Brad Booth

All In magazine (Spring, 2010) has an interesting feature on Brad Booth. It starts and ends with his participation in one of the most famous hands in the history of GSN's "High Stakes Poker" (see below). I had completely forgotten the pivotal role that the mighty Deuce-Four played there. Booth is obviously in on the secret. (You also get to learn what Ivey called Booth off-camera when Booth told him what he had had.)

More interesting, though, is the rest of the bio. Most pro player life stories in poker magazines are fluff pieces that sound like they were written by the subject's publicist. This one is different. With what appears to be brutal honesty, it describes Booth's huge losses in the UltimateBlecch cheating scandal, his multiaccounting, how he went completely broke, how he lied to his backer, how he lied to friends to induce them to lend him money, how he lost $800,000 that he didn't have in illegal sports betting, how he is still working on making that good, and other topics that would make your average publicist puke. The article does not appear to be online, so you'll have to find a copy of the magazine to read it.

In the meantime, you can relive his play against Ivey. It is commonly called a bluff, but Booth obviously knew that he effectively held the nuts. The only question was whether the 5 was coming on the turn or the river.

I can live with 9th

I entered the MiniFTOPS $33 razz event this evening mainly so that I would have something to do while watching Cardgrrl play it. As she will gladly tell you, she is the Razz Queen. Last night, however, she had a terminal case of the runbads, and lasted only about 90 minutes, winning no more than two or three pots during that whole time.

I, on the other hand, apparently had all the rungood for both of us. I lasted just under seven hours, finishing on the final table bubble, picking up a $450 payday.

From about 45 minutes in until maybe 90 minutes from my demise, I was in the top quarter of the field the entire time, and most of it in the top 10%. This was not--I repeat, not--from world-class play on my part. I just played ABC, getting paid off by the hordes of calling stations when I made a strong hand, and getting away relatively cheaply otherwise. Not rocket science.

I misplayed four hands during the tournament, as I see it. But I'm too frazzled to bother recounting them. Besides, razz hand histories are just too messy to slog through, and there is still apparently no hand replayer for stud/razz hands that would let me animate them for you.

I also lost a big chunk in the late stages--when I could least afford it--on a misclick, of all things. I didn't know the break had ended, and was clicking on a web page, when suddenly it was my turn and my table appeared under my mouse, and the spot on the screen I was clicking was no longer a web link, but the "raise" button. I had accidentally 3-bet the table. Somebody 4-bet it, and since I had two low cards (including the up one), I called with fingers crossed. Caught another good one, so called another small bet, but then bricked and ran away. Dumb.

Once I got severely short-stacked, I was in a perpetual dither about whether to play aggressively and hope to get lucky and be back in it, or hunker down and hope to slither up the pay scale. I mostly chose the latter, and survived two pay jumps longer than I had thought I would as a result, so I guess it sort of worked. But, of course, in the process I basically sacrificed all hope of being in the top handful.

I also blew at least one hand during that period by going back and forth during the hand between getting it all in and hoping, versus conserving chips. That was just moronic and cowardly. My early-age biblical training comes rushing back to me: "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." (Rev. 3:16) "How long halt ye between two opinions?" (1 Kings 18:21)

I had my fair share of good luck and bad luck, no extraordinary amounts of either. It was basically a "can't complain" scenario.

It was perhaps a good warm-up for the HORSE event on Stars tomorrow afternoon, which, should I be fortunate enough to go deep again, will be many hours longer than this was, I suspect.

Thanks to F-Train and AlCantHang for sticking around for moral support all the time I was on life support, and for the many good wishes from Twitter friends. Thanks most to Cardgrrl for being my motivation to enter the thing to begin with.

Guess the casino, #508

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Answer: Circus Circus

Poker gems, #360

Brad Booth, on meeting Guy Laliberte for the first time in a live $10/$20 game, and not knowing who he was, in All In magazine, Spring 2010, p. 73.


One of the guys at the table was a French guy. Since I was Canadian, I asked him where he was from. He said Montreal, and we got chatting. I had no idea who he was, and he never said anything about it. We hit it off, but it was obvious to me that he had no idea what he was doing at the poker table. He wasn't dressed like he had money, he just looked like a tourist, and he told me he was only in town for a week. I felt a little bad for him, 'cause I thought he couldn't afford to lose the money. There was even a hand where I had the absolute nuts on the river, and he checked to me and I checked behind. At one point, I even offered to give him some lessons and suggested he move down to the $1/$2 table so that he didn't lose as much. I remember him laughing and saying, "I'll be okay."

