Selling it

Last night I was playing at Binion's, Seat 1. Very early in the session I saw Seat 4 make a couple of very thin calls on the river (one of which was right and one wrong), and mentally pegged him as a calling station. Value-bet him, sez I to myself, no bluffing him.

Maybe an hour later I had been card-dead for quite a while, so I decided to raise with 10-8 offsuit from the cutoff seat. Most of my winning hands had been raise in position pre-flop, c-bet post, take it down. When the table is willing to let me do that, it obviously doesn't matter much what cards I have, as long as I'm not doing it so often as to arouse suspicion. I hoped that this hand would be yet another small win following the same pattern. The only caller was Seat 4 in the big blind.

Flop was A-J-9 with two hearts. Mr. Station checked. I thought this was a nearly ideal situation. I could represent the ace with a bet and have a high probability of ending the hand. If he called, I had an open-ended straight draw which, if it hit, would be thoroughly disguised, because he would never guess that I had open-raised with 10-8, given my tight image. If he were on a flush draw I could keep betting at any non-heart and likely win that way. If a heart came and he checked it, I could represent having made the flush. Lots of possibilities here for how to win this hand.

So I bet $15 into the roughly $20 pot. I was quite surprised to have him respond with a raise to $45. I didn't recall having seen him do a check-raise before. Yet I didn't get a sense from him of great strength, like a set. It felt more like a guy with an ace saying, "I don't think you have one." Very few players at these stakes check-raise a bare flush draw; rather, they use the check-raise to guard against opponents' flush draws. (The ace was one of the hearts, so he couldn't have top pair and a flush draw.) I considered my options, and settled on a call, hoping to either hit my hidden straight or get a heart which I could pretend completed my flush.

Turn was an offsuit 3. Whiff. I probably would have given up if he had made another substantial bet. But instead he checked. The check-raise/check pattern made me much more confident that, whatever he had, it was not a hand with which he was eager to get all of his chips in, which was a crucial point of demarcation. I took the free card.

River was the 4 of hearts. Now the question was what he would do. If he bet, I would have to conclude that he had flopped a pair and a flush draw, and abandon ship. But if he checked, then it would be much more likely that he hated the third heart than that he loved it.

Sure enough, he checked again. I moved all-in for my last $137. He sat back to think, and was pointedly studying me.

My usual practice when I am putting an opponent to a big test is to say nothing, no matter what. I rest my chin on my hands, remember to breathe normally, feel relaxed, kind of aimlessly look around at the pot, the TVs, the other players, or whatever else may be going on--and I try to do this exactly the same whether I have the stone-cold nuts or "what the little boy shot at."*

Here, however, the situation was somewhat different than usual. This guy was clearly suspicious, both by general disposition and because of the specific situation. Sure, I had played the flop and turn in a way that was consistent with a flush draw. The hole in the story, though, was that most of the time the pre-flop raiser will not have the flush draw when two of a suit come on the flop. The reason for that is simple: There are a lot more raiseworthy hands that contain different suits than are of the same suit, and even those that are of the same suit will be of a different suit than hits the flop three out of four times. If he was experienced enough to understand this truth, he was going to be leaning towards a thin call even more than was already his natural inclination. This was a high-risk, high-pucker-factor situation I was putting myself in. I felt that a little more salesmanship than usual was called for.

Very early in his tanking, he said, "Well, obviously you're saying that you made the flush. The question is, did you?" He quickly followed this with a friendly, "You're not required to answer that." Ordinarily I would ignore this or just give a small smile. But I wanted to stretch the envelope of my normal posture and conduct just a little toward the "I'm comfortable and relaxed" side, without overdoing it so much that he would recognize Hollywooding in me. So, playing off of what he had just said, I turned to the dealer and jokingly asked, "Do you have a player's Miranda warning here? Like, 'You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you'?" The dealer and a couple of other players chuckled, which helped me to smile along with them and, I hoped, look like everything was right in my world.

This all went on for a long time--three or four minutes, anyway. He counted out the chips for a call, and looked at what he would have left if he lost. I watched him intermittently, but remembered not to freeze up in either my breathing or where I was looking, which is one of the more reliable signs of a bluffer. At one point he asked me the classic, "If I fold, will you show?" Again, I usually ignore such questions completely, but this time I fudged just a little on the looking-relaxed side by smiling nicely at him and giving him a "Gee, I just don't know what I'll do" shrug.

I really thought he was going to call. But finally he sighed, looked dejected, took one last look at his cards, gave them that resigned snap with the index finger (what IS that gesture about, anyway?), and passed them back to the dealer face down. Pot to me.

I did not show.

He said, "I don't think you had it." I just smiled. Seat 2 immediately opined to Seat 4, "I think he had you all the way." Seat 4 asked, "You think he could beat two pair?" Seat 2 said, "Oh yeah, he looked really strong to me. I think he was stringing you along." Seat 4 said, "Well then maybe I made a good fold."

Yes sir, you absolutely did. As John-Robert Bellande likes to say, "Excellent laydown!" Excellent for me, that is.

(From the post-mortem discussion, I'm thinking that maybe he had A-9 or J-9, and checked the turn out of worry that I had top two pair with A-J, but that's just a guess, obviously.)

*Wow. I haven't heard or used this phrase in years and years. I don't know why it just leapt to mind to deploy here. When my grandmother taught me how to play cribbage, if one ended up with a nothing hand, that's what she called it--"What the little boy shot at." For a nice little exposition on the history and meaning of this phrase, see here.

Two quickie restaurant reviews

I played at Binion's tonight. About an hour in, I made a bad read, got all my money in bad, but got rescued by a five-outer to more than double up.

Poker has been brutal lately. I've had seven losing sessions in a row. I don't think that beats my record, but it's coming close. It has been starting to get to me--as in, I start to think not just that I've forgotten how to play, but that maybe I never knew how to play in the first place.

I was confident there was more money to be made at the table, and I didn't have any particular reason that I needed to cut the session short. However, psychologically I really needed to be able to enter a W in the ledger for the day, after seven L's in a row. I think Ed Miller gave great advice on this point once:

Go ahead and book a win. I know a lot of people think booking wins and setting stop losses is hogwash. But playing top poker (particularly no-limit) requires confidence in yourself and your decision-making. And if you lose seven days straight, your confidence is likely going to be in the can no matter who you are. So if you start a session and you’re up a few buyins after bit, wrap it up. Book the win. And pat yourself on the back. You’ll be more confident during your next session.*

So that's just what I did. I ended my losing streak, and hopefully tomorrow I can go back to attacking the game with my usual state of mind, instead of with the cowering and confusion and second-guessing that comes from an ugly string of losses.

