Another ethical dilemma

I lied about the previous post being the last story from the Palms session last night. I intended it to be, but after clearing my head with a good night's sleep, I realize that I have another story to tell.

I was in the big blind with K-2 offsuit. Nobody raised, and five players took the flop. Nobody bet it. Turn card likewise got nobody taking a crack at the pot, which is highly unusual for this many players. The river was a deuce, giving me a pair. Again, it got checked around. A couple of people announced "No pair here." I flipped over my hand and said, "I hit the deuce on the end." A couple of players mucked without showing.

Frankly, I had basically tuned out of the hand along the way, because there was no way I was putting even another dollar in, and I thought there was almost no chance that I would turn out to have the winner, even after hitting the river card. So I just wasn't paying attention at the end. I saw a couple of people muck, saw the dealer kill another couple of hands, then announce "Pair of deuces with a king," and start pushing me the pot. I thought that was quite funny. I threw up my arms in a gesture of victory and mock-shouted a big "Yes!"

But in the process of being silly, I apparently missed something--as did the dealer. A very quiet, soft-spoken player on my immediate left had had 6-2, which gave him two pairs. The dealer had misread his hand as being just a pair of deuces with a 6 kicker, overlooking the 6 on the board. She had killed his hand, and he hadn't held on to his cards and hadn't spoken up quickly or forcefully enough. I didn't see his cards--not because he didn't table them properly, but just because I wasn't paying attention.

The player to my right agreed that the one on my left had hit two pair and had the winner. But his cards were in the muck and couldn't be identified. With another player vouching for him, the dealer apologized for the error and said something like, "Don't worry about it--I'll get you the money."

That was OK with me. I get the pot, and the house will compensate the player who should have gotten it. But then the guy to my right whispered to me, "You should give him the pot, because if you don't, the dealer is going to pay him out of her tips."

Oh. Well, that changes things. I don't recall what, exactly the dealer had said, but when this guy whispered that to me, I realized that he was probably right, and my initial impression of what the dealer planned to do was erroneous.

Technically, the pot belonged rightfully to me on the grounds that the guy on my left had not (1) held onto his cards until the pot was pushed his way, and/or (2) spoken up quickly and decisively when the dealer took his cards to kill his hand. (See http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-chips-into-pot-arent-enough-for.html for another story about the same principle, as well as quotations of rules on the point.) But when there are two credible witnesses saying that the winning hand was accidentally killed, I think general notions of fairness trump technicalities of rules. If the house were going to make the compensation, then fine, I'm not going to feel badly about keeping the pot. But I'm not going to, in effect, take the money out of the dealer's tips, just because she's feeling guilty about having made a mistake.

Now my problem was that I didn't know how big the pot had been. But I realized that if I said that out loud, it would look like I was trying to make excuses not to hand over the money. I guessed that there had been five players in the pot for $3 each, so I handed three red chips to the guy on my left, along with my apology and explanation that I wasn't trying to claim an undeserved pot--I just hadn't been paying attention and hadn't seen his cards. He was very cool about it, and even handed one redbird back to me, saying he didn't think the pot was quite that big. OK, whatever. It seemed all was well between us. With such a small amount at stake, I think the effort and gesture meant more than the money on both sides of the exchange.

The dealer thanked me for giving up the pot, which I take as confirmation that she had planned to compensate the other player out of her own pocket--because I assume that otherwise she would have stopped the transaction by saying something like, "No, don't worry about it, the money will come from the house."

I don't really have a lesson to be learned from this, except that one should always pay attention to what's going on. But I already knew that, and every reader already knows that. It's just hard to maintain focus 100% of the time, and inevitably it's the times that it doesn't seem very important to be paying attention that the problems arise.


Addendum, February 26, 2008

Please read the comment from "voiceofjoe." He raises an interesting point. Let's see if I can address it adequately.

I think the first thing to establish is that the rules prescribe that the pot was rightfully mine, because the other player didn't do what is required of him to protect his interest in it.

Once that is agreed on, then the question is just one of whether I choose to give the money back. I don't think it is unethical to make my decision whether to be generous or not dependent on some factor of my choosing. If I decide to relinquish the money on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but not on other days, I'm not doing anything wrong--I'm just being generous some days and on other days letting the result prescribed by the rules stand.

Secondly, poker rooms do sometimes take money from the till to compensate an unhappy player who lost a pot because of a misunderstanding or dealer error. I have no idea what criteria are used to determine when they do this (and I imagine it varies wildly between facilities). They are investing in good PR, good customer relations. Presumably, they don't view this as the casino being cheated, but rather an investment in making a customer feel that he is being treated well and fairly, so that he will come back in the future and tell his friends what a wonderful place it is.

If it is the dealer making the compensation, though, this isn't the case at all. She was not making the offer in order to pacify an angry customer or win his future business. She presumably doesn't really care much whether he ever comes back or not. She was simply feeling guilty, and wanted to make things right within her power to do so. I applaud the sentiment, but I think it is misplaced. Suppose the pot had been $1000 instead of maybe $15? She probably couldn't make the offer then, at least not without giving herself significant financial hardship.

I think that distinction (between the casino's motive and the dealer's) is meaningful enough that it is not irrational to accept the offer (if one had been made, as I erroneously assumed at first) from the casino, but decline the one made personally by the dealer. I certainly can't say that it's the only right way to look at it, but I don't think it's either unethical or unreasonable to see a real difference and to make a different decision based on it.

Dealers make mistakes. It's part of the live poker game, just like umpires' occasional bad calls are part of baseball. There is and should be no obligation for the dealers to reach into their pockets to make up for it, any more than an umpire should feel obligated to financially compensate the losing World Series team because his bad call at the end of the last game flipped the rightful outcome around. If the casino wants to stand behind its dealers by making up for the errors, it has every right to make such a business decision.

Finally, I don't think the comparison with the Betfair situation is apt at all, for a few reasons. First, I didn't set out to deliberately take advantage of what I knew the casino's generosity would be. Suppose I knew that a particular casino made a policy of reimbursing players in this situation. A buddy and I go there deliberately looking to create this situation somehow with a big pot, with the result that one of us gets the pot and the other gets an equivalent amount provided by the casino. That would indeed by unethical, because of the intentionality. It would be a scam.

Second, the Betfair players agreed in advance that they couldn't keep any money that was credited to them because of a software error. I have entered into no such agreement with the casino. In fact, as I said, the rules say that the pot is mine. A casino volunteering to reimburse a player's inadvertant loss is, in my opinion, worlds removed from an online site reclaiming what is, by previous agreement, rightfully theirs.

At least those are my off-the-cuff thoughts on the matter. But perhaps I'm wrong. If there's a better argument for the proposition that I should view and respond to the dealer's offer and the casino's hypothetical offer in exactly the same way, I'm certainly willing to listen to and ponder it.

"I will not get myself into a big pot. I will not get myself into a big pot."

Final story from tonight's session at the Palms.

