Bill-paying, or not?

A hand I played last week is one of those that keeps sticking in my mind, unsure whether my decision-making was sound.

Bill is a 60-ish local. I've spent many, many hours at the tables with him, though mostly in my first couple of years in town, when we both played a ton at the Hilton poker room. Since it closed, I've only encountered him a handful of times. For the most part, he is the stereotypical local TAG nut-peddler. But he's entirely capable of pulling a switcheroo now and then, and he's absolutely not afraid to turn up the heat when his BS alarm goes off.

A few people had left the game in rapid succession, leaving us temporarily five-handed. The table was almost entirely passive, with a disgusting amount of limp-calling and limp-folding going on. I had been taking advantage of both of these facts to go on a mini-streak of raising and stealing. But the only time anybody had tried to keep me honest lately was when I was good, with A-J on an ace-high board, beating her ace-rag for good value. In spite of that hand, I had the feeling that I was getting under these people's skin with raising so much more than my fair share, and somebody was likely to be feeling the need to draw a line in the sand very soon.

Just as I was thinking that it might be time to back off for a while, I found Ac-10c in the big blind, and everybody ahead of me limped in. I hate playing multi-way limped pots, especially out of position. A suited ace-ten had a very good chance of being the current best hand, so I decided to extend my raising streak by one more pot before dropping down a gear. I made it $15, which was my biggest pre-flop raise yet. If these people were going to make me play a vulnerable hand like this from out of position, by God they were going to have to pay to do it, thinks me.

Everybody folded except for Bill, who was UTG+1 (which was also one off the button).

The flop was 10-7-3 rainbow (one club), giving me top pair/top kicker, plus an overcard and backdoor flush draw as emergency reserve chutes. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice. I bet $20 into the roughly $30 pot. Bill didn't hesitate a bit, grabbed a handful of chips, dropped three stacks of four across the line, plus one more, thereby raising to $65. He sat back and stared at me, looking quite smug and comfortable. I had started the hand with about $210, and Bill had me covered.

Calling was not a reasonable option. That move would give me no chance to win the pot right then, would give me no additional information, and would put me on the defensive out of position. I also couldn't put in any raise that didn't pot-commit me, so it was shove or fold.

What could Bill have? Well, I felt I could be reasonably confident that he didn't have an overpair to this board. With pocket jacks or better, he surely would have raised pre-flop. He can't be on a draw with this flop. I don't think he would have paid $15 to play any hand that could have flopped two pair here. Set-mining? Yes, that's always a consideration, given his limp-call. But on a board this dry, and him having position on me, I think it's more likely that he'd smooth-call and let me fire again on the turn.

I decided that the two most likely types of hands he could have were top pair (A-10 matching mine, or, even more likely, K-10 or Q-10) or a pocket pair, specifically 8s or 9s. I was comfortably ahead of both of those categories. Because of the table dynamics I described earlier, in this particular situation I thought I could extend his range further than I usually would. He could plausibly have a small pocket pair, or even have no pair (A-Q, say), and be trying to send me a message: "I know you can't be strong every time you're pretending to be. It's time for you to knock it off." This possibility, too, would be good for me, as I happened to have hit the flop about as well as one can reasonably hope to, and better than he might expect.

On the other hand, because he has a tricky streak in him, I couldn't entirely rule out an overpair. And the set thing always strikes dread into my heart, because I would be drawing nearly dead if that were the case. As mentioned, his pre-flop limp-call was perfectly consistent with set-mining. Why would he drop the hammer now instead of waiting until fourth street? Maybe he just wanted to end the drama now, and not risk giving me some sort of monster combo draw if the turn was a Broadway card that matched the suit of one on the flop.

So that was my dilemma. I felt that I was ahead of more than half of Bill's range here, but I was in terrible shape against a smaller but still substantial portion of it (the sets and overpairs). I loathe putting in my entire stack on one pair--even if it is top pair with top kicker--especially against a player who historically has usually had me beat when he comes out with this kind of aggression. But perhaps this was one of the uncommon situations where it was justified, because he was misreading me as (1) stealing from the limpers yet again, and/or (2) putting in a continuation bet with little or nothing to back it up.

It was even possible that, in the unlikely event that he had J-J or Q-Q, I could convince him that I had A-A or K-K and induce a bad fold. Conversely, I was unlikely to induce a bad call with a shove, because Bill is too smart to stack off with less than what I had. If he had top pair with a lower kicker, or a smaller pocket pair, he'd snort and glower a bit, but most likely fold to a reraise.

So, dear readers, what would you do? All in or fold? Or is there some justification for just smooth-calling that I'm not adequately taking into consideration?

I'll go write up what I did and set it to post in about 24 hours.

Running it twice

I remember vividly the first time I heard about "running it twice" in poker. It was during one of the first episodes of "High Stakes Poker" on the Game Show Network, and I had no idea what they were doing until Gabe Kaplan explained it. After learning a bit more about how it worked, I decided that if I were ever faced with that decision, I would just run it once. Among other reasons, that's how Barry Greenstein did it, and he was the consummate professional, my favorite of the regulars on HSP.

It was years before the option first presented itself. I was in a cash game at the Palms soon after their new manager, Joe Viator, had taken over. He had put in place some new rules, including what is still, I believe, the only low-stakes game in town where players can agree to run it twice. [Correction: on second thought, there's at least one other: the Tropicana, as I mentioned here.] At one point I went all in and was called, and my opponent asked if we could run it twice. I said no purely on the basis of having pre-made that decision years earlier, rather than based on any particular strategic consideration. It worked out for me that time.

Since then, the only times the issue has come up have been during the Pokerati games at the Palms, which I have done about five times now. It's half NLHE, half pot-limit Omaha, changing every orbit, with $1 and $2 blinds. My approach to the question in that setting has been to let my opponent decide, so that I don't cause any resentment from players who strongly prefer one way or the other, since I didn't feel I cared very much.

That's a noble enough goal. But lately I've read two things that are changing my mind on this point.

