A Heads-up for Human Poker Players

I had images of scientists rushing Einstein's dying brain to freezer storage, saving his wisdom for future generations who, they hoped, would have the technology to restore its function and make his incomparable intellect immortal.

I had invited many of the world's top heads-up limit hold 'em players to Red Square in Las Vegas for a drink in their famous ice room. Heads-up games are played almost exclusively online, since brick-and-mortar poker rooms rarely are willing to spare a dealer for just two players. So although I knew many of these guys' screen names and even human names, I'd never met most of them in person until now. (l to r: Heather, QsDaddy, TheComplainer, SallyWoo, RobLP, Quiet Lion, KPR16, pmv55)

Red Square issued us all fur coats and let us do as many shots of Chopin as we wanted inside the freezer room with Lenin's head encased in a block of ice. We shivered enough to soak up the atmoshpere and then retired to the main lounge area.

Head's up limit hold 'em is my favorite game, mostly because you get to play almost every hand and you see a showdown almost half the time. This satisfies both my thirst for action and my curiosity.

It also is the favorite game of researchers at the University of Alberta, where they continue to improve Polaris, their poker-playing program. In fact, they've improved it to the point where it can hold its own against the very best players in the world. Last week it beat Matt "Hoss_TBF" Hawrilenko, considered by some to be the best in the world, over 500 hands. Now Hoss will be the first to tell you that 500 hands doesn't prove anything. But he said he was impressed by the bot's skill.

According to unconfirmed reports in various poker forums, Full Tilt Poker recently caught several accounts using bots, or artificial-intelligence programs, to play heads-up limit hold 'em on their site. Because it was a violation of the terms of service, they seized all their funds and distributed them to the victims. I have no official confirmation from Full Tilt, as they don't discuss the details of such cases for a variety of reasons. But I can't imagine the perpetrators won't modify their programs and try again on other sites. This is a real heads-up for human poker players.

I entered a couple more World Series events but didn't cash. I decided to skip the main event in favor of enjoying summer in Las Vegas. I like hanging out by the pool and cruising the Strip in a limo more than spending 14 hours a day playing poker tournaments.

Can you blame me?

Not the Champ

People keep asking why I came to Vegas. The World Series combines so many things I hate: slow, boring games; bad food; long hours; and losing six out of seven times even if you're a great player. But everyone knows why I came to Vegas. For the waters.

Although I had some luck in the casino, I failed to cash in the $10,000 limit hold 'em championship at the 2008 World Series of Poker. I did make it to day two despite being sandwiched in between Brandon Adams on my right and eventual winner Rob Hollink on my left, then being moved to the right of Andy "The Rock" Bloch.

On day two I faced the rogue's gallery of Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, and Joe Cassidy before Barry Greenstein showed up to round out the table. Nevertheless, I survived until the table broke but then got it all in with Ace-Queen against Ace-King and went busto about 3/4 of the way though this tough field.

I did manage to double my starting stack, but other than that the high point of the event was figuring out I could use the $10 food comp that Harrah's provides each $10,000 entrant to exactly cover a chicken parmesan sub and two bags of smoked almonds.

Desperate for good food, I cruised over to Bellagio for the tasting menu at Michael Mina, washed down with a 2006 Ken Wright Oregon Pinot Noir. I'm not loving the 2006 vintage compared with 2005, but I've never had anything from Ken Wright that wasn't good.

Michael Mina (formerly Aqua) is inside the conservatory, where I imagine Professor Plum killing someone with the candlestick every time I walk through the beautiful, fragrant, ever-changing floral display. This time they had a very clever mini-Bellagio complete with fountain show. Stop by and see it if you get the chance. It's one of the best free things to do in Vegas.

I'm planning to enter the $1500 mixed hold 'em event on Sunday.

Sick Event

The only way to beat Vegas is to hit and run. That’s why I never moved here. If you spend too much time in Sin City it grinds you down, wears you out, and eventually absorbs you, stealing your soul and making you part of the jaundiced, hungry money machine. But if you hit and run you can get in, make a quick score, and get out before it bites you back. Sometimes you get bit anyway.

This was a nine-day trip to the desert playground, which was pushing it. I took five nights at the Palms, the closest decent hotel to the World Series, and then planned to move to Wynn, my favorite place in town, where they were giving away six Mini Coopers in a drawing Saturday night.

But while still at the Palms, I tried the new restaurant at Palms Place, Simon, along with Kyle, Crazy Mike, and Robyn. There are so many gourmet restaurants in Vegas it’s hard to gush about food but it was top notch. What really stood out, though, was the room. Intimate and glass walled, it sat surrounded by the private Palms Place pool. The waiter talked Crazy Mike into ordering his filet medium instead of medium well, and we relaxed as we watched the pool water lap onto the deck in the June desert wind.

I had no luck at the Palms, nor at Wynn when I moved over there. The good news was Nichole decided to fly down for the weekend, but the bad news was I picked up a nasty case of food poisoning that seemed to linger on for days. I dragged myself to the Rio to play the $1500 limit Hold ‘Em event but never got anywhere. The drawing for the cars was Saturday night and I could barely get out of bed but I showered and dressed and went down to the VIP cocktail reception with Nichole to see if I won.

When we got there we discovered they had secretly transformed the drawing into a game show. If your ticket got drawn you had to play “concentration” and match two numbers on a big board to win one of the six cars. If you missed twice they would draw someone else. I didn’t get picked in the first six, or the next four, or the next two. Finally there was one car left and they drew my name. Nichole said, “16 and 12! 16 and 12!” The room was spinning as I walked up to the stage. I decided to go for the drama. “Well, I’m pretty sure one of them is 16.” I said. Then I waited. I wondered if they’d call the clock on me. Finally I said, “How about….12!”

The room erupted into mixed cheers and boos as they revealed the final car. I took the cash option and used it to pay off a marker.

Still not 100% I flew back to Seattle to recover for a few days. Next event is the $10k limit Hold ‘Em championship on Sunday June 15.

Tough event

After chipping up my starting 10k to 17,000, I busted out of the $5000 mixed Hold 'Em event shorly after the dinner break. Sandwiched between Ted Forrest and Shannon Shorr on the right and Gavin Smith on the left, I fell prey to the most active player at the table and made a loose call with Ace-Eight of Clubs when he limp-reraised me all in with pocket Queens. I thought I had a big edge in the limit portion of the event but It's been a long time since I was at the top of my NLHE game, playing several tournaments a day online.

Nevertheless, this is the biggest social gathering of the year for poker players, and although my buddy Matt "HOSS_TBF" Hawrilenko busted out early, he waited around to hang with me at the dinner break. Matt may be the best heads-up limit Hold 'Em player in the world, which poses a dilemma for him as many of his friends also play that game for high stakes and he doesn't want to teach us how to beat him but neither does he want to be rude and dismissive. This leads to conversations such as:

QL: "How do you play opponents who frequently check-raise dry flops with air?"
HOSS: "Very carefully!"
QL: "And you counter that by...?"
HOSS: "Incredibly clever tactics!"

QL: "I've decided I have no idea how to play monotone flops."
HOSS: "If we had four-color decks that would solve the problem completely!"

But it's impossible to get mad at him because he's the world's nicest guy, plus he's a head taller than me, 20 years younger, and an expert in martial arts.

Ted and Shannon were discussing whether they'd rater have a .38 revolver versus a grizzly bear or a knife against a tiger. I suggested I'd rather have the bottle of suntan lotion against the Hawaiian Tropic model because even if I didn't survive -- what a way to go. Ted scowled and said that wasn't one of the choices. I said, "Sir, if you ever want to be a winning poker player you must learn to think outside of the box."

I may play the shorthanded NLHE event on Thursday, but if not I will likely play the $1500 limit Hold 'Em event on Friday.

2008 World Series begins

Although I've been playing far fewer poker tournaments than in the past, having decided they interfere too much with dinner, I'm now in Vegas to play a few events in the 2008 World Series at the Rio. Tonight I will attempt to overcome Harrah's 6% commission and cash in the $5000 mixed Hold 'Em event. Levels will be one hour each, playing limit Hold 'Em the first half hour and no limit the second. Cards are in the air at 5 p.m.

Last night I had dinner with Kyle and his family at Nove Italian restaurant at the Pams. They sat us at one of the large tables overlooking the Strip with gentle flames flickering at the base of the windows. The whole branzino (European seabass) was fabulous. We started with the 2004 Joel Gott "4 Sarah's Metier" cabernet. Gott makes one of the top inexpensive cabs so I was curious to taste a higher-end bottling and wasn't disappointed: it was fruity, well balanced, and finished well. Then we moved on to the 2005 Testarossa Sanford & Benedict pinot noir. I haven't had a California '05 I haven't liked and this one was great: full enough to follow the light cab but as fruity as Hawaiian Punch but without the sweetness. I'll miss them when they're gone.

In gambling, like sports, you're either on a hot streak or you're due.

I'm due.

2007 WSOP Wrapup

Once the Harrah's bigwigs finally figured out I wasn't some kind of criminal mastermind I was free to play at the 2007 World Series of Poker and even get a room at the Rio, although not quite up to the standards of the Palazzo Suites they put me in last year.

I planned to get the Rio room if I made it deep in the main event, but other than that I was staying at the Wynn, where I have a special deal: I don't win and they don't kick me out.

The big improvement this year wasn't Harrah's doing: Nevada made smoking indoors illegal, except for casinos, bars, strip clubs, and brothels. As a result, the noxious clouds were even farther from the action than last year. People were supposed to go outside to smoke, and largely did. They even had big fans to blow the smoke away.


I never did get a straight answer as to why Harrah's 86'ed me. As soon as I got to talk with Tom Jenkin, who is in charge of all the Vegas properties, he immediately realized it was a mistake and reinstated me within hours. My suspicion is that some managers within Caesars Palace simply did not want to risk my hitting even more big jackpots and making their numbers look even worse. But really, to send me a certified letter warning me off the premises when I'd been coming to Caesars Palace for 25 years without a problem -- it just boggles the mind. But Tom assured me nobody thought I did anything wrong and if I hit four more royal flushes tomorrow, I'd be perfectly OK with him.

So that being settled, I went on to enter 10 of the preliminary events. I played with some cool people, including Ross "Rocky" Boatman, Liz Lieu, and Andrew Prock (right), author of the excellent PokerStove software. We had met last year at BARGE, but previously had exchanged posts on rec.gambling.poker in which he had referred to me as a "rich dilettante." I corrected him, as I prefer to be called a rich, arrogant dilettante, and he graciously assented. Andrew is a pleasure to play with, witty and trenchant. I hope to be on his left next time.

The tournaments were grueling. I like to play poker for a few hours, not all day and all night, but the schedule demanded play until two or three in the morning every day, provided I was still in, which I often was. I don't know how guys like Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, shown here after winning a high-stakes pool match, have done it year after year. Frankly it reminds me of my time at Harvard: I loved being around the people if only I didn't have to put up with all those damned classes. Other than an amusing table assignment one day (left), most of the events felt more like drudgery than fun. Of course I'm sure if I ever made a final table that would be a lot more exciting than busting out after 10 or 15 hours of play with nothing to show for it but a $10 food comp.

I staked my 21-year-old buddy Kyle Ray to his first WSOP event, the $1500 mixed hold 'em, and he brought home a nice cash. He's a very serious student of the game and I expect great things of him.

What I was looking forward to the most was hanging out with the math team: Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman, who co-authored the bible of game theory as applied to poker, The Mathematics of Poker, Terrence Chan, and Matt Hawrilenko. These guys are all phenomenal poker players and a lot of fun to hang out with.


I had dinner with Matt, Terrence, and Terrence's new girlfriend Laren at the Country Club at Wynn. Country Club may be my favorite restaurant in town now. They do the steaks charcoal-broiled with a salt rub, but given that I'm eating healthy these days I appreciate the one or two fish dishes they always offer. The service is personal and attentive and the wine list, like the menu, is small but very high quality. We had the last bottle of the Penner-Ash Syrah. Matt approved.

A few days later I made it over to the math team clubhouse, where I hoped to learn something about poker but instead played pool and watched Matt and Terrence engage in the manly sport of wrestling. I met Mike Fong, who was sharing the house with the math team although he hadn't yet established credentials as lofty as the others. We bought a chip set from the Rio and practiced HORSE, showing our cards at the end of each hand for commentary. I got a nice shot of Laren's feet.

The main event was almost a non-event for me. I came within a few chips of doubling up and then ran out of luck, busting on the first day when 3/4 of the field hadn't even started playing yet. That gave me the weekend to relax and unwind at the Wynn before I flew home.

The more I stay at the Wynn the more I think it's by far the best hotel in town, not just for the facilities but for the excellent service top to bottom. Nichole (above right) enjoyed her first Kobe burger on the patio at Tableau while I entered an invitational Baccarat tournament for casino high rollers.

I bombed out but Russell Rosenblum (left), one of the smartest and nicest guys in poker with one of the sweetest and prettiest wives, took his beginner's luck into third place for a nice chunk of change.

But the big surprise was the winner: Full Tilt pro Roland de Wolfe (right), whom I didn't even know played Baccarat. Roland is a frenetic, upbeat guy you just want to root for. He later tried to invite us to his birthday party but the elevator doors closed before he could tell us the details, almost snipping off his nose.

Tournament poker can be a road to heartbreak. Bill Chen told me a great player can expect to cash in one out of seven tournaments. If a bad streak comes, that can easily mean 20 events in a row without cashing. The math team didn't do so well this year. Last year Bill won two bracelets. Why do we do it?

I guess it's fun.

Two more pics of Nichole...she cleans up nice.

A disappointing cash

I just finished my seventh event of the 2007 WSOP, the $3000 limit Hold 'Em. I made the money but then ran out of luck and cashed in 21st place for $7761. At my last table I played a pot against Phil Hellmuth, who still didn't know my name after four years. I reraised his early-position raise in the small blind with QQ and he raised my flop bet on a board of King-rag-rag and I just called, intending to call him down. He checked behind on the turn and I checked the river hoping he would bet. He didn't and showed Ace-Queen, well played to lose the minimum and get the free card.

