Poker gems, #471

Joe Stapleton, in Bluff magazine, September, 2014, page 88.


I'm really going to miss charity tournaments like "Put a Bad Beat on Domestic Violence," "Play Dark for the Cincinnati Center for the Blind," and "Flop Quads for Spinal Recovery Center of Duluth."

PokerNews article #39

This is about whether to show a losing hand when the rules don't require it.

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/one-good-reason-to-show-a-losing-hand-and-one-bad-one-19776.htm

PokerNews article #38

This one is about how to decide whether and when to show a winning hand that the rules do not obligate you to show.

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/three-ways-to-decide-whether-or-not-to-show-your-winning-han-19690.htm

Emotional stability

New study says that experienced poker players have the emotional stability to make difficult decisions under pressure:

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/business-economics/emotional-stability-personality-poker-player-gaming-games-gambling-91987/

DuPont State Recreational Forest

Western North Carolina is stuffed to the gills with state and national parks and forests. You could spend years and years here, going hiking every weekend, and still not get through all the trails available.

Yesterday Nina and I spent a couple of hours walking in one little corner of one little state forest that we had not visited before, the DuPont State Recreational Forest. It is most famous for its waterfalls, two of which were featured in the movie "Hunger Games." But we didn't take any of the waterfall hikes. We were in search of vistas of fall foliage.

Here's a bit of what we found. Right-click/open in new tab to see maximum size.

And yes, the sky really was that blue; no digital enhancement.

Finally, one digitally stitched 180-degree panorama: 

PokerNews article #37

The three factors that should determine your cash game buy-in:

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/3-factors-that-should-determine-your-cash-game-buy-in-19629.htm

Bad beat

Remember the nice new car I was so excited about not too long ago? Jackass in an old pickup truck wasn't paying attention on the highway and slammed into it. A line of cars stopped for some unknown reason. Everybody managed to stop safely except for him. After he pushed me forward, I very nearly hit the car in front of me, but fortunately had left j-u-s-t enough room not to.

Submit your guesses in the comments as to what the final repair bill will be. Closest (over or under, not Price Is Right rules) wins--I don't know what.

PokerNews article #36

Does your opponent have that flush? Here's how to tell.

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/does-your-opponent-have-a-flush-here-s-how-to-tell-19578.htm

Probability puzzle

This has nothing to do with poker directly, but this week's Sunday Puzzle on NPR is an interesting exercise of your probability-thinking muscles.

Next week's challenge: The following challenge is based on a puzzle from a Martin Gardner book, that may not be well-known. Out of a regular grade school classroom, two students are chosen at random. Both happen to have blue eyes. If the odds are exactly 50-50 that two randomly chosen students in the class will have blue eyes: How many students are in the class?

I got the answer, but it was really difficult. I ended up having to set up a spreadsheet to automatically calculate the number of ways to select two children from a classroom of n students. This allowed me to play with both the number of students and the number of those that have blue eyes, until I found the combination that worked. 

Maybe there's a simpler, more intuitive way of getting at the answer, instead of using brute force the way I did--but if so, it escaped me. I predict that they will have very, very few correct answers submitted. 

PokerNews article #35

This one is about how to deal with poker bullies:

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/to-defeat-a-poker-bully-you-only-need-to-know-this-one-secre-19523.htm

Hypothetical questions about Phil Ivey

Suppose Ivey had set up his advantageous situation, with the casino's defective cards, automatic shuffler, etc., but had then had a streak of terrible luck and lost millions of dollars instead of winning millions, and the casino bosses later learned of what techniques he had been using. Would they have rushed to issue him a check to refund his losses? If he sued them trying to reclaim his losses, on the grounds that the conditions of the game were unfair, would they agree and cheerfully pay him back?

Put another way, is it the casinos' position that the conditions of the game were only unfair if they lost?