First, Phil Laak wrote in one of his recent columns for Bluff magazine (not available online yet) that he has switched his practice. He used to embrace running it as many times as he could get an opponent to agree to, in order to reduce his variance. But he has now decided to embrace the variance. (I think that was his exact terminology.) He feels that he is more even-keeled than most of his opponents, better able to absorb a big loss and still keep playing well. If he wins, though, he is likely to face an opponent who is stuck a lot of money, angry at the loss, and desperate to get back to even. That makes for a great opportunity for winning even more money.

A similar point is made in the newest issue of Card Player magazine by one of the publication's newest columnists, Bart Hanson. But he adds another argument that I had not thought about before:

Players commonly ask when deciding whether or not to make big calls all-in if the other player in the hand will run it more than once. This is an issue especially when you are trying to maximize your fold equity with a draw. Why would you want your opponent to know that you will run it more than once and not instill the fear that he could lose all of his chips? It also works the other way around when players try to push you around with their draws. If they know that you will run it more than once, they are more likely to make an aggressive action because if they get called there is less of a chance that they will lose all of their chips.

That seems like sound reasoning to me. So on the basis of these two considerations, I have decided to revert to my original plan from years ago: I am now a run-it-once player. I embrace the variance.

Two quickie restaurant reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seeing red

I was at the Palms tonight--the poker room's first day in its new location and under new management. The casino has contracted out management of both the poker room and the sports book to Cantor Gaming, which some industry observers think is a trend of the future. You can read a bit about it here.

The new room is just inside the doors from the west parking garage, adjacent to the food court.

The wall of televisions in the sports book has to be seen to be believed. It's enormous, sharp as a tack, and impossibly bright. (Notice in the photos above that it completely blows out the sensor in my digital camera, so you can't see any detail.) In fact, the brightness is so intense it's a problem for the poker room. You'll think I'm exaggerating about this until you go there and experience it yourself, but when the picture on the two biggest screens suddenly changes to something really bright--a little text on an all-white background for an ad, for example--it changes the ambient light level in the poker room so much that everybody turns to see what happened. It's like suddenly turning on an additional set of lights, or setting off a camera flash: even if you're not looking in that direction, you not only know it happened, but it diverts your attention, at least briefly.

The poker players spend a lot of time looking at the wall of sports action--far more than they used to with a couple of ordinary TVs on the far side of the room. The things occupy such a large fraction of one's visual field that it's pretty hard not to be distracted. This caused the games to lag noticeably more than they did in the old room, because people weren't paying attention.

A related problem is the sound level. They don't play sports in silence--whatever is on the biggest screens has the audio track filling the room. And it is LOUD. It was so loud that it made it difficult for players and dealers to hear each other. It was so loud that it gave me a headache after an hour or so.

These two problems interact in an unfortunate way: Players are looking somewhere else when it's their turn, but the dealer can't get their attention by saying, "Sir," because nobody can hear what is being said at the table. I'm not just being hypersensitive about this--the games were at least one-third slower than has been my experience at the Palms before, all because of this combination of overwhelming sight and sound from the sports book.

My final gripe is that the room was cold--one of the coldest I've experienced in a long time. And wouldn't you know it, this was one of the rare times I didn't take a sweatshirt with me. I saw "Titanic 3D" this week, and the Palms poker room made me appreciate what it must have felt like to jump off the ship into the icy North Atlantic. No--scratch that. I would have welcomed the chance to go swimming among those frozen corpses so that I could warm up a little.

These three problems are serious enough that if they aren't fixed, my time in the new room is going to be severely limited. One of the things I most appreciated about the old room was that it was small, quiet, and isolated. The new room is none of those things. The room launches a multi-faceted assault on one's physical comfort.

On the plus side of the ledger, the appointments are plenty nice--assuming you like your red juiced up on steroids.

The new tables don't have built-in cupholders, however, which annoys me. I dislike having to find one of the portable ones and jam it under the rail.

In one of the pictures above you can see a single table inside a glassed-in room, which I assume is for private and/or higher stakes games.

They finally have the Genesis Bravo system with card readers at the table, instead of logging in and out at the desk.

No poker magazine racks are in evidence. I'm told that that will be remedied in the future.

The entire sports book area has been designated no-smoking. That surprised me, because I can't think of another sports book in town that is smoke-free, but I'm sure not complaining. When I first saw that the new poker room was actually inside of the sports book, one of my first thoughts was that there would be a lot of smoke infiltration. I was wrong. I never caught a whiff of smoke in 3 1/2 hours of play. There's also a set of restrooms inside the sports book, so you don't have to penetrate of wall of smoke to get to them.

To sum up, the place looks really nice at first glance, and it's far more smoke-free than one would guess from the layout. However, the combination of the problems of player distraction, painful noise levels from the sports book, and a temperature that made me yearn for a big dose of global warming are daunting to me, and are likely to make me choose other venues when I would have hit up the Palms if they had stayed with the old room.

The Palms used to have a poker room. Now they have a few poker tables inside a sports book. The sports-book environment is so intrusively, unrelentingly oppressive that you are unlikely to forget even for a single second that that's where you are. This is a wholesale change in the character of the place, one that I deeply wish they had not made.

Winner, winner--no chicken dinner

One of the earliest submissions in the win-a-chip contest was my favorite, and I thought was unlikely to be surpassed. From "k9dr":

I personally believe that I should win the chip because U.S Americans are unable to do so because uh, some people out there in our nation don't have chips and I believe like such as South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe that Oshea's here in the U.S should help South Africa and the Iraq and the Asian countries so we can build up our future for our children and I can win the chip.

If you don't understand why that's funny, you may be the only person in the world who hasn't seen the video clip it is parodying.

But a last-minute entry snatched away the win. I'm afraid it exposes that my sentimental streak is even stronger and deeper than my snarky streak. From "Andy":

I can't believe this place is closing. It has a very special place in my heart. Here's my story.

I was playing blackjack there in 2003 with a buddy. We were sitting at a table with 3 girls from CA. We started a conversation with them and I was pretty quickly smitten with one of them. We ended up handing out with these girls the rest of the night and I ended up spending most of the rest of my trip with this one girl.