Standard etiquette in poker is that after you have won a large pot (particularly after you take all of an opponent's chips), you shouldn't "take the money and run." It is considered sportsmanlike to stay for a decent amount of time. This is to give the guy a chance to win some of his money back--or at least give the appearance that you are doing so.

I put that latter condition in because it's pretty easy to sit there for an hour and fold every hand, in which case you're not really putting your winnings at stake. If that's all you're going to do, then it's actually better to just run off, because you're filling a seat that could be occupied by somebody who is going to play.

I've arbitrarily settled on 30 minutes as a decent amount of time. It doesn't seem like I'm running off with the loot. During that time, I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel, a high likelihood that I'm going to end the session with a nice profit. At the same time, though, I recognize that it's a pointless sham to do nothing but fold for the sake of a show of politeness, so I really do play--I just tighten up quite a bit.

During those tail ends of sessions, I want to avoid big confrontations. That's because on a few occasions I've been within a few minutes of banking a nice win for the day, then got stuck in aces-versus-kings, or some other nightmare, couldn't extract myself, and saw the "W" turn into a big fat "L." That's so demoralizing that it's hard to continue to play my A-game after it happens, and I just have to suck up the loss, go home, and feel sorry for myself. I hate that.

So I play, but play tightly and conservatively, more ready to reliquish pots that I would normally contest, never bluffing, etc. I keep a mental image of myself as a bad little boy back in grade school, made to stay after school and write 100 times on the chalkboard, "I will not get myself into a big pot. I will not get myself into a big pot."

Nevertheless, it happens sometimes. Tonight was one of those.

I was up by about $200, which is not huge, but is a perfectly acceptable take for what had been about five hours of playing. Mentally I had basically closed out the session after the last large pot that got me to that point. I put myself into "I will not get myself into a big pot" mode, planning to play only the most premium, favorable situations until it was time to stop.

And then it happened.

I picked up pocket queens in the small blind.* A highly loose-aggressive player in early position put in a raise to $12, and the guy to my right called. Surely I have them both beat, I thought. The raiser is known to raise with anything from any position, and the guy on the button is probably calling with a weakish hand just because he will have position in case he flops big. And surely, I thought, they will both fold to a large reraise, because they both know that I've been playing very solidly. So, I told myself, this isn't really getting into a big pot, because it's going to end as soon as I make a bet.

Yeah, right.

They both called my reraise to $50. Uh-oh. This doesn't feel good.

The flop was 10-6-3 rainbow, which is about as good as it gets for pocket queens. I push $100 forward. This will take it down, I told myself.

Yeah, right.

The first guy immediately moves all-in for about $150. The guy to my right thinks for a while, but then says, "OK, I'm all-in, too." He has about the same amount.

So now there is about $550 in this pot, and it only costs me about $50 more to call their all-in raises and see the turn and river. That's about 11:1 pot odds. Hell, even if all I was holding was a 7-2 offsuit, the math would compel me to call in that situation. I knew it was a mandatory call (mandatory, that is, in the strategic, smart-play sense, not actually mandatory by the rules), but I felt like throwing up. This was exactly what I had been trying to avoid, and yet here I had gotten sucked into it, one step at a time, each step looking (falsely) like it should be all I had to do.

I could see my immediate future looming: One of my opponents must have flopped a set (three of a kind), and the other had some sort of weird combination backdoor flush and straight draw that seemed worth chasing, and would probably get there, leaving me with the worst of three hands, and decimate my carefully-accumulated stack of chips. Ugh. Scotty, beam me out of here! Can we get Superman to fly super-fast around the world to change its direction of rotation and turn back time? (I saw that in a movie once, so I know it's possible.)

I flipped over my queens, and was indescribably relieved to see that the original raiser had pocket jacks. One down, one to go. The second guy had just a suited A-10 for top pair to the board. Neither of them improved, and I took down the biggest pot of the night--one of those lovely things that takes the next three or four hands to get stacked up nicely.

I went back into "I will not get myself into a big pot" mode. And I didn't, thereafter. But surprisingly, I kept running into favorable situations where I could risk a small amount to potentially win a large amount, and several of them paid off. I kept wanting to leave, but couldn't put together 30 consecutive minutes without taking a pot that was big enough to warrant resetting my "give them a chance to win it back" clock. It was a strange but delightful run of good luck. I was also by then playing with the advantage of the biggest chip stack at the table, so that even if some disaster struck, nobody could knock my profit down to less than, say, $200 or so (at least not with one pot).

I finally found a time in which I could leave without being impolite, and ended up having had the biggest cash-game win since early August (which is when this remarkable night occurred: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/08/warning-do-not-try-this-at-home.html).

Whew!


*Remarkably, I had queens eight times in this seven-hour session. They won the pot seven of those times. I had aces once, raised, and got no callers. Never had kings or jacks. That's a very weird distribution of hands, and an incredibly favorable outcome for them.

Taking the walk of shame

In poker, taking the "walk of shame" commonly refers to leaving the table to hit up the ATM for more cash so that you can keep playing.

At the Palms tonight, over the course of a little less than seven hours of play, I saw the woman two seats to my right make this walk six times. I have no idea how long she had been there before I arrived, but occasionally when somebody at the table commented on being down, she would feel obligated to "top" that with a complaint about how many hundreds she was down--and the number kept growing.

She was trying desperately to get back to even, obviously. But she was simply outclassed--and not just by me, but by most of the other players at the table as well. We were all like a flock of vultures picking her bones. She was incredibly easy to beat, because if she had a big hand on the flop, she would bet big. If the flop missed her, she would check if she had not been the pre-flop raiser, and if she had been the pre-flop raiser, she would make just a small bet on the flop, then check the turn card. In other words, she was incapable of playing her weak hands as if they were strong. Since I nearly always had position on her, I was able to steal pot after pot from her by floating her smaller flop bets.* When she actually made a strong hand, she would bet big, and it was easy to fold with minimal financial damage.

She may have been the grouchiest woman I've ever shared a poker table with. She was always throwing her cards at the dealer. She openly, repeatedly blamed the dealers for bad cards and bad beats. Once when I won two large pots in a row from her in the first few minutes of a female dealer's session at our table, the woman turned to her and said, "That's $200 you've cost me just since you sat down here." Yeah, right--it's all the dealer's fault.

There's no question this player was having an unlucky day--flops didn't hit her hands, and on the rare occasion that they did, often another player would stick around and hit a straight draw or flush draw against her. She was on constant tilt, and in a constant foul mood, for the entire seven hours I was observing her. It was a really remarkable display of tenacity--that is, of holding on to every possible bad thought and feeling she could conjure up. It was as if she perversly loved wallowing in her misery and misfortune. There are people like that, you know; they enjoy obsessing on everything bad that happens to them because it confirms their preconceived notions about how unfair the world is.