Made day 2 of the limit Hold 'Em championship

I played my first event since Harrah's lifted the ban, the $5000 Limit Hold 'Em championship. Despite having Andrew Prock on my left and Ted "I have a straight" Lawson two to my right, I built my starting stack of 10,000 up to 24,000 before going cold toward the end of the day. I advance to day 2 with slightly more than my starting chips, 10,600. Barry Greenstein and Mimi Tran are at my table.

It would make a hell of a story if I won this one!

I can play!

Thanks to the quiet diplomacy of WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and to many of my fellow poker players vouching for my character, Harrah’s has decided to allow me to play in the remainder of the WSOP and lifted the ban on my entering their properties. I’m still learning the details of why this was handled this way but it’s looking more and more like a big mistake. As usual everyone at Harrah’s was friendly and professional. I will post more details as they become available but I can now eat at the buffet without fear of arrest.

I want to thank everyone who supported me from the bottom of my heart. It is very gratifying to know how much my friends care.

I guess I won’t be needing the “Free Quiet Lion!” hats and t-shirts after all.

Fall of the Roman Empire

In an overreaction of thermonuclear proportions to my recent good luck, Harrah’s has barred me from playing in the World Series of Poker, and in fact from even setting foot in any of their hotels.

When Harrah’s Entertainment bought Caesars Palace, many industry pundits predicted they would have trouble managing the high-roller business. Harrah’s was built on the high-margin, low-volume player. They produce a predictable win, cost little in comps, and there are many, many of them. High rollers demand games with a slim house advantage, generous comps, and the possibility of actually walking away with a win once in a while.

Harrah’s doesn’t like that.

For 40 years, Caesars Palace had a reputation for welcoming big action. At one point they were the biggest place in town. They loved big players and didn’t sweat if somebody won. They wanted to keep him coming back. Eventually the house edge would kick in, but for now they’d let the player enjoy his good fortune.

That reputation is gone.

On May 10, Harrah’s sent certified letters to several high rollers informing them that their business was no longer wanted at Caesars Palace or any of the other Harrah’s properties in Nevada, California, and Arizona. I was one of them. I called the office of Tom Jenkins, regional vice president, and got a call back from Terry Byrnes, the VP of customer service. He told me I was being 86ed because they couldn't figure out how to make a profit off me.

Now understand, the only games I play are poker and video poker. In poker, the house makes a 100% guaranteed profit straight off the top. In video poker, the house controls every aspect of the game: the paytables, the amount of the house edge, and the promotions and incentives they offer. There is no way to use skill – or even cheat – to beat video poker. You can’t count cards. You can’t peek at the dealer’s hole card. It’s a machine. The best you could possibly hope for is to play computer-perfect, which I don’t, and even if that were possible the machine still has a maximum theoretical payout chosen by the casino. The only thing the casino can’t control is luck. One reason I like video poker is because you can get lucky and win. You hit a royal flush every 40,000 hands or so. If you’re lucky enough to hit two, you’re ahead! If you hit three, you’re ahead for a long time!

Boy, have I been lucky at Harrah’s.

I hit four huge royal flushes in the last year at three of the Las Vegas Harrah’s properties. Not surprisingly, I’m ahead, although I’ve put 80% of it back. This seems to rub them the wrong way. But I have trouble imagining the thought process that would cause someone to decide that kicking out one of your most loyal customers is an appropriate solution to the problem of him having extremely good luck. If they think the machines are too loose, make them tighter. If they think they are giving me too much in comps, give less. They control every aspect of the game. Except luck. And kicking out players who have been lucky makes about as much sense as banning people from playing the lottery because they win it.

Reactions to lucky streaks in video poker are not unique to Harrah's, but the usual response is to cut down on the promotional offers to players who aren't losing as much as they hoped. Even that is potentially unsound business: lucky players get unlucky and you want them to be at your place when that happens.

If it weren’t for the WSOP, I’d laugh about this rather than cry. I don’t think they’re trying to punish me, I just think they don’t understand their business and are compounding one costly mistake – offering way too much in comps and incentives to video-poker players – with another. My friends, if you can’t figure out how to make money from people who only play games with a built-in house edge, you may as well give up on the casino business and close your doors.

In the meantime, know that the winner of the main event this year cannot be considered a true world champion.

Not when the Quiet Lion isn’t allowed to play.

Heads up

Having been inexplicably passed over yet again for the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship I decided to play the $200+30 rebuy satellite Saturday at Caesars Palace for one seat in the exclusive field. Only 71 people entered so I had a decent chance of getting into what’s becoming one of the premier events in poker.

My buddy Chad Layne was at my table but was busted early by the charming Alex Vuong, who trapped him with top pair and a better kicker.

Terry Fleischer showed up at the table with 25,000 chips but his wild style didn’t work out so well at this table as people kept showing down big hands against him. He doubled me up playing four-deuce suited but I lost most of my chips when my Presto couldn’t hold up against eight-six flopping two pair.

I put my last few chips in with a raggy queen and got called by the same guy who busted me in one of the season two UPCs by calling with Ace-Ten. Once again, he had Ace-Ten and once again I lost the race and busted 25^th.

It wasn’t so bad to bust at 5:59 p.m. since I had a 6 p.m. dinner invite from Benjie and Mark at Bradley Ogden, conveniently located steps from the poker room at Caesars Palace. I had a steak tartare and Chilean sea bass, both excellent as is pretty much anything I’ve ever had at Ogden. Benjie always lets me pick the wine and I saw no reason to get anything but the 2002 Casa Dalla Valle Cabernet.

After dinner we went to The Producers, the new abridged version that had just opened at Paris. We walked across the street and enjoyed David Hasselhoff’s performance as the flaming director-actor. I was not a big fan of the show when I saw it on Broadway, not loving Mel Brooks’ score, and it’s fair to say that it in my eyes it benefited by being shorter. The acting and production were terrific and I’m sure it will be popular with tourists.

Aussie busto

I got off to an exciting start in the Aussie Millions, making the nuts twice early and chipping up to 53,000 from the starting 20,000. Carlos Mortensen was at my table but never got cards. After my early success I bluffed into a set for half my stack, made a series of unsuccessful steals, and eventually put my last chips in with top two pair against a flush on the turn, eliminated in the wee hours of day one. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, Melbourne was great. Full Tilt took us on a river cruise, wined and dined us, and gave us a whole bag full of custom Aussie logo swag. This takes over from Aruba as my favorite event. And next year the whole casino will be non smoking!

Maria Sharapova has been hanging around, looking for excuses to run into me, riding up in the elevator, etc. I hope it doesn’t distract her from winning the Australian Open. Well, dealing with many admirers is one of the responsibilities that comes with success. Good luck to Maria and our new friend Andy Roddick. Doug Lee and I have already gone busto in our tournament.

Tomorrow I leave for Thailand to visit my brother.

Pokerroom cheats customers

The online poker site Pokerroom has reneged on an advertised prize guarantee of $19,000 plus a $2000 television, withdrawing money from winners’ accounts and blaming a technical error, according to this thread on PocketFives. Several posters reported emailing Pokerroom support after money was removed from their Pokerroom accounts without notice. They said support confirmed that Pokerroom would not be honoring the advertised prize pool guarantee.

Pokerroom had previously shut their doors to American players based on the recently passed legislation banning financial transactions with illegal gaming sites. A few US States explicitly ban online poker but the Federal Justice Department considers it illegal regardless of the fact that there is no Federal law banning Internet gambling and only 11 States ban any form of online gambling.

The obvious point is that outlawing something a lot of people like to do is not a way to build a stable, safe nation. People will always gamble. Poker is one of the most entertaining forms of gambling, combining skill and luck in an exciting and sometimes frustrating game. When government nannies make it illegal for adults to play, adults will simply play illegally. But so will children, since without regulation there are no controls on who a site can allow. And, as we have just seen, there is no recourse when a dishonest site decides to cheat its customers.

I cashed out of Pokerroom long ago after an extended debate with customer service in which they refused to admit a technical problem in the software that cost me a few dollars. The only site I completely trust is Full Tilt, because I know the people who run it and their integrity is beyond question. I suspect PokerStars is also OK but I don’t know them as well.

Until we succeed in turning around the nanny battleship in Washington: caveat emptor.

Kyle and Tyler’s Excellent Adventure

Every young man, on his first trip to Vegas as an adult, has one great misconception about the town. It’s not about gambling. No, people don’t really expect to win. It’s not about getting a bargain. No, people really expect to be ripped off. No, there’s a greater misconception and it's universal among men. What is it? Read on.

My online poker buddy Kyle and his best friend Tyler had been looking forward to their first post-21 trip to Vegas, planned for right after finals, and I made sure I was in town to properly show them the sin in Sin City. Naturally the first stop was the Caesars Palace Seven Stars Lounge and uberbabe Elisabeth. We got there just before closing but she made a mean martini and launched us to the poker room, where we tried in vain to start up a game of HORSE. We played some 3/6 Hold ‘Em into the wee hours.

The boys had booked an economical package including a room at Harrah’s that was virtually free. I decided to pull a few strings and get a penthouse suite at the Palms, which I handed them the keys to. You shouldn’t have to stay at Harrah’s your first night in Vegas. Kyle liked the steam room but Tyler was all over the five-head shower with light show.

As loyal readers know, my favorite Vegas sin is gluttony. I exposed the boys to some fine victuals – Little Buddha and Nove at the Palms, with a brief stop at the Playboy Club, and Vic and Anthony’s and Grotto at the Golden Nugget. At Vic and Anthony’s, one of the best old-school steakhouses in town, we uncorked some fine vino: 1999 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Rosé to start, followed by the 2002 Stag’s Leap Fay Cabernet. I remembered to ask them to leave the butter off the steak and we thoroughly enjoyed the meal. Grotto was unimpressive but they had a nice inexpensive Italian wine list and we were accompanied by an uberhot pokerbabe geek girl we ran into at Caesars who I had previously met at Binion’s.

The next two nights we got a great 4/8 HORSE game going at Caesars. The boys kept asking about going to a strip club but we ended up playing low-stakes poker every night instead. You see, that’s the great misconception about Las Vegas, that it has phenomenal, earth-shattering strip clubs. In reality, the sex industry in Vegas is overpriced and underdelivers. Like many facets of this money-machine town, it’s a sucker game.

But I told the boys to take a detour next time they’re near Tampa.

The Adventures of Captain Penis

Ah, Las Vegas. There were still 400,000 homes without power in greater Seattle but Las Vegas Boulevard had all the neon lights anyone could wish for. I checked into Caesars Palace, spelled with no apostrophe despite the typo on the new street sign on Flamingo, and caught up on world affairs. Iggy posted a link to the longest thread in the history of the Two-Plus-Two poker discussion board, posted by ex-stripper Brandi Hawbaker, a recent debutante on the tournament circuit. Brandi accuses “Captain” Tom Franklin of offering to mentor her in poker, conning her out of $12,000 and:

The next night, he crawled into bed with me naked. His penis on my back, frighten me, and woke me in the middle of the night. I freaked out and spent the rest of the night in the bathroom. I crawled to sleep on the floor and used the towels as blankets. I was traumatized…Every day he started having talks with me at breakfast/lunch.. how he was doing so much for me and that I needed to do something for him. He said at that time that I could not have my money back and that I had to "huggle" with him…When I got to Foxwoods, everything had changed. He had a young 22 year old girl with him, named Amanda. We were all supposed to meet at the airport but his flight was delayed, so we shared a cab. My friend was still with me at the time, and she confronted Amanda. Amanda came out and said that she met him two years ago when she was with her mom and that for two years Tom has promised her a job in his company ~ which was still yet to happen, as Tom does not have a company. She talked about how he makes her skin crawl and that she has turned into an alcoholic and that she dropped out of school and is now taking care of her mom and dad with the little money that Tom is giving her to have sex with him.

You can’t make this stuff up. I hope everyone now sees why I always ask girls if they are strippers first, before it escalates to the huggle.

I played in the Ultimate Poker Challenge $340 event on Sunday, going busto 25th of 95 starters when my Jacks couldn’t hold up against Ace-Jack. Before I busted I witnessed one of the worst plays I’d ever seen. With several limpers, a good player raised in the big blind and got two callers. The flop came King-Nine-Eight rainbow. The good player, with about 10,000 left, bet 2300, about the size of the pot and 25 less than the third player to act had in front of him. The second player, who had about 15,000, called, as did the short stack. The turn was a blank. It checked to the short stack, who put in his last quarter and both called. The river was a Queen. The good player thought a bit and then checked. The second player moved in and the first player folded. The second player showed Seven-Six. The all-in player showed Ten-Seven and won the pot with Ten high. If you’re not sure why that was the worst play ever, you should probably give up poker and try gardening.

A prior UPC event was the last time I chose to engage Captain Tom in conversation. He had tried to skip his big blind by claiming the button hadn’t been moved before the break and, when caught, accused me of being a cheater. So Brandi’s story is far from the first attack on the character of Captain Tom.

Now let us turn to Brandi. An innocent babe taken in by wolves? Probably not. Online pro Mark “Newhizzle” Newhouse posted a long story of his own involving Brandi and how she blew about $30k in one of his online accounts:

the next day when i got up, i tried to get onto stars, and my password was changed, i asked her wtf is going on, and she said she wanted it to be a surprise how much she was up, i was basically like, [censored] that, get me on my account, and she told me she busted it, i obviously got pissed, but she has a way of making me feel so bad for her that i couldnt stay mad for that long(yes, im a [censored] idiot) she called a few people to try to get money back for me, but she couldnt get anything, she told me straight up to keep quiet while she was on the phone with them because the only way that she could get money from guys is if they think that she wants to [censored] them, that pretty much changed my perspective of her, now i realzed that she was a scandalous bitch anyway, she got all depressed and locked herself in the bathroom that nigth, and i heard a glass break while she was in there(she has cuts on her arms from cutting herself, she gets extreamly depressed) i got really worried about her and knocked on the door and asked if everything was ok and if i could come in, she said she was taking a bath and to leave her alone, i shouldnt be listening outside the door, i was in a complete frenzy hoping that she wasnt going to kill herself and my friend called me and told me that mr. foo(90% VPIP full ring and quite possibly the best poker player ever, he was up easily 200k in like 3 days of destroying all the pros) was downstairs, so i went to go play poker and get the [censored] away from the room when i got back up, she was passed out in the bath, using towels as blankets and on the bathroom wall, written in blood, it said, "i will fly one day" so now im freaking out and i wake her up, she had made a pretty deep cut in her leg

But wait! Here’s the best part:

in the car ride back to vegas, brandi told me that she got her ex to put her in a satellite on the condition that she let him [censored] her in the ass, then she said, id rather let you do it, you want to? i pretty much lost all respect for her after she told me that i ended up putting her in a satellite because i felt so bad for her

No, you can’t make this stuff up. Just more role modeling from the only sport you can play while drinking beer.