Anyway, I was in no hurry to get home, and decided to get something to eat. I mentioned late last year that a place called the Heart Attack Grill opened between my apartment building and the downtown casinos. It has been in the news lately because two customers have had to be taken away by ambulance mid-meal. They're not kidding about the name.

It's not really the kind of place I frequent. In fact, I've been eating fried food generally and hamburgers specifically a lot less than I used to. I have been making some modest efforts to make my diet healthier, as I feel the ol' arteries hardening with age. (Having a vegetarian girlfriend also tends to push one in this direction.) So it has probably been two months since I last had a burger. I decided I could stand one indulgence.

But they wouldn't serve me. I declined to wear the silly hospital gowns that they hand out at the door. I assumed that this was a "fun" gimmick that most customers decided to participate in as part of the ambiance. I had not anticipated that they would consider this a requirement, like the way some fancy places make you wear a jacket and tie. I was floored when the waitress told me it was mandatory. I told her I'd like to eat there, but I wasn't going to wear a gown to do so. She had me talk to the manager. I assumed that the manager would waive the requirement if I asked. After all, they surely want to sell me food more than they want to enforce their stupid rule, right? Nope. "You have to have on a gown to be in here," the manager told me. I said, "That's the stupidest rule I have even encountered in a restaurant. But if you don't want my money, OK, I'm sure somebody else does." I'm still stunned that a restaurant of mostly empty tables would turn away a customer eager to do business with them in the middle of a recession. But hey, there are probably 30 eateries within 100 yards of that spot, and I figured that I could pick one of them and not have to argue with a manager and beg them to take my money.

I stopped into a place that I have walked by dozens and dozens of times, always thinking that I should try it, but never had. It's a Cuban/Mexican place called Mamita's, just a block from my house. I had noticed previously that its customers were about 90% Hispanic, which I thought was a good indicator. In fact, it had nearly all the markings of a place where one could find good food at a good price, as argued recently by economist and foodie Tyler Cowen. Besides, it was Cinco de Mayo--how could I not have Mexican food?

Before I even sat down, I noticed that this place had the ultimate marker of an authentic Cuban restaurant: Fidel Castro sitting at one of the tables. Seriously!

The picture doesn't do him justice. He really is a spitting image, uniform and all. In fact, I think he is there just to provide a touch of Cuba. He was there when I arrived, still there when I left, and he wasn't ever doing anything. He didn't eat, didn't read a book, didn't talk to anyone. Maybe he makes a little extra scratch letting people take his picture for tips. It's not every day that you get to have your picture taken with the world's longest-reigning dictator. (I suppose that Joe Biden would insist that Castro, like Hosni Mubarak, is not a dictator, but I think anybody who doesn't swallow the current administration's delusions on foreign policy would judge otherwise.)

The music they had blaring was deafening. As soon as I sat down, a waitress rushed over with a menu, smiled, and asked how I was. I told her I would be better if my ears weren't being assaulted. She immediately said, "I'll see if I can get them to turn it down." She stepped away, spoke to somebody, and it worked! It was still louder than I would have liked, but it was tolerable.

Wow--catering to a paying customer's special request. What a concept! Maybe the Heart Attack Grill manager should walk down the block and take a lesson.

Anyway, I've dragged this out long enough. I had a carnitas burrito, and it was just right. Whole meal, including side dishes and tip, was less than $14. I should have been coming here long ago.

Summary: Heart Attack Grill sucks. Mamita's rules.

*As quoted here. I could not find the original source to link to.

Clash of the titan hands

I was playing at Binion's tonight. At one point I had 8s-8d and limped. Button limped. Small blind raised to $17, an unusually high raise. This immediately suggested to me that he had one of those pairs that so many $1-2 NLHE players just don't know how to play after the flop--queens, jack, tens, and nines, with jacks being the #1 suspect, as that is the one hand with which I most commonly see the over-sized raise. I called, as did the button.

I flopped a set as I had hoped to do, but apparently I did not specify with sufficient clarity the texture of the flop that I wanted to go along with my set. What I got was 8c-9c-10c, which is maybe the worst possible flop containing an 8 that I could imagine. If I wasn't already on the bad end of a set-over-set situation, or up against a straight or a flush, about half the deck on the turn would give me a very hard decision and maybe an ulcer.

SB bet $30. He had both started the hand with $120 or so. I had a little more than that. I moved all in. Button folded. SB called instantly and enthusiastically. Ruh-roh.

It wasn't the worst possible scenario, but it was close. He had pocket jacks, include the jack of clubs, giving him an open-ended straight flush draw. Ugh.

I didn't have to nurse my ulcer for too long, though, as the dealer quickly found the case 8 for fourth street. That was awfully nice, but it still wasn't over.

Memo to the poker gods: When you've got quads made on the turn, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE TO SWEAT THE RIVER!

At this point, another player helpfully announced that he had folded the 7c, which reduced the SB to one out. That helped me relax. I can usually dodge one-outers.

And I did. A harmless 10 hit the river, giving me quads full of tens, or something like that. I won the pot and a $50 jackpot--the minimum one, since it had just reset after somebody else had hit it a short time before.

And now for something complete different: A bonus story, having nothing to do with the above, except that they both took place in the same session.

I got up to throw away a water bottle. Coming back my seat (#1), I noticed a blue $1 chip on the floor between my chair and the dealer's. I knew I hadn't dropped any chips. I was pretty sure it must have come from one of two places. First, the dealer had gotten a fill of blue chips a short time before, and one of them could have been dropped unnoticed. Second, soon after I sat down, a young woman had joined the table across from me, and had dropped her chips on the floor as she tried to move them from the rack to the table. One of them could have easily rolled under the table in my direction.

So when the hand was over and the dealer could listen, I told her that I found a chip, and perhaps she should count her tray to see if one was missing. She did. The count was right, but then (and we are finally getting to the point of the story here) she added, "But I'm always willing to take donations."

Really? Begging? For a $1 chip you're reducing yourself to open, shameless begging? How low can you go? It was pathetic.

On the rare occasions that I find a stray chip on the floor around a poker table and nobody can plausibly claim it, my usual practice is to give it to the dealer as a tip. That wasn't my plan on this occasion, because I had a good idea who the rightful owner was, but if it had been the usual situation, that comment would have caused me to deviate from my normal course and keep the chip rather than rewarding the dealer's scummy groveling for it.

