. The guy checks. This time I bet $95. He calls. This greatly narrows his range. He either has the case jack--almost certainly with a worse kicker--or a full house. The river is a blank--a deuce, I think. He moves all in. I have only a little over $100 left, and the pot is effectively about $305. I believe that he would make this move with a jack with any kicker, thinking it's good. Since I have no way to distinguish that from a full house, and I'm getting 3:1, it's an easy call. He turns over 5-5. He flopped a set, turned a boat.

Today I was playing at Planet Hollywood, playing $1/$2 NLHE. It was the first time I've made a point to get there during one of their aces-cracked promotional periods (Monday, 2 to 4 p.m.). I was curious about the flow of bodies into and out of the room around the time that the promotion begins and ends. As it turned out, my back was to the podium, and Holly Madison was doing a photo shoot just to my right (see immediately preceding post), so I was kind of distracted and didn't pay much attention to the ebb and flow of the room. Can't tell you anything about it.

There was an odd series of hands in which I had pocket pairs four consecutive times, and each time the guy on my left raised to $10 after I had limped. He was a very typical tourist--not horrible, but making the most common mistakes that are endemic to the species (playing too many hands, making too many loose calls, being predictable). On the first of these four, I correctly called him down with pocket 9s when he continued betting small after missing the flop. On the second and third, I had to let go (but with only the $10 pre-flop loss) after flopping overcards and other players seeming to like what the board gave them more than I did.

On the fateful fourth of these in a row, I had the red 5s. Mr. Tourist raised to $10 for the fourth consecutive time. This sequence was highly unusual for him. He had not had good results with the previous three, so I didn't think he was raising with air, but he could have just about any pair, any half-decent ace, any two Broadway cards. I called.

Flop was K-8-5 with two clubs. I checked. He bet $15, I think. There had been one other pre-flop caller, who now folded. I just called. I wasn't worried about him holding two clubs. He tended to c-bet once on a missed flop, then shut down or bet very small on the turn. I thought he would bet small if a blank came, big if he got a card he liked, and either way I could go for a check-raise.

Turn was the ace of spades. If the king wasn't the money card for me, that ace very likely was--especially if I were lucky enough for him to have had A-K to start with. I checked again. He bet $20. I was a little disappointed in that, because the weak turn bet suggested, from his previously established pattern, that he was not very strong, and therefore might not put any more money in. So I did just over a min-raise, making it $45. I thought that amount would be irresistible if he had any piece of the board, and a call would get him feeling sucked in for a big bet on the river. (I had started the hand with about $350; he with about $300.)

To my surprise, he responded by moving all-in. But that was fine with me. I thought it was most likely that he had made two pair, especially with A-K. Sadly for me, though, this time he had A-A, making his bigger set on the turn, and there was no one-outer rescue for me.

(The anti-climactic end of the session's story was this: I was left with about $50. That went away when I followed a bunch of limpers on the button with K-8 of diamonds and flopped the second nut flush. I called a small bet on the flop, then raised all-in for only a little more than my opponent's turn bet. She had just the nut flush draw with the ace of diamonds. A fourth diamond hit the board on the river, obviously.)

The long and short of it is this: in three days, I have been felted twice and very nearly so a third time with and/or by sets--twice with the bad end of set-over-set situations, and once with strong trips losing to a set-cum-boat. Total damages from these three hands: about $825. Twice during that three-day stretch I have flopped sets and won with them--both times just a small pot, with everybody folding immediately.

Combine all that with the still-recent memory of my biggest-ever loss with a flopped set last month (to C.K.), and you may understand me harboring this sentiment: I never want to see another set as long as I live, not in my opponents' hands, and not even in my own.

Celebrity sighting

I was playing at Planet Hollywood this afternoon when a bunch of people started coming in and setting up equipment around the next table over. Lots of cameras and lighting equipment was being brought out, so clearly some sort of shoot was about to get underway. I asked the dealer what was on the agenda. He didn't know.

A short time later I looked over my shoulder again, and saw Holly Madison sitting at the table--clearly the object of the shoot. She had a couple of her dogs with her. Over time, I deduced from wisps of overheard conversation that she is promoting "I Love Dogs Diamonds," boutique jewelry for canines.

All I know is this: when C.M. Coolidge painted his famous pictures, the dogs playing poker were NOT wearing diamonds.

What is this strange word of which you speak?

This is the forecast that popped up when I fired up the computer this morning.

Today: Rain. Highs in the mid 50s. South wind around 10 mph early in the morning
becoming light...then becoming east around 10 mph in the afternoon.

Tonight: Rain in the evening...then rain likely after midnight. Lows in
the mid 40s. South wind 10 to 15 mph.

Tuesday: Mostly cloudy with a 40
percent chance of rain. Highs in the upper 50s. South wind around 10 mph.

Tuesday Night: Cloudy with rain likely. Lows in the lower 40s. South
wind around 10 mph in the evening becoming light. Chance of rain 70 percent.

Wednesday: Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain. Highs in the mid
50s. West wind around 10 mph.

Wednesday Night: Cloudy with rain likely.
Lows in the lower 40s. Chance of rain 70 percent.

Thursday: Rain. Highs
in the mid 50s.

Thursday Night: Rain. Lows in the mid 40s.

Friday: Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain. Highs in the mid 50s.

Friday Night: Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain. Lows in the lower
40s.

Saturday: Cloudy with a 40 percent chance of rain. Highs in the mid
50s.

Saturday Night: Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of rain.
Lows in the upper 30s.

Sunday: Partly sunny with a 20 percent chance of
rain. Highs in the mid 50s.

Do you see any particular word recurring here? Do you see anything wrong with that word being used so often? I do.

Hint: It's a freakin' desert!!!!

Guess the casino, #391

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Answer: Bill's

Rumor mill

While playing at Caesars Palace today, the table talk turned to remarkable hands we've seen. Somebody mentioned the astonishing one that took place at the WSOP main event in 2008, with four aces being beaten by a royal flush.

The dealer told us that he had been dealing that day (not at that table, however), and that there had been no ESPN cameras at the table in question when the hand went down. They had the players reenact it for the cameras during a break later in the day, so what you saw in the final broadcast was a little play-acting by the participants, rather than the hand as it originally occurred.

I had not heard this before. I have no way of knowing whether it's true, though it certainly seems plausible on its face. After all, it was not a featured table, and they couldn't have known in advance that something that rare was going to occur. On the other hand, it seems likely that the loser of the hand would have vacated the premises by the time that ESPN learned about the hand and made a decision to stage a reenactment.

I know that among my readers are a good number of people who were there as players, as dealers, as bloggers, as reporters, etc.. If anybody knows for certain about this from first-hand knowledge, I'd be interested in your report. You can submit a comment anonymously if you like. Or you can email me directly, and let me know if it's OK to post here whatever you have to report, and whether it's OK to use your name.

Inquiring minds want to know!

Poker and dogs

I played at Caesars Palace today with a guy named Antonio. He mentioned that he has recently started a web site, www.pokeranddogs.com, as a portal for information about two of his loves. Can you guess what they are? That's right--poker and dogs! There's not a lot up yet, but he mentioned some ambitious plans for it. He seemed like a perfectly decent and highly passionate man, so I'm happy to give his fledging site a little free attention here.

Hey, Antonio: I see your earlier blog post about dogs being sensitive to our human "tells." I am confident you would enjoy the novel I wrote about here, which largely revolves around a guy whose dog helps him play poker successfully because of that very keenness of perception. It's a fun read. Good luck with the web site.

Guess the casino, #390

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Answer: Bally's