Heads up

One of my favorite foods growing up was Peking Duck. Last night I took a couple gambling buddies, Benjie and Simon, and my old friend Kevin Hogan to Wynn’s Wing Lei restaurant for the fabulous five-course Peking Duck dinner, washed down with a couple bottles of 2002 Dalla Valle Cabernet. Kevin had to take a redeye home after dinner but Simon and I went over to the Imperial Palace to check out the new heads-up PokerTek table at the release party all the bloggers had been invited to. By the time I got there the room was littered with empty cans and Chardonnay bottles but a few conscious bloggers were playing play-money poker. I grabbed an empty seat at the 10-handed table and played a sit-and-go, which I won using optimal game theory, although Joanne inexplicably beat me in a heads-up match.

The party descended to the Geisha bar where the sober, Argus-eyed Michael Craig wove through the interstices of the swaying assembly and took furious notes for future blackmail use against the besotted bloggers. Iggy held court as usual, the pokerbabes crowding around to be in the presence of his movie-star looks. Mike whipped out a couple of expensive cigars and we enjoyed the last night in the company of the few fellows bitten by not only the poker bug but also the writing one.

Beat the Players

I just finished reading Bob Nersesian’s new book Beat the Players. He is a lawyer who represents gamblers – particularly card counters and other guys who try to beat the house at their own game -- in disputes with casinos. He recently won a huge judgment for two players who were caught peeking at a sloppy dealer’s hole card (completely legal), manhandled, arrested, and jailed. The book is mostly a summary of Nevada gaming law with a few excerpts from cases thrown in. I like to know my rights under the law so I read it with interest.

One thing that jumped out at me was that Nevada, like most places, still does not enforce gambling debts. There is a law requiring the payment of a winning bet, but the common-law doctrine that gambling debts are unenforceable is still in force in Nevada.

I suspect this means that, regardless of the merits of his claim, Crispin Leyser is out of luck trying to collect half of Jamie Gold’s $12 million first prize in the 2006 World Series of Poker.

By the way, what ever happened with that investigation Harrah's was doing into the extra chips I discovered added to the main event?

Bunnies galore

Everybody’s been after me to write a review of the new Playboy Club at the Palms so I’ll do that a bit later in this uber-ish post. First I have to report that the ebonizzle angel who sat with me at the N9ne bar yesterday actually gave me a real Myspace page and a real email addy. She promised to accept me as a friend next time she logged in so those of you who see my life as some kind of irresistible train wreck can browse though my 200+ Myspace friends and try to figure out who she is.

I had been in Vegas two days longer than my original plans called for. The forecast in Seattle was rainy and warmer so I planned to return tomorrow per my revised itinerary. Meanwhile I took advantage of the extra days in Vegas to hang out with one of my favorite people in the poker world, Chad Layne. I wanted to treat him to one of the great restaurants at the Palms but he insisted on taking me to Hank’s at the Green Valley Ranch. Hank’s is a virtual clone of T Bone’s at Red Rock so I was hoping they still had my favorite side dish, pureed cauliflower and horseradish. They did, and Chad and I shared a chateaubriand plus the creamed corn and grilled tomatoes. Chad and I usually do Grey Goose rather than wine but I snuck a glass of the 2002 B.R. Cohn Cabernet with the steak.

Apparently my having written about eating for the last 10 or so years qualifies me as some kind of expert. Real writers are calling me for quotes on fine dining in Vegas. When I started coming here 25 years ago it was all about $1.99 prime rib and all-you-can-eat buffets. Every hotel had the steakhouse, the Italian restaurant, and the Chinese restaurant. The emphasis was on cheap, not gourmet. Today you can hardly find a celebrity chef who doesn't have a place in a Strip resort. In the middle of the desert, the freshest exotic seafood in the world is trucked and flown in daily. The tip for two at Guy Savoy is more than most families of four spend on dinner. It's a paradise for the gourmet and the expense-account owner, but the day of the bargain is gone.

After dinner I played a little online with some of the many uber-hot pokerbabes who comprise my fan club on Full Tilt. They all use the two hottest avatars, the one that looks like Shana Hiatt and the one that looks like David Grey’s wife Taylor. Railbirds, who used to ask who I was, have now seen me on TV more than they care to, so now they ask who are these people I’m playing with. “Uber-hot pokerbabes,” I answered. “What’s that mean?” one of the babes asked. “Uber,” I said. It’s blogger for “very.” A fellow player corrected me: “It’s actually German for ‘super.’” Yeah, if you want to get all technical and shiznit. Babe und Überbabe! While all this idle badinage was going on, uberbabe karenr was beating me out of every pot in a heads-up HORSE, sending me on uber-tilt. I might have blown my whole bankroll $20 at a time but thankfully I couldn’t do a rematch because Jim had arrived to take me up to the Playboy Club high atop the Palms’ new Fantasy Tower.

The Playboy Club, at first glance, is a casino. It is, in fact, the first casino with a cover charge in the history of Nevada. The floor is filled with blackjack tables with booths and bars around the outside, all framed by picture windows framing the spectacular view of Las Vegas. Jim was a member, meaning we could sit at a table without getting uber-expensive bottle service, so we did and ordered drinks as he whipped out a pair of cigars with labels I didn’t recognize. “Pre-Castro Cubans,” he said. Wow. I thought it was pretty cool of him to share these ubercigars with someone he had just met. “How much money are you planning to ask me to lend you?” I asked. Fortunately he got my sense of humor and we had a great time talking about all things Vegas, poker, and online. Service at the table was superb: our server came by frequently to check on our drinks and a hautboy policed the ashtrays and empties, even stopping to replace the box of matches I had taken from across the table.

The one thing you think of when you hear Playboy Club, of course, is the bunny, and oh, there were bunnies galore. Our server sported black ears and a little white cottontail (they are now sewn on rather than velcroed – apparently people were grabbing them and selling them on eBay) and in fact even the blackjack dealers were bunnies. They were all nice looking but frankly the Palms had already done a spectacular job of hiring beautiful girls to serve drinks and none of these bunnies had anything on the earless bartenders downstairs at the Mint, who all had an attractive air of professional competence in addition to their pulchritude. Still, bunnies are bunnies and the experience was more than pleasant even though I neither asked for nor received Myspace addresses.

I insisted on paying for the drinks, given the magnitude of his tobacco magnanimity, and left Jim there to hold court with his next wave of friends. On the way down the elevator there was a guy wearing some kind of caveman outfit with an enormous bejeweled watch and a silver pendant with a script “A.” A girl asked him if the watch was a Breitling. “Yes, it is,” He said casually. “You’re somebody, aren’t you?” she asked. “Who are you?” “Bob,” he said. “Bob? What’s the ‘A’ stand for then?” “Uh…Andy. Bob Andy.” Now Bob Andy could be the world’s biggest TV star and I wouldn’t know it but maybe one of you can recognize the star sighting from my description. And speaking of seeing stars, if there’s anyone left on the Internet who hasn’t seen the photos of Britney Spears getting out of a sports car with no panties: do yourself a favor and don’t look.

Fantasy girls

The final Monday $660 UPC tourney at Binion’s didn’t go so well. The loose aggressive player on my left, Scott Carpenter, instacalled 90% of my opening raises and played back at me every hand. Finally, with Ace-King offsuit, I hit a flop of Ace-Seven-Trey and check-raised him. He had flopped a set of Sevens and I was out early.

That left me free to go back to the Luxor, where I planned to have dinner at the bar at Fusia until I walked past the steakhouse bar and saw three gorgeous creatures dressed in matching denim outfits. I thought they might be performing in the lounge there but it turned out they were Fantasy girls giving out tickets to the new early show on Tuesdays. I bought a bottle of the 2002 Duckhorn Estate Cab and shared it with the girls, then scored VIP tickets for that evening’s show. It’s the best topless show in town, especially when you’ve been partying with Delicia (second from the left) and Tracey (not shown, but the voice on the web site).

With Kirkland reporting 17 and snowy I decided to stay in town a few more days. I moved over to the Palms, largely because I like the gym there (oh yes, I’m a workout dog now). Dinner last night was at the bar at N9ne, one of my favorite places to dine solo. I wasn’t solo for long as a stunning black girl sat down next to me fiddling with her Blackberry and drinking fru-fru girlie drinks. She was waiting for her girlfriend to join her, then they were going to Pure around midnight. She invited me to join them but I’m not really into the club scene so I just asked if she had a web site. She didn’t but she gave me her email and Myspace address. Ha. Fool me once…

Stone Tablet

I played the Ultimate Poker Challenge $340 on Saturday but got cold decked early with KK v. AA. They’re changing the schedule to Fri-Sat-Sun instead of Sat-Sun-Mon and moving the $660 event to Saturday. Both changes seem good to me. My dating counselor Michael Craig took fifth place for $20k+ in the Full Tilt $350k guarantee yesterday – good job! I got back too late to sweat him from dinner at Delmonico with a gambling buddy, his wife, and Carmen (yes, I know she’s hot, no need to post a comment). Delmonico used to be one of my favorite haunts but I rarely stay at the Venetian any more so it had been years. I was happy to see they still had the Foie Gras of the Day. I pointed it out to Carmen and she asked, “What’s Foie Gras of the Day?” I said, “It’s the Foie Gras du jour.” I ordered that and a filet mignon, hold the slab of butter. Both dishes were perfect. We started with a 1999 Veuve Cliquot Rosé Champagne and moved on to the 1997 L’Ermita Priorat, which was drinking spectacularly.

Scott Adams does a serious blog entry every Sunday and yesterday he wrote about free will:

Unfortunately, I can’t convince most people that free will doesn’t exist. I have
tried arguing that the laws of physics clearly apply to brains, and brains cause
your actions. That seems so obvious to me that belaboring it with additional
evidence would be overkill.

Unfortunately it’s not obvious. The laws of physics are models we use to try to understand the way things work, and different models are needed for different corners of the universe. Believing that the laws of physics as we understand them are engraved on a stone tablet is no more scientific than believing in Creationism. One model that works very well for living in society is that by and large people have control of, and are responsible for, their behavior. That is free will. While there may be a deterministic process that produces human behavior given some initial state, unless and until that state can be measured and the resultant behavior predicted, determinism is simply not a useful theory. Given the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it seems unlikely such a precise measurement could ever take place.

More to the point, my beliefs are actually a major source of input to any such deterministic mechanism. That why religions have such a major effect on the world, for good or evil. If you believe people can do anything of value with their lives, evangelizing for determinism doesn’t seem like a good strategy for causing that to happen. If it were me, I’d instead write books illustrating the degree to which we get surreptitiously programmed and how to counteract that and live life to the fullest.

World Poker Tour

If there was anyone who still believed World Poker Tour Enterprises boss Steve Lipscomb when he said the rights-grabbing release players are required to sign was nothing to worry about and simply there to “protect against frivolous lawsuits,” take a look at the new WTPE Academy. In what’s certain to spark a new round of lawsuits, WPTE has decided to sell the footage taken at WPT tournaments, including hole-card information from hands never shown on television, to people who want to learn how to beat the players who signed those “standard” releases. When I first went to the site, I ironically saw a photo of Andy Bloch, one of the players suing WPTE over the release and other issues. Good move, Steve.

I filled out my mail-in ballot yesterday, voting straight Democratic as promised. It was easy to vote for my friend Ross Hunter for State Representative, and Jay Inslee for Congress, one of the few who voted against the Internet gambling ban. I was going to vote for Rodney Tom for State Senator simply because his opponent waged a negative and sneaky campaign including push-polling, but I had to hold my nose to vote for Maria Cantwell over the Libertarian candidate I would normally have picked. This is a time of crisis and the reality is a vote for a third party is a vote for the Republicans.

I achieved the ranking of Jam Master in Chuzzle on SkillJam, meaning I only get matched up against really good players now, making it kind of a bad bet to play for cash. I may have to take up Bejeweled.

Conversations with Bennie

“I am not Bill”
My friend Bennett “Magic Aces” Greenstein called me from his bathtub at Foxwoods this morning to tell me he made the final table of the Omaha Hi/Lo tournament today. “I play in an hour,” he said. “That’s a little short notice for me to get there from Seattle, Bennie,” I said. Nobody calls him Bennie but I get to because his 12-year-old daughter calls me Richie. The whole Bennie/Richie thing goes along with being degenerate gamblers so I kind of like it.

We talked a little final-table strategy, going over the mathematics of deal-making and exploitive game-theoretical concepts for tournament endgames – the kind of banter most degenerate gamblers engage in with frequency -- and then he told me about a conversation he had online the other day with a railbird at Full Tilt. Since Bennett plays a lot of high-stakes Omaha and is very good at it, people always are asking “Who is Magic Aces?” About six months ago I jokingly said it was Bill Gates. There was the round of digital laughter along with the expected oohs and aahs from the gullible but then I promptly forgot about the incident.

Well, Bennett was playing and this railbird got into an argument with another one over whether Magic Aces was actually Bill Gates. “I know he is,” the guy says, “because Richard Brodie told me.” Finally Bennett said no, he’s definitely not Bill Gates. When he finally convinced the guy the railbird was furious. “I’ve been coming home straight from work to watch you every day for the last six months because I thought you were Bill Gates!” The poor guy had even less of a life than he thought he had.

As he was toweling off, Bennett asked me what I thought of one player we had both played a lot of limit Hold ‘Em with online. He made a lot of unusual plays. Bennett said he couldn’t figure out if the guy was using true Level-3 thinking or had simply stumbled onto an expert-system strategy that emulates Level-3 analysis. I said I just thought the guy was a donk.

Taking the Fifth

I took fifth place in UPC yesterday for $2200. I didn't hit many hands at the final table but the show should be entertaining as I attempted my usual strategy of compensating for my lack of poker ability with comic relief. Ted "The Milkman" Melikian and I bantered back and forth until I lost most of my chips calling the big blind's flop jam with AJo on a board of King-Jack-x. I shoved the next hand with Q8o and lost the race to The Milkman, who overjammed with AJ.