To make the story short, we ended up having a long distance relationship(I lived in NC, she in CA) for two years. We tried to see each other at least every 3 months and for the most part, we did.

After two years, we decided we didn't want to live apart anymore and she moved to NC to live with me. We were married a year later and will celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary next month.

We go back to Vegas at least once a year together and always go back and spend some time there. I am going back in July for the WSOP main even and it will be strange for that place not to be there anymore.

I would love to give that chip to my wife on our anniversary next month. I know she would love it.

OK, Andy, you win, and I hope your wife will like getting the chip. (But, HINT: You might want to sweeten the anniversary gift package with something else.) Now, however, I have to find out who you are. Please submit a comment to this post with your full name and address (I won't publish the comment, so don't worry about exposure), and I'll pop the thing in the mail within a few days.

I hope the story is true. But if it's just a giant bluff (which I clearly indicated was OK), well-played.

Answering a question from Dad

After my post with the pictures of the new O'Shea's chips, my father asked me via email about the colored sections along the edges of the chips. I told him that I didn't know much about that, except that they are called "inserts" by chip collectors, and apparently make the manufacturing process more difficult to duplicate by would-be counterfeiters. He replied, "I have the impression that for the same chip design, the edge markings might vary from day to day or week to week, maybe. In most of the chips I’ve seen in your blogs the edge markings seem to be pretty irregular and sometimes somewhat sloppy."

I dismissed this at first as a not very interesting observation. There always seems to be one player at the table who, out of boredom or compulsion, stacks his chips with all the edge markings lined up neatly. I've never seen chips with which one could not do that, so they must all be the same.

And they are. Pretty much. But it finally occurred to me that right now I have means to see just how identical ostensibly identical chips are. After all, I have in my possession four brand-new ones that at a glance sure look like peas in a pod.

On closer inspection, though, not so much.

First I lined up the faces to see how much offset they were, as judged by the edge markings:

This didn't surprise me. I had noticed years ago that the inserts do not have a consistent relationship to what is printed on the faces of the chips (AKA the "inlay"). I assume that this works something like mints for coins: the chips are first made as blanks, with the obverse and reverse added later, and that as a result the orientation of the inlays is essentially random with respect to the inserts.

So then I carefully lined up the dividing line between one pair of blue and lavender marks on each of my four O'Shea's chips:

If you look closely (click on photo for larger version), you can definitely see variations in the markings.

Next I carefully turned the set of chips about 120 degrees in order to photograph the next set of inserts:

There's even more variation in this set.

Finally, I did one more 120-degree rotation to capture the last set of marks:

Again, one finds easily noticeable variations from one chip to another. Not huge, but it doesn't exactly require a microscope to see the differences.

This is obviously an artifact of the manufacturing process. It's hard to find online much detail about how casino chips are made, presumably due to trade secrets and desire to keep information from counterfeiters. This Wikipedia entry tells as much as I've found anywhere, plus having a nice photo of a broken chip so you can see what its guts look like. With respect to what causes variations in the inserts, this seems to be the key passage:

The edge spots, or inserts, are not painted on; to achieve this effect, this area of the clay is removed and then replaced with clay of a different color; this can be done to each chip individually or a strip can be taken out of a cylindrical block of material and replaced with the alternate color before the block is cut into chips.

So now you know as much as I do about the whole matter--which isn't a lot, but maybe more than you knew five minutes ago.

Slim

News reports are saying that Amarillo Slim died a few hours ago. This is not surprising, as he has been on death's door for several days now. On April 17, Doyle Brunson tweeted, "Looks like Amarillo Slim is I'n critical shape. For the record, no way was he ever a child molester." (From what I've been able to gather from public reports on the incident that led to his plea deal, I'm inclined to agree that he was wrongly accused.) Then on April 19, Brunson tweeted, "Just talked to Amarillo Slim. He is I'n hopice but is fighting hard. Tears came to my eyes as we said bye." And, further, "Amarillo Slim had faults as we all do, but he started the poker boom as we know it. Look him up on google."

Well, Doyle, I don't need to look him up, though I agree that today's players should know more about him than they seem to. I wrote a post about him, and how strange it was that a good player I ran into had never heard of the man. I'll point readers to it as my little tribute to his passing:

http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2008/01/maybe-hes-never-heard-of-babe-ruth.html

A contest! With a prize!

The times they are a-changin'. Harrah's/Ceasars has a crazy idea about building a giant Ferris wheel behind what are now its mid-Strip properties, and that means some other things have to go. Among those things are O'Shea's, in its entirety, and Imperial Palace, which will be remodeled and reopened as something else. (Read about it here.)

O'Shea's is closing permanently Monday at noon. So last night I went there to play one last time. I had heard on Twitter that the casino had issued a chip in honor of its closing--a strange finale that I don't recall any other property ever doing before. You can see the front and back of it above.

I bought four of them from the cashier, uncirculated. I'll keep one for my collection and try to sell two of them on eBay. The fourth I've decided to give away as a prize to a reader.

To win, simply use the comments section to submit, in 100 words or fewer, why you should be the one to receive this exceptionally valuable prize. Be imaginative. Feel free to lie, if you think it will help you. I'm not sure exactly what criteria will be used to determine the winner, other than it will be the one I like best. That might be because of sincerity, or pathos, or creativity, or humor. We'll just have to see what tickles my fancy. You have 24 hours from when this is posted. Note: Answers based on preexisting relationships, with nothing more, will fail. I mean, heck, my dad reads this blog, and he could submit, "Because I raised you," and it would be pretty hard to top that, y'know? So I'll be judging on what is written, independent of whatever claims or baggage you may have as a person.

Winner will receive the chip in the mail, whenever I get around to making a trip to the post office. U.S. addresses only. Don't be dopey and submit your entry as "anonymous," because then I'll have no way of verifying who sent it in. Make sure that whatever nickname Blogger knows you by is linked to or matched by your blog, your Facebook page, your Twitter account, your email address, or whatever, so that when I select a winner I don't have more than one person plausibly claiming to have been the author.

Go.