The woman who had dropped her chips earlier happened to be away from the table when this occurred, so I just rolled the chip over toward her seat. When she came back, she didn't question where it had come from, and I didn't volunteer anything about it. I saw no need to open the subject. I especially didn't want the woman to decide she wasn't sure it was hers and give it to the dealer. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Lazy Sunday

My day:

I woke up, after having dreamed that I hung onto the wing of the space shuttle and hitched a ride all the way up to the International Space Station, which was pretty cool. (Apparently I can breathe in outer space, which might come in handy someday.) I had lunch while watching "Reliable Sources" on CNN. I like Howard Kurtz. I played two SNG tournaments on Bodog, nothing in one, shipped the other.

While I was doing that, I was seeing Twitter messages from my friends Stacey and Don of Las Vegas Poker Source about how well Stacey was doing in the U.S. Ladies Poker Championship at the Golden Nugget. She had started the final table at noon with one of the short stacks, but had bullied her way upward.

I hatched a plan. The Plaza hotel and casino has been closed for renovation for several months, and just reopened Thursday. I had heard that a gourmet cupcake shop, Gigi's, was part of the new restaurant lineup, and I wanted to indulge. I'm within easy walking distance of both the Nugget and the Plaza, so I decided to walk to the Nugget and if it looked like Stacey would still be in for a while, I'd head off to the Plaza and buy three cupcakes to share with her and Don in celebration of her deep run. By the time I got there to check in with them, it was down to the final three, and her stack was healthy, so off to the Plaza I went. But to my great disappointment, I learned that Gigi's isn't going to open for another several days. No cupcakes for us. Boo!

I went back to the Nugget just as Stacey was beginning the heads-up battle. Here she is, looking all fierce. Or maybe bored. You decide:

Stacey was head-and-shoulders better than her last remaining opponent. This other woman had no concept of bet sizing. She was opening for up to eight times the big blind, or reraising all-in for 50+ big blinds after a standard opening raise from Stacey. Reckless. Or perhaps she recognized that she was outclassed, and figured that she'd enhance the luck factor by trying to play a few big pots pre-flop, so as not to have to face the more difficult decisions post-flop. Either way, it worked well enough, and Stacey couldn't overcome the chip deficit with which she started the last phase of the tournament. But she played great, from what I could see, and walked away with more than $6000. She is an excellent tournament player and has been slaying events for the past year or so (see Hendon Mob listing here).

I walked across the plaza to Binion's to play some poker myself. I had to wait a while for a new table to open, and passed the time reading a few more pages in the brand-new poker novel The Superuser--my first Kindle book (reading on my Android phone). I'm a little more than halfway through, and will do a post about it when I'm done.

I made $123 in an hour, but really didn't feel like playing any more, so I cashed out, picking up the new issues of various poker magazines as I left. I kept one of the chips for my collection. It's a new issue since the last time I played at Binion's, commemorating the casino's recent 60th anniversary:

I went back to the Plaza to see if the remodeling had made the place nice enough to be worth taking pictures of. Nope. It looked mostly the same as I remember it, though admittedly I had only been there twice before, and it was a long time ago. I mean, there's new carpet and better lighting, but nothing like the complete re-do that the Tropicana recently received. No poker room in the new place. But I snapped a few pictures for the "Guess the Casino" series anyway.

On my way home I passed a couple of mildly interesting sights. There's always a bunch of people dressed up as showgirls and celebrities, hoping tourists will tip them to pose for a photo. This was a new twist on the genre--the famous Vegas sign. No need to drive out past Mandalay Bay!

(I achieved a minor personal breakthrough with this photograph, even though it looks unremarkable. When I got home and uploaded the day's shots to my computer, I found that I had left the white balance set on "incandescent" for the indoor shots at the Plaza, which made this one pervasively blue-tinted. But I discovered how to do color correction using Microsoft Picture Viewer and fixed it.)

Then there was this young woman with interesting hair, dancing enthusiastically on stage:

I came home and did a crossword puzzle with Cardgrrl via Skype. Now it's time for a snack while I watch "Top Gear" (the kind-of-sucky-but-gradually-getting-better American version) from earlier tonight. Then wash the dishes, probably a couple more Bodog single-tables, put up another's week's worth of GTC posts, then to bed.

See what an exciting life I lead?

Poker for fun and profit

Last night I had dinner with two out-of-town friends, Jennifer Newell (aka WriterJen, previously written about here) and Jason Simon (aka Genomeboy, previously written about here). We ate at Burger Bar in Mandalay Place. I've been there a couple of times before, but this time had something different: "The Hawaiian," which is a marinated/grilled chicken breast sandwich with bacon and pineapple. Yummy!

From there, Jason and I went to the Aria poker room. We had to wait nearly an hour to get seats in a $1/3 game because of the long waiting lists. Jason jumped into a $2/5 game while we were waiting, and promptly lost $300 in one hand, all in pre-flop, when his A-K got four-flushed by another A-K. Sick.

But soon we were at the same $1/3 game. I left up $255 less than an hour later, all my profit coming in two hands. In the first I made the nut flush on the river (thanks, of course, to crubs), beating a flopped two pair. In the second, I got tricky with just 5-4 offsuit against the raise of a tight, solid player on my immediate right. The flop was A-9-4. I called his flop bet partly as a float (in case he had kings or queens, hated the ace, and would check the turn to me), partly hoping to hit trips or two pair. When the turn brought a second 9, he bet again, and I raised, figuring that he would put me on a hand like 8-9 or 9-10. He agonized for quite a while, but finally folded. Stole one!

I might have left about then anyway, but I was enticed away by several Tweets announcing that a cluster of poker media people had opened an alcohol-fueled $2/4 mixed game at Binion's. They included Pauly, Change100, KevMath, AlCantHang, and Kara Scott, plus PokerVixen, whom I've met on a few previous occasions. That just sounded like altogether too much fun to pass up.

The game only survived about 90 minutes after I arrived (most of the others having reporting jobs to perform in the morning), but it was a blast while it lasted. Highlights included:

• Kevmath open-raising from under the gun in 2-7 triple-draw, then drawing five cards.
• Al becoming the first person I've ever seen spill a capped bottle of water across a poker table.
• Vixen making a #1 in 2-7 and revealing her hand one street too early--which was seen by everybody at the table except Pauly, her lone remaining opponent in the hand, who continued to try to beat her.
• Bluffing Al off of a queen low in razz when I had secretly triple-paired, and showing the burn--shortly after we had talked about how fun it was to bluff in razz.

I lost only $3 in the game, and got 50 times that much enjoyment value out of it.

Negotiating a deal

One more story from yesterday's Binion's HORSE tournament.

The final table was nine players, even though only eight spots paid, and even though the tournament had been all 8-max to that point. This actually made sense, because the bubble can take a long time, and leaving one table with five players and one with four for long can be a significant disadvantage to the shorter table. It also meant that we didn't have to do any hand-for-hand play.