The tournaments are a lot of fun and I hope to play more of them. It's not really worth a special trip to Vegas given the small buy-ins but I spend plenty of time there anyway so when I'm in town, I'll play if I'm not busy.

Caesars Palace gave me two bottles of their house label Cabernet. I took them to FedEx to ship them home and was told it was illegal. Now I can't play online poker, ship wine to myself, carry shampoo on an airplane, or smoke cigars in a cigar lounge. Too bad the Soviet Union isn't in business any more or I would consider moving to a more free country.

I'm voting a straight Democratic ticket for the first time ever, not that I think they're good guys, but dog shit smells better than cat shit.

Ultimate Poker Challenge season three

The Ultimate Poker Challenge has moved to Binion's, former site of the World Series of Poker, and I've played in a few events. They are holding $340 tournaments every Saturday and Sunday and $660 tournaments Mondays. I made a final table the first weekend and have just made my second in the $660 event this Monday. The final table will be played Tuesday at 4 p.m. at Binion's so come sweat me if you're around. There should be plenty of seating.

The chips have hit the fan

The extra two million tournament chips discovered toward the end of the 2006 World Series of Poker main event were probably added during the color-up of the 5000-denomination chips with 20 players left, according to two poker journalists.

In a three-part series (1 2 3) on PokerNews, Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli reiterate my proof that chip races could not have caused the overage. Instead, they claim, evidence points to tournament staff overpaying players by two million when buying up the smaller chips at the first break in the penultimate day of the event.

I don't know if that's what happened. What I do know is that the tournament staff knew about the extra chips at the time and they had surveillance cameras pointed at the tables. Surely they watched those tapes to try to discover what happened. Surely they have saved those tapes rather than destroy them after the minimum seven days required by the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Surely.

Folks, we're talking about an error worth almost $2 million to the players who benefited. That is probably the grossest mistake in the history of casino gambling if it was inadvertent, and a hell of a criminal conspiracy if it was not.

I don't know whether Allen Cunningham or other affected players have initiated a formal investigation. What I do know is that this has to be the last year that tournament chips are not treated as the valuable currency they are. Gaming must insist that casinos follow the same procedures with tournament chips that they do with casino chips.

Or maybe the solution is this...

ESPN and Chuzzle

ESPN just showed a very nice feature about me during the 2006 WSOP Main Event Day 2 broadcast. They had been collecting footage of me for three years and pretty much got tired of waiting for me to make a final table so they just showed it anyway. It's pretty entertaining. See if you can pick out my Phill Hellmuth imitation.

Meanwhile, I'm back in East Ber Washington State, where all forms of gambling are legal except online poker, which is a felony. So instead of 50/100 Hold 'Em I'm playing $1 Chuzzle tournaments on SkillJam, a site marketed by Microsoft through their MSN Games division. Chuzzle is just one of many games of skill and chance offered at SkillJam, which through the wonders of the Internet, we are able to place wagers on. Why is this legal but poker illegal? Beats me. By accepting wagers on the outcome of a contest, Microsoft would seem to be in violation of the Wire Act of 1961, so I'm not too worried about them coming after me.

Paul, we'll miss you.

In my first year on the circuit there was a smiling, white-haired young man carrying a hand-held camera taking shots of me every time I went deep in a World Poker Tour event. I got to know Paul Hannum, head cameraman for WPT, and whenever we would meet he would say he thought this might be my tournament. I never did make a WPT final table but it was nice that he believed in me.

Paul suffered an untimely death recently, leaving his fiancee and unborn child. While his passing saddens me and all who knew him, his family is in need of support. Gavin Smith has put together a benefit tournament at the Bike on Aug. 29th at 7 p.m. The buy-in is $1000 and all proceeds go to Paul's fiancee and their unborn baby girl due in October. RSVP to Kristin@pokerpadz.com

Some tough questions for Harrah’s

Business as usual?
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the degree to which many in the poker community consider the 2.2 million extra chips found at the WSOP main event “business as usual.” Cheating has been around since before poker and apparently many have learned to live with it, the skillful making money in spite of it and the losers losing anyway. There’s the possibility the chips were added through incompetence rather than dishonesty, and there’s still a tiny chance the reports of the final chip total are simply wrong. I wasn’t there.

But notwithstanding all this, there are some tough questions for Harrah’s, questions which ought to be asked by the Nevada Gaming Control Board:

• Harrah’s decided to use the same chips in the main event as they used in previous tournaments, including super satellites. Were the chips counted at the conclusion of each event? If not, why not? If so, how many chips were missing after each event?
  
• If they did discover missing chips, was there any effort to use the video surveillance to catch the cheaters?
  
• Were there official chip counts done at any point in the main event? If not, why not? If so, what was the result? What was the discrepancy between each official count?
  
• Were the same precautions taken to guard and log the movements of the house bank of tournament chip as are taken with casino chips of similar value? If not, why not?
  
• How many dead stacks were blinded off through errors during day one? What is the list of names of people who were allowed to play on a different day but had stacks being blinded off on another day? Why were so many errors possible?
  
• Were there stacks being blinded off for players who had been given refunds? If so, why?
  

The current explanation by a Harrah’s spokesman, that the extra chips were a result of rounding up during chip races, has been proved impossible both by me and by Jerrod Ankenman, co-author (with two-bracelet winner Bill Chen) of the forthcoming book The Mathematics of Poker. I don’t know if a complaint has yet been lodged by any of the final 27 players, who seem to be the most hurt by the cheating or incompetence. The chip counts reported by poker journalists are full of errors but it seems to me that most of the chips were added during the play from 27 players to the final nine. That should all be on videotape.

I’m looking forward to some answers and, more importantly, to some major reforms in the integrity of these large tournaments.

Busto

With the blinds at 800/1600/200, 7800 players already eliminated and 100 to go before cashing, I picked up pocket Queens in the small blind against an early-position raise to 3500 by the table chip leader, the most active player at the table. I thought about how best to play them and decided to bet 10,000 of my 40,000 chips. He immediately moved in. I got a strong read that he had Ace-King and, after due consideration, I called. He turned over Ace-King and the Ace on the river sent me packing.

It is ludicrous to hold a tournament where you can bust out in the eighth day and go home empty handed. In fact, it's ludicrous to support a tournament where the sponsoring corporation takes $5.6 million out of the prize pool despite making tens of millions on rights and advertising. The online sites should get together and cut Harrah's out of the picture entirely. All they own is the trademark "World Series of Poker" and as far as I can tell they add very little value to the tournaments. Call it something else, have actual intelligent players design the structures and formats, and add money to the prize pool rather than subtract.

Back home to Seattle then maybe I'll go somewhere where online poker isn't a felony.

Bill Chen wins challenge match

I got a call from Bill about 10 minutes to noon. Obviously having second thoughts, he claimed he was hungry and wanted something to eat before our scheduled heads-up Hold 'Em match. I offered to meet him at the Rio buffet, where we had a trash-talking contest before he finally got up the nerve to proceed with the match. We went up to his room, ostensibly to get his plastic chip set, but really so he could try to intimidate me by showing the the two bracelets he had won this year. "If I wear a bracelet will it intimidate you?" Bill asked. "If you wear a bracelet you will look like a big teddy bear wearing a bracelet," I said, "Yeah, people always tell me that," he said, and stuffed the diamond-encrusted bling back into the safe.

We held the match in my Palazzo suite, a sprawling testament to my bad luck in the casino here complete with private parking, butler service, wet bar, satellite radio, two suites of bathrooms plus a powder room, and two terraces overlooking the pool, one with its own hot tub. We spread a bath towel over one end of the 16-foot dining-room table. I supplied the deck of cards from the gift basket I had won when I had busted first in the WPT Invitational at Commerce Casino. "Which seat will you be least comfortable in," he asked me." "You choose," I said. He picked the seat with the back to the wall and we began.

Matt Maroon had offered to deal, forgetting that he usually sleeps till four, so I left a message for him to call when he woke up and we dealt for ourselves. I won a few small pots right away but then Bill started catching hands that dominated me at every turn. After an hour I was down to the felt and lost an uneventful all-in hand. I handed over the $100 I had wagered against his $200 and he immediately called all his friends to brag about his triumph.

He offered me a chance to get it back by playing even money for a game of my choosing. I picked Omaha hi/lo and we played for about 90 minutes when Matt Maroon finally showed up. We decided it was really boring and cashed out with me being ahead $15.

I asked the champ how bad I played. "I probably wouldn't make the same bet with you again," said Bill. Vindication!

 

2006 WSOP Main Event end of day 2 update

I finished day 2 with 57,800 chips, up 44,050 from the start of the day. Obviously I'm pleased although I'm still below average. Blinds will be 800/1600 with a 200 ante so I'm still far from desperate when we start day 3 on Friday. The only player I recognize at my new table is Jeff Lisandro, who has a ton of chips.

I get the next two days off. Tomorrow at noon I accepted a challenge from Bill Chen to play heads-up limit hold 'em in a freezeout for 50 big blinds with him laying two-to-one odds. Matt Maroon, who is a golden god with over 200k chips in the main event, will deal.

2006 WSOP main event Day 2 dinner break update

I steadily chipped up from 13,750 to a high of 87K before losing several small pots to get down to 43,500k. We're playing down to 500 people today (first half of day 2) from the 769 remaining of 1637 starters. They will repeat this process tomorrow for the second half of the field, going to Friday with about 1000 players left from the starting 8778.

I'm up 30k on the day and now have almost an average stack and over 40 times the big blind so I'm pretty happy overall with the day so far. We resume at 8:30 pm Pacific and you can follow the progress live at www.cardplayer.com

 

The main event: on to day 2

I finished a very frustrating day 1 of the WSOP main event with 13,750 chips, up from my starting stack of 10,000. I reached a high of 21,600 but then started a roller-coaster ride that brought me down to 5500 before regaining momentum. I play day 2 on Tuesday so I have a few days off to relax in Vegas. We already redrew for tables and the only known player at my new table is Tony Ma across the table from me. Almost 2/3 of the field will have been eliminated by the time we start on Tuesday.

My buddy Matt Maroon has 80k already but my other two Matts (Matros and Hawrilenko, the latter at my starting table) are out. I also eliminated another Matt (Keikoan).

The game is afoot, ladies and gentlemen.

Eighty Percent

Eighty Percent

WSOP $1500 Limit Hold ‘Em

I made it through 80% of the field in the $1500 Limit Hold ‘Em event yesterday. I stacked up to 9200 before losing several pots in a row. I had a very enjoyable table with lots of banter. I had been busting the chops of Adam Wallace, a nice Edmonton native wearing a New Jersey Devils hockey jersey to complement my Full Tilt one with “Quiet Lion” #5 on the back, when he raised on the button and I defended with Ace-Five of Clubs. The flop came Ace-King-Queen and he called my checkraise. The turn came Ten of Clubs and I check-called. I missed my flush and paid off his straight on the river. He showed Jack-Nine offsuit. I don’t particularly love his call of the checkraise on the flop but oh well. Then I raised in middle position with Ace-Nine of Diamonds and Jim Feldhouse, with whom I had also been bantering and recognized as a smart guy even before Jerrod Ankenman sauntered up to him and started chatting, defended his blind. The flop came Queen-Queen-Ten with two Diamonds and he check-called. The turn was an offsuit Nine so I checked behind him for the free flush draw, suspecting he might be slow-playing trips. The river was a blank and I made a questionable call of the river bet with Ace hi. He showed King-Jack for a straight. Then Adam raised in the hijack and I three-bet on the button with King-Queen offsuit. He four-bet and I put the rest of my chips in. He showed Ace-Queen. The board came all low cards and I was out of the contest in 125^th place out of 701.

I unwound at the sushi bar at Little Buddha with a Palms roll and some Rombauer Chardonnay, then returned to the suite to watch Phil Hellmuth not win his 10^th bracelet via the live Internet coverage at CardPlayer.com.

 

2006 WSOP Update

Sick beats
Today is the seven-card stud tournament, which I’m not playing, so it’s a good time for me to post an update on my progress at the WSOP 2006. I had forgotten what a great party this is, and it’s even better this year. Full Tilt expanded their hospitality suite and many of the other sites have opened suites nearby. Harrah’s addressed three of the major issues from last year, adding restrooms, banning smoking in the hallways (although a few self-centered jerks are ignoring the rule), and improving the food near the tournament area. Lines are short, there is valet parking by the poker area, and in general everyone is having a blast. It’s not quite poker heaven yet but it’s the best we’ve got. The major remaining issue is the tournament chairs. They are back-breakers.

I cashed 24th out of 824 in the six-handed No-Limit Hold ‘Em event after taking a sick beat when I called Gavin Griffin’s reraise all in with Ace-King of Diamonds. He flipped over Ace-King of Clubs. The flop came a Diamond and two Clubs and he rivered a Club in a 140,000-chip pot to leave me with only 800 chips. I was all in for the big blind, which Gavin raised, and hit one of my rags to get back up to 3300. I put the rest of those in, reluctantly, in a three-way pot with Gavin and Freddy Deeb with Ace-Four offsuit but I made a Full House to get up to 11,000. I won a round of blinds and antes but then lost a coinflip with Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles, Ace-Queen suited v. his Jacks, and was back down to 3500. He raised my big blind on the next hand and I had to call with the Octocrab – Eight-Trey offsuit – and was ecstatic to see his Ace-Nine suited. I turned an Eight to pull ahead but he rivered a Nine and the Lion was slain. On the way, though, I knocked out Todd Brunson, Dustin “Neverwin” Woolf, and many others. Deep is fun.

Unforgiven
As usual tournament staff is not nearly as careful with our money as casinos are with their own. At the start of day two, they could not find the bagged chips of one of the players at another table, so a decision was made to bring in over 100,000 in new chips from the cage and introduce them to the tournament. It will take me a while to enumerate everything that is terribly wrong with that decision. In the first place, the chip counts were never verified – they simply had each player count, bag, and seal his own chips. If that count was off, and the player somehow caused his bag to disappear, not only could he potentially wind up with extra chips, but he would also have a bag full of tournament chips he could sneak into another event! But the kicker was that the chips were on the table all the time, at an empty seat, being blinded off for an hour before being discovered! This level of incompetence is unforgivable in my eyes, and should result in termination of the staffer involved.

