Palms freeroll

Date: Thu, Sep 11, 2008

The Palms poker room just started a series of weekly freeroll tournaments for frequent customers. They use a structure unlike any I've seen before.

If you play 12 hours in the preceeding week, you qualify to sit in a single-table satellite. You can qualify for additional satellites for more hours of play. The last two standing in each satellite receive $100 and entry to the main tournament, where $3000 is up for grabs ($1000 for 1st, $400 for 2nd, $300 for 3rd, $200 for 4th, and $100 for 5th through 15th).

So far so good, at least in theory. But in practice, there are problems.

The first problem is scheduling. You don't pick or get assigned to a specific time for your satellite. They are run from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday. You show up, they add you to the list. I arrived at 2:05 Tuesday, and found that the first satellite had just started, the list for the second one was already full, so I was placed on the list for the 3rd. They thought it might start between 3:00 and 3:30.

As it turned out, the first one took an hour. They started the second, and I was thinking I'd have to wait another hour. But then they decided to start #3 with a second dealer while #2 was still running. It got underway at 3:20. But the point is that you can't really know when you'll be playing. You might arrive at 4:00 and find that there are five full satellites ahead of you, and you won't play until 8:00. I also don't know what they do if you arrive at, say, 7:30 and they don't get enough to fill up another satellite. Are you just out of luck? Do they run a short-handed satellite? And what if you arrive at 7:30 and there are four or five full satellites? Will they keep running them past the announced close time of 8:00? I don't know.

The main tournament is run on Wednesday evening. This means that basically you have to expect to spend all or most of Tuesday afternoon or evening and Wednesday evening on this tournament. With no definite times for Tuesday, this is a big commitment of time to expect people to make on a weekly basis. Of course, if there are tables running, you can play cash games and be building hours toward the next week's qualification, if you are so inclined. But those may not be the optimal times for playing (i.e., the room will likely then have more locals than tourists, compared to prime evening/night hours).

There's another huge problem with the satellites: the structure. You start with 1200 in chips, and the first round of blinds are 100/100. That's right--you start with 12 big blinds, and an "M" of 6. Blinds go up every 15 minutes: 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 500/1000/100, etc. You can buy an optional 500 chips for a $3 dealer contribution, which everybody does, of course.

This is the most ridiculously short-stacked tournament structure I've ever seen in any venue. In the first level, suppose you make a standard 3x BB raise from the cutoff, the button calls, and the big blind calls. Now the pot contains 1000 chips, and you have 900 left (or 1400 if you've done the optional chip purchase). Your only rational choices after the flop are to shove or fold. That's it. That's your shot. That's your whole tournament. One hand.

It's so absurdly biased toward luck over skill that I would literally prefer that they just randomly pick 20% of the qualifiers' names to receive the $100 and tournament entry. It would be just as fair and would save hundreds of currently wasted man-hours. Post the winners' names on the Palms web site and be done with it. You then wouldn't have dozens of people having to drive over, sit around for an unknown number of hours to play what often boils down to a one-hand luckfest tournament.

As it stands, the time commitment and stupid structure are such big turn-offs that I don't think I'll be making much effort to qualify for for these things. If I happen to put in two or three longish sessions at the Palms in a week and qualify, OK, I'll endure it. But in my opinion, the Palms has made their freeroll so unappealing in terms of time commitment and structure that it's not worth much extra effort to try for. If instead of weekly they made it a $20,000 monthly deal for, say, 40 hours of rated play, I would find it more interesting, because I'd only have to be making those additional two trips out there for unknown amounts of time once a month instead of once a week.

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Interference

Date: Wed, Sep 10, 2008

Playing my regular $2-4 PokerStars razz game this afternoon I had a rather jolting experience, when a player not in the hand stepped in via the chat box, and probably altered how the hand played out.

Here's a screen shot of how the hand looked when it was over. We ended up with the same best five cards, and split the pot.




As you can see, we both started with excellent hands. Predictably, we capped the betting on 3rd. I improved nicely on 4th; he did not. And he got even worse on 5th. So he had decisions to make when I bet out in both spots.

Here's the relevant portion of the hand transcript, so you can see how things played out:

*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [Ah 3h 4d] [2s]
Dealt to Phoinix [4h] [Tc]
Rakewell1: bets $2
Phoinix: calls $2
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to Rakewell1 [Ah 3h 4d 2s] [Ts]
Dealt to Phoinix [4h Tc] [Qh]
Rakewell1: bets $4
Phoinix said, "u lucky"
bizzlenuts said, "he paired"
Phoinix said, "u might have a deuce"
Phoinix: calls $4

So "bizzlenuts" appears to have planted the suggestion that my 2 on 4th street paired one of my down cards. What the hand history doesn't show is the delays. "Phoinix" first got the 15-second warning, then it showed him having requested extra time. It is in that window of time that "bizzlenuts" speaks up with "he paired." After another delay we get "Phoinix" saying "u might have a deuce" (i.e., another deuce in the hole--a pair).

It's pretty clear that he couldn't call there with a 10 and a Q showing without making the decision that I had, in fact, paired up. Now, maybe he would have come to that conclusion on his own. But it sure looks like it was the chat suggestion that pushed him that way.