As soon as we had assembled at the "feature" table (Binion's has a little rail-enclosed platform area for this), talk began of a save for 9th place--some way to get the bubble boy his entrance fee of $200 back as a consolation prize. I suggested that everybody just take $25 cash out of their wallets, have one of us hold it, and that way we wouldn't even have to involve the tournament officials or fiddle with the payout amounts. That idea was not warmly met.

The next iteration was to have $25 deducted from each payout amount, thus creating an official 9th paid place of $200.

Here's where it got interesting. Rather than ask whether anybody objected, they arranged for a silent, anonymous vote by cards. Each player was given one red card and one black card. At the signal, we pushed to the center of the table our black card if voting "yes" on the proposal, red card for "no." Those cards were scrambled, and then the unused cards collected. The TD then turned over the voting cards. Even though nobody had voiced an objection to the proposed deal, there was one red card. Unanimity is required, so it was rejected.

A few minutes later somebody said that it didn't seem fair to have the same amount taken out of each payout, that the higher finishes should contribute more. Somebody else suggested $100 from first and $50 from each of second and third places. That got enough general support to warrant another vote by cards, and this time the motion carried.

I have seen tournament deals scuttled by one or two objectors, and some of those in favor of the deal getting really nasty and critical of the holdouts. I had read about other places using this kind of anonymous voting system, but I had never seen or participated in one before. It takes a few extra minutes, but I think the reduction in undue social pressure and avoidance of arguments and rancor is well worth it.

Once in a while a new idea for how to do something comes along that is in every way superior to what had gone before. I think that this is one such, and that it should be universally adopted by poker tournament directors who involve themselves in any negotiated deals.

Horsing around at Binion's

If you follow my Twitter feed, you saw about a jillion posts from Binion's yesterday while I played a tournament there. It was event #9 of the 5th Annual Binion's Classic, the $200 HORSE. There were 71 players, 8 spots paid. I finished in 6th for $625.

It was both pleasing and disappointing. Pleasing because I made money and, even more, because I twice had to make comebacks from being nearly eliminated, and I was proud of how calm and patient and calculating I was at picking spots.

But at the same time, disappointing, because once at the final table I had plenty of chips and could have finished higher, if not for what turned out to be an ill-timed bluff, the only three-barrel bluff I attempted in the entire 12 hours. It made me ultra-short, and I was out two hands later. Had I just continued my regular game, I might well have outlasted at least one or two more players and substantially improved my finish. On the other hand, I went with my read that the guy was on a draw that missed (either low draw or flush draw in an Omaha hand), and I was just wrong. That's going to happen sometimes, and if I never three-barrel in such situations, I'm leaving a valuable tool out of the box. Hence the mixed feelings.

It is nice to get tangible proof that I'm not just deceiving myself when I think that over the past three years or so of online play I have managed to teach myself these five games with a reasonable degree of competence.

There were two rules issues that came up. In an early round of Omaha I flopped top set on a board with no straights or flushes possible, and still held the best possible hand on the turn. I bet the requisite 600. Next guy called. Last guy intended to call, but did so by putting out one 1000 chip and one 100 chip in order to make it easy for the dealer to give him change by sliding him back a 500 chip. But he failed to announce "Call" before putting out these two chips.

The "half bet rule" says that in limit games if a player puts out an amount (other than a single oversized chip) that is greater than one half of the difference between a call and a raise, it will be deemed a raise, and he will be required to put in the rest of the raise amount. That seemed to apply here. I was about to bring it up, but an off-duty Binion's dealer playing at our table beat me to it, so I let him take the heat of the affected player's ire.

[Note added June 22, 2011: In retrospect, this isn't quite accurate. I think that proper terminology would restrict the use of the term "half-bet rule" to situations in which the player is all in, not a situation as here where there is either a mistake or an ambiguous number of chips put in. The analysis and ruling are correct as described, but I shouldn't have used the term "half-bet rule."]

The floor was called, and he said it would be considered a raise, despite the player's angry protestations that he was only calling, and was just trying to make the dealer's job easier. Well, bub, then you should have verbalized your intention. Uttering a single word before putting the chips out would have solved the problem. As it was, his raise allowed me to reraise, and both opponents called, so I captured four extra big bets than I otherwise would have. It may be a technicality, but poker is all about making fewer mistakes than your opponents, and taking full advantage of the ones they make.

In the second instance, many hours later, I had the 1500 bring-in for a stud hand with limits of 5000 and 10,000. A guy at the far end of the table picked up a 5000 chip and asked the dealer how much a call would be. Dealer answered, "1500." The player then asked, "And if I raise, it's to 5000?" Dealer responded, "Yes." The guy then dropped his 5000 chip on the felt.

The next guy to act asked the dealer, "So he raised, right?" I spoke up. "No, he didn't announce a raise. He just asked whether a raise would be to 5000." The player protested that he had intended to raise. Floor was called, facts were recited to him, including the player's exact questions to the dealer. When he heard that the player had made no announcement after receiving answers to his two questions, the floor man instantly and definitively closed the case: It's a call. The free card I earned by getting this ruling ended up not helping me, and I folded to a bet on 4th street, but it was worth a shot.

I think both rulings were clearly correct. Both actions are ones that would be an angle-shooter's paradise if the decisions were made based on what the player claimed his intentions were. In the first case, the guy puts out 1100 and watches to see my reaction. If I eagerly reraise, he can protest that he only intended it to be a call and the action was not reopened. If I look like I don't like it, when queried he can say that of course it's a raise, and he just accidentally left out one of the chips.

Same thing with the "If I raise..." question. If a later player treats it as a raise and reraises, he can say that he had not announced a raise, but was merely asking a hypothetical question, and lose only the call amount. But if it gets others to fold, he silently lets them keep thinking that it had, in fact, been a raise.

I don't think that either player intended such shenanigans in this tournament, but the rules exist to prevent shady players from taking such shots. Unless somebody does the same trick repeatedly, we can never be sure whether he's telling the truth when asked what he had intended. For the rules to be effective in preventing such ambiguity, they have to be enforced the same way every time, even if it upsets players who inadvertently run afoul of them.

I feel no sympathy for them. Both men were in their 50s, obviously experienced players, not novices. They have an obligation to know and follow the rules. The simple expedient of verbally announcing intention before acting solves the problem in both cases. If they fail to take such an easy precautionary step, tough--it's their fault, and they rightly suffer the consequences. They had the capacity to prevent the ambiguity with a single word, and they couldn't be bothered, so the rules prescribe how the ambiguity is to be resolved. End of story.