These guys need to understand that these chips represent real money to us. Can you imagine if a player was playing blackjack and returned from the restroom to find 100,000 in chips missing? Would they just bring him another 100,000 from the cage? Of course not! It’s their money! They would bring a dozen security guards, review the tapes, find out who took the chips, and send someone to jail. In a house-banked card game they change out the decks every four to eight hours, mutilate the used decks, and if a marked card is found there is an investigation. In a poker tournament if a marked card is found they grudgingly bring in one card to replace it and grumble at the extra work I’m making for them. The decks are never changed. It would cost about a dollar per player to buy new cards for every tournament, but I guess along with the $10 off the buffet they are giving back that would be prohibitively expensive. The casino is taking 6-9% out of the prize pool for each event, along with making tens of millions in advertising and TV rights.

Other events
I didn’t get to day two in any other events. Rafe “Tiltboy” Furst, formerly notable for being the first one out in a previous Main Event, busted me early in the pot-limit Hold ‘Em event and went on to win it for Full Tilt. Nicely done, Rafe! One of Full Tilt’s newest pros but oldest players, Mark “Pokerbok” Vos, took a bracelet in another event. The betting line on Full Tilt bracelets was 2.5 and we’ve already got two. If I win the big one that will tip the score.

In yesterday’s $5000 No-Limit Hold ‘Em I treaded water through about half the field, getting moved to a table with Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Richard Tatalovich, and Chip Jett to my left. I got my chips in with pocket Aces against Chip’s under-the-gun limp and a limp behind by the guy to his left. Chip called me with Ace-Queen but made a sick flush and knocked me out yet again.

I played in two limit Hold ‘Em events. Both were filled with überdonks but, alas, in limit you need to hit your hand and my pocket Sevens that flopped a set were no match for Six-Trey of Spades played for three bets on the small blind. He flopped a flush and I’m not lion when I tell you I was out of the contest. Tomorrow is another $1500 limit event.

With everyone playing poker it’s tough to coordinate my usual fine-dining outings but Matt Maroon and I had a couple nice meals including the sommelier’s tasting menu at Alex, which I was sad to hear is being discontinued. SW steakhouse remains one of the best in town, and Okada, where I dined with Michael Craig and an old gambling buddy who prefers to remain anonymous, remains one of the top Japanese restaurants anywhere. They had the 2003 Darioush Cabernet Sauvignon in and while not as lush as the 2002, it was delightful.

I'm deep

With 39 players out of 800+ left in the $2500 WSOP Six-Handed No-Limit Hold 'Em event, I've got 30,800 chips, somewhat below average but still in fine shape with the excellent blind structure of the event. I have a tough table with Mike "The Mouth" Matusow two to my left, Russ "Dutch" Boyd with a mountain of chips two to my right, and the other three all good players. There is no table redraw so it's the same crew tomorrow. We resume at 2 p.m. Stop by the Rio, cheer me on, and get some free broccoli at the Full Tilt suite.

Hi Mom Hi Def

Vegas Open

I flew down to Vegas to play in the ambitiously named National Poker League Vegas Open, held at Caesars Palace in their beautiful new poker room. I was fortunate to make the final table in event No. 2, which will be broadcast in high definition on the INHD channel in July. While there I returned to my old stomping ground, the Golden Nugget, now under new management which might mean Andy “The Rock” Bloch is allowed to eat at the buffet again. The new owners, Landry’s, opened an instance of their premier class of restaurant there, Vic and Anthony’s, an old-school steakhouse in a city already rife with them. I ate there several times and enjoyed both the food and service. As for the wine, apparently an entire shipment of Darioush 2002 to Vegas got cooked en route. After three bottles at two different restaurants I gave up.

The Full Tilt crew filmed a loop of my usual self-promoting hyperbole that I think is going to come out very well. If you’re at the Rio for the World Series, stop by the Full Tilt hospitality suite and watch it, along with loops of all the other Full Tilt pros. Last year they had free broccoli too.

Speaking of the World Series, I was in a bit of a quandary because I accidentally won a seat on another site without realizing they would want me to wear enemy gear. They kindly cashed me out, understanding the conflict, but it took a couple months to get through to the decision maker and that left me with very little time to win a seat on Full Tilt. Fortunately I played in the 720-player freeroll last night – freerolls are the only type of poker I can play in Kirkland, “East Berlin” Wash., without being considered a felon – and won one of 20 seats. Super satellites are such an odd form of poker since it is correct for everyone to gang up against the short stacks. The two big stacks were moving in on every hand rather than letting the short stacks gamble and knock themselves out, but it was good for me as a middle stack. I mucked pocket Queens on the big blind en route to victory. That qualified me for the Full Tilt $10 million bonus for winning the big one.

I’m writing this on the plane back to Vegas, planning to spend most of July in town for the World Series. I will play most of the televised events and limit Hold ‘Em events and spend some time looking at condos although I’m not exactly sure whether or where I’ll move. I’ll likely stay in a State without an income tax but I might get a second home and split up my time. Since I can’t play poker for money at home, I’ve been playing the cash “skill games” offered by MSN. For the life of me I can’t discern any qualitative difference between playing a Bespelled tournament for money and a poker tournament – both involve about the same mix of luck and skill -- but I think it unlikely that the Washington attorney general will arrest Bill Gates for felony gambling.

I’ll be hanging around the Full Tilt hospitality suite much of the time so come by and say hi to me and the other Full Tilt pros.

 

 

Washington State Criminalizes Poker

Land of the free?

Thirty years ago, when I was 16, I realized that in 30 years, when my generation was running things, they would open up all the jails and let out the pot smokers, since we all knew it was safer than either tobacco or alcohol and simply evil to lock people up who hadn’t harmed anyone except perhaps themselves. Today, 80% of Americans are against imprisoning pot smokers and yet we still have more people in prison than the Soviet Union did under Stalin. Apparently 30 years wasn’t enough.

Meanwhile, while all poker players’ eyes are on Washington’s annual failed effort to ban Internet gambling, the other Washington, my home State, quietly passed a law banning Internet gambling and specifically including poker. While they were at it, they made it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

ARE THEY INSANE?

Poker is legal in Washington State. We have always had card rooms and now we have big Indian megacasinos. Yet under the pretext that unregulated gambling is a social evil, they have made it a felony to play online poker in the privacy of your own home. Mind you, this bill was passed unanimously in the State Senate and almost that in the House.

What are they thinking?

I am seriously concerned about the future of this country. Why is the government so preoccupied with legislating morality? Do they really believe they can do good? When has it ever worked in history? Or have every single one of them been bought off by Indian gaming hoping to stifle competition?

It’s been a bad week.

 

Washoe Washout: 2006 Reno World Poker Challenge

Time enough for elk

Despite the fact that the main event of the World Poker Challenge was being broadcast by the Shana-less, rights-hungry World Poker Tour, I decided to return to the place where I had busted Phil Ivey two years ago and take a shot. I arrived the evening before in time to enjoy an order of elk at the Reno Hilton Steakhouse with Gary Lent, Al Adler, Peter "Nordberg" Feldman, and a friend of Gary's named Alex. We went through three nice bottles of red: The 2001 Phelps Insignia, which was eminently drinkable, the 2001 Dominus, which had too much merlot in it for my taste, and the 2002 Duckhorn Estate Cabernet, full-bodied and chewy. Alex put forward the following poker puzzle:

You're playing a pot with me heads up in Texas Hold 'Em. The turn card has been dealt and you currently have the best hand. However, no matter what card comes on the river, you can't win. What are the two hands and what is on the board?

Chipping up

The event started at the stroke of noon but about half the 592 starters straggled in late. I drew table 39, seat eight, and picked up a few small pots four-handed before the rest of the table arrived. On my left was Andy Pham, a young player from Sacramento, CA, who had already cashed in three events in the series here. Across the table in seat three was Aidiliy "Lily" Elviro, also known as Ms. Grinder, who finished 27^th in this event last year.

I won and lost a few pots and was just below even at 9725 by the end of level one. In level two nothing worked and I was down to 7650. The structure was excellent, though, and I wasn't worried. With the blinds 50/100 I called a middle-position raise in the small blind with King-Queen of Clubs and Andy Pham called behind me in the big blind. The flop came King-Six-Five with one Club, giving me top pair. With the stacks still very deep I wanted to play a small pot out of position so I checked. Andy bet half the pot, the original raiser folded, and I called. The turn was the Deuce of Clubs, giving me a flush draw to go with my top pair. So much for a small pot; I check-raised Andy all in. He called with Six-Five for middle two pair, giving me 17 outs to outdraw him. The Jack of Clubs came on the river and I doubled through to 17,100 for the last hand of level three.

I reached a high point of 21,725 then was down to 19,300 when they broke the table. I moved to the next table to break, 38, seat seven, briefly. "Minneapolis" Jim Meehan was on my left in seat eight but I didn't play a hand before the dinner break.

I had exactly 20,000 when they broke the table and moved me to 31, seat one. This was a much tougher table with John "JJ" Juanda in seat four and Phil Ivey in seat 10. I didn't bust Phil this time but I can't be good luck for him as he got taken out by Dan "The Piano Man" Slan ("Sklansky minus the k-sky," he explained) in seat six. I ran a squeeze play in the small blind when the short stack in the cutoff moved in for a little more than the opening raise by the player to his right. I reraised with King-Jack offsuit to isolate the short stack and give myself almost two-to-one pot odds. It worked but the short stack turned over Ace-King, making me dominated. I hit my Jack though and knocked him out, chipping up to 22,300. I got all the way up to 27,200 then slipped to 25,975 when they broke the table.

Now I was at table nine, seat eight, and figured to spend the rest of the day here. Matt Lefkowitz was two to my right in seat six; Dan Heimiller between us in seat seven, and Eric Mizrachi, Grinder's very non-identical twin, in seat 10. I had 26,775 at the end of level five. We had two more levels to play. Hasan Habib came into Matt's seat when he busted. Hasan is a sweet guy and a very intense poker player and every time he won a pot I wanted to pump my fists in the air and shout, "Hasan Habib!" I played a few small pots and reached a high of 33,725 before ending the day with 31,600, just below average for the 181 players left.

Ugly , ugly Ten

Tournament director Jimmy Sommerfield always assigned seats by chip count rather than randomly to distribute the large and short stacks evenly. I got table six, seat five. The only one I recognized was Renee Wexler in seat seven. I went card dead and dribbled down to 18,800 before I raised two off the button with pocket Nines and got a call from the big blind in seat nine. The flop came Trey-Trey-Four with two Clubs. He checked and I immediately moved all in for a little more than the pot. Astonishingly, he called and turned over Seven-Five offsuit! He didn't hit his four outs and I was up to 38,900. The nice lady on my right, who hadn't played a hand, moved in on the small blind and I called with Ace-King. She showed Ace-Jack and busted, bringing me to 51,600. She was replaced by John Juanda, who smooth called an early-position raise on the button. I had Ace-King on the small blind and reraised. The original raiser folded and JJ moved in. I called and he turned over Ace-King as well. "You were supposed to have King-Jack again," he said. The board came with four Spades and two Queens and we chopped, but the original raiser moaned he folded Ace-Queen with the Ace of Spades.

I was up to 70,000 just from stealing and re-stealing when Gavin "Birdguts" Smith came into seat nine with a short stack. JJ's aggressive play had him up and down and when it folded to him on the button he moved in with his fairly short stack. I moved in on the small blind with Ace-King. JJ showed Ace-Nine, and I once again busted my friend, putting me up to 92,100. Then Carlos Mortensen took JJ's place. I let him bluff off some chips to me and reached a high of 105,500 when Freddy Deeb came into seat eight. Freddy was raising almost every pot so this really changed the complexion of the table. I gave a clinic in folding and was down to 92,900 at the end of level 10. Once again I went card dead and played very little until they broke the table with 54 players left and me with 87,300 in chips.

I moved to table three, seat five. Carlos was now across the table in seat one but the rest of the players at the table were unknown to me. There was a lot of action and I continued to get bad starting hands. I was down to 65,000 at the dinner break with 39 players left. Only 36 got paid, an unusually small percentage.

When we got back from dinner I survived by stealing and we were down to the bubble with 37 players left. Gavin Smith kept going all in and surviving at the next table. I had 57,000 when Carlos made it 11,000 to go on my small blind. A very cautious player on my right smooth called on the button and I saw King-Queen suited. Normally I would jam here, hoping the dead money in the pot and the folding equity would make up for possibly being dominated when called, but I was worried about the button and decided to pass. It turned out he had Jack-Ten, Carlos had pocket Nines, and the flop came Queen high. I felt sick, but the very next time Carlos raised he smooth called with Ace-King, so I had the right thought if the timing was a bit off.

Finally, down to 47,500, it folded to me in the small blind and with 9500 already in the pot I jammed with King-Five offsuit. I got a call from the big blind with pocket Nines. The board came Eight-Seven-Six, giving both of us straight draws. Then my King came on the turn. "Dooze!" I shouted, but the poker gods had had enough of me and the ugly, ugly Ten came on the river, making me the bubble boy amidst the celebration of 36 players.

I didn't win the Ultimate Poker Challenge Player of the Year. John Phan won and deserved the honor.

I'll be passing on Foxwoods and the WPT Championship but there's a good chance I'll play a bunch of the WSOP Circuit tournaments at Caesars Palace in May. Come say hi!

 

Vote early and often

I have been nominated for Ultimate Poker Challenge Player of the Year, and you can vote for me at their web site. I'm not sure what I win but it can't be bad. I haven't even seen three of the four episodes I'm in because the Seattle affiliate dropped the show for season two. Maybe if I win they'll send me a set of DVDs.

I have also been nominated to serve on the World Poker Tour player advisory committee. I did not ask to be nominated and there may well be five candidates more qualified than I but if you are voting and think I would do a good job, I will serve if elected. They should already have sent you an email if you're a voter.

Wish me luck in the Full Tilt $1000 WSOP Main Event Super Satellite tonight.

Mike May Thank Me

If you're on the lookout for good poker blogs, check out Mike May's. His latest post about poker and strippers had me laughing out loud.

