Owning your mistakes--or not

Last night I was at MGM Grand in search of men in cowboy hats. They were there by the millions,  it seemed, streaming by the poker room for hours, but none of them ever stopped in to play. Go figure.

Anyway, at one point I was in second position with K-K and intended to raise to $8. I dropped the red chip on the table and was going to drop my three blue chips next to it. But--oops!--I saw that I had just two blue chips in my hand instead of three. Without thinking, I reached back to my stack to fetch another blue chip. But as I moved my hand forward again to drop the three blues, I realized that I had screwed up, and could no longer legally add more chips to my bet. The red chip, sitting lonely out there on the felt, constituted just a call of the big blind, as I had not announced a raise. I would have to play a limped pot from out of position with pocket kings--not my favorite situation to be in. Worse, everybody had seen what had happened and knew that I had wanted to raise, so they were alerted that I probably had a big starting hand, and there was little chance of going for a limp-reraise.

Oh well. This was, as far as I can remember, the first time I've make that particular error, and I'm not going to beat myself up over making one dumb string-raise mistake in seven years of playing.

The flop came A-K-x. I bet, hoping that somebody with an ace would call me down, but the bevy of limpers all folded. Small pot won. Disaster averted.

Another orbit or two later, I was again in early position, this time with A-Q offsuit. I raised to $8--legally this time. The guy across the table from me was on the button, and had his attention divided because he was chatting with a friend standing behind him. It appeared that he intended to call my raise, but instead of picking up one red chip and three blues, he accidentally picked up two of each and tossed them forward, then resumed his conversation. It took the dealer a few attempts to get his attention and tell him that he had to raise to $16. He didn't understand at first, because he was not aware that he had put in more chips than my $8 worth.

When he couldn't convince the dealer that his intention of just calling should be the determining factor, he appealed to me: "You know I meant to just call, right?" I wanted to stay neutral, so that nothing about the strength of my hand would be given away by advocating for some particular outcome. I also didn't want to antagonize him. So I said, "I don't know what the house rule is, but I'm fine just abiding by whatever it is."

I pause here to note that the dealer was wrong. The player's min-raise would have been to $14, not $16. But I didn't care, and I didn't want to add another issue to that of whether his bet should be construed to be a raise. I wanted to stay out of it, and let the dealer handle it. Let her be the object of this player's irrationally growing wrath.

He finally accepted her direction to increase his bet to $16. I just called. Of course, I could have reraised. After all, unless he's shooting for an Academy Award, he was not one bit happy about having to put more money in, so he was not sitting on any hand that he really loved. I didn't want to blow him out of the pot when there was a high chance that I had a hand that dominated his. I.e., if he had a weak ace or a queen with a worse kicker and we both hit the flop, I could win a big pot. If I were to reraise and he were to call, I'd be stuck playing for a bloated pot with A-Q from out of position, which is not an enviable task.

I won't bore you with the details of how the hand played out, because they're not relevant to my point, but I ended up winning the pot when I hero-called his river bluff on a somewhat scary board.  He showed 3c-4c, which had flopped bottom pair to my top pair.

The fact that he lost $50 or so on the hand stoked his irritation even further. For another five minutes after the hand was over, he continued arguing with the dealer about her forcing him to increase his bet to a full legal raise. His intention to merely call should have governed what happened, he kept insisting. I don't know why she kept explaining it to him over and over, or why she kept apologizing for enforcing the rule, as if it were somehow her fault. I think she should have either ignored him, told him to drop it, or called the floor to handle it.

The point, though, is that we all at least occasionally make technical mistakes when playing poker in addition to the tactical ones. All you can do is accept that you erred, figure out the implications for how the hand will now play out differently, and move forward. It is pointless, dishonest, and self-defeating to try to get a do-over, or to blame somebody else for what you did, or to get hot under the collar about it, thus clouding your judgment for how to play the hand optimally. This guy last night did all three.

Eclipse

I didn't prepare any special eclipse-viewing glasses or apparatus. Vegas is 20 or 30 miles south of where one would have to be to see the true annular eclipse, anyway. But it's still a sufficient rare event that I wanted to see what little effects could be seen. This was made more difficult than I anticipated by the fact that it occurred so late in the day, so both sunlight and its resulting shadows were nearly horizontal. But I wandered around my neighborhood looking for spots where light was diffracting around edges or through holes. None of them are exactly worthy of National Geographic, but you can certainly tell that something strange was happening with the light.

When it was over, I drove to the MGM Grand, where I knew that fellow bloggers Grrouchie and Rob were already playing. I had met Grrouchie once before, but not Rob. I got there, found them, and moved to their table. I was there with them for about three hours, during which time we absolutely did not EVER talk about either Josie or Tony. Not even once. Isn't that amazing?

Grrouchie epitomized the danger of playing with fellow poker bloggers when he said to Rob, ""I can't wait to get home and make fun of you."

Of course I had to impress upon them the awesome power of the Mighty Deuce-Four, so that they will join me in spreading the gospel. The only time I was dealt it, I called a small pre-flop raise in position, and flopped 2-2-Q. My opponent was the woman Rob refers to in his blog as "Prudence." She bet $10, I called. Turn was a jack. This time she bet $15, I raised to $45. She called, but with apparent consternation. At about this time, Grrouchie was shooting me a look from his end of the table that said, "Do you really have what I think you have?" I gave him a little nod of affirmation. (Prudence was not looking anywhere in my direction, so I didn't risk giving anything away. Besides, she doesn't know who I am, so even if she noticed an exchange of glances, she wouldn't know what it was about.) River was an ace. She checked, I moved all in, she folded. I showed the hand, obviously. So now I have two more bloggers who have personally witnessed the power at work.

Room updates

1. I played at the Riviera Saturday night for the first time in (brief pause while our hero checks his records) about 11 months. It's not exactly my favorite place. I had trouble finding it, because the room has moved since I was last there, and they apparently can't be bothered to put up any directional signs. If you want to find the poker room, you have to just wander around until you stumble upon it. To save you that trouble, I'll tell you that it's right inside the Strip entrance, that wall of glass doors. Since I was there last, they have also changed their main no-limit game from $1/$2 to $1/$3, a curious move for a small, downscale poker room. Finally, they have installed player's card readers at the table instead of having you log in and out at the desk.

2. I was in a tournament at MGM Grand Sunday, and incidentally learned that they now run a weekly HORSE tournament on Tuesday evenings. This is the one that used to be at the M Resort. This is good news, I think, because (1) M is just too far away to bother with, and (2) MGM will have a lot more touristy types who just happen to be there and decide to give HORSE a try, without knowing the games very well.

3. I read that the Palms is closing its poker room, only to reopen it a few days later. The idea, apparently, is that they're contracting out management of the room to Cantor, which already runs a bunch of casinos' sports books. Will this be the leading edge of a trend? I don't know. I also don't know if this change will coincide with the long-promised move of the poker room to a new location. Nobody tells me anything.

The Man Who Folds Aces, and other stories from the MGM

Yesterday was another in the roughly twice-yearly series of tournaments sponsored by allvegaspoker.com. This time it was at the MGM Grand, so I headed over there in the afternoon to get registered early and play some cash games before the tournament. There were several things worth reporting.