Addendum, April 29, 2012

I was about to pick a winner, but then realized that this post went up in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Because my page views spike on Monday, I know that many readers don't check in here on weekends. So, in order to give more people a chance to enter my little contest, I'm extending the deadline to Monday night.

What happened Friday night...

...in the form of a rebus:

If you can't figure it out, you could look here for an explanation.

"In the poker world...we only have our good name"

Many people in my Twitter feed today have posted links to and/or comments on this wonderfully ironic short video of Howard Lederer expounding on business ethics. It's just too rich not to share--especially this: "People always remember that you were that guy that stiffed everybody and didn't pay back."

That's a mighty powerful hand you have there, sir

Because of my interest in recreational/competitive shooting, I subscribe to the Twitter feed of the web site Guns.com for news updates, etc. Tonight whoever runs that account posted the above photo with the comment, "No bluffing needed with this hand." I was puzzled for a few seconds--only four cards? But then I figured out the mystery.

Game theory on TV

One of my regular non-poker reads is a blog called "The Agitator," by Radley Balko. He posted this YouTube clip today. It's brilliant. I've never heard of this game show before (I assume it's shown in Britain), but you don't need to know the rules, the host explains enough. Watch now if you're going to, because spoilers will follow.


 

 Of course, the problem presented to the contestants is just a minor variation on the age-old "Prisoner's Dilemma." But I love, love, love how the guy on the right solves it. He presents an utterly convincing case that he is going to steal, and therefore the only way that the guy on the left has any chance of getting half of the money is by selecting "share," trusting that Mr. Right will be as good as his word and split the money after the show. This is perfectly plausible to Mr. Left, because he can't think of any reason that Right would be lying about which ball he is going to select (though of course he might be lying about his post-show intentions). But in fact, the whole song-and-dance was just a ruse to manipulate Left into picking "share." It was Right's way of making sure that Left didn't try to steal. Right had me completely convinced. I was stunned when he revealed "share." It took me a few seconds to process what had happened, but then when I got it, I wanted to tip my hat to him for a stunning piece of applied game theory. Absolutely perfect!

You know that poker concept of thinking one level deeper than your opponent? Well, my hunch is that the guy on the right would be one fearsome player.

In case you missed it

Just a few minutes ago, Jennifer Harman posted the above photo on Twitter along with an explanation that it came from a hand of Stud-8 she had just played at Aria. Four players made ace-high flushes. Three players had low hands, including (if I'm reading the blurry image correctly) one wheel for the nut low (second hand from the left). She said that they generated a $27,000 pot in this $300/600 game.

Live poker is SO rigged.

Betting versus check-raising

I like Ed Miller's columns in Card Player magazine. He is the writer who is most likely to have a specific idea that offers a relevant way to tweak my game, something concrete that I can implement the next time I play.

In the April 4, 2012, issue, he discusses a hand played by one of his students. In a $1-2 NLHE game, the student raised under the gun with Js-Jc and picked up three callers. On a flop of 9d-7d-4s the student checked, had an opponent bet, which folded the other two still in the hand. The student then check-raised. When asked about his play, the student said that his goal with the check-raise was to get his opponent to fold.

Miller spends most of the column discussing (appropriately) how wrong-headed this is. Not that he needs my two cents, but here's how I would have phrased the general idea:

I don't make money when my opponents make correct decisions. I make money only when they make mistakes. The most fundamental categories of mistake they will make are bad folds (when they have the best hand) and bad calls (when they don't). Of these two basic types of error, bad calls are far more lucrative overall. This is because of two factors. First, bad calls result in bigger pots than bad folds. Second, bad calls are a much more frequent error than bad folds, especially among low-stakes players such as those that populate Vegas's $1-2 games.

The consequence of these observations is that opponents' bad calls are the single most important key to making money in poker. Well, I'll qualify that. One could argue that avoiding making bad calls oneself--or, more generally, making fewer and less costly mistakes than one's opponents--is even more important. But in terms of what you might be able to manipulate opponents to do, inducing bad calls is the vein of gold.

One of the most frequent post-hand commentaries that bad players offer shows how poorly they grasp this concept. Hardly an hour of play goes by without somebody making a prohibitively large bet on the flop, folding the field, then showing an overpair with a comment like, "I didn't want anybody drawing at that flush/straight." If you ever want to show the poker world that you're unclear on the concept, be one of the guys who does that. What you should really want, of course, is for players to call too much money with inferior or speculative holdings, while simultaneously being able to deny them proper implied odds for the call by being able to get away from your hand on the occasions when they hit their draw, miracle two pair or trips, etc.

All of which is a long way of introducing what I thought was the most mysterious lacuna in Miller's column: the near-total lack of comment on his student's check on the flop. At the end, he does add this: "The irony of all this [i.e., his long criticism of his student's stated goal] is that I like his raise just fine. (I would have simply bet the flop, but given his check, I like the raise.) It's just his reasoning that was bunk. I like the raise specifically because lots of worse hands--tens, nines, diamonds, straight draws, and so forth--will call. My student raised thinking he would get folds, but in fact his bet is going to get action from all the right hands."

I don't disagree, but I would have put much more emphasis on what is passed over lightly with just the parenthetical remark. I would insist that betting out should be the default plan, with a check-raise an acceptable alternative only if the student can articulate very specific facts about his opponents that can justify it. Perhaps there's an aggressive player on the button who always bets when everybody checks to him. Maybe the student has been playing in a perfectly straightforward manner--check/folding flops when he has less than top pair, betting them only when he has better than that--and he has reason to think observant opponents have noticed this tendency and will try to steal from him. He may know one of the other players always bets draws rather than trying to take a free card. But there has to be something very specific about this particular confluence of opponents and circumstances to make going for a check-raise a viable alternative to betting.

I would give two reasons for this argument. First, as Mike Caro repeats ad infinitum, the obvious, straightforward action is usually the right one, and you need special circumstances to make deviating from it profitable. A continuation bet while holding an overpair to the board is clearly the most obvious, straightforward choice, the one least likely to trigger the fatal consequences of Fancy Play Syndrome.