There was one other rules controversy, though I only know about it secondhand. My friend Katie Baxter tried to raise by announcing "all in" before tossing in her last chip--an oversized one. The floor apparently ruled that it was just a call. This seems to have been based on the bizarre notion that "all in" is not functionally equivalent to "raise"--but it sure seems to me that it is. "Raise all in" would obviously be acceptable, so why isn't just "All in"? Both unambiguously signal the same intention to the other players. If I've understood the facts of the situation correctly, it seems a terrible decision, though apparently Katie thinks that the opposite ruling wouldn't have changed the outcome.

OK, that's enough rants. It's late, and as Tony Big Charles always says, I must sleep immediately.

Promotions

Usually I am not much influenced in where I play by the promotions available, but once in a while I'll make an exception. Yesterday and today were unusual because on two consecutive days I went to a poker room specifically because it was running a different kind of promotion that I was interested in seeing.

Yesterday I had a free buffet lunch at the Palms, and was going to catch a 5:30 movie at the theaters there ("Hanna," which was sensational--best action flick I've seen in a long, long time), with some afternoon poker in between. What had caught my attention was the beginning of a new promotion in the Palms poker room called "Action Aces." It's an aces-cracked thing with a twist: Lose with aces, and the room gives you a jackpot twice the size of the pot that you lost, capped at $200.

That strikes me as an interesting variation on the theme. Under standard aces-cracked promotions, one is torn between two choices: (A) inviting everybody into the pot by limping and playing passively after the flop, hoping to lose and pick up a jackpot worth more than the pot you likely would have won by standard play, or (B) play the usual aggressive way, and risk winning only a small pot or losing one so large that the jackpot amount doesn't make up for your losses. I hate that dilemma, and so usually avoid playing in places and at times that such promotions are running. It distorts the game way too much for my taste.

But with Action Aces, you are motivated to inflate the pot, because even if you lose, you earn more money than you would have won had you taken the pot (up to a limit). In other words, you can pretty much play as you normally would, without agonizing over which of two mutually exclusive strategies to follow. It's a good idea. I can't tell you about whether it worked as well in practice as it does in theory because neither I nor anybody at my table had aces cracked while I was there. (We collectively speculated that the poker room management had removed all the aces from the deck just so that they wouldn't have to pay out.)

Then tonight I went to Binion's because they were having a Cinco de Mayo promotion, in which making either a set of 5s or quad 5s paid handsome bonuses--up to $10,000. I got pocket 5s once, but couldn't improve them. I made a little money on the night, but won no jackpots.

One guy left the table soon after I arrived. He said that he had gotten pocket 5s four times in the past hour, and he knew that that was way over what was statistically likely, so he concluded that he wasn't going to be dealt any more potential jackpot hands, and he might as well go home. No matter how many times I hear poker players falling into the gambler's fallacy (the idea that past independent events somehow influence future ones), I just can't figure out how anybody can be a successful poker player if they have such a fundamental misunderstanding of randomness.

On my way out of the poker room, I noticed a sign listing Binion's rotating daily promotions, which I don't think was going on last time I was there, so I snapped a picture of it to share with you, rather than trying to jot down what they all were.

Easy game

My computer is back and apparently healthy, but I'm still having to do lots of work to restore everything to the way it was. Carbonite backup service is really paying off, but it's going to take more than another 24 hours to get everything back to me.

For Super Bowl poker play, I decided to head to Binion's, for mostly arbitrary reasons: I hadn't been there in quite a while, didn't feel like driving anywhere, and it was a really nice day for a walk.

Good choice, as it turned out.

As I headed for the open Seat One, I noticed Tony Big Charles in Seat Two. We chatted a bit about his recent hospitalization and surgery, etc. One of my favorite dealers, Gina, was also playing.

Things started badly when I raised a straddle, then fired on all three streets after having missed with A-10, and Tony called me all the way on a double-paired board. He had 9-9 and won a roughly $200 pot. I had thought that (1) he was on a flush draw that missed, and (2) he would remember that the last time we played, I almost stacked him with K-K, and on that basis be cautious about calling. Nope. Oh well.

A few hands later things turned around when I flopped a set of 6s, not only stacking Gina, but earning an extra $100 because of a special Super Bowl promotion that was running.

A short time after that I doubled up with A-A versus another guy's K-K, all in pre-flop. Less than an orbit later I stacked somebody else with K-K versus his J-J, again all in pre. Maybe 15 minutes passed before my Q-Q flopped a set and won a nice pot from somebody that I think had K-K (because it was the only time I saw him three-bet pre, and he folded disgustedly when I bet at the ace on the turn). Not too much later, Tony gave me back my money when he suspected I was bluffing again, but I actually had A-Q on a Q-Q-5 flop. He called me all the way with 6-6 in the hole.

I played for about an hour and 15 minutes and left with an uptick of $573. As I was racking up, Tony asked me if I always make money that fast. Wouldn't that be nice?! No, I don't. But I'm happy to have an occasional day where all I have to do is pick the lucky seat.

I can be really, really stupid

Yesterday while I was playing at Binion's, there was a guy across the table from me reading a book when he wasn't in a hand. The book was Check-Raising the Devil, nominally by Mike Matusow, but with more than a little help from Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli.

I have not read this book and do not own a copy. But I have, naturally, seen plenty of reviews of it in my poker reading, in blogs and in magazines. The reviews almost always include a picture of the front cover, so I was familiar with what it looks like:




I was, therefore, surprised when I saw the book yesterday, because it was plain black, with the title in simple lettering across the front. No photo of Matusow with a satanic 6-6-6 flop in front of him.

At first I thought maybe this was a translation into another language and, hence, with a different cover for some foreign market, because the guy reading it was clearly not a native speaker of English. But no, when he tipped it down to watch a hand, I determined that it was in English. Could it be some sort of special book-club edition? I've had book club memberships, and sometimes the covers differ from the publisher's usual output of a title. I doubted it, though, because I recognized the logo of Cardoza, the publisher, on the spine.

I finally decided that what I was looking at was most likely some sort of pirated, black-market copy, probably produced dirt-cheap in a sleazy third-world country back alley and sold at a price to undercut the legitimate publisher. Even as I settled on that as the most likely explanation, however, I was aware that it did seem a little weird. After all, the book sells to a niche market of poker enthusiasts--not exactly the kind of runaway bestseller that you'd tend to think would attract rogue printers itching to cash in on the frenzy of some girly fictional romance that Oprah had gushed about. I dismissed it as a minor mystery that I would probably never get the answer to, turned my attention back to the poker game, and had forgotten about it by the time I got home.