Oh, Those Kids!

On my way to the poker room, I stopped in a restroom. Access to the only two urinals was impeded by a couple of guys in yellow one-piece outfits, rolled down to their waists, clearly trying to figure out how to accomplish something, though what, exactly, I could not say at first. They kindly yielded to let me take care of business.

While I was washing my hands, they finally got into position for their stunt. I turned around and saw this:

While two friends videorecorded the feat, one of these guys was supporting the other urinating while doing a handstand.

Why? Well, there was some sort of team name written on the rear of their odd outfits, and I overheard them talking about what a difficult "task" this one was. From that, I surmise that they are one of several teams attempting to accomplish a list of fun/crazy stunts first (or best), in order to win some prize. But I didn't stop to ask the details. I just took my Weird Photo of the Day and went my way.

Their mothers must be so proud.

The AVP Tournament

This thing was huge. They ended up with something like 330 participants, which I think is triple what they've ever had before. I have no idea how it suddenly exploded in popularity, but it was pretty overwhelming, given what I had come to expect. These used to be fairly small, cozy affairs where I would know a hefty percentage of the players from the AVP forum, but yesterday I had no idea who anybody at my table was, nor they me.

It was all set up in an area away from the main poker room, next to the lion's den. It appears that MGM has decided to start taking the poker tournament market seriously. In addition to sacrificing a sizable area of what had been slot-machine casino floor space, they invested in a bunch of new tables with very attractive felt:

They have also acquired lovely new tournament chips:

I especially like that they are color-keyed to match what we already expect from cash chips--green for 25, black for 100, etc. Nice touch. My only complaint is that the 1000s and 5000s look too much alike from a distance.

A few minutes into the second level of play, I had A-A and reraised the table's most aggressive player, who called. The flop was bone-dry, 2-5-9 rainbow. He bet at it, I shoved all-in. He looked unhappy, asked for a count, then, shaking his head, said, "I've gotta call you." He had K-K. Which was perfectly fine with me, until another king hit the turn, and just that fast I was out.

Well, at least I didn't invest eight hours in the thing, only to have the same result on the bubble.

Laser Read

OK, I'll admit it up front: I'm telling this story only as a brag about how sick-accurate a read I had on one player in the cash game. There were several limpers--including me one off the button with 3-3--before he popped it to $18 from the small blind. As I've said many time, whenever I see a raise that large, I assume the player has J-J until proven otherwise. Two others called, so I did also, pure set-mining.

The flop was A-J-J. Normally my inclination would be to cancel the suspicion that the raiser had J-J. The probability of hitting four of a kind is just too remote to entertain. But I watched his reaction, and he was clearly confused, trying to figure out whether to bet or check. I had not seen anything like this facial expression on him in the hour or so that we had been playing together. He finally settled on a check, but his look and hesitation sealed the deal for me: He had flopped the joint.

Mind you, this was not just a passing thought on my part. I can't prove this to anybody, but I was so convinced of my read that I told myself, "Even if I get a free card and hit a set on the turn, I'm not putting another dime into this pot." Everybody checked.

I don't remember what came on the turn; it didn't matter to me. Our raiser bet and got one caller, who I thought was being foolish not to have noticed what was going on. I folded.

River came. I don't know what it was. I was too focused on watching the players. Our raiser bet again, got another bet out of his caller, then rolled over his J-J flopped quads.

This was a really strange experience that is hard to describe. There have been a few occasions where, with three of a kind on the board, a betting pattern only made sense if a player had the fourth of that rank, and I have on that basis been reasonably confident in making such a read. But I have never before been even remotely this confident that I was up against a pocket pair having made quads on the flop the moment it happened. This time, somehow, I just knew.

They should fire Norman Chad and hire me to do the Jack Links Beef Jerky wild card hands for the WSOP broadcasts.

Pardon Me, But Your Tell is Showing

I mentioned recently (here and here) Jean-Robert Bellande masterfully using a common tell in a reverse fashion, to perfect effect. Yesterday was one of the occasions when its more usual, straightforward reading came into play.

I had 4s-5s in the big blind and called a middle-position raise. The flop was 10-2-2 rainbow, with one spade. I checked, he bet, and I called. I thought that he most likely had two big unpaired cards and whiffed this flop. My plan was this: If he bet strongly on the turn, such that I believed him to have a big pocket pair, I would fold. If he bet weakly, confirming my impression of big unpaired cards, I would check-raise. If he checked behind, I would lead out on the river if it appeared to be a card that would have missed him (i.e., not a Broadway card).

Fourth street brought the 3s. Now I had an open-ended straight flush draw. My plan stayed the same, except that now I would call any reasonable-sized bet he might make, even if he looked overpair-strong, because hitting either my straight or flush on the river would be marvelously disguised, and I would have a good chance of claiming his entire stack.

He checked behind.

Fifth street was the 3c. Dang. Not only did I miss, but bluffing him just became harder, because he might call holding any ace, on the grounds that I might be betting with a weaker ace, and two pair on the board would result in a chopped pot. I was suddenly unsure whether the chances of my planned bluff succeeding were high enough to warrant risking it.

My dilemma was neatly solved, however, when I saw him grab a stack of chips and hold it off the felt in front of his cards, staring right at me, in one of the most flagrant "I'm gonna call you, sucker, so WATCH OUT!" moves I've ever seen.

I had figured out on my own the implication of this gesture before I got around to reading Caro's Book of Poker Tells, but since it's a classic work and Mike Caro is the master, let's let him explain it (pages 212-214 in the 2003 Cardozo reprint, and photo 89):

Among beginning and intermediate players, this is a common method of trying to prevent a bet. The reason players want to stop you from betting is because they hold weak hands with some possibility of winning. In other words, they'd like to see both hands shown down on the table. Then maybe they can salvage the pot. Reaching for chips is intended to show strength and appear threatening. As you now know, players staring at you are less of a threat than those staring away. So here we have a classic example of a woman combining two tells that point in the same direction (looking at the bettor and reaching for her chips). She is probably holding a marginally weak hand. This gives you opportunities to bet hands you would have otherwise checked.

Caro rates this tell as 97% reliable among weak players, 91% reliable among average players, 73% reliable among strong players.

His over-the-top attempt to stop me from betting had precisely the opposite effect: It let me know that it was safe to proceed. I bet about two-thirds the pot, and he flung his cards away in disgust. I suspect he had A-K, and had no idea how far ahead of me he was. (In fact, I literally had the worst possible hand. Anything he held would beat me.) If he hadn't gone for the intimidation move, I well might have decided a bluff would work too infrequently to be profitable and given up.

The Man Who Folds Aces

Shortly before I left for the tournament, this hand went down. I was in the small blind, Seat 1. Seat 3 was under the gun. He was a classic elderly rock. I had been playing with him for nearly two hours, and he had never, never, put in a pre-flop raise. He was so conservative that he wouldn't even bet a nut straight if a possible backdoor flush had come in. I had seen him be aggressive in only two spots, and he had shown the nuts both times.

