Interesting new feature on PokerStars
Date: Wed, Jul 9, 2008
PokerStars made me download an update to its software yesterday (at least I think it was yesterday). Today something popped up that I've never seen before, on this or any other site. Click on the screen-shot above to see. I had to type in the word shown in order to continue playing. This is apparently part of their campaign to foil bots playing on the site.
I'm not too worried about bots, because everything I've read about them from sources I deem reliable indicates that they're fairly easy to beat. But that is obviously likely to change as artificial intelligence gets more sophisticated. So I'm pleased to see that PS is taking creative steps to try to stay ahead of the bot writers.
The miserable git
Date: Tue, Jul 8, 2008
The guy at the Palms last night--the interrogator I just wrote about a short time ago--was one of the ten or so most unpleasant people I've ever had sitting next to me at a poker table. From the time he arrived until the time he left, about 90% of what he uttered was complaining. He complained at least 15 times that the drink service was too slow. He complained about being card dead. He complained about all of his bad beats. He complained about how badly the WSOP Main Event was going for him. He complained about his hotel room. He complained about the dealers. He complained about how other people were playing. He complained about the frequent straddles (about half the table employed them at every opportunity). When he won a hand, he complained that the pot hadn't been big enough.
These were all directed specifically at me--every time, he would turn and look directly at me while making these comments. (I think the woman to his right got spared because her English wasn't very good.) He didn't know how to take hints, because I gave him no encouragement, no feedback. I didn't turn to look at him, didn't respond, didn't change facial expression. I completely ignored him, pretended I couldn't even hear him, and yet that did nothing to slow him down. It was an astonishing solo performance, really.
I cannot count how many times I wanted to turn to him and say, "Look, mister, if you are really this miserable with your life, then please either go take a Prozac or jump off the top of the Stratosphere and end it all. Just stop inflicting your complaints on me, OK?"
But I didn't.
I can't figure out why people are like this. Do they really think that other random strangers are interested in all of their gripes about the world? Do they really have nothing positive or entertaining or informative or interesting to talk about?
-------------------
I hesitated before posting this, because I can just imagine the reaction of some readers. "Hey, dude--you call yourself the Poker Grump, spend hours every week writing up what you have to complain about. Hell, you've done almost 700 blog posts, most of which are complaining about something or other. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You're the last one with a right to criticize somebody else for issuing a stream of complaints!"
So let me prophylactically address that objection now, rather than wait until the comments along those lines roll in.
First, yeah, the basic schtick here is writing about the things that irk me in the poker world. But I think and hope that it's perfectly obvious at every turn that I love the game to my core. Even after two years of making it my nearly daily grind, I still enjoy sitting down to play, every single time. I still look forward to it, to the point that when I've finally finished other chores and it's time to head out to the casinos, I literally think to myself, "All right--it's poker time!" When other obligations keep me from playing for a few days, I feel as if I were going without food. It's because I am endlessly pleased and intrigued and rewarded by this game that it bothers me when things about it aren't right. I trust that that sentiment shines through every time I file a gripe about something that should be better than it is. There was no hint of such an overriding sense of pleasure and enjoyment of poker from the guy last night to balance out his constant litany of grumbling.
Second, I don't inflict my complaints on anybody. You have to go out of your way to find them. You don't have to plug your ears to avoid hearing me whine, you just have to not point your browser to this page. People come here, I assume, because they find something amusing and/or interesting and/or informative about what I have to say. That is worlds apart from droning on into the ear of an involuntary audience who just happened to get stuck next to you at a poker table.
So if you had thoughts about complaining that I'm being a complainer who is complaining about another complainer, go complain somewhere else!
The interrogation
Date: Tue, Jul 8, 2008
I lost a hand last night. Nothing extraordinary. I had Q-10 of spades, missed the flush draw but had paired my 10 on the river. I therefore called a smallish bet from my opponent, who had not played the hand very aggressively, making me think I might be good. As it turned out, he had the A-K of spades (making me glad the flush card didn't come), and had made a higher pair on the turn. It wasn't a big loss, just a kind of run-of-the-mill hand.