Pwned by a little old lady

Go read this great story from Foucault. That is all.

SCOOPing

My friend Cardgrrl won a $215 SCOOP ticket in a blogger freeroll a few months ago. The other day she told me she had decided to use it on the HORSE event Saturday, 2:00 p.m. my time. I decided I would railbird the thing with her, and marked the time on my calendar.

Today, while mentally sort of mapping out my weekend, I got to thinking that it would be a lot more fun to play that tournament with her rather than just sitting at home watching her play from 2400 miles away. However, $215 is more than I keep in my Stars account, and realistically I'm not good enough at HORSE to make it a sound investment of that much money. But I thought there must be satellites for it. I checked, and one was about to start. At the time there were only three players signed up, with one seat guaranteed, constituting a sizable overlay and +EV. So I entered.

The overlay disappeared with some late registrations, but damn if I didn't manage to win the thing!



It was a dreadfully uneventful experience, I'm afraid--no dramatic suckouts in either direction. (OK, there was one--I hit a gutshot to Broadway on 6th street in stud to push over the edge a guy that was already on Super Monkey Tilt from a one-outer a couple of hands before. He was one of those idiots that claim to be better than everybody else in chat--you know the type, "If it weren't for luck I'd win 'em all.") I was never chip leader until we were down to four players, but I was also never below average stack. I entered heads-up play with a nearly 3:1 chip advantage, but the limits were so big by then that one big pot could change that around.

The last hand surprised me:



I only called on 4th street because of having four to a low; it seemed unlikely that he would be making a low, so I was just hoping for a chop. (Yeah, I know, not the world's greatest strategy. Spare me the lectures.) When he made trip aces on 5th and I secured my low, I was nearly certain we would chop it, so I was just calling behind.

I was shocked when the entire pot came my way, and the screen announced I had won. I had not even noticed that I had a straight draw on 6th, let alone that I had hit it on 7th. As I always say, the best pots are the ones you don't expect to win.

Want another example of how dense I can be? When we were three-handed, the other remaining player was the one on my immediate right. I caught myself thinking, "I hope that the guy on the left is the next one out so that when we're heads-up I have position." D'oh!

I think I'm close to being dead money in the SCOOP event, but at least I'm only $39 of dead money instead of $215, and I think it might be $39 worth of fun.

It's about a trillion-to-one longshot, but me and Cardgrrl finishing 1 and 2 in this event would be just about the only thing I can imagine, poker-wise, that would be more delightful than finishing 1-2 in a Mookie and the too-good-to-be-true way we ended a live session at the Luxor last year.

Plug

My friend Cardgrrl has successfully migrated her non-poker blog to a new virtual home, after investment of some blood, sweat, and tears. If you think you might enjoy taking a few seconds a day to look at something beautiful, please peek in at www.somebeaut.com.

You might also see if you can identify the fragment of photograph that sits behind the blog title at the top of the page. Hint: It's from a Las Vegas casino. Second hint: By coincidence, the item shown was featured in a "Guess the casino" post here not too long ago.

Guess the casino, #507

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.




Answer: Bill's

The truth hurts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

"Park 'em right here"

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

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

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

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

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

Finger-lickin': bad!

I did an afternoon session today at the MGM Grand.

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

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

Sammy licks his fingers before every deal.

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monkey business

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

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

Guess the casino, #506

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Answer: Venetian

Strange sentence

I just got home from a late-night session at the Sahara. During the course of the poker game, one player had occasion to utter the following sentence to another: "If you hadn't taken out your teeth, I would have won that pot."

I opined to the speaker that those exact words had probably never been spoken at a poker table in the entire history of the game.

There is, of course, a story behind why that sentence was appropriate. But (1) it's way too late at night and I'm too tired for a long post, and (2) I think it might be more fun to just leave you all wondering!

Guess the casino, #505

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.




Answer: Sunset Station

Guess the casino, #504

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Answer: Santa Fe Station

Poker gems, #359

Phil Laak, in his exit interview from the 2010 NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship, after losing on a river two-outer.


If you can't take the pain and just laugh about it, then you can't make it in poker.