So when this guy, first to act, fumbled around with his chips trying to decide on an opening raise amount, you can bet that it caught my attention. He settled on just $7. He's got aces or kings, with very little doubt about it. Apparently other players don't pay attention to the same things that I do, because he picked up several callers. Then the guy in Seat 9, on the button, reraised to $27. I had some small suited connectors and had thought about calling; with so many others in the pot and only $5 more to me, and my call likely to close out the action (assuming the big blind didn't raise), it would probably be worthwhile to try to flop a sneaky monster. But the reraise foiled that plan, not only because the price just went up, but because of the heavy likelihood that our Grumpy Old Man (him, not me) would decide he didn't want to be playing from out of position against such a large field, and put in a prohibitive four-bet. I folded.

Sure enough, GOM made it $49 to go. Now the surprising move: Seat 4 five-bet all-in. This was the same guy who had hit the quad jacks earlier--a 30-ish Asian guy. This folded the field back to GOM, who had way more chips than Seat 4. I anticipated an instant call. Instead, he asked the dealer for a count. It was something like $120 more. He grimaced, sighed, thought a few seconds, then said, "OK, I call."

Based on that, I mentally downgraded him from aces to kings. But even with kings it was kind of a strange hesitation. He could not reasonably think that Seat 4 held aces--practically nobody would play aces that way. It should still have been an instacall. Remember, nobody else was left in the hand, so there was no role for feigning weakness in order to lure more money into the pot. I concluded that I would most likely see K-K for GOM, and a medium pocket pair--maybe 8s or 9s--for Seat 4.

I was pretty close on the latter; he flipped over 10-10. But I was astonished when GOM turned up his pocket aces. I mean, sure, that's what I had initially suspected was his most likely hand, but his reluctance to call when faced with an all-in made no sense.

After the board had played out without an upset, Seat 4 was walking away, and GOM was stacking chips, I asked him, "What was all that about asking for a count of his stack and thinking about whether you'd call?"

His face darkened with resentment and defensiveness. "I wanted to know how much it was--is that all right with you?"

"Sure, but is there some amount it could have been that you would not have called?"

"Yes, there is."

I didn't believe this for a second. "Oh really? How much would have been too much for you?"

"A number bigger than he had."

"Really? You'd fold aces if his stack was bigger?"

"Yes. I've done it many times before."

I dropped the matter there. He was either lying but too stubborn to back down, or he was serious and actually plays that way, and I wouldn't want to dissuade him from such stupidity.

There exist rare but valid circumstances in which it can be correct to fold aces before the flop in a tournament. But there are no circumstances in which it is mathematically correct to fold aces before the flop in a cash game.* Pocket aces are at worst about a 3:1 favorite over any hand that your opponent might have. If you're unwilling to wager all the chips you have on the table as a 3:1 or better favorite, you're doin' it wrong. If you're afraid of losing your entire stack because you can't afford to be without it, you shouldn't be playing.

I still can't decide whether (A) this guy is so unbelievably tight in his play that was actually considering a fold there, (B) he lost track of the situation, thought there was still somebody else in the hand that he was trying to reel in, and was unwilling to admit that mistake after the fact, or (C) was putting on a show for no reason, and bizarrely lying to me about it in self-defense afterwards.

I've gotta say that I'm leaning towards A. Maybe he was leveling me, but my read was that he was being straight, and didn't appreciate having his, um, shall we say, unorthodox, methods challenged.

*I say "mathematically" there because Tommy Angelo has famously written about the amazing psychological results he achieved by folding aces before the flop--just to prove to himself that he could do it, and just to see what it felt like. See here.

Playing with a honey badger

MGM Grand tonight. Two seats to my left was a rather clumsy bully of a player. It was easy to predict what he would do in most hands. He would straddle, and if he got several callers, he'd put in a prohibitive raise to take the limpers' money. He floated blatantly. He was not particularly skilled in these things. The fact that I could usually predict his moves in advance meant that he was being much too obvious and repetitive, not mixing it up. He was like the crazy nastyass honey badger, attacking everything, not caring if he got stung by a thousand bees or bitten by a cobra, as long as it got him a few chips.

Since he was to my left and was usually going to have position on me, I had to adapt accordingly. After an hour or so, the perfect situation finally came up. I raised to $15 after several limpers with a suited A-Q. He called from the button. I had been playing mostly straightforwardly, continuation-betting frequently, but not firing second barrels without good strength. I was sure that he was a good enough player to have noticed that pattern, and I suspected that he was planning to use it against me here.

The flop was A-6-5 rainbow. I bet $25. He called. This was exactly the scenario I had hoped for. Against most opponents I would bet again on the turn, because that's the obvious, straightforward, and usually most profitable thing to do. But against this particular guy, I thought he'd find an easy fold if I fired again, and the only way to get his chips was to feign weakness and let him pounce. No matter what came on the turn, my plan was to check, anticipating that he would bet with any two cards to steal the pot, and I would either flat-call or check-raise, depending on the board texture and whether I judged that his bet had him pot-committed. If he concluded that I had raised with any pocket pair 10s to kings and hated the flopped ace, he absolutely would represent having an ace every time.

Turn was a 3. As planned, I checked. He did better than I had hoped--he instashoved. It was $95 to call, which I did gladly. He didn't show, so neither did I.

River: 4, completing no flushes. He just sat there, apparently waiting for me to show. No way, dude. You bet, I called. After about ten seconds of inaction, the dealer addressed him: "He called you, sir." The guy finally turned over his hand: 7-7. Gutterball straight draw had hit.

So I got the combination obscene suckout plus sickening slowroll. And yes, he knew perfectly well what fifth street had wrought. He was simply maximizing his own sense of drama. Honey badger doesn't give a shit.

It will come as no surprise that he continued his shenanigans with renewed vigor after his double-up, nor that the rest of the table adjusted to his transparent tactics, and he gave away all the chips over the course of about three big hands--all bluffs that got called very thinly. He slinked away from the table to sleep off the cobra poison.

You may think I just used my blog to tell a bad-beat story. I beg to differ. It was a badger-beat story.

(Somebody sent me the link to that honey badger video a couple of months ago. It made me laugh, and I knew right away I needed to find a way to use it in a blog post. This is how long it took me to work it in.)

MGM finally sees the light

It seems that MGM is finally going to try to make their player rewards program competitive with that of Harrah's/Caesars:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jan/06/you-could-pick-music/

'Bout time, dudes. Just don't leave the poker players out of the goodies, please.

Now THAT'S how to play razz!

Friday night I spent a pleasant few hours playing a $3-6 HORSE game at the MGM Grand with several other poker bloggers in town for the World Poker Blogger Tour. Through the weekend's festivities, I finally got to meet a bunch of people whose stuff I have read and against whom I periodically play in private online tournaments.

One of them was Josie, of the Very Josie blog. She got the full attention of the table with how she played the razz hand you see above. She was in seat 1. Somebody I didn't know was in seat 2. Josie had the bring-in with a queen showing. Seat 2 completed. Josie called--itself a little surprising. On 4th street she caught a 6 and called again. On 5th she picked up an ugly king. Eyebrows were raised when she called yet again. Calling with a Q and K showing, against a first-position raiser who now has 5-3-4 up is, um, shall we say, unorthodox. I confess that I turned to the guy next to me (Special K), and quietly asked, "This is razz, isn't it?"