Today I was reading Lavalli's most recent blog post, and the question of the strangely undecorated book came to mind again, because there's a little ad for it in the margin of the page. It occurred to me that I could pretty easily contact Lavalli and ask him if he knew of any pirating of his work, since I know that he at least periodically stops by here for a read, and has left at least one comment that I remember.

I started composing a note to him. Then, fortunately, I was saved from the embarrassment that would have resulted. I don't know how it happened, but in some sort of weird deus ex machina moment, the answer to the riddle just dawned on me from out of nowhere. In retrospect, it is so blindingly obvious that I am now seriously questioning my sanity:

The man was simply reading a copy of the book with the dust jacket removed.

Pictures from around town (2)

I mentioned before that we ate at Binion's Friday night. We parked in the north parking garage, lowest level. As I got out of the car, I was surprised to see a large number of old slot machines filling up the other half of that level, on the other side of a wall. There was no barrier to us going over to them, so we did. These were obviously being retired. I've never seen a casino's discards out in the open like this, and I thought it was kind of interesting.

Freerolls

Cardgrrl and I have been on a mildly amusing food freeroll for the past few days.

I play at Binion's with fair regularity, and build up food comps faster than I can use them. This is especially true since they closed the coffee shop a few months ago. I wrote about that at the time, and a reader suggested taking Cardgrrl to the steakhouse. I had considered that, but initially rejected the idea because she is a vegetarian. However, the next time I was at Binion's, I checked the menu, and they had a couple of nice seafood dishes listed, which are on the Cardgrrl-approved list. That settled how I would splurge my freebies.

So Friday night we hit the famous Binion's Ranch Steakhouse, racking up a $98 tab. Maybe some of you eat in places where that doesn't seem like much, but I'm a cheapskate, and it's more than double what I usually pay for dinner for two, so it felt like a feast of kings to me. Had an excellent 16 oz. New York strip steak (well, half of it anyway); Cardgrrl had broiled salmon.

The photos above show the view of the city from our table at the steakhouse, which is on the 24th floor of Binion's.

Stepping off of the elevator on our way out, a guy asked whether we had just eaten at the steakhouse. Yes. "Was it good?" Yes again. With that, he and his family got on the elevator and headed up. Obviously, my culinary opinion carries great weight.

It was only after the moment had passed that Cardgrrl and I started thinking of the better responses: "It was worth what we paid for it." Or, "It's great, considering that all the food is free."

The next day, we met up with Shamus and his wife Vera Valmore for brunch at Hash House a Go Go out on Sahara Avenue (skipping, for various unimportant reasons, the newer incarnation of the same establishment at Imperial Palace). Though we weren't expecting this, the two of them were generous enough to treat us to the meal, and the freeroll was well underway.

Back in February, when Cardgrrl was last here, she shared a starting table at the http://www.allvegaspoker.com/ tournament with Adam Altweis, the poker room manager at Aria. (See interviews with him about this new job and the Aria poker room here and here.) He kindly handed out to his tablemates comp tickets good for dinner and drinks for four at any of several Aria food establishments. Cardgrrl invited F-Train, Jen, and me to share in her gift. Saturday night we met at Lemongrass, a Thai restaurant, and, well, basically ate everything in sight. They had some Teamsters come and roll us back out to our cars about three hours later. Thank you, Adam!

Yesterday we ate at the Victorian Room at Bill's. It's not exactly haute cuisine there, but Bill's is another place where I have somehow accumulated over $100 of food comps, so it seemed fitting to let the free stuff keep on rollin'.

Today I extended it further by having for my lunch the other half of the steak I couldn't finish Friday night. Just as good the second time.

One of these days, I might have to start actually paying for food again, and that's gonna hurt, after this weekend.

I suppose one could say that my poker has been freerolling, too; I haven't played much in the last week or so, but I did join Cardgrrl in the Aria afternoon $175 tournament, which is about as nicely structured as you're likely to find in a daily event. Didn't do too well there (busted out by a reader, even, when my AK ran into his aces--hi, Tyler!), but Cardgrrl lasted a lot longer, and I made enough in a cash game while waiting for her to more than make up for the buy-in. A cash game at the Pavilion Room at Rio went well for both of us Saturday, too.

The freeroll picks up in a different way tomorrow. Through my membership in House Seats Las Vegas, I scored free tickets for Cardgrrl and me to see Cheap Trick doing their wildly popular "Sergeant Pepper" tribute show at the Paris hotel/casino Tuesday night. Shamus saw it with Vera (but not Chuck or Dave; a little Beatles humor there!) Saturday night; see his review here. I saw this show at the Hilton last September, and enjoyed it immensely. I will be delighted to share it now with my favorite visitor from the East Coast.

Speaking of whom, she is in a HORSE tournament right now at the Golden Nugget, part of their summer "The Grand" series. I have finished what I needed to do here at the ol' homestead, so it's time to amble down Fremont Street to where she is playing, and see just how badly she is crushing the game. Sadly, she will be leaving town on Wednesday, and soon thereafter things will return to what passes for a normal schedule in my life.

Poker gems, #365

Steve Fischer, author of When the Mob Ran Vegas, in an article on the demise of Binion's Horseshoe, in Poker Pro magazine, June, 2010, p. 43. The background is that Benny Binion owns the casino, but has to rent the land on which it sits from the Silvagni family, represented by Bill Coulthard. They renegotiated the rate every ten years--this time in 1972.


"You want how much rent, you sum'bitch? declared Benny. "If you think there's anyway in hell that I'm going to sit still for you doubling my rent for the next ten years, you better think again, shyster!"

Coulthard told him he didn't mind if Benny wanted to pack up his casino and get out when their current ten-year agreement expired later in the year. And then Benny told Coulthard what he could do with his new rent. And Bill Coulthard walked out of the Horseshoe into the heat, walked across the street to his car in the parking garage, sat down in his car, turned on the starter, and Bill Coulthard and his nice new 1972 Cadillac were blown all over the second level of the parking garage. The Metro police and the FBI were in agreement that it was probably four sticks of dynamite that blew him and his car to Kingdom Come.

With Coulthard out of the picture, the Binions and the next of Silvagni's relatives sat down with Benny to discuss the terms for the next ten years. For some reason, the Silvagni family, who didn't much like Bill Coulthard anyway, was very eager to reach a new rental agreement with the Binions. It took less than ten minutes to agree to terms.

"Damn shame what happened to Coulthard," Benny said. "Just a damn shame."

The first rule of Jackpot Club is: You don't talk about Jackpot Club

I have kept Richard Marcus's blog about poker cheating and other casino cheating in my RSS feed--despite him being a flagrant, frequent, and unrepentant thief of online content from legitimate writers--because it does serve as a useful aggregator of news about the subject. He had a post today about a poker bad-beat jackpot being nullified at the Royal River Casino in Flandreau, South Dakota, because one player talked about the possbility of a bad-beat jackpot while the hand was in progress.

