Historical trivia quiz

Everybody knows that the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was the Enola Gay, named for the mother of its pilot, Paul Tibbets. But flying ahead of the Enola Gay was another B-29, a weather reconnaissance plane. It found that the weather was perfect, and OK'ed the attack on the primary target. Had it been too cloudy for accurate targeting, they would have diverted to a secondary target.

What was the name of that aircraft?

First correct answer in the comments wins the internets for today.

Hint: This is a poker blog.

PokerNews article #80

Long piece on all the new poker tournament rules announced last week.

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/new-poker-tournament-rules-you-need-to-know-22655.htm

Quotation of the day

"Poker has the feeling of a sport, but you don't have to do push-ups."

--Penn Jillette

PokerNews article #79

The right and wrong ways to play a splash-pot promotion.

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/the-right-and-wrong-ways-to-play-a-splash-pot-promotion-22587.htm

PokerNews article #78

What skills give you your edge at the poker table? Do you even know?

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/very-particular-set-of-poker-skills-22528.htm

The poker of politics

Clever, interesting, and original look at the presidential race as a poker tournament:

http://www.pokerupdate.com/articles/lifestyle/08122-presidential-poker-tournament-field-grows-beyond-expectations/

PokerNews article #77

Some musings on the newest word in the poker lexicon, "upstuck."

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/are-you-winning-or-losing-it-doesn-t-matter-22478.htm

Sexism

I'm about a week late getting around to reading it, but this essay by Cate Hall (whom I had never heard of before) is perhaps the most thoughtful, articulate statement I've read on the problem of sexism in poker.

http://www.pokerwomennews.com/opinion-cate-hall-on-pokers-woman-problem/

I noticed how women are treated at poker tables as soon as I moved to Vegas and started playing regularly. Though I never attempted a formal tally, my impression was that often a majority of things said by men to women during a poker game (excluding those immediately necessitated by game play) were things that could not and/or would not have been said if she were male. That is, they either were explicitly about her sex, alluded to her sex, or were dependent for meaning on the fact that the person being addressed was female.

Look, I'm not the most sensitive, politically correct of souls. But the cumulative effect was sufficiently sledgehammerish that one would have to be a troglodyte not to notice it. Confronting it directly is problematic for a host of social and poker-strategic reasons. However, I decided early on that I could at least avoid contributing to it.

So I set in place a mental filter on my conversation. When I was thinking of saying something to a female player, I'd stop and consider whether my comment or question was in that category I described above--the sort of thing that I could not or would not say to a male player in the same situation. By lifelong habit, I already heavily filter and pre-censor my speech in public settings anyway, so it was not particularly difficult to add another layer.

Of course there are common-sense exceptions, such as responding to something a woman has herself brought up that falls into that category. And I don't claim to be 100% perfect in following my own rule. But I am pretty good about it, and can recommend the practice to my male readers.

You're not individually obligated to clean up the mess along the highways, but you are individually obligated not to make it worse by throwing your Big Gulp cup out the window as you drive. Similarly, you don't have to be the sexist-speech police at the poker table, but you should take care not to add to it. As Ms. Hall makes clear, any one remark you make to a woman may feel to you innocuous, and may objectively be innocuous, but there is still a cumulative effect on a woman of her gender being the subject or cause for much of what is being said to her. I am not capable of experiencing that as a woman would, but I am capable of imagining it. It's sufficient unpleasant just in imagination that it makes me not want to be even a minor contributor--especially when it's so easy to avoid.

A tangential confession: One of the summers (probably 2009) that I was doing some work for PokerNews on WSOP reporting, I was of necessity following the series much more closely than I typically do, and began noticing that there seemed to be an unusual number of very attractive women having success. I started going through the PokerNews photo archives for the series and picking out pictures to put together into a post on my own blog, titled something awful like "The hot women of the WSOP." I had worked on it for an hour or two when I started to get a sense of general creepiness about what I was doing, and stopped. The next day I opened the draft post again, looked at what I had put together and thought, "What the hell is wrong with you?" I deleted it forthwith. I was sufficiently embarrassed that I had ever thought that to be a good idea that I believe I have never even told anybody I had done it--until now. Well, at least I had the good sense to abort it when I did.

PokerNews article #76

This one is my little tribute to the writings of Mike Caro, from whom I have learned so much over the years.

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/what-can-you-learn-from-an-old-school-poker-player-plenty-22423.htm

Knoxville, Tennessee

Nina and I went to Knoxville, TN, yesterday for her early birthday present of tickets to a James Taylor concert. We spent the day doing some sightseeing before the main event.