Second, on a relatively draw-heavy board, giving a free card to three opponents would be a mortal sin, not forgivable with any subsequent act of atonement. One would need to be highly confident that a bet from one of them was going to be forthcoming before choosing to go for the check-raise. In this particular hand, without running any numbers, offhand I'd put the requisite level of confidence in an opponent betting at something like 80-90%. In order to have that high degree of confidence, one would need to be able to articulate specific facts about the situation based on previous observations and patterns.

So my only criticism of Miller's column is that I think he passes too lightly over the bet versus check-raise decision, as if it's kind of just a matter of taste or style. That may, in fact, not be his view of it. Maybe there just wasn't room to go into it while still airing out his main point about the flawed rationale his student gave. But I think that the check on the flop (assuming there were not adequate, specific justifications for it) it as big a problem as the warped reasoning about inducing folds.

Josie...

...has a very important story to tell you about a little online poker bet that went down between us today:

http://veryjosie.blogspot.com/2012/04/my-ass-hurts.html

I cashed in one of the two SNGs we were playing, but outlasted her in both of them.

Dogs playing poker

Go look at this brief blog post:

http://www.theagitator.com/2012/04/15/sunday-evening-dog-blogging-reader-dogs-3/

Don't ask why, just trust me on this.

Ante Up magazine cover

I have now seen the April issue of Ante Up magazine, and it included a brief note from the publishers about the anomaly on the March issue cover, which I mentioned here:

On a quick side note, we'd like to thank the pranksters at Beau Rivage for putting two 9s in front of John Dolan in the Million Dollar Heater victory pose we ran on our March cover.

We were seeking a quick way to find out how many people actually look at our cover, and judging by our full inboxes and bloated voicemail from readers wondering how Mr. Dolan won an event with two of the same card, we happily have our answer.

My amazing week

To say that I am not normally a social creature would be the understatement of the year. But this week saw a confluence of events and out-of-town visitors that brought out my inner mingler. Most notably, my pals Grange95, WriterJen, and PokerLawyer all came to Vegas to celebrate my birthday a few days early. (Well, they all had other flimsy cover stories, but I know the real reason. It's all about me, obviously.) We were joined, at various times, by a bunch of others, including some I always enjoy hanging out with--LasVegasPokers, PinkLadiesPT, PokerVixen, CKBWOP, CureMTM--the last of whom tied us into a new circle of friends, as seen in the first picture below.

The festivities included, in various subgroupings of the above people:

• Penn and Teller at the Rio (my fourth time seeing their show, which is always fantastic)
• Driving and hiking around Red Rock Canyon
• Long but cheap rubdowns from massage therapy students at this place
• Dinners at Lindo Michoacan, Simpatico (former mayor Oscar Goodman's brand-new restaurant inside the Plaza Hotel--maybe the best Italian food I've had in Vegas), and Delmonico Steakhouse
• Profitable poker sessions at Binion's and Venetian

I had expected this to be a rather expensive week of socializing, but for nearly all of the things that cost much, one person or another was generously stepping up and insisting on paying either with casino comps or their own money. I have such nice friends!

Here's the gang at Delmonico. That's right--it's me and eight lovely ladies (seven here, but one hadn't yet arrived), cuz that's just how I roll. (They do not all have devil eyes as it might appear.)

Here's another gang at Simpatico:

One small bit of the scenery at Red Rock:

A nice pair of Ferrari f430s (the convertible version of the car I drove last month) parked at Red Rock:

All in all, it was one of the best weeks I've ever had since living in Vegas, and almost certainly the best one that didn't include Cardgrrl. In fact, one downside to spending so much time with other people is that, paradoxically, it reminds me more acutely of how much I miss her.

Almost all of the visitors have now flown back home, so it's back to the grind for me--which this weekend must sadly include a big chunk of time doing my federal income taxes. Ick.

I can do basic probability calculations

In my RSS feed reading today was a pointer to a site that administers a brief quiz of your ability to quantify probabilities:

http://www.riskliteracy.org/dnn/

I took it and got this gratifying summary of my results:

Congratulations on completing your statistical and risk literacy test!

Your numeracy score is better than about 75-100% of all college educated individuals. Roughly, this means that out of every 100 people who take the test, you will do better than about 90% (90 people) of all other people. This is the highest score one can receive on this test.

Technically, relative to the general population, you are among the most statistically literate in the world.
Based on your score, you are not very likely to experience the extreme difficulty most people have when faced with common types of statistical thinking. However, you should still take care and may want to double check your calculations or seek additional advice when it comes to important decisions involving risk and statistics (e.g., some medical decisions, financial investment, taking consumer debt).

In our uncertain and complex world you are likely to find that your higher levels of risk and statistical literacy are very beneficial and important.

Indeed, your levels of numeracy reflect a skill level that very few people ever achieve… one that is the result of considerable practice.

As the saying goes: " Practice makes perfect."

Anomalies

Two odd poker-related visuals have caught my eye this week.

First, I got an email from Bovada (formerly Bodog), saying how much they've missed me since I haven't played there in a few months. It includes a nice tournament ticket, which I will definitely use, so I kept this in my email in-box to remind myself to check the schedule for when I can use the ticket. But the longer it sat there, the more I thought something didn't look right. I finally looked closely and realized the problem:

It's the geography. Paris is indeed just across the street from the Bellagio, but that establishes that we're looking south on Las Vegas Boulevard from Flamingo Road. But then we see Caesars Palace further south, and facing us. This is wrong, because CP would be behind us, and facing east, the same orientation as Bellagio.

Then there's this weird cover photo from the March issue of Ante up magazine. Pay particular attention to the cards:

This is what has become pretty much the industry standard tournament winner's photo, with all the chips, the winner's trophy, and the hole cards the winner had on the last hand. (The only thing missing is the traditional cash.)

But did he really win the final hand of the tournament holding a nine of spades and ANOTHER NINE OF SPADES? Let's all say it together: "Fouled deck. Take your bets back."

Weirdness abounds.

