Thursday, May 31, 2012

Playing on TV--well, sort of

My old computer has been driving me crazy with random crashes and shutdowns. The final straw for it was when one of its fans gave out and it started overheating, on top of its other problems. I decided it was time for a new one, which arrived yesterday. So last night and this afternoon were spent just getting everything set up the way I like it, cleaning out the bloatware, transferring files, downloading programs, etc.


That's what I was doing when a Tweet popped up from Bill Biddulph. You may know him from his long association with the Wednesday Afternoon Poker Discussion Group. He is now involved with a new poker enterprise, "The Final Table Experience." I had not heard of this company before, but apparently it's brand new, so I'm not too far behind the times.

Here's their deal: You and eight or nine of your friends can each pony up $249 (at least I think that's the price--but don't quote me), go into a television studio, and play a one-table poker tournament. FTE films it as if it were a WSOP final table: hole cards and winning percentages displayed on the screen, live commentary, bustout interviews, etc. The participants each go home with a DVD of the game.

Today they were set to film what was basically a demo to be run on continuous loop at their booth at the Rio (near the Poker Kitchen, I'm told) so that potential customers can see what the company is offering. They had a last-minute cancellation, so Bill trolled via Twitter for somebody to fill the seat. I didn't have any commitments and thought it might be an interesting new experience, so I told him I'd be there in time for the start, which was only about an hour later. They tape at a studio just south of the Palms, so basically two blocks away from the Rio.


There wasn't any prize money on tap for us (though I think they have some sort of non-monetary prize structure for paying customers), but we all chipped in $20 for a winner-take-all last-longer bet.

The only players I recognized were Bryan Micon (below, left) and John Kim (not pictured). The guy on the right below is "Seriously Sirius," who has become well-known in the poker world the last couple of years for his smart, well-produced music videos about whatever is in the poker news.


See those faint black circles on the felt in front of each player? There are RFID readers under the table there, and the cards have RFID chips embedded in them--which I found pretty amazing, since they were only marginally thicker than standard cards, and I couldn't feel anything lumpy or irregular about them. That's how the off-camera people know who is playing what. Bill does the commentary in real time. They have music playing at a moderate volume to prevent the players from hearing what he is saying. I suppose one could look over at him and try to lip-read, but I didn't try to angle-shoot that way.


The structure was ridiculously fast. I'm not sure if that is representative of what you get if you're paying for the experience, or was just for purposes of getting something on tape. We started with 8000 in chips and 100/200 blinds for 20 minutes, then ten-minute levels of 200/400, 300/600, 400/800.

I basically played only four hands:

1) Early in the game, John Kim min-raised to 400. I reraised to 1000 with A-Q offsuit from late position. He and two others called. The flop was, I think, 10-4-2 rainbow. They all checked to me, so I c-bet 2000. They all folded, though John took a long time to make his decision. He told me later that he had had J-J, which is perfectly plausible.

2) I stole the blinds once with a late-position raise, no callers.

3) The guy shown above (in the middle, just sitting down) got short-stacked and started shoving fairly light. About the third time he did this, I called him from one off the button with K-J. He had Q-10 suited, so I had, in fact, called with the best hand, but he flopped a queen and won. That took me down to a little over 6000.

4) I had 5900 left. It was the last hand of the 300/600 level. I was two off the button and everybody folded to me. With a reasonably tight image, less than ten big blinds, and facing having a stack of less than eight big blinds on the next hand, this felt like a spot with which one should shove any two cards. So I did. Unfortunately, my two cards were about as bad as they get: 9h-3h. Even more unfortunately, I got called by one of the worst possible hands to be up against: 9s-9c. I couldn't even say that I had two live cards. No miracle came, and I was the first one out. Oh well. I still think it was the right move.



It was interesting to get an up-close look at a new poker venture, and it was fun playing with lights and cameras, since that's not something I'm likely to have happen for real anytime soon in my poker career. The table chat was also sufficiently amusing. I tried to kick in a few laugh lines. When we were snickering about the strangeness of playing for no prize money (none officially, anyway), I queried whether FTE dollars were worth more or less than FTP dollars. When some of the others were talking about and showing off their chip tricks, I informed them that I was the inventor of online chip tricks. Oh, such witty repartee!