6th street, with deuces for both players and another bet and call, set the tongues a-waggin' even further, for two reasons. First, Seat 2 looks for all the world like he has a wheel here. Second, the hand with which a bring-in player is most likely to have called the 3rd-street raise is A-2 in the hole, which, if true, would now mean three bricks up, and potential for making nothing better than a queen-low.

I think every person at the table--save the two involved in the hand--was laughing out loud when 7th street saw the following sequence of unexpected events:

1) A bet from Seat 2. (OK, that part was not unexpected.)
2) A raise from Josie (which is when I snapped the photo).
3) An extremely reluctant, obviously painful, face-up fold from Seat 2, revealing his 7-low.
4) Josie casually showing everyone her runner-runner 6-perfect, before stacking up the nice pot.

As they say, hilarity ensued.

I suggest that you not try this at home, even if your name happens to be Josie. You have to be VERY Josie to pull it off!

One Vegas job that sucks--or bites

Working with the lions at MGM must seem pretty cool, until something goes wrong. See: http://www.goldplateddoor.com/2010/09/08/mgm-grands-lion-attacks/

How to make $250 in three hands--plus, an announcement

Hand #1

I had just taken my seat at the MGM Grand this afternoon. I played one hand, then got a call from my friend Cardgrrl (about which more later).

When I got back to the table, the blinds had just passed, so I had to post. I was dealt 9-10 offsuit. Guy two to my right raised to $17. Obviously I had no idea who he was or what he was capable of, nor what this rather large bet size represented. About 99 times out of 100, I would toss this without a second thought. My usual approach to a new table is to sit back, play tight, and observe until I have a better feel for my opponents' tendencies and skills. It's not the time to be splashing around with speculative hands.

For some reason, though, I decided to take a flier here, and called. I'm not defending this as being smart; it's just what happened. Part of it, I'm sure, was that he was the table big stack, so he had plenty of chips to double me up if the stars lined up right, and it also gave me the suspicion that he was trying to play the big-stack bully--which, if true, might mean that he would push too hard if I luckboxed my way into something good. But this was far more speculation than fact on my part, admittedly.

The flop came K-9-10 with two clubs. Bottom two pair for me, but it's nowhere near a lock on the hand in this situation. That flop is too coordinated for me to relax.

He bets $15. I raise to $45. He thinks for a while and calls.

Turn is a red 10, giving me a full house. Now I'm pretty dang comfortable with my hand. Unless he had KK, I'm good. He checks. I decide that I'd like him to think that I was just trying to steal, so I check behind. Of course, this risks him making a better full house if he has a pair bigger than 10s and hits on the river. On the other hand, he might hit a straight or a flush that will make him overconfident in his hand--or, if I'm super-lucky, he'll have something like 7-7 and hit a lower full house.

The river is 2c. I hope with all my heart that he just made his flush. He bets $40. I raise to $120. He folds, and I'm up $100 on my first hand. Not quite felting him, but good enough for starters.


Hand #2

A few minutes later, I had to leave the table again for another phone call. This is highly unusual. It's probably less than once a month that I either get or make a cell phone call while I'm playing, and this is twice within the first short bit of one session. Once again, when I came back I had to post. I have Kh-2c. I'm one of three or four limpers. Flop is Kd-8s-6s. I check. Button bets $10. It's folded back to me. I think that he could have a king, could have second or third pair, could be on a flush draw, could have complete air just trying to buy it. So I call to see what happens.

This is where something unusual and unexpected happens. I'm watching my opponent to see how he reacts to the turn, but the turn doesn't come. I look down and see that the dealer has just swept the board cards up and tossed them onto the muck. I ask, "What are you doing?" Somebody else at the same time points out that the bet had been called.

The dealer is horrified. He asks, "Does anybody remember what the flop was?" I do, of course. But in a flash, I concoct a crazy plan for how to manipulate this situation. Instead of just naming the cards in a neutral fashion, I spin it: "Six and eight of spades, plus a king. I don't know what suit the king was. I think it was red. I just know it wasn't another spade." Somebody else volunteers that it was the king of diamonds.

As you might infer, this is fiendishly designed to set up my opponent to be absolutely certain that I called him because I'm on a spade draw. I had had ZERO time to think through the consequences of this. It's not like I had planned it in advance. (I do have a few sneaky plans in my head ready for deployment to exploit some unusual situations that occasionally come up at the poker table, but this was not one of them.) The obvious upside is that if another spade comes, I'm in great shape to represent the flush, and I'll just have to hope that this other guy isn't on a real spade draw. The downside is that if a spade doesn't come, it's going to be hard for me to represent anything else.

The dealer confirms that the three named cards are, in fact, the ones sitting on top of the muck, and reconstructs the flop. He picks up the stub, and continues.

Burn and turn: Four of spades. Bazinga!

I quickly check. The other guy looks like he's not thrilled with this, but I can't tell for sure if that's real or if he's throwing off a fake tell because he actually loved that card. He bets $25.

I'm uncertain whether this is going to work or blow up in my face, but I decide that I set it up, so I might as well follow through. I check-raise to $75. He cuts out the $50 for a call, thinks about it, rechecks his hole cards, but finally mucks.

That's another $40 or so profit for me.

I have to admit: I was and still am ridiculously proud of that spontaneously invented bit of trickery.


Hand #3

A few hands later, and after yet another break from the table for a phone call (hang on, explanation is coming) I'm in the cutoff with the red 10s. The same guy I tangled with in Hand #1 open-raises to $25. This is absurdly large. I still have virtually no idea what range of cards he plays. I have been at the table for only about 30 minutes total, and half of that has been away while texting and making calls. (Don't you hate people like that? I sure do. But it's rare as hen's teeth that I'm one of them.)

The woman between us also calls. This is significant because the only hand I've seen her play ended with a terrible call into the nuts with just one pair, giving me hope that her stack is extremely easy to get. $25 is a lot to pay to go set-mining, but the raiser still has me covered, and this woman nearly does, too, so there's huge potential.

The potential grows even better when both blinds come along. We have us a $125 pot pre-flop. I'm thinking, "Oh please please please please please please please please please please PLEASE give me a 10, and I'll never ask for anything ever again." I might have even had the words "One time!" flash through my head, though if so, I would never admit it.

Flop: 10s-8s-2h. Could it get any more perfect than that? I think not!

Original raiser bets $20. Hard to know if this is as weak as it looks, or if it's an A-A/K-K type hand trying to look weak in order to induce a big raise, to be followed by a pounce on that seemingly safe board. The woman called, making the pot $165 now. I'm not in the mood for pussy-footing around. With that many people in the hand, there are too many turn cards that could turn my stomach and leave me with an expensive and difficult decision to make. Besides, if the first guy was trolling for a raise, I wanted him to get what he was looking for.

So I raise to $100, and all four opponents fold like dominos falling.