Poetry and photography

Cardgrrl's latest project is a collaboration with a poet friend. I hope you'll take a look at it here:

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/361914/

M*A*S*H

It looks like my friend Martin Harris has found a new home at Poker Listings for his occasional excellent series on poker's intersections with pop culture. (It has previously appeared at Poker News and Epic Poker.) Today's installment reviews the episodes of M*A*S*H in which poker games show up:

http://www.pokerlistings.com/blog/pop-poker-the-history-of-poker-on-mash

He mentions the episode I most remember whenever the subject of bluffing comes up--Charles Emerson Winchester's bad habit of whistling when he bluffs. (See Martin's summary of the episode, "The Merchant of Korea.") I think of it, however, because of a lack of plausibility.

Even long before I played poker, the discovery of Winchester's tell struck a false note with me because of how it occurs. Mind you, I haven't seen the episodes in literally decades, so it's possible that my memory is faulty. But my recollection is that it is only after a poker session (or perhaps during a break in the game, away from the table) that BJ and Hawkeye are complaining to each other about how Charles is always winning. Then one of them chimes in with another gripe: "And it's so annoying how he whistles when he's bluffing." There's a beat, then a light bulb goes on over their heads. They smile and in unison say, "He whistles when he's bluffing!" They celebrate because they have finally discovered the chink in his armor that will allow them to start winning.

In other words, at least one of them had, while playing, noticed the association between his conduct and his bluffs, but it wasn't until later reflection that he (or they) realized that they could exploit this observation to beat him.

That's just not even remotely plausible. As I said, even decades before I ever played the game, I knew that that couldn't possibly be how such things would go. It rang as false as Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff and not starting to fall until he realizes that there's nothing but air under him.

Ah well. It's not exactly a show that one watched for hyper-realism of details. But that particular plot point has bugged me for years and years and years whenever I've thought about it, and now I have finally had an excuse to express my annoyance about it.

Poker gems, #449

Mike Caro, in Poker Player newspaper, April 9, 2012 (vol. 15, #21), page 4.

Simply put, most opponents call more often than they should. And that, in itself, makes bluffing a challenge.

In fact, most bluffs are unprofitable. And all bluff attempts averaged together, throughout the history of the universe, have lost money.

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.

A hand of, um, titanic proportions

I played at the Luxor this afternoon. I made a nice profit when a rivered king completed my straight but also completed a set for a guy who had played his pocket kings with complete passivity until he was beaten, at which point he elected to raise. (Brilliant strategy!)

But soon thereafter I locked up the lion's share of the day's profit with more than a double-up. I had Jh-Js and raised to $13 after a few limpers. Two of them called. Flop 4s-Qs-Jd. First guy checked. Second one bet $25. I raised to $65. That was smaller than my usual raise would be, because my ideal scenario was getting the first guy--who was kind of stationy--to call enough that he'd be pot-committed, then have the second guy reraise with what I hoped was either top two pair or bottom set. First guy folded, but second guy did even better than a reraise--he shoved. I called, of course. I had $266 left, and he had me covered. He was holding 9s-10s, giving him both a flush draw and an open-ended straight draw.

He probably thought he had 15 outs, which, if true, would make him a slight favorite if I had top pair or an overpair. But it was not so in this situation. He was actually a 63%/37% dog. This was because (1) I had one of his spades; (2) any runner-runner spades would give me a higher flush than his, and (3) most importantly, because I had seven cards that would make me an unbeatable full house or quads on the turn, and, if I missed that, ten that would do the job on the river.

As it turned out, I didn't have to sweat the river, because a queen on the turn left him drawing dead. The dealer cruelly gave him the 7s on the river to complete his flush, too little too late.

He didn't do anything wrong. Had I been in his spot, I, too, would have welcomed the chance to get it all in there. From his point of view, it was surely more likely that I had just one pair (especially AA, KK, or AQ) than that I had been lucky enough to flop a set. He couldn't know that the situation was much worse than he hoped.

So why the strange title to this post?

After playing, I went up to the mezzanine level and went through "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition." I've been mildly interested in seeing this since it came to town maybe three years ago. But a couple of days ago I read the cover story in the new issue of National Geographic magazine, which was all about the most recent expedition to the shipwreck site to generate a detailed map of the debris field, which revived my interest in the whole subject. I also had heard that James Cameron will soon be releasing a 3-D version of "Titanic," which I haven't seen since its first run, and I thought that might be interesting.

This convergence of Titanic-related releases is no coincidence. Next month is the 100th anniversary of the disaster, and you can expect to hear no end of tie-ins. I suspect the Luxor show will get jam-packed around that time, so today was my attempt to beat the crowd by a few weeks.

It's mostly a really nice, well-done collection. It's not more exploitative than such a thing will intrinsically be. Even for a mostly non-sentimental guy like me, there is unquestionably a sense of both eeriness and astonishment to be looking up-close at objects that went down with the Titanic and sat on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for 80 or 90 years, before being retrieved with the amazing tools modern technology has given us.

There are a lot more dishes, cutlery, and cookware than one really needs to see, but other than that, the selection of artifacts is reasonably interesting. They have good descriptions of what the items were. Where an owner has been identified, the objects are personalized by providing a short biography of the person, focused on the circumstances by which he or she came to be on the ship. The plethora of bios and photographic portraits scattered throughout and the complete list of names on a memorial wall in the final room effectively remind the viewer that the 1517 who died are not just to be seen as an anonymous composite number, but that many unique human beings, who happened to share a tragic fate.

Seeing recreations of the three levels of sleeping quarters was also interesting, and made the vast differences between them more memorable than by reading descriptions or even seeing James Cameron's faithful reproductions in a movie. Similarly, being in a large atrium with a replica of the famous grand staircase and its overhead glass dome conveys a sense of the scale and opulence that photographs just cannot do.

The crown jewel of the collection is the "Big Piece." It's the largest piece of the hull recovered so far--26 by 12 feet, weighing some 15 tons. Walking past it from just a few feet away, and knowing that it's maybe 1/30th of the length of one side of the ship makes it easy to mentally fill in the rest, and be impressed by its size.