Daniel Negreanu, on the online poker ecosystem

"You guys don't even want to know what I would do to the VIP programs if I was in charge! I would focus on giving bonuses to the LOSING players exclusively. They'd play more, last longer, and the pros would get the money in the end anyway. I think it's overkill to not only have pros crushing all the rec players, but then also giving them the majority of the bonuses on top of that?" 

Whole thing here. 

Video poker

My friend Iggy posted a link to this story on Twitter. It's fascinating. Two guys discovered a bug in the programming of a ubiquitous video poker machine, and exploited it for hundreds of thousands of dollars before being caught. They were criminally charged, but eventually the charges were dropped because it's unclear that they did anything illegal. (FWIW, I agree. If a machine has a glitch that allows a player to get payouts just by pressing the right sequence of buttons--no monkeying with the machine's mechanisms or programming--it isn't cheating or fraud.) Long, but well worth a read.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/cheating-video-poker/

Home game

Last night I played for the first time in a local home game. It was 10-cent/20-cent blinds, maximum buy-in of $20. That's the lowest stakes I've ever played poker for, other than a few play-money games online.

You know what surprising thing I discovered? Once you mentally reset your expectations, it stings just as much to lose a buy-in of $20 as one of $200, and feels just as triumphant to double up a $20 stake as a $200 stake.

Weird, huh?

PokerNews article #34

On the art of quitting:

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/it-s-okay-to-be-a-quitter-in-poker-in-fact-it-s-essential-19456.htm

Ho hum, just another Sunday grind

This seems worth noting:

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/Is-this-the-sickest-Sunday-MTT-run-ever-_87212/

PokerNews article #33

What do poker dealers wish that new players knew?

http://www.pokernews.com/strategy/casino-poker-for-beginners-this-time-the-dealers-tip-you-19392.htm

Kennections

You might want to tackle today's Kennections puzzle:

http://parade.condenast.com/342662/kenjennings/kennections-221-this-animal-goes-through-30000-teeth/

A hike--and POKER!

Yesterday Nina and I drove the last 25 miles or so of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stopped at several scenic overlooks. At Waterrock Knob, we took the hike to the top. It's only a half mile each way, but it's straight up. And then straight down. The up part strained our aging hearts and lungs. The down part strained our aging knees. But it was fun anyway, and gorgeous.

Then we headed into Cherokee to the casino for a couple hours of teh pokerz. I was up about $240, until I played "one more hand," and lost $80 of that when A-Q made top pair/top kicker, but lost to bottom two pair. Sigh.

But the best hand of the day was, of course, with The Mighty Deuce-Four. I was in the small blind, and called a raise, as did several others. The raiser then bet $25 into a $40 pot on a flop of J-3-5 rainbow. I was the only caller.

Turn: Ace. Of course. Because Deuce-Four always makes the nuts. I checked. He bet $35. I had $109 left; he had more. This was a tricky spot. I couldn't tell if his smallish bet here (about 1/3 pot) was because he was afraid of the ace, or because he loved it and wanted to maximize his chance of getting a call. If the latter, then a check-raise should get me paid off. If the former, it probably didn't matter whether I put it all in now or on the river, because he would fold either way. So I opted for the all-in check-raise. He insta-called.

Which turned out to be surprising, because he had unimproved pocket queens. I guess he felt pot-committed, but he was drawing dead to my wheel.

Ah, my beloved Deuce-Four! It's been a while, but you're still a reliable old friend.


Here's Nina's view of the day: http://www.somebeaut.com/2014/09/27/waterrock-knob/

British Isles trip, part 29: Best photos

I wanted to put into one place all of my favorite photos from the trip. I was going to put them in this post, but then decided that it would be better to put them into a slideshow on Google+. The link below will take you right to it. Then you can flip through them at your own pace.

I hope you have enjoyed my British Isles photos a fraction as much as I have enjoyed going through them and reliving some wonderful memories from the best vacation I've ever taken.


Best photos slideshow.