As he was stacking up the chips, he said, "I gave you a free card. I think that was a mistake. Would you have called $40 on the turn if I had bet it?"
This is hardly the first time I've been the subject of a post-hand interrogation, but I hate it every time. I think it's incredibly rude.
In case it's not obvious why, just rephrase the question so as to make explicit what it is actually asking: "I'm not sure I extracted all of the chips from you that I could have on that hand. Would you please give me more information about how you play specific situations, so that the next time we're contesting a pot, I can more effectively play against your tendencies and optimize my ability to win the most chips I can possibly squeeze out of you?"
If you're going to ask that, why not just ask your opponent if he could please hand you his stack of chips?
What makes these players think that I'm so stupid that I will answer such questions honestly, and thus help them play better against me?
I knew perfectly well the answer to the question from the guy last night, but instead I gave him my standard, pre-rehearsed BS answer: "I'm not very good at hypotheticals. I have to actually be faced with the situation before I can make a decision."
There's some truth to that, since I do go a lot by the "feel" of a situation. For any given interrogation that gets put to me, that answer might be completely true, completely false, or somewhere in between. I don't much care. My goal is to deflect the question without giving away information and without seeming rude. I think it usually succeeds.
But I'd really prefer not to be put under the bright lights to begin with.
Don't go to the Palms poker room after 2:00 a.m.
Date: Tue, Jul 8, 2008
According to my records, last night was the 20th poker session I've put in at the Palms. I guess, however, that none of the previous ones lasted as late as 2:00 a.m., because I've certainly never before run into the situation that occurred last night.
A new player came to the table with his chips, an ashtray, and a lit cigarette. In most non-smoking poker rooms, somebody occasionally comes in with a heater going, not recognizing that it's a smoke-free zone. I assumed this was the same phenomenon. So I turned to the dealer and said, "Smoking at the table?"
I was stunned when he said, "That's allowed after 2:00 a.m." He then checked his watch, found that it was only 1:50, and told the new player that he couldn't smoke here for another ten minutes.
I was close to being done for the night anyway, but that was enough to prompt me to pack up my chips on the spot, not even waiting to complete the orbit we were on.
Wow, what a horrible management decision. The Palms is one of the better poker rooms in town in terms of being reasonably effectively isolated from smoking areas, but then for certain hours of the day they turn it into a toxic waste factory. What idiocy.
Anybody care for a beverage while you play? How about a little lung cancer?
So the Palms has just informed me that it does not want me playing there late into the night. OK, so be it.
I have just updated my list of categories of smokiness of poker rooms to reflect that the Palms is now on the list of shame, one of the few places in town to fall into category 6, in which smoking at the table is allowed. It now shares that distinction with such high-class places as Hooters, Arizona Charlie's, Boulder Station, and Club Fortune. Hope you're real proud of the company you keep, Palms.
Repulsive. Utterly repulsive.
Celebrity sighting
Date: Tue, Jul 8, 2008
The Moneymaker effect has completely taken over the Palms this week, so it's appropriate to have spotted the guy it's named for playing in the poker room.
I was in the other room (the Palms has sort of a split poker room, with the two sides divided by a hallway), so I didn't get to watch the activity, just snuck over for the photo.
But one player at my table had just been moved over from a table in that room and had watched the goings-on for a while. He admitted that he didn't watch poker on TV, so he wasn't too up on putting names with faces of poker pros. But there had been, he said, another pro that everybody seemed to know playing on that side. He said it was a lighter-skinned black man, and that he was arguing with the player next to him. He thought maybe it was Erik Seidel.
I couldn't help laughing. I don't know who this guy saw, but (1) it's unlikely that anybody would describe as black (light-skinned or otherwise), (2) he's about the least likely guy in the entire poker universe to be arguing with another player, (3) he's not likely to be sitting in a $1-3 or $2-5 game (all that the Palms had to offer), and (4) he's probably not going to be at a PokerStars gathering, being a Team Full Tilt pro. Other than those small points, yeah, sure, it could have been Seidel.