This is so obviously wrong I hope I don't have to explain it. It's as clear a violation of the "one player to a hand" rule as I can imagine. And in this case, it likely cost me half of the pot, because without it, I think my opponent would have folded on 5th street.

This ticked me off enough that I fired off an email to PokerStars support, with the relevant portion of the hand history included. Here's the reply I got back:

Thank you again for bringing the actions of this player to our attention.

His comment was inappropriate and violated the rules listed on our
site.

Although many of our players are not aware of all proper rules and
etiquette, this player has been informed of the rules now. A future infraction
by this player is potential grounds for chat revocation.

The help of players like yourself is integral to maintaining the
integrity of our games on PokerStars, and we appreciate vigilant players like
yourself who help us police our games.

Regards,

Larry

PokerStars Support Team

Personally, I'd prefer that they forcibly confiscate the money I believe I lost on that hand from "bizzlenuts" and transfer it to my account as just compensation. I suppose that's asking a bit much, though.

What is so damn hard about just shutting up about the one subject that is forbidden to discuss while playing a poker hand, which is the hand in progress? It's like Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit. There's a whole garden full of every variety of things to eat, but what they go for is the one thing that is off-limits. It's the same with poker. The entire universe of possible topics of discussion is open, with one exception--the hand currently being played. Yet that is the one thing that players seem most unable to refrain from commenting about.

I will never, ever understand this.

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Two Palms stories

Date: Tue, Sep 9, 2008

People often ask me how I select a place to play on any given day. There's no good answer to that, other than that it's highly arbitrary. Sometimes there's a confluence of reasons. Tonight was one of them.

The Palms has a new promotion. During NFL games on Sunday and Monday nights, whenever a team scores, they randomly select a table and seat, and the player in that seat wins between $50 and $300. (The amount is apparently selected at random from a list of quantities. $50 is by far the most common, though just in the past two days I've heard a couple of $100 and one $300 being called out.) I also noticed that the duration of the two ESPN Monday night games would be just enough hours to qualify me for the new weekly freeroll tournament at the Palms (12 hours per week, and I had already spent nearly 6 hours there in the last few days). Third, they just rolled out a new series of $5 chips, which I will be happy to collect while they're still new. Finally, I had an errand to run a short distance from there. So the Palms it was.

Two reportable stories for you.


"I can't believe he went all in"

I was in the small blind with 5s-5h. I'm in Seat 10, big blind is in Seat 1, with the dealer between us. There was one limper ahead of me, and I called. The big blind raised to something like $12. This is a guy I've played with before. He has a pretty wide range for pre-flop raising, and cares little about position. I also know that he will put in a continuation bet virtually every time if post-flop action is checked to him after he has raised. Both the limper and I call.

The flop is 6-7-8, all spades. It just misses being my third flopped straight flush in as many weeks. But an open-ended straight-flush draw is obviously full of potential for good things happening. I checked. The big blind bet $20. He would do this pretty much no matter what, so his bet didn't help me define his hand. The limper called, but looked troubled about it. My read was that he liked his hand too much to fold, but not enough to raise, and he would have preferred a free card. The pot was about $75. I had $102 left in front of me. I shoved it all in. I didn't know if the big blind would fold or not, but it was OK either way. I felt reasonably confident that the limper would fold and leave an extra $20 in dead money in the pot.

The big blind called rather quickly. Limper folded. The five of diamonds hit on the turn, giving me a set. The river was a blank. Three of a kind was good enough to beat the big blind's pocket kings, which included the king of spades (thus explaining his rapid call).

As the pot was being pushed to me, the Seat 2 player, who had stepped away, was returning, noticed the large pot, and asked Seat 1 what had happened. Seat 1 summarized things, speaking softly, probably thinking that I was too far away to hear him. He closed his summation with, "I can't believe he went all in with pocket fives when there were three overcards."

Well, I guess that's one way of looking at it. It kind of misses some relevant facts, though. It's true that had I known that the big blind had exactly K-K, including a spade, I would not have pushed there. But K-K of any suits is at the very upper end of the range with which he puts in a pre-flop raise (even from out of position; he's one who likes to try to steal the limpers' money with a raise from the big blind with nothing). Even if I could somehow guess that he had an overpair to the board, there's only a 50-50 chance that he's holding a spade, and even then, unless he has the ace of spades, he has to worry that I have it, and/or already have a made flush. He could be drawing nearly dead, even with the K or Q of spades. In short, given his range of possible hands here, I have a ton of fold equity with the all-in check-raise.

As for the limper, I'm confident he doesn't have a made straight or flush, else he would probably raise big to protect his hand (unless he miraculously flopped the nut flush or a straight flush). He could be on the nut flush draw or nut straight draw. If so, my 5x raise is not giving him correct odds to call. If he has two pair or a set, again I would have expected a protective raise, so I think those less likely, but I have lots of outs just in case that's what he has.