Also emotionally powerful, I thought, was the remnants of the actual wheel that quartermaster Robert Hichens turned hard to port after a scout shouted the famous alarm, "Iceberg, right ahead!" Much of the wood has been lost to decay, but the hub is intact in its housing, and a few pieces of the wooden spokes are still attached.

No photography was allowed, and the prominent surveillance cameras everywhere were, I suspect, actively being used to enforce this, so I didn't even try to sneak a picture. I was sorely tempted, though, when in one display case I found playing cards and poker chips recovered from the ocean floor. The placard next to them said that the captain had circulated a warning among the passengers that three suspected professional card sharks were on board (it gave their real names and aliases), and advising them not to join the poker games that were being offered in private rooms. I did not think to check the wall at the end to see if the poker players survived the disaster.

Though the visitor is left with a sense that the whole subject is treated by the exhibition with a fitting level of dignity and respect, that feeling is utterly demolished by exiting through the tacky gift shop. Among other things, you can buy actual artifacts from the Titanic: tiny pieces of coal meant for the boilers, scooped up off the ocean floor. $25 apiece.

I'm glad I went. It made the whole catastrophe feel more real and tangible and immediate than the Jack-and-Rose story does.

Protect your hand

See Rob's blog post for an excellent story illustrating the importance of this simple concept:

http://robvegaspoker.blogspot.com/2012/03/protect-your-hand.html

Matching or non-matching suits?

In the March 26, 2012, issue of Poker Player Newspaper, Mike Caro's column has some questions and answers about probability. As one example, he asks the reader to consider the situation in which pocket sixes are pitted against pocket aces. Do the sixes have a better chance of winning if they match the suits of the aces, or if they are of different suits?

Caro knows the reader will expect the answer to be "different suits," because then the each of the sixes has a small chance of making a flush to win, whereas if the suits match, then any flush made with a six is automatically beaten by the higher flush made by the ace of the same suit.

Caro says (page 21) that this intuition is wrong:

And, no, it isn't better to have different suits if you hold sixes. That seems like the logical assumption at first glance, but it's the other way around. If your suits are both different, that's slightly worse than if one suit is duplicated. And one duplicated suit isn't as good as two duplicated suits, from the perspective of [the person] with sixes.

Although it's true that different suits means the sixes will win some hands with flushes that would have been impossible if the suits were the same, there's a second factor. And the second factor overwhelms the first. When your sixes are of the same suit as the aces, the defensive power overwhelms the offensive power. You prevent the aces from making enough winning flushes that you can afford to sacrifice all potential winning flushes of your own.

So, 6c-6d does better against Ac-Ad than 6h-6s does.

I was surprised by this. It is the opposite of what I had always assumed to be the case.

In fact, I was so surprised by it that I decided to do a blog post about it in the form of a quiz, asking readers this: If you have to be stuck on the bad end of a roughly 80/20 chance of winning (which is basically what all overpair/underpair situations come down to), which sixes would you choose to maximize your win percentage?

I fired up PokerStove so that I would have the exact answers available. But when I ran it, I discovered something interesting: Caro is wrong, and the conventional wisdom is correct.

Specifically, when tested against Ac-Ad, I find:

Hand Win % Tie % Equity %

6c-6d 18.66 0.22 18.886

6h-6d 19.36 0.18 19.542

6s-6h 20.05 0.14 20.199

This was run under the "enumerate all" option. Running a Monte Carlo simulation produces very slightly different numbers, depending on how long you let it run, but the pattern is always the same as shown above: The sixes with suits matching the aces do worst, those with different suits do best, and those with one matching and one different are about halfway in between.

I don't suppose PokerStove is infallible, so I did the same comparisons using an online poker odds calculator, this one on the CardPlayer.com web site. It generated numbers identical to those shown above. I also tried it using the calculator at twodimes.net, and again got identical results. This gives me considerable confidence that the numbers above are indeed correct.

So now I'm stuck with the real headscratcher: Why is Caro insisting otherwise? I cannot figure that out. If he had just said in passing that the underpair with matching suits does a little better than those with different suits, I would assume that there had simply been an error inadvertently introduced in the writing/editing process. Lord knows I've made my share of slips such as that. But Caro spends a good portion of the column explaining why the matching suits is better for the smaller pair. It can't be just a glitch along the lines of saying "better" where he meant "worse," or "same suits" where he meant "different suits."

I sent Mr. Caro an email three days ago, quoting his article and the numbers I found when I ran the simulation myself, and asking him to explain why he says that the opposite is true. I have not heard back from him.

I am genuinely baffled by this mystery.

Return to razz

Tonight I played in my first online HORSE tournament in, well, ages. Probably six months, I guess. I was on Black Chip Poker.

I was cruising along just fine, and then something happened.

What happened?

Razz.

Specifically, I first got a shorter stack all in on 3rd street with my A64 against his 852, and lost:

Then I got another short stack to cap it on 3rd and get it all in on 4th, with my 523-6 against his 827-Q. And STILL lost:

I was a 60/40 favorite on 3rd, 84/16 favorite on 4th, and still a 65/35 favorite after pairing on 5th.

That one-two punch left me very short-stacked, and I was out in 19th place (of 59, with 9 paying) shortly thereafter.

The fog of memory is clearing, and I am quickly remembering why I stopped doing this stuff.

Changing the rules

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man-who-broke-atlantic-city/8900/1/?single_page=true

Really interesting article about the guy who won millions playing blackjack against the Atlantic City casinos. He did it not by counting cards, but by bringing a huge bankroll, playing perfectly, and--most importantly--literally getting the casinos to change the rules of the game. I had read a bit about how casinos will change the payout structures for whales in Double or Nothing, the book about the brief ownership of the Golden Nugget, but this article goes into more detail.