Don't get burned

Virtual deck

Do online poker rooms use burn cards? Every few weeks someone asks me this. In a live poker game, before each round of cards after the first is dealt, the card on top of the deck is "burned" – discarded. They do this in order to reduce the ability of cheaters to recognize a marked card on top of the deck and gain an unfair advantage. Since the top card is not used, there's much less (but still some) value in knowing what it is.

In online poker rooms that particular form of cheating is impossible, since there are no actual cards to mark, which raises the question: do online poker rooms still burn a virtual card before they deal, and if not, does it change the odds?

The short answer is: it doesn't matter and no.

Since there is no actual deck of cards, burning a card is almost meaningless. If the order of the cards is random, it doesn't matter if you take 23 cards off the top of the deck, the bottom, or the middle. A proper virtual shuffling algorithm will make the order of the cards completely unpredictable to a player.

People sometimes argue that no computer shuffle is random; they like to use the term "pseudo-random" as if there were some truly random process in the universe better than what the computer uses. In reality, today's most trusted card rooms, such as Full Tilt, use hardware random-number generators based on such factors as thermal noise and timing of user input, ensuring the unpredictability of the deal. It's safe to say that the cards on Full Tilt are dealt more randomly than in any live poker room, where frequently a trained eye can track the approximate location of at least one card through the perfunctory three riffles and a strip commonly used.

But suppose we are playing Texas Hold 'Em at a full nine-handed table. Eighteen cards are dealt, there is a round of betting, and three more cards come on the flop. In a live card room there would be 30 cards left in the deck because one was burned prior to the flop, but online there are 31 cards left. Doesn't this change the odds of, say, making a flush draw?

No it doesn't. What matters when computing odds is the ratio of unknown cards that help you to unknown cards that don't. You could burn five, 10, or 25 cards before dealing the turn and river and it wouldn't change anything. The fact is you don't know which cards are coming and it doesn't matter whether the cards that aren't coming are burned, at the bottom of the deck, in other people's hands, or down the paper shredder. Conversely, if you were to see one of the cards you needed in another player's hand, that would change your odds, regardless of whether or not cards were burned.

The math of Hold 'Em is pretty easy. With a flush draw, open-ended straight draw, or set, you're about a two-to-one dog to improve with two cards to come and about a four-to-one dog with one. Make sure you've got the right odds to play your hand and you won't get burned.

 

It's my party

There's no feeling in poker like getting deep in a big tournament. Today I outlasted all but two players in a field of 3141 to take down the third-place prize of $46,486.80 in the $215 buy-in $500,000 guaranteed tournament on PartyPoker. I played the $60,000 guaranteed on Full Tilt at the same time and as usual was the last "red pro" standing but finished out of the money in that record 457-person field.

The buggy PartyPoker started the tournament without bothering to open my table. When I finally figured out how to open it I saw I had pocket Aces on the button and had to quickly decide how much to bet. I made a big raise and took down the pot, but I saw Aces many more times en route to the final table. I won almost all my coinflips, my steals worked, my Ace-Kings held up, I cracked Aces (played donkily by the aggressive player to my left who, after coming over the top of my steals six or seven times, just smooth called for almost half his stack when I raised with Deuces. I flopped a Deuce and busted him.), my Aces weren't cracked, and all in all it was flowing and grooving until we got down to three-handed.

(It was below freezing in Seattle and I had set up on the kitchen table, which was right by a lot of windows that were radiating cold and I was freezing. I made some tea and Trader Joe's chicken chili verde (man, that stuff is good) in between hands to warm myself up as my wife Heather was out on assignment.)

It was down to me, an unknown and seemingly inexperienced player on my left, and WSOP bracelet winner Gavin Griffin on my right. I was bullying the short-stacked Gavin mercilessly when he called my Ten-Seven offsuit button raise and then led out on a King-Ten-x board. The lead-out often indicates a tenuous holding and I decided I had the best hand and moved in. He called with King-Ten for top two pair and I was drawing dead to runners. That gave him almost as many chips as me. Then I called a small raise of his on the big blind with Ace-Four of Spades. The flop came Queen high with two Spades. he bet out and I jammed with my flush draw and overcards. Once again he had a monster, Ace-Queen, and I missed my flush and was short stacked. I jammed on the small blind with Queen high and got called by a King, which held up.

The $46k was my biggest tournament win to date, online or otherwise. My buddies Matt Maroon, Matt Matros, and Chris Fargis sweated me -- thanks guys!

Despite the nice prize, I much prefer playing on Full Tilt. The Party software is inexplicably buggy even after all these years. They just released a new version and they still haven't fixed the problem that causes players to sometimes pay the big blind twice in a row or to skip it because players come or go from the table. To their credit, they caught a cheater playing multiple accounts last week and disqualified him from the $140k first prize, moving everyone else up a spot. They also seized $40k he had in his other account. This kind of scrutiny and punishment is essential to keep the integrity of online poker.

I've been happily skipping the big live tournaments in places I don't like to go and looking forward to the circuit returning to Vegas. Rumors are that the WPT will change its release to make it more reasonable and I'll be happy to be playing in some of those events again. I'm told I'm due.

Gutshot Interview with Richard "Quiet Lion" Brodie

The Gutshot Poker Collective has published an interview with me on their web site, complete with a couple of nice photos.

Memo on Online Poker

Who needs a book?

I was thinking of writing a book on how to play online no-limit Hold 'Em but one of the other players said a memo would do:

 

• Play good starting hands in position
• Bet your hand
• Never bluff

 

That's it! Now go out and win!

 

King of Vegas and High-Stakes Poker

Mouth to Mouth

Being as I'm not playing the WPT and I decided not to endure the trip to Tunica, Miss., for next week's WSOP Circuit event, readers are prodding me to post something, anything, so they don’t fall out of the habit of reading my blog. Well, I've mostly been playing online at Full Tilt. Cash games aren't as sexy as tournaments but they aren't as streaky either.

 

The other night I watched the first episode of King of Vegas. Now this is a real gambling show. They've taken Survivor and transplanted it to the floor of Bally's Las Vegas. Each week, through a series of four mini-tournaments, they eliminate one player until they're down to the one, indisputable champion: the King of Vegas. And it's not just poker. The first week they started with Blackjack and moved on to Roulette and Caribbean Stud before finishing with TV's favorite son, No Limit Texas Hold 'Em.

 

They selected a nice variety of players: the telegenic (professional poker players Evelyn Ng and David Williams), the boisterous (Mike "The Mouth" Matusow and the equally mouthy "Hollywood" Dave Stann), the accomplished (Sports bettor Wayne Allyn Root and World Series of Blackjack champion Ken Einiger, and the hopeful (most of the rest of the field).

 

I liked the format and the banter, with Mike the Mouth rightly confident of his Hold 'Em advantage and Hollywood Dave verbalizing his calculations and watching as his supposedly optimal strategy got no love from Lady Luck's cold embrace. Poker is by far the hardest of the games to play and it is fitting that the final test of who gets voted off the island is the dreaded "Hold 'Em heads-up death match."

 

All the players used different strategies, most of them sub-optimal, but I liked Mike's theory. He didn't mind gambling it up in the table games because if he lost, he was confident of his big advantage in short-handed Texas Hold 'Em. Speaking of which, I didn't quite understand the rules of the poker round. For some reason, after one player got eliminated from the table, the player who did the eliminating seemed to get a free pass and left the table. That could lead to some odd situations in multi-way pots if that is indeed the rule. I'll be looking forward to the rest of the shows.

 

Bricks

Also debuting this week was the Game Show Network's High-Stakes Poker. Daniel Negreanu ran over the table in the first episode of the series, which features actual high-stakes cash-game players tossing around actual money. Daniel had two "bricks" of $50,000 each that he dramatically tossed in a couple of times, pushing around notables such as Barry "Spock" Greenstein, Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson, and Ted "Teddy Bear" Forrest. I was waiting for someone to bust out as the colorful Sammy Farha, runner-up to Chris Moneymaker in the 2003 WSOP, was waiting for a seat.

 

The show was fascinating because the texture of a cash game can be very different from a tournament. Winning players exploit weaknesses in their opponents and Daniel made no bones about tossing around the bricks if he felt anyone was playing with scared money. I look forward to this becoming my favorite poker show.

 

WPT on the Decline?

The Tunica World Poker Tour event started with a mere 327 players, not only less than last year's 512 but also below the previous year's 367! This was despite there being two major tournaments back to back instead of just the usual one. Is the World Poker Tour on the decline? We'll keep a close watch on future events.

What's up with the World Poker Tour?

What's up with the World Poker Tour?

Please release me

Astute readers will notice I haven't played in the recent World Poker Tour events. I thought I'd fill in some background on what's going on. The bottom line is I no longer think it's a good deal.

I first got into poker when I saw my friend Andy Bloch on season one of the World Poker Tour. It looked like fun, like something I could learn to do well, and a hobby that would make, not consume, money. I taught myself to play, leaned on my smart friends for coaching and tips, and jumped into the shark-infested waters. I've had only moderate success, but no less than could be expected with someone of average or slightly above-average skill. Regardless of how good you are, you have to get lucky to win these things.

The Fox Sports Network decided to join the fray, as did the Ultimate Poker Challenge on WGN and syndicated stations, making for many more opportunities to play televised poker. The unlikely Game Show Network threw in their gauntlet. Suddenly it wasn't imperative to fly to Paris to play poker. There were plenty of events in friendly Las Vegas.

When Harrah's jumped into the picture, adding money to the WSOP Circuit tournaments in the form of a freeroll and allowing players to wear sponsor's logos, their ESPN contract immediately jumped them ahead of WPT in almost every respect. World Poker Tour married itself to the marginal Travel Channel, meaning even if you could get it on your cable TV, it wasn't being aired in bars almost 24 hours a day. Sponsor logos were allowed, meaning regular players could get paid extra for appearing on TV. The WPT was making itself less and less attractive. I won't even mention losing Shana Hiatt.

To counter the perception of the WPT giving nothing back, they created the Professional Poker Tour, a series of freerolls where small logos were allowed. We all loved this, but they have been unable to sell the first five shows and have postponed indefinitely plans for a second season. With the PPT out of the picture, WPT finally relented and allowed small, pre-approved logos at the final table. Financially, this was not very significant to the players as the WPT events are very large and therefore the chance of making a final table is very small.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me, as well as Andy, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, and some others, was the WPT's release form. From the beginning Andy, a lawyer, had complained that it was overly broad. But discussions with Steve Lipscomb, creator of WPT, and other personnel assured me that it was simply a standard release allowing them to air and promote the program. I signed it many times based on that assurance. Then WPT decided to put a banner up on their online poker room with the likenesses of three poker pros without either their permission or compensation. It was quickly removed when they complained, but Lipscomb, in a letter to players, asserted it was removed "not because we were legally obligated to, but because the players asked us to." That was way out of line with the assurances Lipscomb had given me in private. Apparently he believed signing the release allowed him to legally use our names and likenesses for any purpose whatsoever, but in his great benevolence he offered to take our feelings into consideration when making his decision.

He goes on to say in the letter that since we have signed the release in the past, signing it again would have no effect. Legal advisors have told me this is untrue, especially since they have now changed the language in the release, and Lipscomb, an attorney, should know better. Lipscomb's claim that it is a "standard release" is simply untrue. Compare it to the ESPN release for the World Series. Andy Bloch has written a clear article about it.

And so I'm not playing in the World Poker Tour until things change. It's not a boycott. I don't think they'll miss me. It just doesn't seem like a good deal.

But Ultimate Poker Challenge season three—look out!

Announcing cashback and comps for Full Tilt players

Special deal

One of things I have wanted to do for some time is give my readers a special deal at my favorite online poker room, Full Tilt Poker. After working for several months on a deal with one of the top affiliate managers in the business, I am excited to announce a great program for new accounts on Full Tilt. If you have previously signed up through my link, you can also get in on this. Here's the program:

• 25% rakeback (25% of Full Tilt's revenue from you rebated back)
• Special contests and freerolls with cool prizes
• Ongoing comps and incentives for regular play
• Personal host to help with questions and problems

If you do not yet have an account on Full Tilt, go to www.ultimatepals.com/liontales to sign up and receive your comps and rakeback. You must sign up through this link in order to get the comps and rakeback. If you sign up some other way there is nothing I can do about it.

If you have previously signed up through my link you can still join this program. E-mail David at admin@ultimatepals.com and he will get you set up. David will be your personal host. You can email him or send him instant messages (BluffingDavid on AIM or Yahoo).

I realize many of you play at several different card rooms, which is one reason I went with these folks. They have similar deals at other sites all managed from the same place and through the same host. You can sign up with any or all of the sites through www.ultimatepals.com/liontales and get a great deal. In all cases, you must not previously have had an account with the site.

Go to the WSOP on me!

As the first step in the comp/incentive program on Full Tilt, anyone who signs up through my link and who accumulates 90,000 Full Tilt Points by June 1 will get a comp to the first event of the 2006 WSOP. This is in addition to your 25% rakeback and you get to keep the 90,000 points, enough to buy three custom sports jerseys and more! These points need to come from raked games or tournaments. Once you have you reached the 90k threshold we will award you the package (package value is $1800).

I am very excited about this and I hope you all will be as well.

Email admin@ultimatepals.com with any questions and tell them Quiet Lion sent you.

Again, to get this deal you must sign up through this link: www.ultimatepals.com/liontales

Shootout at the Palms: 2005 Global Poker Challenge

 

Toto and the Lion

The field for the first Global Poker Challenge, a shootout-style no-limit Hold 'Em tournament with a cute but financially meaningless USA-versus-the-world theme, was 110, mostly top pros. In a shootout, you have to win your starting table to advance to the next round. I didn't mind this format as it would involve a lot of important pre-flop decisions, which leveled the playing field somewhat between the more experienced players and me. The buy-in was $5000 with no juice except the 3% in lieu of tips, and I got table 14, seat one.  As expected it was a tough lineup: I wasn't happy to see Layne "Back to Back" Flack, one of the top no-limit players in the world, on my left in seat three. Another excellent player, Toto Leonidas, had seat four. Seat five was occupied by 2005 WSOP final-tablist Tex Barch. Seat six had a pretty young Asian girl who seemed to be friends with the notorious Tony G. Seat seven had one of my nemeses, David Singer; and seat eight was an English pro I'd played with before but whose name I'd forgot. Seat two was empty, giving us a nice luck-of-the-draw advantage: I only had to beat six people, not seven, to advance.