What wasn't said
Date: Mon, Jul 7, 2008
OK, this is the last time--today, anyway--that I'm going to pinch a story from the good folks at PokerNews and use it as fodder for my blog.
Not the Nuts, But Definitely Nutty
Five WSOP bracelets tend to win one a bit of respect. Or fear. Or what the
French call... I don't know what.
Allen Cunningham raised to 1,200 from the button and the player in the big
blind called. Both checked the 2d-10d-10h flop. The turn was the 2h. The player
in the BB bet 2,200, and Cunningham called.
The river brought the Kd. The BB player checked, and Cunningham bet 4,500.
His opponent called.
Cunningham showed 8d-7d for the rivered flush. His opponent turned over
Jd-10c for tens full of deuces. Not too much out there that could beat
that.After having been up around 60,000, Cunningham now has about 45,000.
You know how sometimes you hear people say that they preferred cinematic love scenes before everything got all graphic and explicit, because it was sexier to imagine what happened? Well, that's sort of why I love how this little story is written (besides the funny line about the French). It's a pretty insignificant hand, in terms of the progress of the tournament as a whole, or either of the players. But it tells the reader loads about this particular opponent and how players generally view poker superstars like Cunningham. And all of that is in what isn't said in the post.
I know that some of my readers don't play poker (they're people who know me personally, and, bless their hearts, they slog through all the stupid stuff about poker just because of who has written it), so let me explain what the PN blogger cleverly left unsaid, secure in the knowledge that basically only die-hard poker junkies would be reading it, and that they would be able to figure it out for themselves.
There were only three hands that Cunningham could have that would have his opponent beaten: pocket kings (for kings full of tens), K-10 (for tens full of kings), and pocket deuces (for quads). It was, objectively speaking, pretty darn unlikely that Cunningham held any of those. His opponent should have been, oh, maybe 90% confident that he had a better hand than Cunningham did, or at worst that they both had a 10 and would chop the pot.
Most players in this situation, against most opponents, would raise at the end, rather than just call. They would hope to get paid off by somebody holding a 2 for deuces full of tens, or by a flush. That this guy did not do so is the clever implication of the "definitely nutty" in the post's title. It is also what lies behind that language about the kind of respect and/or fear that Cunningham is able to generate in other players. Sure, against most players you'd raise, but this is Allen freakin' Cunningham!
As it turns out, a raise probably wouldn't have been profitable. I'd wager my last dollar that if the guy had raised, Cunningham's cards would have hit the muck without another single chip being put into the pot. You just can't think that a small flush is good when there are two ways an opponent could have quads, and when he only needs to be holding one lousy 10 or 2 to have a full house. Cunningham took his shot (perhaps hoping that his opponent would call with just an ace to accompany the two pairs on the board, or maybe a pocket pair to make a better two pairs than were on the board--and just maybe he could bluff a guy holding a 2 into folding), but I'm confident he would have folded to even a minimum raise.
Of course, his opponent couldn't know that when it mattered.
My compliments to the PN team members for (1) noticing this hand and what it implied about both of the players involved, and (2) writing it in a way that trusted the readers' intelligence to read all of the juicy stuff between the lines.
Where are the photographers when you need them?
Date: Mon, Jul 7, 2008
Another PokerNews live-blogging post from yesterday's WSOP, reposted here just for general amusement purposes:
Beautiful Distractions
Karina Jett just stopped by Antonio Esfandiari's table to see her friend
Heather Esquin. Not only did she say hello, but Jett thoroughly rubbed and
squeezed Esquin's breasts. She claimed it was for good luck.
Esfandiari commented, "How are we as men supposed to concentrate with that
going on?"
I thought I had heard just about every method even invoked for and by poker players for the bringing of luck, but I have to admit that this was a new one on me. But I've checked the rule books, and there doesn't appear to be any specific prohibition against it.
I'm going to have remember this. Next time I am at a poker table with a beautiful young woman who seems to be getting more than her fair share of bad beats, I'll have my offer ready: "Say, I've heard of something that brings good luck...."