Every time she stood up, I thought, "Well, she's finally had enough and is going to quit." But every time she came back within a few minutes with one or two crisp new Benjamins, and bought more chips. A hugely disproportionate amount of my winnings for this session came from her repeatedly replenished stack. I'll admit that I showed her both my strong hands and my bluffs in a deliberate effort to keep her steaming, because both actions had the same effect. If I showed her a bluff, she'd get mad at herself for folding the best hand. If I showed her that I was ahead, she'd get mad at the dealer for giving her the second-best hand or for letting me catch a lucky card to beat her. And the more smoke that poured out of her ears, the easier she became to beat. On the rare occasions that she made a strong hand, bet it hard, and everybody folded, that, too, would make her steam, because she couldn't get paid off. Her frustration was palpable.

Here's today's lesson: There are going to be poker-playing days when nothing goes right. Maybe it's because something is on your mind and you're not focusing well. Maybe you've sat down at a table of sharks. Maybe the poker gods just have it in for you today, and every possible unlucky outcome will happen, no matter how well you play. Maybe you started losing, and changed how you play--for the worse--in an unwise attempt to catch up again.

It doesn't really matter why it's happening. You have to recognize that it's just a bad day to be playing poker, leave, and come back another day. One of the most reliable and tangible indicators that you've reached a good quitting time is that you have burned through all of the cash that you brought with you. If you prepared properly for your session, that's probably at least two or three buy-ins. If you haven't gotten anywhere with that, it's probably not going to be happening for you today. The empty wallet should serve as a big, red, flashing beacon that it's time to quit. Maybe you should even put a note to yourself in there, right behind the 100s: "If you've gotten down to this note, GO HOME!!!"

If you've run through that money and have to make the walk of shame to the ATM, you will almost always be doing yourself a favor to keep on walking to the parking lot. Conversly, if you pull more cash out of your bank account and bring it back to the table, you will be doing me and all of your other opponents the favor.

Which way do you want it?


*"Floating" is the term for the ploy of calling an opponent's bet on the flop with nothing, then taking the pot away on the turn or river (still holding nothing), either because the opponent shows weakness by checking on one of those streets, or by putting in a hefty raise if the opponent makes another smallish bet.

Celebrity sighting

I picked the Palms for tonight's poker session. (Hmmm. It's always hard to come home in the middle of the night and decide whether to call what just transpired "tonight" or "last night." Not that anybody really cares, I suppose.) I had not been there in a month or so, but previous Sunday sessions at the Palms have been quite juicy.

To my surprise, I sat down with a celebrity on my immediate right. You have to guess who it was. Hint: Think former child star.

OK, there's a lot of those, so I'll give you another hint. This is me, doing my impression of this celebrity's most famous pose:



That's right. I was seated next to Edvard Munch's painting, "The Scream."

No, no. It was Macaulay Culkin. By the time he left, I was liking him so much that I couldn't bear to get all goofy and ask for permission to take his picture. I'm sure he would have allowed it, but my guess is he got tired of that many years ago, and it's a burden to be asked, even if only a minor one.

He was very cool and normal. If you didn't recognize his face, nothing about his conduct would have betrayed anything Hollywood about him. He talked about poker and sports, like most people do in that setting. He was smart and funny and engaging.

He is also no slouch as a poker player. He is loose-aggressive, playing his monster hands just the same way as his bluffs, making it unusually difficult to figure out what he's doing. He is considerably better than the average Vegas tourist.

Nevertheless, I'm pleased to say that I won both of the only two sizable pots we contested together, one with what I thought was a rather nice all-in check-raise bluff, and the other by slow-playing pocket queens and using his habitual aggression (and my position) to trap him.

In short, he was both a pleasure to play with, and a challenge to play against. That's not something I can say about other recognizable faces that I've run into over the green felt in this city.

I almost made a huge faux-pas, however. An opportunity arose to make a nasty little Michael Jackson joke. It was on its way out of my mouth--my mouth literally open and the first syllable out--before, thankfully, I had a flash of memory that Culkin was called to testify in Jackson's trial. As I recall the situation, when Culkin was overwhelmed with the publicity and attention of being one of the biggest child stars ever, not getting to live a normal childhood, Jackson befriended him and allowed his ranch to be a place that Culkin could escape the world. I can understand why one would have life-long gratitude for such kindness and solace. I would feel awful if I had actually made the smart-ass remark, putting Culkin in an awkward position--especially since I don't really believe that Jackson was guilty of anything criminal. Of course, if I were a better person, I'd learn not to make such unkind comments about people at all, regardless of whether they may have an old friend within earshot. But for now, I'm just glad that some sort of mental filter engaged itself in the last split second I had to avoid being the clod that ruined everybody's good time.

A genuine pleasure to have spent an hour or so in your company, Mr. Culkin.

On my non-iPod

One of the latest additions to my non-iPod is the Mozart Requiem. It is, by turns, stirring and calming, which is kind of a nice combination for poker.

It has the additional benefit of supplying me with nasty things to think about opponents who suck out a 3-outer on the river against me. Now I can dial in the "Dies Irae" and quietly hum along (because, yes, I happen to know the words in Latin, from a stint in a church choir long ago):

Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
teste David cum Sibylla.
Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!

(Day of wrath, day of anger
will dissolve the world in ashes,
as foretold by David and the Sibyl.
Great trembling there will be
when the Judge descends from heaven
to examine all things closely.)

This is among the angriest, most threatening music every written. If you've never heard it, it's worth two minutes of your life (especially if you imagine hissing the words in Latin under your breath to the moron who just took your whole stack of chips playing a 9-3 offsuit and hitting runner-runner flush):



If wishing eternal damnation on the soul of my unworthy opponent has not by then sufficient exorcised me, I can skip ahead a couple of tracks to the "Confutatis":

Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis,
Voca me cum benedictus.

(When the damned are cast away
and consigned to the searing flames,
call me to be with the blessed.)



Ah, now I feel much better. I am among the blessed. My river-rat opponents be damned--literally!

A poker puzzle

The guy sitting on my right for a while tonight at Planet Hollywood had this small, plastic, engraved card sitting on the rail next to his chips. While he was away from the table I snapped a picture of it so that I could try to decipher it later, because it mystified me.

Try to make your own guesses as to what principles this player is trying to remind himself of. After you do, scroll down for my best guess.







1. Don't play hands out of position.
2. Play your own game.
3. Follow your own reads. Or, maybe, Fold ? or raise (i.e., call rarely compared to folding and raising).
4. Quit winner.

Comments are open for other guesses.


Addendum, February 25, 2008

See Shamus's comment.

Both suggestions certainly plausible.

But if so, then I think this guy is giving himself two pieces of bad advice.

I think that "play your own game" is the first piece of bad advice, if it can be translated roughly to "play the way you play." Different opponents, and different mixes of opponents at a table, call for sometimes radically different tactics. If you're set in your ways and can't adapt, you're going to lose, or at least not maximize your profit. I'm not comfortable playing loose and wild, but if you're in a loose and wild game, your only choices are basically to move your style in that direction--but more skillfully and selectively than your opponents--or play complete lock-down poker. The latter will probably yield a small profit, with low volatility/variance. The former, however, is clearly the more profitable approach, as long as you're willing to live with the high variance that it will inevitably bring. If you have only one way of playing, smart opponents will quickly figure it out and exploit it mercilessly.