First we took a long walk through the lovely Ijams Nature Center. A log just a few feet from the Tennessee River was studded with hundreds of mushrooms. I decided this photo of some of them worked best in black and white:

This is a "geologic fold."

Bee on a sunflower:

This magnificent creature is a red-tailed hawk. It has an irreparably damaged wing, and therefore can't be released back into the wild, so the nature center rehabilitated it and uses it for education about raptors. Her name, unofficially, is Tiger.

Next we went up into the Sunsphere, a structure built for the 1982 World's Fair. I have no good photos from that part of the day.

Then it was on to the Knoxville Museum of Art, just a stone's throw from the Sunsphere. One intriguing piece was this one, by Devorah Sperber. It's constructed of spools of thread:

There's a spherical lens on a post in front of the work, and when you look through it, you see this:

This is one of the creepiest sculptures I've ever seen. It's made of silicone, and it's extraordinarily lifelike:

We had dinner at Sunspot, a funky restaurant on the edge of the University of Tennessee campus. Highly recommended if you're in the area.

And then the concert. I didn't try sneaking any videos, like a lot of people were doing. (See here, for example.) But it was great. Even after 45 years or so of performing and thousands of concerts, there was not a single second when I got the impression that he was "phoning it in." He looked and felt fully engaged with the music, his band, and the audience for every song. I'm delighted to have seen him live.

Except for the heat and the humidity--OMG, the humidity!--it was a thoroughly delightful day. I'm lucky to have had such a wonderful companion to share it with.

PokerNews article #75

One weird trick for instantly recovering from a bad beat.

That's right--I used the "one weird trick" thing.

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/one-weird-trick-for-instantly-recovering-from-a-bad-beat-22370.htm

Color Run

There was a "Color Run" in my neighborhood this morning. I took some photos, which you can see here.

PokerNews article #74

Should you play poker with maniacs, or find a different table?

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/should-you-play-poker-with-maniacs-or-find-another-game-22318.htm

PokerNews article #73

On how superstition hurts your poker game.

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/how-your-superstitious-beliefs-are-costing-you-money-22268.htm

Going light

It's not often I hear of a poker term that is new to me, but it happened today.

I was listening to today's new episode of the "Top Pair" podcast when they talked about "going light." (The discussion goes from about 37:15 to 40:45.) The subject was prompted by one of the hosts having read this recent PokerNews article by Ashley Adams, which mentions it.

Here's the relevant part of Adams's article:

Some games allow players to “go light,” meaning that they may call a bet even if they don’t have enough money on the table to do so, then can settle up at before [sic] the next hand. Other games actually allow players to reduce the size of their bet after they make it, to accommodate the smaller stack of an opponent, as in: “I bet $15. Oh, you only have $6? Okay, make it $6.”

The second half of that is neither remarkable nor controversial, assuming there are only two players in the hand. It's just an informal shortcut to get to the same result as formally putting out $15, then taking back $9 when the player with the $6 stack calls. I assume that Adams is not trying to say that he has seen this allowed when there are other players still in the hand who can call the full bet; that would be a whole 'nuther thing.

But, like Bruce and Robbie (the "Top Pair" hosts), I was unfamiliar with the "going light" part. I have neither seen it done nor heard of it.

By happy coincidence, just yesterday I bought Michael Wiesenberg's "The Official Dictionary of Poker," second edition, for my Kindle--a bargain at just $5. (That is an unsolicited, unpaid endorsement.) Here's his discussion of the subject:

lights. (n) In a home game, a situation that comes up when a player is LIGHT (definition 1). In some home games, not played for TABLE STAKES, when a player does not have enough chips to continue betting in a pot, that player withdraws chips from the pot equal to the amount of the betting beyond his chips, (usually) stacking them neatly in front of him. These are called lights. (To withdraw chips in this manner is called go light.) At the end of the hand, if the player does not win the pot, he buys enough chips to cover his lights. He then matches his lights, that is, puts the lights into the pot plus an equivalent amount of chips from the ones he has just bought. For example, in a stud game, Emilie starts with $16. After the sixth card, she has $2 left. The high hand bets $4. She puts her last $2 in the pot, and pulls $2 from the pot, and stacks it in front of her. At this point, she might say, “I’m light,”or, “I’m going light.”On the last round, someone bets $4 and someone calls. She pulls another $4 from the pot, adding it to her pile of lights. On the showdown, she finds that her three 7s are beat by a small straight. She buys another $50 worth of chips from the banker, adds $6 to her lights, and puts the $12 in the pot. At this point, the winner takes the whole pot. In a split (two-way) pot, if either the winner of the high half or the winner of the low half has lights, or both do, they exchange lights and then split the pot. This is equivalent to each first matching lights, and then splitting the pot, and saves time. 