Those three hands totalled about $280 profit. I had spent $30 or so in other hands that didn't end up going anywhere favorable, giving me a net uptick of about $250 in a little more than half an hour. I wait until the blinds come my way again, then rack up and leave.

Why not stay when I was running so good? After all, I had been planning on being there for several hours. Well, that has to do with the phone calls.

One of Cardgrrl's best friends--one that I met on a previous visit and like very much--is getting married Saturday. I had tentatively been planning to head east for a visit centered on that weekend. But the horrendous run-bad I hit in April kind of put the kibosh on that idea. I felt like I needed to stay and rebuild the money supply, not take time off and be spending extra on luxuries like trips.

Poker has been going very well since then, however, making me feel a little more comfortable about life. To boost the incentive, Cardgrrl's call was to tell me that she had found that she had a bunch of frequent-flier miles that she could use for a free ticket for me, if I could make a last-minute trip.

One of the most advantageous aspects of my lifestyle is the degree of flexibility I have. I can pretty much work/play when I want, take time off when I want, with nobody to be accountable to, nobody to ask permission of. I had made a couple of appointments and commitments for later in the week, but nothing that couldn't be rescheduled. That's what some of the phone calling was about, and I needed to make a couple more calls and get home and check my computer's calendar to be sure I hadn't forgotten anything.

So we haven't quite clicked the final "purchase" button on the tickets (we need to chat one last time later tonight), but it looks like I'll be leaving Wednesday for a trip out to D.C., coming back home the following Tuesday. That will mean yet another hiatus in blogging about poker (sorry, all you complainers who feel like I owe you uninterrupted content), but I'll try to sneak in some general life updates with whatever adventures might be in store for me out there.

The truth hurts

OK, one more bedtime story from today's MGM Grand session.

It was a fun, lively group of players--the rare kind of mix that I can interact with pretty well without feeling uncomfortable. Among them was a Crazian, who was clearly well known to the dealers. He must play there a lot. It's not one of my most frequent hangouts, so I didn't recognize him.

During one hand, he moved all in. His sole opponent was contemplating a call. In an apparent attempt to dissuade a call, Crazian said, "I look confident, don't I?"

The other guy said, "Yeah, but you've looked just as confident when you were making the most retarded calls!"

This broke the table into laughter, because we all knew it was true. Our Crazian friend had, for example, a short time earlier called a $70 all-in shove from the table rock pre-flop, holding the mighty Q-9 offsuit. Rock had Q-Q. Crazian won when the dealer put four of his queen's suit on the board.

Fortunately, Crazian took it well and laughed along with the rest of us. I said, "The truth hurts, doesn't it?" He nodded.

The dealer joined in, in faux shock: "You mean you've been playing not by the book again?"

Crazian: "I haven't read the book. I've only read four books in my life."

Random player: "And those were all Harry Potter."


Gotta be careful what you say during a hand. Your tablemates may be ready to skewer you with observations about your play.

"Park 'em right here"

After having just excoriated one MGM Grand dealer for a filthy habit, I think I should commend another one for handling a situation just right.

One player tended to fold his cards by tossing them into the middle of the table from an end seat. Sometimes one would turn face up. Sometimes they'd land on the board and have to be cleared off. Sometimes they would land on the pile of burn cards and need to be removed to the muck. (The burn cards have to be kept separate and clearly identifiable.)

The dealer, Bob, did just the right thing. After one such incident, he reached out to a spot 12 or so inches in front of the player, patted it with his hand, and told the player, with a friendly smile, "If you just park 'em right here, it doesn't slow the game down at all."

I thought that was the perfect one-sentence speech. It clearly told the player that he was, in fact, slowing down the game, without actually saying, in an accusative manner, "You're slowing down the game! Cut it out!" It was done with such grace that not even the snarlingest curmugeon could have taken offense. It told the player exactly what was being requested of him, and why. It took only five seconds. Most impressively, it actually had the intended effect.

There aren't many things I see that make me think, "That was perfectly done." But Bob's little reminder there did just that. NH, WP, sir.

Finger-lickin': bad!

I did an afternoon session today at the MGM Grand.

The second dealer in the box was the man pictured above. His nametag says "Sammy." On one of the first hands he dealt, I thought I saw him touch his fingers to his tongue just before pitching the cards. It was completely unexpected, though, so I thought maybe I misinterpreted something.

I watched more carefully on the next hand--and he did it again. And again. And again. And again.

Sammy licks his fingers before every deal.

Specifically, he licks the tips of the index and middle fingers of his right hand. He is left-handed, so this seems even stranger than it would otherwise be. It took me a while watching him to figure out what was going on. He doesn't use a standard dealer's grip on the deck. He has those two fingers all the way around the cards, but the fingertips aren't grasping the edge of the deck as one would usually expect. Instead, he uses them to help feed (from underneath) the next card out so that it can be grabbed by his dominant left hand. I have to assume that a little moisture on the fingertips aids in this function.

But, EWWWW! Has he never thought about what he's doing? Does he really think that what poker players most fervently wish for is that the dealer adds his saliva to the cards before dealing them?

I immediately sent out a Gross Alert on Twitter. The response from my poker-playing friends was swift, harsh, decisive, and unanimous:




I have watched hundreds of poker dealers over the last four years, and this is only the second one that I've seen lick his fingers as part of his routine. The first one was working at one of the most disgusting poker dives in the county, Jokers Wild in Henderson. I wrote up that experience when it happened, back in August of 2007, here.

I don't think I can improve on how I expressed my feelings about the matter back then:

But--to finally get to the point of this post--I did see something there
that I've never witnessed before. You know how some clerical workers,
particularly those of a certain age, have an ugly little habit of licking a
thumb or index finger in order to leaf through a stack of papers? Well, I saw a
poker dealer at Jokers Wild doing that for the cards. Why? Because they were
stickier than average (as were the chips).

It made me shudder. Think of all the ickiness that players bring to the
table on their hands and spread all over the cards and chips. Imagine getting
all of that crud on your hands, then LICKING your thumb to help you get a good
hold on the corner of the card. Not only should this be patently disgusting to
the dealer, but we get to watch him add his saliva to the mix of filth that's
already on the cards. No wonder they get sticky. All I could think when watching
this was one word, a whole bunch of times:

ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh

To the Jokers Wild dealer (you know who you are): Dude, you is NASTY!

I would not be as surprised if I had seen this at some other horrid little poker room, like Terrible's, or Hooters, or the Tuscany, or Stratosphere, or Sahara, official home to the worst poker dealers in the city. But at the MGM, one of the five or six largest poker rooms we have here? In my experience, MGM dealers are usually top-notch. I have come to expect--and observe--high standards of professionalism among them.

To the MGM poker room manager: Why do you tolerate this? I mean, I can't really be the first and only person who has ever noticed and complained about this, can I? It's not exactly subtle or hidden. He does it every single hand. Do you really want to be ranked with Jokers Wild in terms of the griminess of your dealers? Do you not care about spreading cold and flu viruses among your players, and between your dealers and players, and from one dealer to the next one that will handle those decks of cards? I sure hope that putting spit on the cards doesn't void the warranty of the Shufflemasters.