If Shamus is right about deciphering #3 as "follow your original read," that's this player's second piece of bad advice. It is far smarter to be willing to modify your guess as to an opponent's cards based on the additional information you acquire with every decision you see him make. For one example of this, see my detailed analysis of an interesting (well, I thought it was interesting, anyway) hand here: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2008/01/play-hand-with-me.html. Every decision that this player made allowed me to narrow the range of her possible holdings.

Here's another example from last night at the Palms. There was a guy fairly new to the table. He was tight enough that I hadn't seen him play many hands. I put in my standard raise (to $13) from middle position with Q-Q. He reraised to $50 from the big blind. Because he hadn't been around long enough to know that I had been playing quite tight, it was hard to know how broad to make his range here. Some players will put in a big raise with pairs down to about 8-8, to take a small pot now rather than have to make difficult decisions after the flop, especially from out of position. So I called, but very warily. The flop was A-x-x. He checked. I couldn't tell whether he had hit big with A-A or A-K and was trapping me, or maybe had K-K or a lower pair and hated that ace on the flop as much as I did. So I checked, too. The turn was another non-connecting rag. Now he bet $50. In addition to having a monster, he certainly might do this with K-K, Q-Q, or even J-J or 10-10, once he decided that the ace on the flop didn't help me. So I warily called again, hoping that we could just check it down on the river. No such luck. He moved all in. This was the crucial piece of information for me. Once he saw me call $50 on the turn, I didn't think he would dare move all-in without having A-A, A-K, or, at a bare minimum, K-K. No way he would do that with J-J, which is what I was (perhaps desperately) hoping he had up until that point. I reluctantly folded, saving $95. I talked to him a couple of hours later as he was packing up to go, and asked him what he had had. He very plausibly said it had been A-K. He seemed completely truthful to me, and at that point he had no reason to lie about it. If I hadn't narrowed the range of hands I could put him on--that is, if I just stuck with my original read--I would have lost $195 instead of just $100.

It's foolish, IMHO, to basically put blinders on and ignore the additional information you get as a hand plays out, which is what "Follow your original read" seems to me to imply.

If you're going to go to all the trouble of getting reminders to yourself of how to play engraved in a little plaque to carry around, make sure you're giving yourself good advice!

T-shirt

This gentleman was briefly playing at my table at Planet Hollywood tonight. I liked his shirt, and he was kind enough to allow me to take a picture.

It's funny, but it wouldn't work for me. It has to be ironic to be funny, and for me it would be literal, because my blank, neutral, somewhat absent gaze is pretty much how I go around all day every day.

More Hellmuth hating? Yep.

This week I've been doing a lot more exploring of poker blogs than I've done in a long time, trying to find some other reliably good ones to add to my regular reading. Along the way, I stumbled across a February 14 post by T. J. Cloutier, at http://news.pokerpages.com/index.php?option=com_simpleblog&task=view&id=2920. He has a handful of Phil Hellmuth stories to tell.

But here's the bit that caught my attention (emphasis added):

I used to sit down and try to coach Phil about his conduct, suggesting that
he not say some of the things he says to other players. But after talking with
him, I can tell you that he can't help himself.

What bullshit.

I've heard Hellmuth himself make similar claims in interviews: He just can't stop himself.

It's complete bullshit.

What's more, Phil has spent enough time with a therapist (not to mention living with a psychiatrist wife) and in meditation training that he has to know that it's bullshit when he says that he's incapable of suppressing his tantrums. (I'll cut Cloutier a break; he may not have thought it through enough. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he thinks he is telling the truth when he says that Hellmuth "can't help himself." He's not lying; he's just wrong.)

Dogs that are infected with rabies genuinely can't help trying to bite; the virus compels them to it. But human beings--at least those without organic brain damage--choose their behaviors.

There's a simple test one could do in theory that would demonstrate this. Suppose somebody offered Phil Hellmuth $100,000,000 if he could get through a tournament without saying a single negative word about any opponent. You could even stipulate that when he loses a hand, he is allowed to utter no words other than "Nice hand." If he says anything else, even once, he loses the 100 mil.

Could he do it? Of course he could.

It's all a matter of whether he chooses to control his impulses or not. And that, in turn, is largely a matter of how badly he actually wants to do it, and what incentives there are for and against changing.

One way that people help themselves with major lifestyle changes such as smoking cessation or weight loss is to set up tangible rewards and penalties, whether financial or otherwise. Hellmuth could very easily do the same for his own conduct, if he genuinely wanted to change it.

Suppose you were Phil Ivey or Doyle Brunson and had money to burn. Hellmuth comes to you with a variation of the arrangement I suggested above. He wants to set up incentives for himself to help him focus on maintaining good control. He asks you to enter a prop bet with him. If he can make it through the next tournament on 100% good behavior, as outlined previously, you pay him. But if he blows it even once, he has to pay you. You'd have to negotiate the odds, of course; maybe he'd lay $500,000 to your $1 million. You might readily take that, figuring that even with cash on the line, he's more than 2:1 to have at least a minor eruption.

The details and odds don't really matter to my point, though. The point is that Hellmuth has the means to make such an arrangement, and there are undoubtedly lots of players who would rush to get a piece of that action. In fact, they'd line the rails, egging him on, trying to induce a blow-up so that they could get paid off.

So why doesn't Phil set up something like this? That's easy: Because he doesn't really, truly, deeply, sincerely want to change.

You could pretty easily infer this from the fact that he has been behaving the same way for nearly 20 years in the public eye. If he wanted to change, he'd have done it by now.

But for further evidence, just look at the kinds of things he says about his explosions. For example, here's part of his column after he threw a fit at the first taping of "Poker After Dark" (from http://www.cardplayer.com/author/article/all/18/8357):

Having just watched myself on television (Wednesday, Jan. 3), I'm compelled
to say that I'm embarrassed by my "Poker Brat" conduct. In the first-ever Poker
After Dark television show - aired on NBC six days a week, all year long, at 2
a.m. - they showed an unedited seven-minute "Phil Hellmuth tirade." However,
admittedly, it made for some pretty darn good television!

See? He can't just apologize and leave it at that--he has to give himself an out, saying that it made for good television.

He goes on with more halfway apologies, intermixed with excuses and shifting at least partial blame to the other players:

It seems that I was the one who crossed the line, and I apologize to
everyone involved - including all of the television viewers - for my conduct. I
was right that I wasn't getting the silence that I had requested, but as Duke
later said, "I would call that one of the biggest overreactions I've ever
seen."

...Then, Seed innocently joked, "You asked us to be quiet so that you could
talk!" Then, Hansen made an innocent joke, and finally, Sheikhan said something,
as well. Now, as the silence evaporated into constant chatter, I began to lose
my cool (again, I thought proper poker etiquette was not being observed).

He just doesn't get it. If he wanted to admit wrongdoing and accept responsibility, he wouldn't pad the apology with weasel words ("It seems that I was the one who crossed the line," "I was right that I wasn't getting the silence that I had requested" and "I thought proper poker etiquette was not being observed"). He lets himself off the hook, or at least tries to put others on the hook with him. This is not the attitude of somebody who wants to make a clean break with what he has become.