Ferrari man

As promised in my previous post, today I went out to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway (do they really need to specify "motor" when they're talking about a "speedway"? I mean, is there a horse-drawn "speedway" somewhere?) and took a few laps around one of the auxiliary tracks in a Ferrari F430. Here's how it looked from the cockpit:

Random thoughts:

I made several mistakes, which I guess isn't surprising for such a new experience:

• Once I hit the wrong paddle and downshifted when I meant to upshift. You can hear the engine whine in protest and the instructor (Brandon, who was great) chuckles at me.
• For the first couple of laps I kept lifting off the gas when it was time to shift, unable to break the habit developed from years of using a clutch pedal. Dang these new-fangled infernal machines!
• I couldn't figure out the geometry of the hairpin turn combination near the start of the course. On the second time through, you see Brandon reach over and grab the wheel to force me more left than I thought it looked like I should go. I got it right just once, on the fourth lap, and could definitely tell. It was kind of amazing how getting the line just right felt so much different than getting it wrong, and you'll see me smile and hear me comment on the "aha!" moment. It was like hitting the ball with the sweet spot of a tennis racket. But then I missed it again the last time around. Slow learner.

I don't really know if overall I was going faster or slower than most. I got passed a few times (though one of them was by the stunt driver, about which more later), and passed only one other person. Watching a bunch of people before it was my turn, I could tell that there was a pretty broad range of speeds. What I couldn't tell was whether that was mainly due to the bravery (or lack thereof) of the drivers, or due to some instructors being more restrained than others. Probably a combination of both.

In fact, if I had one critique of the experience, it was that I'm confident I didn't get anywhere near the outer limits of the car's capabilities. Cornering never felt more violent than when I take freeway off-ramps a little too fast just for fun, and braking was never even close to maximal. The cones to indicate braking points are very conservative; I really wanted to keep accelerating longer and braking later. And I really, REALLY wanted to attack that last combination before the straightaway a lot more aggressively, something close to the car's limits of adhesion. But instead I was a good boy and tried to be compliant to the rules. Later I'll post some video of their scare-the-passenger Corvette driver, and he's hitting the corners 20, 30, maybe 40 mph faster than the customer-drivers. The other exotics are all at least as capable as the Vette, but they're not being pushed hard. I understand perfectly well why they set it up with cushy parameters: They want to keep a large margin of error and not have people spin out their expensive cars. But the consequence is that you never get a real sense of what these amazing pieces of engineering can do, except for a few seconds of flat-out acceleration each lap.

(Speaking of flat out, here's Jeremy Clarkson extolling the virtues of the 430 on "Top Gear," plus Stig wringing every bit of performance out of it on a timed lap. Part 1 and Part 2.)

How fast did I go? I honestly have no idea. I never once looked down at either the speedometer or the tachometer. It took all of my attention to attend to keeping the proper lines around turns and paying attention to Brandon's instructions. But the layout of the track simply doesn't allow one to come anywhere close to its straight-line top speed. I only got into fifth gear once, sixth never, so there was a ton of top end left unexplored.

I think I got shorted a lap. The gift certificate was for five, and they give locals an extra one for free, making six. But I just watched the video again, and I counted only five. Oh well.

The guy doing our pre-drive instruction encouraged us to buy extra laps ($50 each). I'm sure they're glad to bump up the ticket price, but he said that the reason to consider it is that it takes about five laps to learn the course so that you can really start paying attention to getting things right instead of just "what's coming up next?" A commenter on yesterday's blog post said basically the same thing. And they're right. I was, in fact, just kind of getting into the groove of it when it was time to go home. But would it have been a dramatically different or better experience going around seven times than five? No. Just a little icing on the cake.

While watching others do laps before my time slot, I heard one man snicker to another about a woman out on the course, who was going rather slowly. "That's a woman in the green Ferrari that can't get around corners." Except that that green Ferrari was a Lamborghini. (Which suddenly gives me a flashback to what must have been the first World War II joke I ever learned, back in junior high school, the punchline of which was, "Yeah, but this Fokker was a Messerschmidt!") You never look dumber than when you show your ignorance while trying to look smarter than everyone else.

The drive home felt really weird. Five laps was enough--probably because of the intense concentration--to change my brain's expectation about how driving should go. I kept reaching for paddles to shift, looking for cones to aim at in corners, and feeling like I should really be flooring the accelerator. It reminded me of the first time a friend took me skeet shooting--I did it for so long that session that as I drove home and saw birds flying overhead there was an amazingly strong impulse to shoulder a gun and take them down. (For the record, despite all my time with firearms, and tens of thousands of rounds expended, the only time I've fired one at a living creature was to put down a severely injured deer that I had hit with my car about eight years ago. I have no interest in hunting. The birds thing was just a conditioned reflex, not reflective of any underlying desire.)

Overall it was hella fun. I don't think you can go far wrong giving somebody you love a gift certificate for a drive at this place (Exotics Racing--and while you're on their web site, I strongly suggest you entertain yourself with the "screamer of the month" videos, taken inside the drifting Corvettes). Or the next time you're in Vegas, just treat yourself to a completely different kind of afternoon than you'll ever get on the Strip.

I call this magnificent portrait "Dork with helmet":

(They require the stupid hairnet thing, I assume, to keep people's nasty hair goop and lice off of the expensive helmets.)

Me and my speedy steed:

(Thanks to Brandon for graciously agreeing to snap these two photos.)

Addendum:

Just after posting this, I checked Yahoo for the day's news, and found this story of a man who did a dash-cam video from his Ferrari--with results even more embarrassing than mine.

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/ferrari-owner-japan-arrested-posting-video-high-speed-195346223.html

VROOM!

Here's what I'll be doing tomorrow afternoon:

http://www.exoticsracing.com/

I get an orientation lap around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway as a passenger in a Porsche Cayenne, then five laps driving a Ferrari 430. A gift certificate for this experience was Cardgrrl's present for my 50th birthday last April. I put off scheduling it, hoping that she would be in town at some point during the year, but that didn't work out. So tomorrow is finally the day. I'll probably throw them a little extra money for the in-car video of the laps. If so, naturally I'll post it on YouTube and here. Unless I, y'know, spin out and die in a fiery crash or something. (Here's one guy's video, though he's in the 430 Scuderia, which is a slightly racified version of the 430: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsfaozN_UWc.)

All you Vegas locals will be packing the grandstands to watch, right?