My understanding is that you'll see the resulting video playing at the Rio if you find their booth. I haven't seen it yet, obviously, so if you do, drop a comment here and let me know how it looks. Based on what I saw looking on from the sidelines for a few minutes after playing the role of Gigli, my guess is it's a very professional-looking, slick production. But I'm capable of looking dorky even under the most favorable circumstances, so I'm not expecting a call from any Hollywood agents.


Monday, May 28, 2012

Josie, again

Josie and I played some more Sunday afternoon. I told her I wasn't planning to post about the results--and it was the truth, I wasn't planning to. But I changed my mind. It was only a $5 single-table SNG, with nothing on the line between us for lasting longer except pride. But I played so well that, gosh darn it, I just have to crow a little itty bit.

Josie was hit by the deck early on, achieving the first knockout when her pocket jacks flopped a set. Meanwhile, I was going the opposite direction, with nothing working out right. She was one of the chip leaders through most of the tournament, while I was scratching and clawing to avoid elimination. It wasn't looking good for me to outlast somebody who usually had a stack several times the size of mine.

But I hung in there, didn't panic, let the big stacks get bigger as they knocked out the other shorties. I was still short on the bubble, and it wasn't clear I would cash. But then Josie knocked somebody out in 4th place and I was at least into the money.

The other guy with us in the end was a total donkey, and he spewed chips off to me so badly that I took over the chip lead for a while.

Did it annoy Josie that "Fatboy 137" (his screen name) was making me healthy again? You could say that. I think she won't mind me quoting this snippet of a rant from the chat we had going on the side:
I cannot FUCKING BELIEVE that you are the chip leader.
I dominated that game from the start
seriously
thats effing crazy
and that fat boy sucks at poker
no wonder hes givng you chips hand over fist
Heh heh heh!

But in spite of the unfairness of it all, Josie took out fatboy with this hand:

Game #56077281-118: Racoon Room - No Limit Holdem Tournament - 200.00/400.00
Seat #3: fatboy137 (BB), $2307.00
Seat #4: VeryJosie (D), $6906.00
Seat #8: Rakewell0 (SB), $3612.00
*** Blinds ***
Rakewell0 posts the small blind of 200.00
fatboy137 posts the big blind of 400.00
*** Pre-Flop ***
Rakewell0 got hole cards [ Ah 7d ]
VeryJosie raises with 800.00
Rakewell0 folds
fatboy137 goes all-in with 2307.00
VeryJosie calls 1907.00
fatboy137 shows [ 4d 4s ]
VeryJosie shows [ 6c 7c ]
*** Flop *** Pot: 5614
[ Qd 3c 9s ]
*** Turn *** Pot: 5614
[ Qd 3c 9s ] [ Ts ]
*** River *** Pot: 5614
[ Qd 3c 9s ] [ Ts ] [ 6d ]
fatboy137 is out
VeryJosie wins 5689.00

(Side note: I know that text hand histories are both difficult and mind-numbing to read. But I spent over an hour looking for a way to convert Merge Network hand histories to animation, and found none. If there's a better solution than this, let me know, because this sucks.)

So then we were heads-up, Josie having more than a 3:1 chip lead, me starting with less than eight big blinds. But I doubled up on the second hand:

Game #56077281-120: Racoon Room - No Limit Holdem Tournament - 200.00/400.00
Seat #4: VeryJosie (D SB), $9888.00
Seat #8: Rakewell0 (BB), $2962.00
*** Blinds ***
VeryJosie posts the small blind of 200.00
Rakewell0 posts the big blind of 400.00
*** Pre-Flop ***
Rakewell0 got hole cards [ Ac 4c ]
VeryJosie raises with 1037.00
Rakewell0 goes all-in with 2962.00
VeryJosie calls 2325.00
VeryJosie shows [ Qs Js ]
Rakewell0 shows [ Ac 4c ]
*** Flop *** Pot: 6924
[ 4h Ks As ]
*** Turn *** Pot: 6924
[ 4h Ks As ] [ Kc ]
*** River *** Pot: 6924
[ 4h Ks As ] [ Kc ] [ 3c ]
Rakewell0 wins 6774.00