One might also ask why he is apologizing to viewers after saying that it made for "great television." There's a deep contradiction there. It is most logically resolved by the conclusion that he's not actually sorry. How many times can you hear somebody say he is "sorry" for something, while he (1) makes excuses and justifications for it, and (2) continues to do that same thing at every opportunity, before you call "bullshit" on the phony apologies?

Note also the gross irony of Phil Hellmuth complaining that "proper poker etiquette was not being observed." Ha! Yeah, Phil, we all believe that that value is of paramount importance to you. In fact, the poker players of the world have taken a vote and elected you to be the Supreme Sheriff of Poker Etiquette.

Here's another example (from http://www.cardplayer.com/author/article/all/18/6802):

OK, Phil, no more sour grapes! You're in the penthouse suite at the
Radisson Resort and Casino in beautiful Aruba. Your books, DVDs, and new "365
tips" calendar (jfturner.com) are flying off the shelves. You have a good amount
of fortune and fame - nine World Series of Poker (WSOP) titles. Why, then, do
you have to lose it, and act like a jerk, after taking a bad beat? Why leap out
of your chair, with your arms flailing, and utter, "What the hell is going on
here?" And then, worse yet, say to your opponent, "How could you have played
that hand so poorly?"

Once more, I'm embarrassed by my own conduct, even more so because this is
the UltimateBet.com Poker Classic in Aruba, and I'm an ambassador for UB. I
should have said, "Nice hand, sir," and calmly walked away from the table. I
should have shown the class that a WSOP champion ought to show. But, I am, after
all, the Poker Brat! (Still, I can't say I'm proud of it.)

Here is the hand that eliminated me, and it set me off a bit.

Again you can see that he just can't manage an undiluted, unadulterated apology--let alone a public commitment to reforming himself. He says that it set him off "a bit" (a phrase he repeats later in the column), minimizing the significance of his conduct.

But most significant, I think, is the self-justification contained here: "But, I am, after all, the Poker Brat!" This is akin to the line in the other column about making great television.

Implicit in both is the fact that Hellmuth makes a ton of money from the notoriety generated from these blow-ups. This is from a dual effect. First is the fame, resulting in book deals and product endorsements. Second is the intimidation of other players at the table, who don't want to be on the receiving end of a Hellmuthian tirade.

He knows deep down that he makes money by being a jerk. He has in place a system of perverse incentives. Ultimately, he chooses to keep doing what has always brought him success. The money means more to him than being a decent human being and a gentleman at the poker table. So be it.

I just wish that both he and his friends would admit the truth about the situation: He chooses to be this way. He chooses it over, and over, and over again. I think that those of us who care about poker conduct have an obligation to call "bullshit" every time we come across an assertion, either from Hellmuth himself or from enablers like Cloutier, that he "can't help himself."

Of course he can. He just chooses not to.

Poker gems, #86

Bob Ciaffone, in Card Player magazine column, January 16, 2008 (vol. 21, #1), p. 71.


To enter a pot in no-limit [hold 'em], you need one of three things: good position, a strong hand, or a large inheritance.

Poker gems, #85

Phil Gordon, as quoted at http://www.pokerblog.com/watching-phil.html, when he was having a bad tournament day (photo from the same source):

I forgot my number one rule of poker. Don't bluff if they're gonna call.

Profitability of poker

Interesting stats posted here: http://www.pokerblog.com/poker-profits-in-nevada.html. This helps explain the cheapskate comps most places give us.

Some of my close, personal friends

OK, OK, so I don't actually know any of them. I just thought I'd finally get around to sharing some of the photos I took at Jennifer Harman's SPCA charity event at Caesars Palace last April. I was incredibly lucky to arrive just in time to nab a spot on the rope next to the red carpet, right by the official videographer, so I was within a few feet of nearly all of the poker stars that made an entrance. Once everything moved inside to the tournament room, I had to stay at the doorway, which is why some of the shots are long ones.

This is sort of a "Where's Waldo" test. If you have a sharp eye and are good at sometimes identifying people from blurry, distant photos, or from just half of a face or the back of a head, then you should be able to spot at least the following celebs in the above photos. (You can click on them to make them larger.) Of course, if you know the poker world well enough to do that, then you're a degenerate like me and really should be looking for better things to spend your time on!

Patrik Antonius

David Apostolico

David Benyamine

Doyle Brunson

Todd Brunson

Carrot Top

T.J. Cloutier

Alan Cunningham

Annie Duke

Shannon Elizabeth

Maureen Feduniak

Chris Ferguson

Ted Forrest

Kristy Gazes

Chau Giang

Jamie Gold

Clonie Gowen

Jennifer Harman

Phil Hellmuth

John Hennigan

Chip Jett

Karina Jett

Kathy Liebert

Liz Liu

Marcel Luske

Mike Matusow

Carlos Mortensen

Daniel Negreanu

Evelyn Ng

Scottie Nguyen

Cecilia Reyes

Erik Seidel

Mike Sexton

Allyn Shulman

Barry Shulman

David Sklansky

Marco Traniello

David Ulliott

Cyndy Violette

David Williams

Steve Zolotow

Did you find them all?

The Grump's ego gets a little stroke

Since I'm still a small fish in the big pond of poker blogging, I'm not at all used to finding references to myself on random reading. I just had one.

Once in a while I just click on poker blogs listed on somebody else's blogroll (and I will add my own blogroll to the margin one of these days...), just to kind of sample what other poker blogs are like that aren't the ones I regularly read. I was just doing that, when I came across this paragraph, completely unexpectedly, at http://pokerstage.blogspot.com/2008/02/yup-im-degenerate.html:

This is where I made a conscious effort to focus and play my best poker. I
read something in Robert's blog
last week that resonated with me. As a side note, The Vegas Year and The Poker Grump are two of my
favorite new blogs of 2007, right along with BWoP. These three write some hysterical
shit, and everyone should read all of them. But anyway, Robert said something to
the effect of "my job is not to make money playing poker. My job is to get my
money in with the best of it. Over and over again." I quoted that last night
when Dave cracked my aces, and I buckled down with my four big blinds and played
some screwed-down poker.

Wow! I'm so flattered!

I've mentioned before that my main hobby has long been competitive handgun shooting. Several years ago, in my former life, I was on lunch break from work, reading a gun magazine that I had brought with me, when I turned the page and found a picture of--ME! Several months before, when I was at a shooting skills seminar, the instructor had a new handgun model. The manufacturer had sent it to him so that he could write a review of it. He had several of us try it out to give our first impressions. I didn't even know he had taken my picture while I was shooting the thing, let alone that it would show up in a magazine! It was quite a trip. Anyway, reading the paragraph above sort of felt the same way.

Now, though, I have to confess that I have no idea who the writer is (other than that he goes by "Falstaff"). Nor I have explored the other two blogs he says are among his new favorites, though I plan to do so tomorrow.