Because he is an unethical person, Mr. Marcus reprints an article from the local television station, KSFY, without even providing a link to the original. His modest "reform" since being caught habitually plagiarizing is that he now names a source, but then steals the material anyway, with no link to the original. But it's easy to find: http://www.ksfy.com/news/local/94683439.html

(I'm sure Mr. Marcus just "accidentally" overlooked this notice at the end of the article that he copied without permission: "2010 ksfy Action News. All RIGHTS RESERVED. This MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.")

The article doesn't give a lot of detail about what actually happened. The claim is that only two words were spoken, and we aren't even told what those words were, or what the exact context was.

For my purposes here, it doesn't matter. What matters is that every poker room I know of that has high-hand and/or bad-beat jackpots has a rule in place to the effect that the awarding of the jackpot may or will be voided if the players discuss the jackpot possibility during the play of the hand.

This rule is eminently sensible. It helps prevent distorting play just to chase down a jackpot.

But even if you were to disagree about its purpose or utility, just the fact that it's there on the books and MIGHT be enforced, as it was in South Dakota, should be enough to shut up the nearly inevitable talking about the jackpot that occurs every time a board makes it possible. It seems that there is always at least one idiot that just can't resist pointing out what is obvious to anybody paying attention, and that one idiot might cost everybody a whole friggin' lot of money.

The worst thing is that the guilty idiot is at least as often the dealer as one of the players. I saw this just a few days ago at Binion's. The flop was three parts of a royal flush. When the turn paired the board, the dealer said, "Here we go!" I wanted to dope-slap him. In fact, I think that dope-slapping any imbecile who violates the rule should be explicitly permitted--even encouraged--by poker room rules.

At least one Vegas poker room recently terminated an ace-cracked type jackpot because of rampant collusion and discussion during the hand.

I have written about the whole problem of talking about jackpots while the hand is still in progress several times: here, here, and most especially here.

Even if you somehow manage to forget the first rule of Jackpot Club, please try to remember the second rule of Jackpot Club: You DO NOT talk about Jackpot Club!

Charity tournament at Binion's

Mere minutes ago I was at Binion's. I happened to hear the announcement of the start of a charity poker tournament, so I wandered over to see who might be playing. It was a small event--just three tables.









You might be able to spot Todd Brunson, Angela Brunson (second photo, back to camera, black leather jacket and beret, next to photographer), Tom McEvoy, Hoyt Corkins, T. J. Cloutier, Kathy Liebert, and Amir Vahedi. Barbara Enright was also there, but hidden behind other people so she didn't show up in any of the pics I took. (See the guy with the green and white striped shirt in the second photo? See half of a platinum-blondish looking head just past him? That's her.)

My life is just endless excitement, as you can plainly see.


Addendum

LOL. I posted the above, then went to check my Twitter feeds. Got these two right at the top:

ToddBrunson I'm at Binions playing a charity tournament 10 minutes
ago from txt

ToddBrunson Playing with Tom macavoy, Tj cloutier, Cathy liebert, Barbara
enright, max, some wife and vinnie Favorito 7 minutes ago from txt

(Todd could use a little work on his spelling.)

Binion's hotel closure might make me fat

If you pay any attention at all to Vegas news, you've already heard the announcement that Binion's will be closing the hotel part of its operations two weeks from today, December 14th. See, e.g., here.

This causes me a bit of a dilemma. You see, I spend a decent amount of time at the Binion's poker room. I don't write about it much, because usually nothing of much interest happens there. For reasons that I can't even begin to guess at, the sessions tend to be pretty boring, with probably fewer tweetworthy/blogworthy stories per hour than any of my other regular haunts. You might be surprised at the amount of time I accumulate there, given how little I say about the place.

I checked today, and I have $137 in food comps on credit, even though I eat at the coffee shop with some regularity. That is, I accumulate comps a lot faster than I use them.

I didn't care too much to learn that the hotel is closing. As long as the poker room is going to stay open, I'm happy.

But then I learned that the coffee shop is part of the closure, and experienced a moment of panic. Sure, the stupid "cafe" thing on the main floor will stay open, but it's crummy, with a very limited menu. There's also the steakhouse, but that's much too expensive for my lowbrow tastes. There just won't be much of anything else left on which to spend my accumulated comps, unless they somehow make them usable at the Four Queens (which is owned by the same company).

So it appears that my best value may be to plan to eat there a whole bunch over the next two weeks. Which means more than my usual portion of burgers, fried chicken, cheap steaks, cheesesteak, and other stuff that isn't too good for me. But at least I'll save on groceries!

Perhaps it's just as well. I talk to my friend Cardgrrl nearly every day via a free video hookup on AIM, and just today she asked if I had eaten anything in the last three weeks or so. Apparently I'm looking a little thin lately. I gather that I could stand some fattening up, and maybe the ol' Binion's coffee shop, in the last few days of its existence, will be just the place for it.



Incidentally, I also wonder what will happen to the Wednesday afternoon poker discussion group that traditionally meets in the coffee shop. If you hear, drop me a note via the comments, please.


Played a few hours at Binion's today after eating lunch there, and picked up the nice new chip shown above, in addition to making my daily nut (mostly by drawing to and hitting two diamond nut flushes against opponents who didn't believe that I had done so).

Dealers: One funny, one lazy

I generally like interacting with dealers. It's one of the big reasons that I prefer the two seats on either side of the dealer: I get to chat with them. When there's a dealer I know and trust, I can make comments on how people are playing, share snarky jokes, etc., all in a voice soft enough that it's not likely to be heard by anybody else at the table, unless they're deliberately trying to listen in. I can also quietly point out the common errors or problems that I notice (player being passed over for action, pot not being quite right, misreading a hand, cards getting flashed, or whatever), without having to shout to make myself heard. I don't like being noisy. I don't like being the center of attention.

One of my favorite dealers is Wayne at Mandalay Bay. He's the one that looks like Al Roker. He always brings just the right mix of seriousness and lightheartedness to the table. He is able to keep players smiling even as he keeps the game moving and under good control.

He had two consecutive downs at my table today. When he had been in the box for about 55 minutes, and I assumed he was about to be pushed finally, I realized that I had not won a hand that entire time. So as he was cleaning up the detritus of one hand, I asked him, "Doesn't it say in the Official Dealer's Manual that you're supposed to push a pot to Seat 1 at least once in a while?"

Wayne didn't miss a beat. He replied, "Yes, it does. But right after that it adds: 'With the provision that Seat 1 has to be very, very patient.'"