It's easy to see why no casino would ever allow this: there's no way to verify that a player has enough cash to cover the loss, and no way to force the money out of him should he lose and just walk away without settling up. I suppose they could allow a player to take money out of his wallet and use cash to cover each call he makes as the hand unfolds, but then you've got problems of confusion, making change, slowing down the game, etc. 

(Note that casinos do do something that looks similar, i.e., stacking chips from the pot in front of a player to represent the amount he has pledged to put in the pot. However, this is only when the player is awaiting delivery of chips, either because he just sat down or because he busted and bought in again. Either way, the cash has been handed over to a casino employee, so there's no worry about a player not making good on his commitment. One time I saw a new player lose his entire buy-in on the first hand, before his chips had been delivered to the table. See here for that story.) 

But what about a home game where everybody knows and trusts each other? I still think it's a terrible idea, for exactly the reason that Bruce and Robbie intuit: it invites angle-shooting. 

From both Adams's description and Weisenberg's discussion, I gather that the concept is limited to calling bets, and does not extend to making bets or raising, though neither source makes that completely clear. If I'm right about that inference, then it's a slightly less-terrible idea--but still terrible. Also, it's somewhat less terrible if the game structure is limit than if it's no-limit, pot-limit, or spread-limit--but still terrible. 

The problem is that it allows (I assume) a player to choose whether to "go light" or simply be all-in with less than a full call. It must do that, unless you're going to look in everybody's wallets before the game starts to see how much "light" they can cover. I can't imagine how you could have a "mandatory lights" policy; if Emilie says she has no more cash, functionally you have to accept that. 

But if a player can choose to call for more than he has on the table, obviously he will only do so selectively. It's like the players who abuse the disconnection protection feature of some online poker sites.* In both situations, you are allowed to choose to risk either less or more. It's as if you had two different chip stacks, and you can choose to be playing with either the big one or the small one, depending on how strong you think your hand is.

In at least some situations, it would allow you to win far more than you had at risk. Suppose after the first round of betting you have a $50 stack, while an opponent has $500. On the flop, your opponent moves all-in. If your hand is strong but not a monster, you can call just the $50 with the chips in front of you. But if you got lucky and flopped, say, an unbeatable straight flush, you can call "light" for the full $500--far more than you would be willing to put at risk if you had any serious doubt about the outcome of the hand. 

As I said, the wrongness of this is less egregious in limit games, because the discrepancy between your actual stack and your virtual one (i.e., the real one augmented by the cash you're willing to make up after the hand is over) is relatively small. But it's still a discrepancy. 

In poker, the amount you can win from another player and the amount you can lose to that player should always be identical. In poker, you should be able to limit your losses by folding, and by checking and calling rather than betting and raising. You should not be able to limit your losses by manipulating the amount of money in play in the course of a hand. 

*If you opt in to this feature, or on sites where it is automatic, then if you get disconnected in the middle of a hand, whatever you have already put into the pot is treated as if it had been your entire stack, rather than getting folded and forfeiting that money after the time to act has expired. Some players abuse this by deliberately unplugging their internet connection when short of being all-in because they fear losing more money on subsequent streets.

Something went wrong

I played an online tournament today for the first time in about 18 months.

The first time I was dealt The Mighty Deuce-Four, I called a pre-flop raise. We saw this excellent flop:

The only question here is whether the turn will be an ace for a 5-high straight, or a 6 for a 6-high straight. Right?

So Player 72 bets more than I have. I call all-in. Obviously.

And the turn was an ace. Of course. Got this hand locked up tight as a drum.

Until something went terribly, terribly wrong.

I'm reeling. I don't understand how something like this can happen.

PokerNews article #72

How should your play change when an aces-cracked promotion is in effect?

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/aces-cracked-promotions-do-you-go-for-the-pot-or-the-bonus-22174.htm

Smallest jackpot EVAR

Last night I was playing in a home game. You might say it's a small-stakes format, as we use blinds of $0.20/$0.20.

Somebody suggested that we start up a bad-beat jackpot. After some discussion about how much to take from each pot and what the requirements to win it would be, it was settled. We started raking one 20-cent chip from every pot and putting it in a special cup set aside for that purpose.

Four hands into the game, it hit, and the loser of the hand was awarded the new bad-beat jackpot of 80 cents.

There was much cheering and rejoicing.

PokerNews article #71

Today I discuss three common but false poker ideas that you should purge from your brain.

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/three-common-poker-ideas-to-banish-from-your-mind-22096.htm

PokerNews article #70

Should you play more starting hands in order to increase your odds of hitting a high-hand bonus?

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/chasing-poker-room-high-hand-bonuses-is-it-worth-it-22010.htm