If any readers happen to stumble upon references, links, etc., pertaining to my stuff, I'll always appreciate being tipped off to them. But it's also quite a delight to chance upon them myself, and still a very new experience. I suppose if this blog ever gets anywhere near as popular as the big boys, things like this will become old hat, but for now it's a rush.

Opus 400

Nostalgia is supposed to be for one's childhood, or maybe a first love, or the high school years. Me? I find at the moment that I'm having nostalgia for the time I was trying to think of something clever to say for my 300th post--which was 42 days ago. (See http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2008/01/300.html.)

I noted then that the time between each hundred posts was growing shorter. I thought that that trend would not continue. Well, it has. The first 100 posts took me 305 days, the second 75, the third 56, and now 42. I'm not trying to make that happen--it just kind of does.

Of course, what matters isn't quantity, but quality. Is my writing getting better because of increased experience? Getting worse because I'm cranking out too many words a day? Staying about the same? I don't know--you can answer that as well as I can. It's hard for me to be objective about my own stuff.

But I can tell you that I enjoy it more and more as time goes by, and spend a greater portion of my idle time (and poker-playing time between hands, if truth be known) thinking about what to write. I have never written so much in my life--not even back in college. (I tended to take the nerdy science classes that didn't require much writing.)

The graph above is the site's basic traffic report, from Google Analytics. It starts on August 22, because that's when I first installed it. The dips to zero in December aren't real. That's when I was playing around with the site's design, and when I started using a new template (twice in one week), each time I forgot that I have to manually add back the special hidden code that Google Analytics uses to collect data.

The peaks come when something I've written gets linked to by another blogger or on one of the poker forums. There's also a weekly cycle, with dips on weekends and small peaks on Mondays, which suggests that a good number of readers are logging on while at work. Hey, all of you slackers, is this what you're getting paid for???? (Just kidding.)

For all of you who read, who take the time and effort to post comments, who share posts with your friends, who post links to stuff I've written on your own blogs or on the forums, and who click on those stupid ads on the left (don't forget, please!), I thank you heartily.

Absolute, conclusive, definitive proof that online poker is rigged

It's time for what has become my nightly single-table sit-'n'-go tournament. I kind of randomly pick a site. I'm not going to name which one, because I don't want them suing me for here proving to the world that their site is TOTALLY rigged. But there is a very subtle visual hint somewhere in this post that will alert the astute reader as to which is the dirty site I'm talking about.

First hand, I'm in first position to act. I have J-J. I put in my standard raise of 3 1/2 times the big blind (in this case, that's 105, because the BB is 30). I get one caller, two seats to my left.

The flop is a gorgeous A-A-J. I have a full house, for the third nuts, and I feel pretty confident I'm not up against A-A, both because it's so statistically unlikely (given that two of the aces in the deck are on the board), and because I didn't get re-raised before the flop. So effectively I have the second nuts. I check, as does my opponent.

The turn is a blank. I bet about 2/3 of the pot and get called.

River is another blank. I make another bet of similar proportion and get raised all-in. I call, naturally.

My opponent had A-J. We had both flopped full houses. But aces full of jacks beats jacks full of aces.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you: what more proof could you possibly ask for in support of what should by now be a self-evident proposition?

It's rigged, I tell you, RIGGED!

Alfred Hitchcock Presents...Poker!

On last night's installment of NBC's "Poker After Dark," Gabe Kaplan outlined the plot of an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," which revolved around a game of five-card stud poker. It sounded like a terrific show, so with a little help from Google, I homed in on it. It's "Crack of Doom," season 2, #48, first aired November 25, 1956 (see http://www.tv.com/alfred-hitchcock-presents/crack-of-doom/episode/40946/summary.html).

I decided to order the DVD from Netflix. To my great delight, I discovered that the "AHP" series is among the shows one can watch instantly online with Netflix. So I dialed it up, deciding that my real work for the day could wait another half hour. I'm something of a nut for Hitchcock, so this was an easy call.

It's a first-rate story, if you like poker (and I assume you do, or you wouldn't be reading this). I won't ruin the ending--just go watch it. Trust me on this. But to whet your appetite, here's a nice little plot summary, taken from http://www.answers.com/topic/alfred-hitchcock-presents-crack-of-doom-tv-episode?cat=entertainment:

"I waited there with a dead head sitting on a dead spine waiting for the
crack of doom." This is how young businessman Mason Bridges (Robert Horton)
describes his predicament when he is forced to participate in a high-stakes
poker game with wealthy client Sam Klinker (Robert Middleton). Though Bridges
had intended to play only a few hands, Klinker bullies him into staying in the
game, raising the stakes all along the way. Ultimately, the fate of Bridges'
business -- and indeed, his future career -- rests in a single poker hand.
"Crack of Doom" is based on a story by journalist Don Marquis, best known for
his whimsical "Archy and Mehitabel" pieces. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Addendum, February 20, 2008

Let's just pause a moment (as I should have done when writing the above) to marvel at our current technological state. I heard about a specific television show broadcast 51 years ago, and five minutes later I was watching it on my computer, in higher definition than it was seen by anybody who watched it the first time around.

Ten years ago, I would have probably guessed that such a thing would be possible some day, but I don't think I would have guessed how quickly the capability would arrive.

Another good reason not to cheat at poker

From the Gainesville Sun (http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080219/NEWS/802190322/1002/NEWS), with a hat tip to Wicked Chops Poker (http://wickedchopspoker.blogs.com/):


Article published Feb 19, 2008

Did cheating spark poker killings?

By LISE FISHER
Sun staff writer

The man charged with shooting and killing three men at a private poker game in Palatka over the weekend believed he had been cheated during the contest, deputies reported.

Officers arrested Duane Demaris Crittenden II, 28, of Palatka in Marion County on Sunday morning on three charges of first-degree murder, the Putnam County Sheriff's Office reported.

The owner of a building at 108 Carver St. found the three men dead at the location just outside the Palatka city limits Saturday morning. Jerome Anthony Henry, 48, of Seville, and Richard David Smith and Robert Erwin Ford, both 50 and from Palatka, were killed inside the structure, a former bar that officers said people had been using as the location for a "high-stakes" poker game.

All four men had been involved in the game, which started Friday afternoon and continued through the night, said Sheriff's Office spokesman Major Keith Riddick.

Crittenden had been in the game and lost, officers reported.

"We understand that he felt that they were cheating, and he went back apparently to confront them about that," Riddick said.

The men were last seen alive between 8 a.m. and 8:45 a.m. Saturday, Riddick said. Investigators believe the confrontation occurred between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. All three victims were shot in the head and neck area, Riddick said. Henry and Smith were both shot once. Ford had been shot twice and stabbed.

Investigators are trying to determine what happened in the building among the men. Riddick said the Sheriff's Office plans to try to reconstruct events inside the building.

Crittenden left with money taken from the game, according to deputies. Riddick said investigators don't know how much was taken. Estimates have been between $2,000 and $9,000.