To my readers: I am going to try hard to get this post in front of the eyes of the poker room manager at MGM. If I get a reaction with permission to publish it, I'll add it in an addendum here. But whether I do or not, please help me follow up on this. If you play at the MGM and you see Sammy in the box, watch him. If he continues this vile practice, ask him to stop, and/or speak to the shift supervisor. Right now they may claim (dubiously) not to have known about it before, but if it continues after they have been unequivocally put on notice that it is happening, then we will necessarily have to infer that it's because it's perfectly OK with the casino's management. They endorse the addition of dealers' bodily fluids to the cards and chips that you handle.

Let them know how you feel about that, won't you?

Monkey business

While playing at the MGM Grand this afternoon, two players near me were using monkeys as card protectors. That need to be memorialized, I thought. I borrowed them both. But I blurred the photo in my haste to get the picture taken between hands. Sorry.

I wonder if having a monkey in front of you helps prevent Super Monkey Tilt?

Odds and ends from the MGM Grand

I played at the MGM Grand tonight. Nothing especially noteworthy happened in the poker, but there were a few interesting sights along the way.

First there was this guy's hat. Click on the photo for the full-size version, and you'll see how he likes to identify himself.





Then there was a woman to my left using this as a card protector:



For some reason, my cell phone camera completely washed out the color here, but it's actually yellow. She confessed to being from Wisconsin--a cheesehead through and through.

As I was making my way to the poker room upon arrival, I passed a sight so odd that I wasn't sure I had seen it correctly, so after going about 20 feet past it, I turned around and went back for a second look. I had not been hallucinating. Here's what I saw:



This woman was playing a slot machine, and every time the reels were spinning (it's one with actual mechanical reels), she would rub the glass over one of the reels. I watched her for about two minutes, and she did this every time. Most often she would rub over the center reel. But once in a while she would instead rub over the right-hand reel, and once I saw her divide her rubbing, first on the right then on the center during the same spin.

In case you're wondering, no, this isn't some sort of touch panel. The glass does nothing. Rubbing it does nothing, except, obviously, in her mind. I was this close to asking her why she did it, but I chickened out. Nevertheless, I'm about 99% confident what she would say, if she were being honest: She has somehow become convinced that this action enhances her chances of winning.

It does nothing of the sort, of course. The electronic and mechanical innards of the machine do not respond to such inputs. But she clearly believes that they will, else she wouldn't bother expending her energy this way.

She reminded me a lot of the moron I once saw at the Riviera who would rub his magic spoon in front of him before every hand of poker. It's the same kind of lunacy that makes Jerry Yang think that a supernatural being will change the cards in the dealer's hand when he says "Lord, give me a set" in the middle of a hand, after all the chips are in. It is of a piece with Joe Bishop thinking that his dead father will perform similar magic on the deck for him, or Hal Lubarsky thinking that touching his card cap before each hand will make him luckier, or Daniel Negreanu thinking that $50 bills are unlucky, or Shannon Elizabeth believing that positive thinking and speaking will cause good cards to come while thinking and speaking negatively will cause bad ones to come, or Brian Lemke believing that his recently deceased cousin caused a miracle card to be dealt on the final hand that won him a WSOP bracelet last year (something I didn't write about at the time). It's all madness, sheer madness.

As you can tell from the links above, I've ridden this particular hobby horse a few times before, so I won't belabor it again. But I will tell you that one of the reasons I finally decided against asking this woman why she was rubbing the glass was that I was afraid she would tell me that it made the reels spins in her favor, and then I would be unable to resist asking her the only possible followup question: "Are you really that stupid?"

How not to learn poker

Last night at the MGM Grand there was a 50-ish man who played nearly every hand--80 or 90% easily--and didn't care if there was a raise.

A while into the session, he told a story that pretty much explained it. I will relate it as closely as I can to his own words:

"The first time I played poker, about two years ago, the very first hand I got 7-3 offsuit. I knew from TV shows that this was a bad hand, so I folded. The flop came 3-3-7. I would have made a full house! I said to myself, 'I just learned something important: The hand doesn't really start until the flop. You've only got two cards. You need five before you've got anything.'"

So that's how he played. Predictably, he was clearly a long-term loser. He would frequently end up with hands such as top pair but a weak kicker and lose quite a bit of money, or he'd call down with bottom pair. Of course, once in a while he'd make some sort of monster hand with a weird starting combination that nobody could see coming, but I have zero doubt that those wins are seriously outweighed in his long-term results by all of the smaller losses along the way.

Now, maybe he doesn't care that he's a long-term loser. Maybe he doesn't even keep records and therefore hasn't realized that he is. Or maybe he knows it, chalks it up to bad luck, and keeps playing. Or maybe he knows that he's not very good, but enjoys the game and accepts the losses as his cost of fun--and playing every hand is sure more fun than patiently waiting for the premium ones, all else being equal. I'm certainly not in any hurry to educate him on how to change himself into a long-term winner. He's happy with how things are, and so am I.

But his story caused me to reflect once again on how easy it is to learn the wrong things from playing poker. As many before me have observed, the game messes with our natural method of learning. You often do exactly the right thing and get punished for it, or do the wrong thing and get rewarded for it. The little squirts of dopamine in our brains will tend to engrain the wrong lessons from such experiences.

I remember that once when I was a little boy my mom had left the iron and ironing board out. For some reason, it seemed important to me to know whether the iron was on. Not being sophisticated enough to have figured out any other way of eliciting this vital information, I reached out my right index finger and touched the surface. It was on. Ow! I cried. When mom asked how I burned my finger, I told her I had touched the iron. "Why did you do that?" "To see if it was on." She laughed, which didn't make me feel any better. But I learned from the experience. I never touched the surface of a hot iron again. I figured out that I could put my hand close to it and feel whether it was radiating heat, without getting burned. In this instance, my brain's automatic learning processes did exactly what evolution has programmed them to do.

This educational method doesn't work in poker, at least not very well. You raise with aces, get a couple of callers, bet the flop, bet the turn, bet the river, get raised, call, and find out that somebody caught runner-runner straight on you after having started with 5-9 offsuit from first position. You feel the burn of all the money you lost, and your brain, completely unbidden, starts formulating plans on how to avoid feeling that pain again. This is how people develop the habit of limping with aces; they can't quite bring themselves to just muck them, but they have evolved a strategy of losing less. Others, conversely, put in such massive pre-flop raises that nobody calls them, and they win only the blinds. But both types of players have successfully learned how avoid the pain of a large loss, which has become a more important goal to them than maximizing long-term profit. Their automatic learning circuitry has led them down the wrong path.

Imagine if touching a hot iron sometimes caused a painful burn, but other times--more or less at random--the same action instead triggered some intensely pleasureable, quasi-orgasmic sensation? It would be much harder to learn not to touch it. Poker is kind of like that. It's not too hard to learn to like touching hot irons.