As they say on "Family Feud," good answer, good answer!

Earlier in his shift, there had been a monster pot in which several people lost a lot of money, and one guy got seriously enriched. I had folded from the small blind, so didn't get hurt. As Wayne was getting ready for the next hand, I told him, "I think I played that hand better than anybody else--I only lost one dollar!" Again, he took no time at all for the zinger in return: "Congratulations. That is a marked improvement!"

I actually laughed out loud at that--kind of a rarity for me at the table.

***********

Sometimes, though, dealers are just annoying because of being inattentive or incompetent or too talkative or a hundred other sins. Last night at Binion's I had one that was startingly lazy.

My usual practice when making a bet is to make a single stack of chips and slide it forward. It's often difficult for an opponent at the other end of the table to see how much the bet is when it's done that way, but that's deliberate. There are bits of information to be gleaned from watching and listening to the other player as he asks the dealer what the bet is, and how he reacts to the answer.

Last night I bet $35, and the other player in the hand asked, "How much is that?" The dealer at that point is supposed to count it out. This doofus, though, instead turned to me and repeated, "How much is that?" It caught me off guard, because I've never had a dealer relay that question to me instead of determining the answer himself. I said, "$35," before I had a chance to think about it. But as the other player was contemplating a call, I got annoyed at the dealer for expecting me to do his job for him, and causing me to speak during a hand, which is against my religion. I decided that I wouldn't do so again.

The player made the call. Turn card came, and this time I slid out $55. Again the player asked, "How much is that?" Again the dealer turned to me and repeated, "How much is that?" This time, though, he was met with stone silence, and was eventually forced--horror of horrors--to actually do his job and count the bet.

I did not run into that problem again thereafter.


Dealers. Give me the funny one over the lazy one anyday.

Amazing? Not really.

At Binion's tonight I was involved in a hand that got checked down on all three betting rounds after the flop. I won it with the low end of a straight. I didn't bet because by the river there were four hearts on the board, I didn't have one, and I was out of position against two other opponents.

When the hands were revealed, a player not involved said, "It's amazing that nobody had a heart!"

Apparently his definition of "amazing" and mine vary by a large degree.

Let's ignore the self-selection that usually occurs with poker hands by sequential betting (i.e., when the flop contains two hearts, players with one or two hearts as hole cards are more likely to continue playing than those with none), because here there was no such filtering action. What we are left with is the question of how likely it is that there is at least one heart to be found among six random cards (the hole cards of three players), given that four hearts are seen among the community cards. I will assume that before the flop, nobody is more selective for playing hearts than for any other suit.

We have 47 cards not on the board, which must include 9 hearts. So any individual card chosen at random has a 9/47 chance of being a heart, or 0.191. We use that as the value of p in a binomial calculation. My favorite binomial calculating tool is here. Using it, I learn that the probability of there being exactly one heart in a randomly selected group of six cards, under the circumstances described, is 0.40, or 40%. The probably of there being exactly two hearts among the six cards is 23%. Three hearts is 7%. Four hearts is 1%. Five and six hearts are vanishingly rare, accounting for only about 0.1% combined, so we can ignore those conditions.

In other words, the combined probability of there being at least one heart among the six down cards held by three players, when there are four hearts on the board, is about 72%. That means that about 28% of the time, none of the three players will have a heart. We experienced a condition that will occur 28% of the time--more than one time out of four. Not exactly a rarity. And this doofus considers that to be "amazing"?

Even if there were four players, and thus eight cards to account for, the probability that nobody has a heart is about 18%--again, not exactly a finding incredible enough to write home about. With five players, it's 12%; with six players 8%, with seven players 5%; with eight players 3.4%; with nine players 2.2%; and with ten players 1.4%. Those last two are about what it would take for me to be impressed that something truly out of the ordinary had occurred. But I still wouldn't call it anywhere near "amazing"--just kind of unusual.

I guess some people are a whole lot more easily impressed by minor coincidences than I am.

Seen at Binion's

I hadn't played at Binion's in nearly three months, so when it was time to set out for a game this evening and I didn't really feel like driving anywhere, it was the obvious target. (It's a ten-minute walk from my apartment.) Glad I did--it turned into a very profitable session.

I discovered that Binion's has continued its recent trend of issuing commemorative poker chips, as seen above. Labor Day and Halloween are obvious targets. I'm not sure what the third one is commemorating, other than T&A.

At the table I ran into a reader, name of Eric--from Cleveland, where I changed planes on my trip home Monday. (Lovely city--from the air, anyway.) He recognized me because I was wearing the hoodie sweatshirt that Cardgrrl gave me last month. He and I were involved in a hand that proved interesting. He raised from early position. I called on the button with Kh-Qh. Both blinds called, too. Flop was A-K-Q with two diamonds. Small blind bet $10, big blind called, Eric called. I raised to $40. I knew there was a fair chance I was already beat by a higher two pair, a set, or a straight, but I wanted to find out where things stood.

I found out fast. Small blind pushed all in. Big blind folded. Eric moved all in. I decided one of them had a set and the other J-10 for the straight. I folded. I was right on both counts. Unfortunately, Eric's A-A for the flopped top set was in bad shape, he didn't improve to a full house, and left empty-handed. That's the way it goes sometimes. I felt lucky to have escaped losing only $50 or so. It's weird to flop two pair and be in third place, but as it turned out I was drawing dead to running kings or queens for quads, or J-10 for a straight on the board and a three-way chop.

(Eric, I sympathize. If you haven't read this old post of mine, it's probably worth a few minutes of your time. You'll find a very familiar-sounding story there. It was just about the worst 20 minutes of poker I've ever experienced.)

There were other strange and/or interesting things to be seen at Binion's tonight, which I don't think need further commentary, just photos:

Deuce-four gets a new audience

Yesterday Cardgrrl and I went to the Wednesday Poker Discussion Group at Binion's. I had been there just once before, in April, with Shamus. Once again, several members of the group presented in detail hold'em hands they had played, and at each decision point those in attendance were asked what they would choose to do and why.

One of the hands involved the hero having been dealt the deuce-four--in crubs, no less. Reasons for playing it or not playing it to begin with were offered, but, tragically, nobody pointed out the simple fact that you play it because it is the single most powerful hand in poker. Similarly, at each subsequent decision point, people volunteered various explanations for calling, raising, or folding, but nobody ever said what should be obvious by now: "You bet and raise at every opportunity, because you will inevitably have the best hand by the river." And yes, the guy won the hand with two pair (as if there were any suspense in THAT outcome).

I have much evangelism work yet to do. It is disheartening that a group of players with this amount of collective experience can continue to be so confused about how to play the nuts.