Crittenden was located in Marion County in the area of SW 22nd Place and South Pine Avenue after an all-night manhunt. Riddick said he did not know what ties Crittenden had to the area but he had previously listed Ocala as a home address.

Investigators have recovered some of the money taken from the poker game, Riddick said.

Officers have spoken with Crittenden, and Riddick said he is cooperating with the investigation to a certain degree.

Crittenden has a lengthy criminal history with 18 felony convictions in both Florida and Georgia, Riddick said. None of the charges were violent, however. Most involved "paper crimes" such as fraud and forgery, he said.

The three victims also had prior criminal histories although none had been arrested on significant charges in recent years, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Card caps/protectors

Lee Jones, in his Card Player magazine column (Vol. 21, #1), p. 112:

When did it stop being cool to cap (protect) your cards? I see virtually nobody doing it now, and I just don't get it.... [S]uppose that you're
sitting there with unprotected cards, and somebody's hand headed toward the muck
hits your hand. I mean, such that there's legitimate doubt as to which cards are
yours. I think any floorman would have to rule that your hand is dead.
I don't see a reasonable alternative. But of course there will be massive
consternation, arguments, recriminations, and so on. Not only is somebody going
to lose a monster pot because he didn't protect his cards, but it will put a bad
vibe on what was previously a happy, enjoyable poker game or tournament.

Please, let's make it cool again to cap your cards.

I agree.

There are two main problems with uncapped cards. Lee Jones mentioned one of them. Don't think it happens? It happened to me again just last week. I was at Planet Hollywood, sitting in seat #1, and the guy in seat #2 flicked his cards toward the dealer. But his aim was off a bit, and they crashed right into my card protector, and bounced back a few millimeters.

The dealer reached over, picked them up, and added them to the muck. I said, "And that, boys and girls, is why we use card protectors." The dealer added, "Abso-freakin-lutely." He has obviously seen this happen before. Without it, my hand would have been declared dead.

With a fairly hefty card cap (something more substantial than a poker chip--although a chip will do in a pinch, and is better than nothing), cards headed for the muck that go astray into your hole cards will either bounce off (as was the case here), get lodged slightly under the edge of the thing, or land on top of it. No matter which of those things occurs, they will be easily distinguishable from your cards, and there will be no need to kill your hand.

The other main potential trouble for unprotected cards is the dealer swiping them accidentally, thinking you have folded. This happened to me once. Ironically, it was during a poker tournament in Sacramento, California, while I was attending poker dealer school. Back then, I had a habit of not capping my cards until I had decided to play the hand. That is, if I came in with a call or a raise before the flop, that's when I would put the card cap on. I think I had some rationale for that approach--leaving the cards uncapped until my initial entry into the pot--though I can no longer recall what it was.

The tournament was at a place called the Lucky Derby. Its tables were shallower, front to back, than most. I was seated directly in front of the dealer. I didn't know back then that this, too, is a vulnerable seat. For some reason, the dealer got distracted for a moment, then when he turned his attention back to the game, he tried to catch up to the action, and in the process was scooping up the folded hands. He grabbed mine, too. I had A-K, and was planning to come in for a raise. I was shocked to see my cards get stolen from under my nose! Fortunately, I reacted quickly enough that the hand could be saved before it hit the muck, but that experience was all it took to convince me that the card cap needed to go on as soon as my hand is off of the cards (after peeking to see what I have been given). I have never done otherwise since, and have never had the same problem again, even though when given a choice I preferentially take the two seats next to the dealer, which are the ones most vulnerable to this mistake.

If this happens to you, there won't be much that can be done about it. You'll get an apology (of varying sincerity) from the dealer and the floor person, but that's about the end of what will be done for you. The rules are pretty consistent on this point:

The Professional Poker Dealer's Handbook by Paymar, Harris, and Malmuth, p. 18 (emphasis in original):

1. Players must protect their own hands at all times. This may
be the most important rule in all of poker. A hand may be declared "dead" if
even one card touches the muck or if another player's card touches a hand that
is not protected.... Although the dealer should be aware of only mucking
discarded hands, a player who fails to take reasonable means to protect his or
her hand usually has no recourse if the hand becomes fouled or if the dealer
accidentally collects an unprotected hand.

Poker Tournament Directors' Association rules, #28:

Unprotected hands. If a dealer kills an unprotected hand, the player will have
no redress and will not be entitled to a refund of bets.

Robert's Rules of Poker, Chapter 3, under "Irregularities":

2. You must protect your own hand at all times. Your cards may be protected with
your hands, a chip, or other object placed on top of them. If you fail to
protect your hand, you will have no redress if it becomes fouled or the dealer
accidentally kills it.

(I should add here, though, that using one's hands to protect hole cards is a seriously bad idea, and one that I think should expressly be against the rules. Players with big hands basically hide their cards, and it's one of the most common causes of people acting out of turn. Everybody should be able to look around the table and at a glance know who is still in the pot by who has cards on the table in front of them.)

Krieger and Bykofsky, The Rules of Poker, p. 242 (I don't know why this is only in their "Tournament rules" section; it would seem to apply equally to cash games):

9.35 Killing Unprotected Hands. If a dealer kills an unprotected hand, the
player will have no redress and will not be entitled to his money back.

Recently I've heard two contrary opinions from people who should know better. First, Adam Schoenfeld (about whom see http://www.poker-babes.com/bio/adam-schoenfeld/), in a rerun of the WSOP from a couple of years ago, was asked about his poker pet peeves, and he listed card protectors among them. I've never met him, but he's one of my favorite players from television--smart, and maybe the funniest of all the pros. (He seems to have dropped off the face of the poker planet in the last couple of years, though. Anybody know what has become of him?) He didn't explain what it is, exactly, that he has against card caps.

Second, Paul Wasicka (about whom see http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/53777/paul-wasicka.htm) wrote an otherwise interesting and thoughtful column late last year for Bluff magazine about the structure and rules for an ideal poker tournament (see http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazine/readarticle.asp?aid=566). But sticking out like a sore thumb (to me, anyway) was this stipulation: "No card protectors or other paraphernalia allowed on the table." Huh? I can understand the desire for no "other paraphernalia" (family photo albums lining the rail, etc.), but has this experienced, professional player really never encountered any situations in which a hand had to be killed because of either of the two main problems associated with unprotected cards? I don't understand his gripe with card caps. I'm going to try getting a note to him through his web site, http://www.kwickfish.com/, and see if he'll explain it in more detail.

For now, I hope readers will take my advice and that of Lee Jones--and the various rule books--over these two minority opinions. Sooner or later, you will regret it if you don't.

The photo above, incidentally, is of a comemmorative silver dollar that the U.S. Mint produces every year. You can order them at http://tinyurl.com/yqav2l. That's what I use as a card protector. Mine is from 1999; I got it free as a bonus with something that I ordered online. (Now I can't even remember what it was that I had purchased. The coin sat in a drawer until I was sorting through my possessions in preparation for moving to Nevada. When I came across it again, I realized it would serve perfectly as a card cap--especially in the Silver State.) It's an ounce of silver, which has a nice heft to it. It's not going to be pushed off of my cards even if an angry player throws his cards into mine forcefully, deliberately trying to foul my hand. (And yes, I've seen players try to do that to each other.) I've run into a dozen or so other players that use the same item, though everybody else keeps theirs in protective plastic cases. Not me. I like handling it. The silver just has a nice feel to it, and I find it aesthetically pleasing to run my fingers over the varying textures of the designs and edges when I'm bored. Besides, the dings and scratches that it picks up lend it character.