That got us to basically even. Nine boring hands later, this happened:

Game #56077281-129: Racoon Room - No Limit Holdem Tournament - 200.00/400.00
Seat #4: VeryJosie (BB), $6751.00
Seat #8: Rakewell0 (D SB), $6099.00
*** Blinds ***
Rakewell0 posts the small blind of 200.00
VeryJosie posts the big blind of 400.00
*** Pre-Flop ***
Rakewell0 got hole cards [ Td 8h ]
Rakewell0 raises with 1000.00
VeryJosie calls 600.00
*** Flop *** Pot: 2200
[ Js 8c Jc ]
VeryJosie bets 1025.00
Rakewell0 calls 1025.00
*** Turn *** Pot: 4250
[ Js 8c Jc ] [ Ad ]
VeryJosie checks
Rakewell0 checks
*** River *** Pot: 4250
[ Js 8c Jc ] [ Ad ] [ 8d ]
VeryJosie checks
Rakewell0 bets 2250.00
VeryJosie folds
Rakewell0 shows [ Td 8h ]
Rakewell0 wins 6350.00

Now I was the one with the substantial chip lead. But Josie took a chunk of it back here:

Game #56077281-135: Racoon Room - No Limit Holdem Tournament - 200.00/400.00
Seat #4: VeryJosie (BB), $3876.00
Seat #8: Rakewell0 (D SB), $8974.00
*** Blinds ***
Rakewell0 posts the small blind of 200.00
VeryJosie posts the big blind of 400.00
*** Pre-Flop ***
Rakewell0 got hole cards [ Kc 7d ]
Rakewell0 raises with 1000.00
VeryJosie calls 600.00
*** Flop *** Pot: 2200
[ 8s 6h Ts ]
VeryJosie goes all-in with 3276.00
Rakewell0 folds
VeryJosie mucks [ ]
VeryJosie wins 5326.00

Which left me with a much smaller lead, until I got her to raise-fold twice by putting in all-in three-bets:

Game #56077281-138: Racoon Room - No Limit Holdem Tournament - 200.00/400.00
Seat #4: VeryJosie (D SB), $5301.00
Seat #8: Rakewell0 (BB), $7549.00
*** Blinds ***
VeryJosie posts the small blind of 200.00
Rakewell0 posts the big blind of 400.00
*** Pre-Flop ***
Rakewell0 got hole cards [ Ad 9s ]
VeryJosie raises with 1250.00
Rakewell0 goes all-in with 7549.00
VeryJosie folds
Rakewell0 mucks [ Ad 9s ]
Rakewell0 wins 9249.00

Game #56077281-150: Racoon Room - No Limit Holdem Tournament - 300.00/600.00
Seat #4: VeryJosie (D SB), $4576.00
Seat #8: Rakewell0 (BB), $7924.00
*** Blinds ***
VeryJosie posts the small blind of 300.00
Rakewell0 posts the big blind of 600.00
*** Pre-Flop ***
Rakewell0 got hole cards [ 5h 5s ]
VeryJosie raises with 1575.00
Rakewell0 goes all-in with 7924.00
VeryJosie folds
Rakewell0 mucks [ 5h 5s ]
Rakewell0 wins 10199.00

Now I had about 90% of the chips in play and could taste the win. Not so fast, pal, sez Josie. She shoved a bunch of times when I had such crappy cards I felt I couldn't take the risk. So my lead got whittled back down to about 2.5:1 when the next big chip movement occurred:

Game #56077281-155: Racoon Room - No Limit Holdem Tournament - 300.00/600.00
Seat #4: VeryJosie (BB), $3651.00
Seat #8: Rakewell0 (D SB), $8849.00
*** Blinds ***
Rakewell0 posts the small blind of 300.00
VeryJosie posts the big blind of 600.00
*** Pre-Flop ***
Rakewell0 got hole cards [ 8c As ]
Rakewell0 goes all-in with 8849.00
VeryJosie goes all-in with 3651.00
VeryJosie shows [ Ts Ad ]
Rakewell0 shows [ 8c As ]
*** Flop *** Pot: 13400
[ Qd Th 4c ]
*** Turn *** Pot: 13400
[ Qd Th 4c ] [ Qh ]
*** River *** Pot: 13400
[ Qd Th 4c ] [ Qh ] [ 3d ]
Rakewell0 wins 4898.00
VeryJosie wins 8602.00

Dammit! She won't die! And now I'm the one in jeopardy again! But I won't die easily, either:

Game #56077281-159: Racoon Room - No Limit Holdem Tournament - 300.00/600.00
Seat #4: VeryJosie (BB), $6302.00
Seat #8: Rakewell0 (D SB), $6198.00
*** Blinds ***
Rakewell0 posts the small blind of 300.00
VeryJosie posts the big blind of 600.00
*** Pre-Flop ***
Rakewell0 got hole cards [ 9s Jd ]
Rakewell0 calls 300.00
VeryJosie checks
*** Flop *** Pot: 1200
[ 9d 2d 5h ]
VeryJosie checks
Rakewell0 bets 800.00
VeryJosie calls 800.00
*** Turn *** Pot: 2800
[ 9d 2d 5h ] [ 8c ]
VeryJosie checks
Rakewell0 bets 2100.00
VeryJosie calls 2100.00
*** River *** Pot: 7000
[ 9d 2d 5h ] [ 8c ] [ Kd ]
VeryJosie checks
Rakewell0 checks
*** Showdown *** Pot: 7000
VeryJosie shows [ 2c 7h ]
Rakewell0 shows [ 9s Jd ]
Rakewell0 wins 7100.00

That put me back in the driver's seat, and set up the final showdown:

Game #56077281-161: Racoon Room - No Limit Holdem Tournament - 300.00/600.00
Seat #4: VeryJosie (BB), $3402.00
Seat #8: Rakewell0 (D SB), $9098.00
*** Blinds ***
Rakewell0 posts the small blind of 300.00
VeryJosie posts the big blind of 600.00
*** Pre-Flop ***
Rakewell0 got hole cards [ 4d 4s ]
Rakewell0 goes all-in with 9098.00
VeryJosie goes all-in with 3402.00
VeryJosie shows [ Kh Jc ]
Rakewell0 shows [ 4d 4s ]
*** Flop *** Pot: 13400
[ 7s 5h Tc ]
*** Turn *** Pot: 13400
[ 7s 5h Tc ] [ As ]
*** River *** Pot: 13400
[ 7s 5h Tc ] [ As ] [ 8s ]
VeryJosie is out
Rakewell0 is out
Rakewell0 wins 5396.00
Rakewell0 wins 8104.00

And that was all she wrote.

As I said, I was pretty pleased with myself for hanging in there so long, striking at pretty much all the right times (after the first few hands I played went bad), and getting fatboy to donate most of his stack to me.

Josie played well, too.* In fact, I think the only fair way to describe the overall story is that she crushed the game for the first 80% of it, then I rallied at the end just enough to snatch a W from her.

Things went less for both of us in the rematch. Josie was first out when her 9-9 ran into my A-A. I survived just long enough for the 3rd-place min-cash. Meh, but I'll take it.

Josie was much less trash-talky today than yesterday; she only called me a whore eight times (by actual count). Maybe it was her Sunday church-going good behavior. But she was actually very nice and complimentary to me (in between blasts of "WHORE!"), which made the whole thing a fun, enjoyable time, and would have been so even if the outcome had been different.

(EDIT: Josie's account of the game is here.)


*The only time I thought she made a clear mistake was when we were three-handed. She raised, I shoved, and she folded, but stack sizes were such that she really should have called with whatever she had. (To quote the great line from Joe Sebok's WSOP final table commentary when Darvin Moon made an eye-poppingly bad fold, she should have called even if all she was holding was "a Snickers wrapper and a tarot card.")