 

We started with 10,000 in chips and I quickly chipped up to 14,300 by snapping off Layne and David when they tried to bluff me. The blinds went up fairly quickly and I won several coinflips with short stacks, bringing me up to 24,000 by the time we had eliminated everyone but Toto, Tex, and me. I got cold-decked three-handed when Tex and I got it all in with my pocket Tens v. his Queens but then pulled a miracle. I flopped a set but the board was Jack-Ten-Nine of Spades, giving him a Straight Flush draw! My set held up and Tex was down to the felt with 3500 chips left. He announced he was going all in on the next three hands. He did, on the button, and I found pocket Aces on the small blind. I just called, hoping Toto would make an isolation raise, which he did, 7000 more. I elected to reraise all in, hoping he had a middle pair and call me, but he folded what was probably a weak Ace. I busted Tex and had a 2.5-1 lead over Toto with 48,500. It was down to Toto and the Lion.

 

Knowing Toto was a great player, I wasn't going to make the mistake I did against Bill Edler at the UPC, underestimating his thought process and giving him too much credit for a hand. I would see flops with my positional advantage and move in when I was first to act, which I did with several decent hands before he called my pocket Fives with his Ace-King. Inexplicably, Presto didn't hold up and now we were close to even in chips. I still had him covered, though, and when he came over the top of my Jack-Five offsuit on a flop of Six-Five-Four with two Hearts, I moved in, thinking I had the best hand and putting him on a draw. He did indeed have a draw, but it was a huge one: he called with Ace-Eight of Hearts, giving him 18 outs twice. The turn was the Six of Hearts, making his Flush but giving me four outs to fill up. It was not to be and I was down to the felt. I got it all in with Queen-Ten of Diamonds versus his King-Jack offsuit and lost the race, finishing on the bubble.

 

It was nice to make a run at it but painful to get so close and miss. My friends Andy "The Rock" Bloch and Chad Layne, among others, were sweating me but Presto let me down and I once again didn't get the luck where I needed it.

 

Shortstack and I had a nice dinner at Tableau, the private restaurant at Wynn for Towers guests. I'm continually impressed by the seemingly endless parade of excellent restaurants in Las Vegas. We had the 2002 Beaux Freres Pinot Noir, which was unexpectedly effervescent on opening although it settled down nicely after a half-hour.

 

Lion in the woods: The Inaugural Professional Poker Tour event at Foxwoods

Patience

The Professional Poker Tour, a series of five $500,000 freerolls for top poker pros, was launching its first event just prior to the Foxwoods WPT tournament so I booked a nonstop on Alaska Airlines to Boston, rented a Hertz car with Neverlost, and set the controls for the heart of the Sun—Mohegan Sun. I had booked a room at Mohegan Sun, a somewhat nicer hotel and casino than Foxwoods, deciding the ten-minute commute through scenic New England countryside was worth it. I got a Sky Suite overlooking the Thames River, imported at great expense from England. All the rooms at both hotels had complimentary high-speed Internet access so I plugged in my Airport Express and got wireless throughout the suite. I drove over to Foxwoods to check out the action over there and then headed back to Mohegan to get a good night's sleep before the tournament.

We started with 134 players out of the 200 or so who qualified, many of the pros still in Monte Carlo for the event there. I drew table four, seat four, and as expected it was a rogue's gallery of scary opponents. Tony Cousineau has seat one; James Hoeppner seat two; Mirage WPT champ Eli Elezra seat three; the highly respected Lee Watkinson seat six; long-time pro Mickey Appleton seat seven; WPT commentator and long-time pro Mike Sexton seat eight; and WPT finalist Mohammed Ibraham seat nine. The seat to my left started empty, giving me a slight advantage as the vacant chip stack got blinded off.

Foxwoods had ordered special playing cards for the tournament series but unfortunately someone lost sight of one of the important qualities of playing cards: you shouldn't be able to tell which card it is by looking at the back. These decks had large areas of solid red and black on the backs and the black especially got scuffed and marked almost instantaneously. When "Minneapolis" Jim Meehan moved into the seat to my left about an hour into the event, he ordered a shot and a beer and said, "On the first hand I saw the Ace of Hearts and the King of Diamonds. They're both marked on the back and I've memorized them. On the next hand I got the Ace of Diamonds and that one's marked too. Pretty soon I'll have the whole deck memorized. Now I don't care if you want to keep playing with them but I just thought you should know." We asked for a new deck. Meanwhile I got nothing and was down to 9625 at the first break and 7225 at the second break.

Mohammed got knocked out and was replaced briefly by Chip Jett, who also busted and was replaced by Chau Giang. Tony C busted as well but the chips weren't going to me as I continued getting a rare decent starting hand and no action on it when I did. Finally with the blinds 150/300 and a 50 ante, Minneapolis Jim, well into his fourth shot-and-beer at this table, opened under the gun for a tiny raise to 625. Eli called on the small blind and I called on the big with Ten-Seven of Clubs. The flop came Eight-Six-Four with two Clubs, giving me a monster draw. I decided to check-raise Minneapolis all in but he pre-empted me by moving in himself. Eli thought a long time then folded. I called immediately and was happy when Jim turned over Pocket Kings because I didn't want to see Ace-King of Clubs. I hit my Nine on the river and Jim went into a drunken tirade about how I could be happy he had Kings. A couple others at the table tried to tell him I was actually a favorite with my 15 outs but I knew he knew that and it was all an act. Jim was an attorney, had a mind for math, and figured to gain an advantage by pretending to be a drunken idiot. Not that he wasn't drunk, but he wasn't an idiot. I was back up to 9550, almost my starting stack. Erik "Rounders" Seidel took Tony C's seat one and I bullied him a little, going to the next break with 10,450. I was playing against the top players in the world and I was up 450!

Immediately after the break they broke our table and I moved to table eight, seat nine. Karina Jett, Chip's wife, had seat one; Hoyt Corkins seat two; Minh Nguyen seat four; the very feared John "JJ" Juanda seat five; Kenna James seat six; Lee Watkinson seat seven; and Farzad Bonyadi seat eight on my right. Farzad had raised the 300/600 blinds to 1800 in early position and I saw pocket Aces. I decided to take a chance and slow-play them, hoping one of the aggressive players such as Juanda would reraise, so I just called. Minh called on the button and the flop came Eight-Five-Trey rainbow, a pretty safe flop for me unless Minh had made a set. Farzad bet out 4500. I decided to put my remaining few chips in so I made it 7325. Minh reluctantly folded and Farzad very reluctantly called the few more chips with pocket Nines. Minh said he also had Nines so Farzad was dead to a runner-runner Straight, which didn't come—in fact I made a runner-runner wheel I didn't need—and my patience paid off as I was up to 18,000.

Two hands later they moved me to balance tables and sent me over to the featured table; however, the camera crew had gone home so no TV time for me tonight. I was in seat eight. Robert Turner was in seat nine; Chris Bigler seat one; Josh Arieh seat three; Joe Cassidy seat four; Brian Haveson seat five; 2002 WSOP Champ Robert Varkonyi seat six; and Hoyt Corkins seat seven. On the first hand I limped early with pocket Fours and Robert on my left moved all in. I decided he had a big pair and mucked. He showed Aces. I had 15,625 at the break.

With the camera crew gone they moved us en bloc to a more comfortable table. Kathy "Pokerkat:" Liebert took the empty seat two; Barry Shulman took seat four after Joe Cassidy busted; and when Robert Turner went broke on my left he was replaced by Marsha Waggoner. I went card dead again and got cut off on my steal attempts, getting down to 6600 when I reraised the bullying Josh Arieh all in with Ace-Eight of Diamonds, figuring to gamble with slightly the best of it as I knew he would call. He did and showed Jack-Four of Diamonds, making me almost a two-to-one favorite. The flush came and I was up to 18,000. Kathy Liebert busted and my nemesis Can Kim Hua came into Brian's seat five when he went broke. At the end of the day there were only 39 left out of the starting 134. I had 13,400, a profit to be sure but somewhat short-stacked against the average of 34,360. I would be coming out firing tomorrow.

Teddy Bear, Lion, and Dorothy

We had redrawn for seats last night. I drew table five, seat four. Jennifer Harman had seat one; Eli Elezra seat two; former WSOP champ Brad Dougherty seat three; Dewey Tomko seat five; Card Player publisher Barry Shulman seat six; John Phan seat eight; and Randy Holland seat nine. The very first hand, John Phan, with a big stack, raised my big blind and the short-stacked Brad Dougherty moved all in for more than I had. I looked down and saw Ace-Queen offsuit. With all the money in the pot I decided to call and try to triple or quadruple up; as long as nobody had Aces or Ace-King I was in OK shape. John mucked and Brad turned over the same hand as me. We chopped the pot and I was up to 18,000. John Phan lost a couple big pots and was out. Then I raised with Ace-Jack under the gun. Dewey moved all in for not much more and I called after it folded around to me. He had pocket Eights but my Ace flopped and Dewey was out. Robert Varkonyi came into the empty seat seven and Barry "Spock" Greenstein took seat eight. Barry moved in on my big blind and, having played with him in this situation before, when I saw Ace-Seven of Clubs I figured I was about even money and with the blinds and antes in the pot I called. He turned over King-Queen offsuit and somehow my brain froze because I thought I needed a pair to win the hand. I kept shouting, "Ace," and when none came, I patted the table but Barry was getting up and I realized I had won the hand. I apologized and saw Jennifer giving me a Mona Lisa smile. I said, "I don't know how I can be so smart and then be a complete space cadet in a situation like that." She said, "You're a poker player." The space cadet-poker player was now up to 41,000.

Eli was having trouble pronouncing Brad Dougherty's name and kept calling him "Dorothy." Finally I asked if he was needling him or really couldn't pronounce his name. Eli said he really thought that was how it was pronounced. I turned to Brad and said, "If you're not lucky, that nickname will stick."

I took a small pot from Varkonyi and with 48,000 chips I was now above average for the first time since the tournament started. Then Jennifer, short stacked, moved in on my big blind from the cutoff. I had Queen-Jack offsuit and decided three-to-two pot odds were good enough to call with the range of hands she might have. She had Ace-King, which wasn't too bad for me, making me a two-to-one dog, and the flop came Ace-Queen-Jack, putting me ahead. But she turned a Ten for the Straight and an unneeded Ace came on the river and I had doubled up a dangerous player. I had 33,800 at the break.

Phi Nguyen came in to seat five and they decided to move us en bloc to the featured table. That meant hanging out with Kay Han, the Shana Hiatt of the PPT. Kay was extremely friendly and personable and a good choice for someone whose job it was to interview players who've just lost their shot at half a million bucks. They miked us up, told us how to use the hole-card cameras and we were underway. Barry Shulman, who was down to the felt, was second to act when he moved in for less than three times the big blind. Since it wasn't much more to call, I did, with Seven-Five offsuit. Barry had King-Eight but I made a pair and he was out of the contest. Ted "Teddy Bear" Forrest took his seat and Dan Heimiller took seat eight. They moved Brad "Dorothy" to balance the tables and I was down to 23,600 at the break.

I had only 20,800 when with 18 players left we redrew for seats. I got the non-featured table, seat five, with Teddy Bear in seat one, Thor Hansen in seat two, Casey Kastle in seat three, John "JJ" Juanda in seat four, Dan Heimiller in seat six, Brad Dougherty in seat seven, "Action" Dan Harrington in seat eight, and Jennifer Harman in seat nine. I was down to 18,200 when we colored up the black chips. They moved Dan Heimiller to the featured table for balancing. I won some blinds and antes and by the dinner break I was up to 28,000.

I had dinner in the very mediocre buffet with Hoyt, Shawn "West Texas Man" Rice, Aaron "Iowa" Loew, and a couple others. It killed me to pay $13.99 for it. Your best bet for having dinner at Foxwoods was to drive to Mohegan Sun.

When we got back I was looking for opportunities to come over the top of Ted Forrest, playing his big stack aggressively as he should. I called one raise on the big blind and moved in when I got a piece of the flop. He folded and that brought me up to 46,000. You didn't have to win too many pots at this level to get chips. Then, with 38,000, Casey Kastle made it 8000 to go. I called with King-Queen offsuit on the button, hoping to see a flop with position on him, but Action Dan moved all in on the big blind. Casey took a few minutes and then folded. I started talking to Dan, trying to get a read on him, but then I said, "There's no way I'm ever going to get a tell from you, is there?" I figured it was equally likely he was making a move or he had a big hand. I was in big trouble against Aces or Kings and not too happy with Ace-King or Queens. Finally I decided that since I was getting no callers when I was moving in that I would wait for a better spot and I folded.

I was down to 22,000 when Teddy Bear raised my small blind and I saw Ace-Jack. I figured I had him beat and pushed in, but Dorothy moved in right behind me. Ted took a little time and then folded and Brad turned over pocket Tens. With my overcards I had a 43% chance of winning the pot, which now had 62,000 in it, but alas, my cards didn't come and I had to surrender to Dorothy. I was out of the contest in 12^th place, my best finish ever in a televised event but only the top six got paid.

Immediately after I busted out, Ron Rose noticed that with the cheap paper cards Foxwoods was using players could see the reflections of the card faces in the illuminated Plexiglas around the rim of the featured table. The crew spent two hours sanding it down before they continued but I just went back to the Mohegan and crashed. The main event was in two days.

Aruuuuba: The 2003 Ultimate Poker Classic

Poker flight

The only sensible itinerary from Seattle to Aruba was an early-morning flight on Continental connecting in Houston so we asked the UltimateBet travel agency to book us that flight, which they happily did. Since we were returning from a hastily planned trip to Vegas the night before, we decided to book a room at SeaTac Airport. We spent an unremarkable four hours at the Red Lion Seattle Airport before catching the shuttle they shared with MasterPark to the terminal, really in walking distance just across the street.