(Note to those who are unclear on the concept: The advice in this post does not apply to you if you play exclusively online. You do not need to tape a silver dollar over the little image of your cards on the computer screen. But if it makes you happy....)


Addendum, March 10, 2008

Paul Wasicka was kind enough to take the time to reply to this post. (The delay was partly my fault, because I accidentally sent him a bad link initially.) Here it is:

Okay, thanks for sending me the link. I read the article, and I agree
with the points that were made, but still maintain that card protectors should
be disallowed. First, I'll tell you why I agree with the things you said
in your article. Yes, I have had my cards mucked by the dealer a couple
times throughout my career because they weren't protected. Furthermore,
though I was very upset at the time, the rules specifically state that you are
responsible for protecting them and that the dealer is not at fault, which I
have come to accept as fair. Where my distaste for card protectors comes
from is when people have either offensive, obtrusive, or otherwise unnecessary
objects on the table that aren't part of the game. I think that a chip on
the cards accomplishes the same thing. Also, what I like to do is just
hold my cards in my hand throughout the hand until the preflop action is over.
I guess the bottom line is that I play many tournaments and never really
have problems with dealer's mucking my cards. I see card protectors and
annoying distractions that supposedly serve a purpose, but when it comes down to
it they accomplish nothing more than a single chip would otherwise do.

Paul

I agree that "offensive [or] obtrusive" objects are a potential problem, though in my experience they're pretty rare. Holding the cards is OK with me, as long as they remain easily visible to all players, so as not to trigger inadvertant out-of-turn action. (I should have mentioned in the original post that at least two Vegas casinos--Planet Hollywood and Palms--are better than most at enforcing the rules that cards have to remain easily visible. If a player's cards are, e.g., halfway hiding behind chips, their dealers are better than most at asking the player to move the cards forward so all can see them.)

A chip is OK, though it has two possible problems. First, a chip is light enough that it can easily get bumped off of the cards in the situation when another player forcefully flicks his cards toward the muck and misses. You might end up with the cards intermingled, the chip off, and a dead hand if it isn't entirely clear which ones are yours.

Second, it happens frequently in low-stakes cash games and tournaments that a player wishing to go all-in pushes his chips forward without a prior verbal announcement, and forgets the one that's on his cards. This isn't usually a big problem, because anybody that is going to call that bet will also be willing to call with the last chip added in. But at least conceivably, if a player unwisely uses one of his highest-value chips as a card cap, the difference could be meaningful. At the very least, when this happens it slows things down temporarily while the dealer and players sort out whether it's really an all-in, whether a call includes calling the last chip, etc.

All that said, it sounds as if Paul might be OK with a rule that limited card caps to a single, smallish, nonoffensive, nondistracting object (no Humberto Brenes lighted sharks, e.g.). That would be fine with me, too. (After all, we couldn't deprive Fossilman of his fossil, could we?) If so, I'm glad to have found common ground.

Another online cheating scandal

This time it's one of the most widely known professionals: Mike Matusow. Everything I know about the situation comes from this post from Short-Stacked Shamus, at Hard-Boiled Poker: http://hardboiledpoker.blogspot.com/2008/02/wrong-focus-another-cheating-pro.html

I have only one observation to add. I propose a simple test for determining whether Matusow acted unethically and/or in violation of the rules of whatever site this occurred on (he hasn't identified it yet). Whenever and wherever Matusow does his next interview, he should be asked directly to name the site, the date, and the player who he worked with.

If he refuses, then he should be asked why he won't disclose this information. All of the possible reasons he could give--at least all of the ones that I can think of--would be negative. The mildest would be something like "I don't want to embarrass the player I helped." But if there was nothing wrong with what they did, there should be no embarrassment. More likely, he'd have to say that he won't provide the details because he's worried that the site would investigate, determine that its terms of service were violated, and take action, such as reclaiming the prize money and banning both Matusow and his partner. He might also worry about his own sponsoring site, Full Tilt Poker--whether or not that is the site that was involved--deciding to terminate its relationship with him.

But that's the rub, isn't it? No reputable site would take such actions unless its rules were violated. So if Matusow et al didn't violate any rules, they don't have anything to worry about.

In other words, if Matusow admits that he is concerned about adverse fallout (whether just the disapproval of the poker world or the tangible effects of action by the site), then he is admitting that he knows or at least suspects that he acted in violation of the rules. If he is confident that he did nothing wrong, then he should have nothing to hide.

As far as I am concerned, Mike Matusow is and should be branded a poker cheater unless and until he publicly provides the details of the incident, which would presumably result in an investigation by the site. If such investigation finds that he and his co-conspirator did not break any rules, then I'll accept that decision and revise my opinion. But for now, he's a cheat and should earn the derision of other players and banning by every online site and brick-and-mortar casino, for both cash and tournament play. If Matusow were suddenly unable to make his living at poker (except maybe for private games), it would send a powerful message to the scummy players who think there is no downside to their cheating and collusion. Besides, he has a fallback career: He can always go back to selling drugs. (For the best profile and bio of Matusow I've ever seen, check out http://www.totalgambler.com/theplayers/playerinterviews/1259/me_and_my_big_mouth.html.)

So far a Google search of blogs finds only one other posted comment on l'affaire Matusow: http://randomshuffle.blogspot.com/2008/02/cockroach-theory-of-online-poker.html. I'll check again in a couple of days and see whether this is making any waves.

On a slightly related note, see Daniel Negreanu's comments on the "J J Prodigy" affair, at http://tinyurl.com/yplr98. I appreciate that he not only condemns the culprit, but comes down pretty hard on his friends at Poker Road for a softball interview:

Questions should have been more direct, a la, "What is wrong with you? You
cheat, get caught, give the poker world a lame apology, only to go right back at
it and keep cheating? Why should anyone believe you are suddenly reformed? Why
should live poker events even allow you to play?" Those are tougher questions
posed in such a way that isn't all mushy. The tone from all of the guys was just
way too apologetic to this kid.

Well said, Daniel. I hope you will soon be just as forthright about denouncing your friend Mike Matusow, however difficult and painful that may be.

I hate that I have to have a whole label for posts on the subject of cheating: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/search/label/cheating


Addendum, February 22, 2008

As far as I can tell, there are only three other bloggers who have picked up on this story:

http://kickasspoker.blogspot.com/2008/02/poker-ethos-part-whatever.html

http://randomshuffle.blogspot.com/2008/02/cockroach-theory-of-online-poker.html

http://www.pokerblog.com/poker-cheating-online.html

http://www.pokerroad.com/_/pokerazzi/2-14-08/