During my first month in Vegas, I was playing at the Golden Nugget when I was dealt J-4 in the big blind, with no raise. The flop was J-J-4. I don't remember whether the pot was large or small, but I won it. That was the first time I had ever flopped a full house. You know how certain scents immediately take your mind to some place and time when that odor signified something wonderful, like homemade bread, or your first girlfriend's perfume? Well, the J-4 is like that for me. It was such a rush, it left such a stamp of pleasure on my hippocampus, that every single time I see J-4 in my hand, I have an involuntary flashback to that flopped full house. No other poker hand triggers a specific situational memory like that for me.

But I don't play it, unless, like that previous situation, I can do so for free. I know it's a dog and causes far more trouble than it's worth. It will lose a lot more money than it will ever win.

So what accounts for the difference between me and the guy I played with last night? Why is he now basically a slave to the bad lesson he learned from his first hand of poker, while I get the visceral reminder of the thrill of flopping a full house but am nevertheless able to resist playing the same hand in an effort to replicate that experience?

I don't know all the anwers, though I think it's a really interesting question. Some of it probably has to do with my having played a lot more hands of poker than he has, and thus seeing more action/consequence pairs. Maybe I'm better at filtering out results that I know are anomalous, and giving them less weight in my later decision-making. Maybe I am better able to put faith in the poker authorities I read, and put less trust in an anecdotal personal experience that runs contrary to the received wisdom.

Whatever it takes to overcome the temptation to learn lessons from single hands of poker, we've got to do it. Those lessons are nearly as likely to be wrong as right, and integrating the experience in the same way that we integrate experiences about the world at large (e.g., it hurts to touch a hot iron) can end up being very, very costly.

But if you run into that guy from the MGM last night, please don't let him in on the secret, OK?

The hatred is ebbing

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

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

BBV

Beat: Playing no-limit at the MGM Grand while waiting for poker bloggers' HORSE game to start, got stacked when kings cracked on queen-high flop by doofus cowboy who thought top pair/bad kicker was foshizzle, got it all in, and turned a third queen.

Brag: I quickly made back $100 of the $200 lost before getting called to start the $3/$6 HORSE game against a bunch of other poker bloggers for about three hours, from which I emerged $8 ahead. And I only misread my hand once (Omaha, thought I had nothing, actually had a straight and took half of a large pot).

Variance: Despite being at the top of the waiting list, I never got a seat at what will become infamously known as Table 16, where the most degenerate of the bloggers were playing $1/2 NLHE, with, at one point, something like $5000 on the table where the maximum buy-in is $200. This gets listed under variance because I have no idea if I would have made a year's worth of poker income in a couple of hours, or lost the farm.


NB: The "BBV" designation is entirely original with me, to the best of my knowledge. Any resemblance to any other poker forum where the term "BBV" might happen to be used is purely coincidental and unintentional.

Miscellaneous stories and observations from the last couple of nights of poker

1.

I played at the Sahara last night, for the first time in (checking records--hold on a sec) seven months. I was very surprised to find in my buy-in a couple of the chips shown above. In the three years I've lived here, the Sahara has never had even a single commemorative chip anywhere to be seen. I like such little treasures, of course. But I'm left wondering: With all of the events, holidays, conventions, etc., that have occurred in the past however-many years, was "Bikefest 2009" really the most significant one, the big thing that finally caused some executive in the casino to say, "By Jove, we have got to get us poker chips celebrating this"?


2.

While I was playing at the MGM Grand tonight, my friend Cardgrrl was playing in a home game somewhere in the D.C. area. She posted a Twitpic along with this message: "Just win a big hand on this board. Can you guess what I had? Hint: Thanks @pokergrump :-) http://twitpic.com/jbm8o"

The photo was this:



In a text message to me, she confirmed that, yes, she really did have 2-4 offsuit there. What's more, she called a pre-flop raise with it! The pot she won was $80 or so. (They apparently use tournament chips in this game, devalued by a factor of 100.) I have no idea what the action was, or what her opponent held.

I was so proud of her. Naturally, I texted her right back to ask if she is now a believer, and if we would be seeing a conversion-story blog post. Her response: "Ummmm. Let's see... NAH!"

Sigh. She has plenty of evidence. See here, and here, e.g. But some people are just stubborn, I guess. With this refusal to accept the obvious fact that 2-4 is the most powerful hand in poker, I'm afraid that, as I have told her privately, she is good, but she will never become great. It's so sad.


3.

Last December I blogged here about how the MGM Grand had been like Kryptonite to me, but that I had finally broken the curse with a win. A month ago I reported that it was continuing to be good to me.

I'm pleased to say that that trend continues. I have chalked up four winners in a row, averaging $252. I'm still at a net negative because the first few losses I had there (this was mostly back in 2006, after which I stayed away from the place for a long time) were unusually large ones. But the trend is clearly set.

This tends to confirm my suspicion that there wasn't anything really mysterious going on--it was just a result of variance acting all in one direction over a small sample set, perhaps combined, after the first two or three visits, with some subtle fatalism creeping into my mindset and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once those two things are broken, poker can get back to normal. (And, fortunately, for me, "normal" = "usually winning.") In fact, I'm kind of getting to like the joint. All signs point to it becoming a more frequent hangout for me.


4.

One of the small things that will contribute to that happening is that this evening I discovered a different restroom. The most obvious one to use, right by the Stage Deli (incidentally, this is the same Stage Deli that sells wonderful GIANT COOKIES, to which I treat myself every time I play at MGM now), is small, cramped, usually overcrowded for its capacity, and not cleaned regularly enough. Using it has always been a distinctly unpleasant experience.

Tonight it was just too crowded to tolerate, so I decided to go in search of an alternative. Not knowing which way to turn, I just continued in the same direction--away from the poker room past the deli and restrooms. I was rewarded for my adventurousness. (Yes, looking for a different restroom in a casino is what counts as "adventure" in my life. Pathetic, eh?)

About 50 steps past the restrooms you come to the "West Wing Bar." Just walk right through it, enjoying the piano player/singer on the way, and on the other side you will find the bar's own set of restrooms. These are clearly not MGM Grand standard-issue, but designed to go with the bar. The lighting is low. There is actual decor inside--slate gray in the men's--with, of all things, real potpourri in wicker baskets between the sinks. The room is spacious, infrequently used (judging my my two trips tonight), and quiet. It makes for a surprisingly effective respite from the cacophony of the casino floor.

But don't tell anybody else, OK? Let's keep this our private little secret.


5.

On the negative side, the MGM Grand's parking garage is right up there among the worst-designed of such structures in the city. I think it is topped in badness by the ones attached to Imperial Palace and Hard Rock, but it scores a solid third-worst. It's too late at night for me to feel like elaborating, but I'll just say that when I'm driving in it I feel lost, and when I'm a pedestrian in it I feel perpetually endangered by the vehicular traffic. That's not a good combination.


6.

I had a major cooler of a hand last night at the Sahara. I had the top full house, and lost to a straight flush. There were only two exact two-card starting hands that had me beat: pocket 5s to make quads on this double-paired board, and the two cards that would complete the only possible straight flush. So, not surprisingly, my opponent and I raised and reraised each other on the river until we were both all in. I thought he might have the same hand I did, or a lower full house, or maybe even the nut flush. I saw the other two possibilties, but didn't want to fall prey to "monsters under the bed" syndrome. So I lost nearly all my chips.