Poker gems, #358

Phil Galfond, on the final episode of High Stakes Poker, season 6, after twice folding full houses to a river bet (correctly, in both instances):


I just don't like calling with full houses. I like one pair, or ace high.

Poker gems, #357

Ilari Sahamies (who apparently has hired Phil Hellmuth as his poker etiquette coach), in the Full Tilt Poker chat box, on January 30, 2010, upon losing a $602,000 pot to FTP red pro Cole South, as quoted in All In magazine, March, 2010, p. 85.


i hate him so f much

i really hoped that someone would shooted a newyears rocket to his eyes so he couldnt play without helper and couldnt see how f lucky he is

I'll show you mine, you show me yours

By interesting coincidence, this afternoon at Planet Hollywood I encountered a situation in which I vountarily showed my cards, quite apart from the various circumstances and categories I mentioned in the post earlier today.

I had been at the table only about ten minutes, so was still figuring out who did what. But within my first couple of hands, I had easily spotted the most dangerous player at the table. He had obviously played a ton of poker, and had a mien of strong, quiet confidence about his play. The first hand I watched him play, I thought he was just trying to blow his opponent off of a hand, until he turned over the nuts. When I'm that far wrong about another player, it's a big red flag that I'm going to have to handle him carefully.

So, of course, that's who I am in the hand with when I have to make my first big decision. I have 8-9 offsuit in the small blind. There are three limpers ahead, so I join in, as does the big blind. Flop is Q-8-9, with two spades. (I have none.) I bet $8, about the size of the pot. It folds around to Mr. Dangerous, who raises to $20.

My choices here are to reraise or just call. Calling is pretty cheap, and gives me a pull at one of the four cards I would most like to see on the turn. However, it doesn't give me any more information, and if I don't hit one of those four cards, I'm going to have a problem on the turn: If I check and he bets, or if I bet again and he raises again, then what do I do? I won't be able to tell if he is just playing a top-pair hand (e.g., K-Q), two pair, a set, or a straight, and my decision will be both difficult and potentially expensive.

I decided instead to reraise. I thought that he was smart enough that he would not continue any one-pair hands past that point. If he flat-called, a draw would seem most likely--perhaps a combination straight and flush draw. If he reraised me back, I could then be highly confident that the minimum he had was a better two pair. Most likely in that scenario he would have flopped a straight, since my holding 8-9 made all of the two-pair combinations and sets less likely. (I assumed that a set of queens was basically out of the question, with no pre-flop raise.) Besides, I learned a long time ago that people have an abnormal fondness for J-10, and anytime the board makes that a strong hand, I am on the lookout for it being hidden away under somebody's card cap.

So I made it $60. (I had started the hand with nearly all of my original $300 buy-in.) He thought for about ten seconds before moving all-in. It would cost me about $130 more to call.

Just about the only hand that he could plausibly be holding that I would currently be beating was something like Q-10 of spades, giving him top pair, flush draw, and gutshot straight draw--and even if he had that, I'm not thrilled about getting a lot of money in with that many bullets to dodge twice. Furthermore, his radar on me is probably as alerted as mine is on him. If so, he would have to peg me for being solid enough to have a minimum of two pair with the reraise. Given that, his willingness to shove speaks volumes. Most likely I have four outs, and it might be just two. In fact, should he have 9-9, I'd be drawing virtually dead. Not a good spot.

I stuck with my plan and folded. But I thought it was worth seeing if I could get some confirmatory information out of him. For the reasons explained in my earlier post, I don't like to verbally request somebody to show. Once in a while, though, I will silently invite it by showing my own hand. This was one such occasion.

I turned my cards in to the dealer face up. I didn't fire them in with anger or frustration, or make any face or sigh that would tend to say, "I just want you all to see how screwed I got in this hand." I have no respect for that kind of pathetic, sympathy-seeking display, and wouldn't think somebody else would either.

It worked. He nodded my way and flashed his J-10 before mucking. I gave the table a couple of quick knuckles in acknowledgement. I was pleased to learn that my read on him was better than it had been in the first hand I had watched him play. I thought I got the more valuable side of this information exchange.

I like that kind of transaction. This may not be rational, but I'm much more inclined to reciprocate, just as Mr. Dangerous did today, to a silent revelation than I am to somebody who verbally makes the request. I'm not entirely sure why, but the former seems more mutually respectful to me. It doesn't always work, being on the initiating side, but I don't think I'm giving away too much in the attempt.