The prize package I had won didn’t include First Class travel but fortunately our elite status in Continental’s program got us vaunted on both segments. We checked in at the blue carpet, breezed through security, lounged in the Presidents Club for 15 minutes and then headed to the gate. Continental had implemented a new “elite access” program that included a special boarding line so no matter at what point in the boarding process we arrived at the gate we could cut in front of the have-nots. We settled into seats 6A and B in the 757-200 and declined the offered headphones in favor of our matched set of Boses. We pushed back eight minutes early for the uneventful flight. Breakfast was a fruit plate with a choice of eggs and Canadian bacon or Special K. They were out of the cereal by the time they reached us but we both preferred the protein breakfast anyway, although Shortstack didn’t have to say “Canadian” bacon because she’s from Canada. The movie was It Runs in the Family with Kirk Douglas and son Michael, an entertaining if a bit jumbled close-to-home story for the elder Douglas about a stroke victim’s relationship with his family. We declined the hot cookie and landed early in Houston.

We had about an hour until our next flight so we visited the much larger North Presidents Club at IAH. There was no high-speed Internet but I checked email and surfed around a bit at low speed while Shortstack brought me a complimentary Diet Coke. When it came time, we strolled back to gate C-18 where we found many familiar faces and a couple of people wearing UltimateBet logo apparel. I smelled money and looked over to see a pile of ones at the elbow of Howard “Bub” (The Professor) Lederer sitting with wife Suzie, busily playing gin with some men I assumed were part of the Vegas contingent and connecting to the same flight we were to Aruba. “Looks like you’re cleaning up, Howard,” I said to the man who had busted my pocket Jacks with his Big Slick last time we had played together. “I’m cleaning up on ones,” he retorted. “I’m glad you’re getting something,” I said to the two-time World Poker Tour winner. “You’ve had a hell of a time.”

Shortstack and I boarded first and settled into 3E and F. I had Howard’s sister’s book, Poker Face, out to finish on the flight but I left it on the armrest as I watched the contestants parade past me. Annie Duke had brought her entire family, a younger member of which eagerly informed me that mommy’s sister wrote the book I was reading. Then Layne Flack came by. I recognized him but he didn’t recognize me until I told him I was Quiet Lion, who had eliminated him in the PartyPoker Sunday tourney a week earlier. “I hate you Quiet Lion” he had chatted on line. I had told him I’d see him in Aruba but made good on it a bit earlier. Two empty seats in First Class remained and Shortstack laid me 8-to-5 that they were for Howard and Suzie. Sure enough, forced to give up the gin game when final boarding was called they filled up 2A and C and soon we were off.

The 737-700 waited in Houston ramp traffic awhile but when we took off the captain still estimated a half-hour-early arrival. I studied Poker Face for any last-minute clues to beating Howard. The same movie we had just seen was on board instead of the one they were supposed to show so they showed it again. Shortstack watched it, having slept through part of the first showing, but ended up sleeping through the same part again. I read. Lunch was a choice of steak sandwich or chicken salad. I had the former and Shortstack the latter. Both were light on meat but tasty and came with a thin chowder served piping hot with oyster crackers. Dessert was a wafer of Ghirardelli chocolate plus a hot chocolate-chip cookie later in the flight. We landed a half-hour early in Aruba.

The UltimateBet prize package included a week at the Holiday Inn but they offered a Hyatt upgrade for extra money. I paid the extra but it turned they were talking about the Hyatt Regency Aruba and not Shana Hiatt. Our Diamond status with Hyatt got us upgraded to the Regency Club level, otherwise known as the top floor, where we had a standard room with a partial ocean view. We hastily unpacked and went down to the beach to attend the welcome party. There were some scary deep-fried snacks there but we decided to get some real dinner and strolled along the beach to Azzurro, the Italian restaurant where the final table of the big tournament is held. We eyed the verandah and tried to imagine how it would look set up for the big showdown Saturday. After dinner Howard and I watched the Red Sox even up the American League Championship Series 2-2.

Cinderella Story

There was a Limit Hold ‘Em warm-up tournament Tuesday afternoon so I entered it and didn’t get put at Phil Hellmuth, Jr.’s table for the first time. I did, however get to sit with Card Player columnist Jeff Shulman and last year’s UltimateBet Poker Classic champion Juha Helppi. Juha had taped a hilarious commercial for UltimateBet that ran on World Poker Tour in which they keep referring to him as the “Cinderella story” as he nods and looks tough. At the end he turns and says, in his thick Finnish accent, “Who is this Cinderella anyway?”

There was no Cinderella story for me, though, and I was eliminated in time to watch most of Game 5 of the ALCS. Shulman took most of my chips, beating my Ace-King with an Ace-Ten that paired on the flop, and my final gasp was an Ace-Six suited that didn’t catch and lost to pocket Kings. The Yankees beat the Red Sox to take a 3-2 lead in the series.

We had dinner with Howard and Andy at the very nice Italian restaurant across the street, Hostaria da Vittorio.

Double me, Jesus

Wednesday morning I was scheduled to play in the final table of an Omaha 8 or Better free roll. I had a short stack but caught some hands early to build it up to par before losing it back to a sleepy player whose on-line name was Teddybear. I came in fifth for a whopping $140 prize, deposited to my on-line account.

In the afternoon was another warm-up tourney, this one No-Limit Hold ‘Em. I started at a pretty tough table with two players with World Series of Poker championship bracelets and superstar Men “The Master” Nguyen to my left. I outlasted Men and held my own when Chris “Jesus” Ferguson sat down three seats to my left. I had met Chris before and he was just as kind and friendly during a game as he had been then despite his intimidating black clothes and hat and long hair and beard. I could see why they started up this whole religion around him. He had been on TV slicing bananas with playing cards so I made him promise not to throw any at me but he wouldn’t promise not to beat me. I lost two big hands with Ace-King and my stack dwindled to practically nothing as the blinds grew. With 525 in chips left and seeing the 100-200 blinds coming my way I saw a pair of Eights and pushed all in under the gun. “Double me Jesus!” I yelled. “Why me?” said Chris. Unfortunately the woman two seats to my left had pocket Queens and I was out of the contest. The Red Sox came from behind to send the series into a final deciding game.

We had a delicious dinner with Andy, Annie Duke, and several of the guys with the best looking wives and girlfriends at El Gaucho, a downtown steak-and-seafood restaurant. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but the tiramisu cake was superbly done with frozen filling so Shortstack and I split just one piece although Shortstack claimed having two bites did not constitute “splitting.” We took a cab back to the Holiday Inn and discovered I had drawn the 8 a.m. session for the big tourney tomorrow so we headed back to the Hyatt after a brief hi to Erik Seidel. I had my work cut out for me: world champion Tom McEvoy was to be at my table. I looked for Phil Hellmuth, Jr.’s name but it was nowhere to be found. I guessed he’d wander in just before the start of the afternoon session and sign up. That was good, I thought, because it would give me a big advantage against him on Friday when he would be working on very little sleep.

Over the top

We got a wake-up call for 7 a.m. and as a backup I set Lionfish to play Al Hirt’s “Java” at the same time, actually 4 a.m. by Lionfish’s clock, which I keep on Pacific Time. I walked over to the Holiday Inn and signed in. The tourney started on time and to my delight I didn’t recognize anyone at the table although there were three empty seats when we started. After only a few minutes, however, two of them filled in: with Phil Ivey, who made it to three World Poker Tour final tables in the inaugural season, and none other than Howard “Bub” (The Professor) Lederer. The third seat remained empty and Jack McClelland finally took away the blinded-off stack and a player sat down there. I saw Phil Hellmuth, Jr., at another table. “At least that streak has been broken,” I thought. With those two at the table I decided to practice my folding skills for a few hours.

It was a while before we lost anyone but eventually the player to my right busted. With 225 players in the morning flight, I can’t explain how I knew but I said it for all to hear: “It’s going to be Phil Hellmuth, Jr.” Sure enough, Jack broke his table and sent him on over to add to my misery. With him raising every other pot and Phil Ivey calling every other raise I was afraid to play anything but Pocket Rockets and when I did, no one called me. The blinds went up and my stack went down. Meanwhile Barry Shulman, Jeff’s dad and publisher of Card Player, sat down at the table as did Gus, the Costa Rican champion from yesterday. Finally, with three minutes to go and the blinds at 300/600, I was on the button and it folded around to Phil Hellmuth, Jr., on my right, who made a standard raise of 1800. I looked at my cards and saw Ace-Ten. I had 6400 chips left and it was costing almost 2000 to play each round so I figured I might not have a better chance. I thought there was a good chance he had Ace-rag, two paints, or a small pair and an even better chance he would not call so I shoved all in. The blinds folded and Phil deliberated for a bit before calling. We flipped over our cards and I saw Nine-Nine, one of the better hands he might have had but only a 13-to-10 favorite over my two overcards so I still had a decent chance. When the flop came up empty I was ready to call it a day but a Ten came on the turn and I doubled up against Phil.

“Unbelievable!” said Phil. “Why do they think they can do this to me? Come over the top with Ace-Ten? Why? Why?”

“Phil,” I said, “you magnificent bastard! I read your book!”

The clock ticked off and I finished with 15,575 chips, over a 50% increase from my start. Phil Hellmuth, Jr., finished with around 14,000 and Howard, playing tight through his drought of cards, had only 8,000 or so. Phil Ivey had accumulated a nice stack with his high-pressure tactics paying off. They bagged and tagged all the chips in preparation for the resumption of play tomorrow morning at ten, at which time, thankfully, we would all redraw for new tables.

We had a passable midafternoon meal at Tony Roma’s across the street from the Holiday Inn with the Canadians. I used the Hyatt business center’s DSL line to download 647 spam messages at 40 cents/minute and then headed down to the outdoor bar, which was reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s in Cocktail, with Howard and Phil Ivey and his wife to watch the Red Sox blow yet another season.

Big Slick

There were about 225 people left out of 435 and I was right about in the middle. I found myself third-shortest stack at a table with three of the top ten chip leaders and nobody I recognized. I was very happy about this. The blinds were 500/1000 with a 100 ante and I had 17,200. The button had barely gone around the table once when the kid on my right pushed his meager 1500 all in. I peeked at my cards and saw Ace-King offsuit so I raised it another 6000 hoping everyone else would fold. But it was not to be: the player to my left reraised it to 15,000 — almost all my chips. No guts, no glory, I thought, and I pushed all in. He called and flipped over pocket Cowboys. The original raiser showed Ace-Jack of hearts. That meant only two Aces left in the deck and they didn’t appear so I was out of the contest, finishing about 180^th, much better than in Atlantic City but out of the money even though they paid out an astounding 100 places.

Shortstack and I went for a walk up and down the beach, watched the chameleons scurry, and had a little lunch before I played in the consolation tournament at 3 p.m. I played like a moron though and busted out early. Jeff Shulman told me he never plays in consolation tournaments for that very reason. He also told me I should have laid down Big Slick to the reraise. I wish I had, but who knew he had Kings? Well, there it is. Jeff’s dad Barry Shulman, who I had eliminated in Atlantic City, was still in it with a big pile of chips but Howard, Annie, and finally Andy were out. Andy made a $600 profit on his $4100 buy-in.

We changed our return flight to tomorrow and had a nice dinner with Andy, Howard, and Suzie at Gasparito’s, a nice Aruban-cuisine restaurant. A guitarist approached our table and explained politely that he was an independent businessman before he proceeded to play “Girl form Ipanema.” I readied a generous tip but he played a second song, and when that was over segued into “Stairway to Heaven.” Despite my pointing to the sign on the wall he played the whole thing sans vocals except for a plaintive “make me wonder” now and again. We broke into polite applause and delivered a pair of generous tips.

After dinner we returned to the tourney room to watch the field whittle down to the final six who would be on TV. T.J. Cloutier, the Canadian football player turned poker pro, had a huge chip lead but lost it with three quick bad beats and was gone. When it got down to 10, David “Devilfish” Ulliott, who had appeared last season on WPT, was in as was our two friends Barry Shulman and Erick “E-Dog” Lindgren, who had been with me at Phil Hellmuth, Jr.’s table in Atlantic City and had made the final table in Paris this season, which hadn’t yet aired. Both had a nice pile of chips and with seven players left it was finally Devilfish who pushed his short stack all-in with Jack-Seven and got called by Jack-Deuce. Devilfish was a huge favorite to double up or at least push but a Deuce hit on the flop and it was all over. Barry and E-Dog had made the final table.

Goodbyes

Shortstack and I headed over to Azzurro to watch the start of the final table before we had to leave for our flight and ran into Vince Van Patten on the walkway beneath. I resisted the temptation to say, “Vince! What happened? I had Big Slick and I lost! I thought you said it was a monster hand!” Instead, we walked up the wooden stairs and watched the crew set up. One of the contestants had been wearing his lucky Red Sox cap but the no-logos policy of the WPT meant he had to take it off. He demurred and eventually ended up wearing the cap with a patch of duct tape over the B.

Soon Shana Hiatt arrived, bright and bubbly, and said to no one in particular, “This is my favorite location.” I smiled like an idiot. She walked over to an area that had been cordoned off for interviews and put on her microphone. She seemed to be having difficulty attaching the clip to her bikini top so I started over to help but Shortstack threw a body block on me and by the time I came to my senses she was done. We watched them film a little “B reel,” asking to audience members to feign reactions so they could splice them into the show. We wished Barry and E-Dog good luck and watched what we could for a few minutes until it was time to head back to the hotel and pack. We took one step down the stairs but I said to Shortstack, “Is it OK if I just say goodbye to Shana?” She sighed. “Go ahead.” I trotted over to the barricade and saw her sitting and watching the monitor. “Shana!” I said, waving. She looked up and smiled as she pretended to recognize me. “Oh hi!” she said. “I’m out early again,” I said, “but—I’ll see you in Connecticut!” “OK!” she said and smiled and waved goodbye. I wasn’t sure but I thought there might have been a little something going on there. Shortstack grabbed my ear and led me off to the hotel in pain.

A 20-minute cab ride got us to the airport and 45 minutes later, having passed through five different checkpoints, we were at the gate. We were once again vaunted on both segments so the flight would be a comfortable if lengthy one. Our connection in Houston had two different flight numbers and two different crews but it was the same airplane, a 737-700. They showed It Runs in the Family for the third time so we watched our own DVDs on our laptops. I watched Rounders for the first time since I started playing poker and it made a lot more sense. I made a mental note to have some of Teddy KGB’s dialogue handy for future WPT events. We skipped Legally Blonde II since we planned to see it on the second segment but they showed Agent Cody Banks instead. Shortstack and I napped on and off and we landed in Seattle a half-hour early after the long flight. We got Lioncar out of hock and drove home in the cool Seattle night.