I'm telling you this in order to comment about my opponent's reaction. First, when I called his all-in bet, I immediately showed my cards, without waiting for him. I don't usually do that, but just felt like it here. He gave me a mild slow-roll by issuing this speech before the reveal: "I have to apologize to you for this, sir." Then he showed the stone-cold nuts.

OK, so that was bad enough. But then he kept trying to assuage me. As he was stacking up the chips, and I was counting to see how little I had left, he called out to me to get my attention, then gave me a "nice hand" kind of table thump. He told me I played it fine and just got unlucky. He smiled and tried to get me to smile back.

Bollocks. I hate crap like that. Just leave me alone. You won, you have the money--can't you let it go at that? What are you, my mother or my therapist, feeling some need to make me feel less bad about handing over my stack? I mean, if he is actually feeling guilty about it (and I see no reason that he should--I certainly don't when I come out on the good side of such clashes), then give me the money back to get rid of the shame. But if you're not feeling guilty, then what's all the BS that seems designed to make you feel less bad about it?

Look, dude, you're not a sufficiently skilled emotional manipulator to be able to make such a loss sting any less than it does, so don't bother trying. Maybe I'm the only person in the world who feels this way, but you're adding to my annoyance rather than relieving it. (I doubt that that was his intention--he seemed like a genuinely nice person.) Besides, it's just not your job to make me feel better.

To add to my misery, it made me think of all the stuff I've read from Mike Caro about being the person at the table that the fishies don't much mind losing to--becoming their friend and confidante and supporter and cheerleader, so that they can continue to put their money in bad and not notice or not mind that that's what they're doing. Which made me wonder, "Is that what this guy is doing for me? Does he see me as the live one here, the one that needs TLC so as not to get mad or despondent and leave the game?" Because if that's what he was thinking, well, it just makes me even more irritated.

So here's my message: Just take the money and shut the hell up about it.

Paradox

It's not arrogance that causes me to think that I'm usually the best player at the table; it's just that it really doesn't take much to be the best at a typical Vegas casino $1-2 NLHE game. Commonly I find that there is one other player that is of comparable skill level. I spend very little time and mental energy trying to make the fine distinction as to whether it is he (or she) who is slightly the better player, or I. It simply doesn't matter much. If somebody is in my general range of experience, I pretty much know what to expect, and that's all that matters.

Maybe once every couple of weeks I run into somebody that is good enough that it makes me feel pretty sure that I'm outgunned. These are the players that have moves that are not in my repertoire. These are the ones that have an uncanny sense of timing, of where they are in every hand, and a degree of cagey fearlessness that I can envy but not yet emulate. Frankly, there aren't too many of them, because most that are substantially beyond my ability will have moved up to bigger games than $1-2.

Last night at the MGM Grand I had one of this class at my table, two seats to my left (I was in 1, he was in 3). I had him spotted within the first two hands. He was always deliberate, taking an almost unnerving amount of time to make the big decisions. He was contemplative. He was the very model of selective aggression, a nearly perfect raise-or-fold player except when he was deliberately trapping. He responded to feeble attempts to play back at him with crushing return pressure that nearly always caused the opponent to cower off. He gave off no tells. He never spoke during a hand, letting his chips do the talking instead. He never showed his cards unless required. I never once saw him get his money in with the worst of it. He was seriously good in every way.

Except one.

After every hand in which he was a participant, he would launch into a verbal post-mortem with the few players near him. This was quiet enough that those at the far end probably couldn't hear, but clear enough that it couldn't be missed by anybody within a couple of seats of him. He would explain in detail what he thought the opponent(s) had and why, how his assessment of their possible range started and how it changed with the additional information each new board card and betting round provided, etc. It was, every time, a sharp, canny, accurate, insightful analysis.

It was also incredibly moronic.

Except for the two of us, the skill level at this table was quite low. It was, I think, overall the weakest table I've played in at the MGM, and it was, frankly, quite easy pickings. So what possible effects could the Professor's lessons have?

-- Alert the brain-dead players that there are whole levels of analytic skill to which they have not had their eyes opened before.

-- Signal these same players that Seat 3 is occupied by a person who has access to some of these higher levels of thinking.

-- Make these players conclude, "Gee, I'd better be more careful and try not to make any stupid mistakes, or I'll get eaten alive at this table."

-- Clue these players in to things like what bet sizes suggested about opponents' holdings, or what factors to consider when deciding whether to value-bet versus check behind on the river--things that they may not have considered before.

Possibly the worst possible outcome is one that I think actually occurred: chasing away a bad player. After I had been there not very long, the fishiest of fish sat down in Seat 2. He was terribad, stupibad. He barely knew how to tell when it was his turn. He was completely transparent when he was not being indecipherably stupid. He burned through his first buy-in within just a few hands, and rebought, to my great delight.

On the hand that I think was the last straw for him, the fish bet weakly the whole way. Smart player called him down, making the nut flush on the river. However, that card also paired the trey from the flop. Professor then delved into the lecture, explaining to the guy on his left (but perfectly audible to the idiot in 2) why he couldn't raise there, because he didn't think Seat 2 would have been betting a lower flush draw that way, so the only hand that would call a raise would be a set that had filled up on the river. In fact, Seat 2 had shown just two pair--pocket 9s plus the paired treys on the board--and there had been an ace and a king on the flop. His plan had apparently been to just hope that a series of small bets would win it for him, with likely no thought about what his opponent might have.

Anyway, the post-hoc analysis implied pretty clearly (without being overtly insulting or name-calling) that Seat 2 had badly misplayed the hand. This was true enough, but what on God's green earth is accomplished by making this even more obvious than it already was? I tried not to look to my left to add to the guy's social discomfort, but in my peripheral vision I got the sense that he was squirming from deep embarrassment, probably induced by a combination of knowing that he was in a game that was over his head and having that fact pointed out to everybody within easy earshot.

I got up for a restroom break, and when I returned, the fish was gone. I have no idea what, if anything, he said when he left, whether he lost the rest of his chips on a hand that I missed or just cashed out what he had remaining. Either way, it was a serious blow to the profitability of the table. The most likely conclusion, it seems to me, is that his desire to play had been completely crushed by his mortification at being tagged as a bad player and an unworthy opponent.

Maybe he went to play limit instead of no-limit. Maybe he went to the craps tables instead. Maybe he went back to his hotel room, and will now spend the rest of his long-planned weekend in Vegas, and the rest of his bankroll, on strip clubs and hookers instead of on the poker that he had been looking forward to. If so, it is a loss to the poker economy.

So now it's 18 hours later, and I'm left still utterly baffled by the seat 3 Professor. How is it possible simultaneously to be so damn smart at the game, and so damn dumb at the metagame?

Rearrangement

In my recent post on the proper method of stacking chips, I mentioned the Three-Deep Chip Stack Rearrangement--that lovely point in good sessions at which one has accumulated enough chips that there is no longer sufficient room to keep them in the standard double rows, and they must be adjusted to triple rows.

Well, it was a good night for poker last night at the MGM Grand, and I reached that magic moment for the first time since composing the previous post. So this is just an addendum to document what it looks like when it happens.