All in all, even after thinking about it for a long time after the fact, I conclude that it was an eminently defensible move on my part. It's not the only possible reasonable way to play the hand, but there's nothing crazy about it. Again, if I could have seen my opponent's exact cards, it's not what I would have done, but that's not an especially useful way of analyzing the situation. Knowing his wide range, there was an excellent chance I was already best, and with the panoply of draws I had, I was a big favorite against his range. It was entirely possible that I had 17 outs that would beat both of my opponents (9 spades, 2 fives, and 3 additional fours and nines).

But I gather from his snide little comment that he thinks I should have known how far behind I actually was, and retreated from his routine continuation bet with my open-ended straight flush draw.

Sorry, pal. I guess I'm just not that good.


The deuce-four strikes again!

Regular readers know by now that once in a while I go a little crazy with the 2-4 offsuit. (See story toward the end of this post and links therein for the explanation.) Why offsuit instead of suited? Well, obviously, because I can make two different flushes!

My favorite way to play it is on the button when there has been a raise in front of me. That way, when it hits the flop, it's an absolute blindsiding, because nobody is insane enough to call a raise with a 2-4! Those were the circumstances tonight, so I did my thing.

Four of us saw the most unbelievable flop: 4-4-2. Oh, please don't let me pee my pants before this hand finishes playing out! Flopping a full house with unpaired cards in the hand is about a 1/1000 proposition. Not quite a straight flush, but I'm not complaining!

First two players checked to the pre-flop raiser, who bet $10. I called, as did one early-position player. I don't remember what the turn card was. I didn't care much care, except that it put two hearts out there, and I was hoping that somebody would hit a high flush on the river. This time the raiser bet $20. I min-raised to $40, and got two callers. Yummy pot taking shape here.

The river didn't complete the flush. It was checked to me. I bet $60, which happened to be exactly what the raiser had left. Sadly, both he and the other guy folded. I showed my hand to tell the table: I am crazy and unpredictable--be afraid, be very afraid!


Those hands were nice, but I never got a high-hand jackpot, a football scoring bonus, or even a diamond flush (which, at the Palms, gets one entered into a drawing for three $100 cash jackpots the following morning). See how hard my life is?

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The problem nobody's talking about

Date: Mon, Sep 8, 2008

The town is all abuzz about today's start of the O.J. Simpson trial. But not a single news outlet or commentator that I have heard has mentioned what is, for me, the most serious ramification of this whole mess: how the trial is going to be a huge obstacle to O.J.'s all-consuming, never-ending search for the real killers.

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Poker gems, #162

Date: Sun, Sep 7, 2008

Mike Caro, in column for Poker Player Newspaper, July 23, 2007, available here.


The cards probably won't break even--not in gin rummy, not in poker, and not in real life. There's a common misconception that if you play poker long enough the cards will break even. Fat chance! Maybe, if you could play forever, never stopping, never sleeping, eventually you'd break even on luck. But not in just one lifetime! Early on you'd probably break even on, say, the number of full houses you were dealt, but it would take much longer to break even on circumstances surrounding those full houses.

You might lose more hands than you should lose on average. On the other hand, sometimes opponents might have nothing to oppose you with, and you'll win nothing. You might get many full houses when you're sitting in big-limit games, or you may receive most in smaller games.

You might be against weak opponents, you might not. On and on. And the more factors you consider, the broader the range of luck, and the longer it will take for you to break even.

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Annals of perfect timing

Date: Sun, Sep 7, 2008

I set out walking tonight, intending to play for a while at the Golden Nugget, but never got there. I stopped in at Fitzgeralds (which, until tonight, I erroneously thought was "Fitzgerald's"; but now I know that, like Caesars Palace, it's plural, not possessive) to see what was happening in their poker room upstairs. I've looked in there many times, hoping to see a NLHE game going, but never have, in two years. I've even played there three times in a limit game, hoping that a no-limit game would evolve. Never did.

But tonight they had three names on a no-limit interest list, and a tournament that was about 25 minutes along, implying that we'd soon see some bust-outs. So I sat down. I only had to wait about ten minutes. It was worth it. I left less than two hours later up by $211.

Fitzgeralds is not a particularly nice poker room. It's way too smoky for my taste. Dealers are below average. Minimal amenities. It's an ugly and not especially friendly place, with only six tables and, as I said, it's hard to find much action there.

There were a couple of moderately experienced players, but the table was mostly occupied by very weak opponents. Bad rooms tend to attract bad players, which is why I endure unpleasant places like the Sahara, Tuscany, Riviera, Imperial Palace, etc.

At one point, after about half an hour of being completely card-dead, I decided to try a gambit. I raised to $15 with 5-6 offsuit in the cutoff seat. I got four callers. The flop was 4-6-7 with two spades. (I had a club and a diamond, I think.) The first player bet $10 and two others called before it got to me. I raised to $50 as a semi-bluff, quite content to win the pot as it was, but I knew I had ways to win against just about any hand my opponents held in case I got called. Any observant player would conclude I had a big pocket pair and was defending against the obvious draws. The first two players folded quickly. The last one had a long think. He was talking to me, asking how big my pocket pair was, etc. He finally folded.

I rarely show bluffs, because I don't like to anger other players. But I was tempted to do so this time. Mike Caro advises showing or not showing bluffs depending on the type of opponents. Your goal is to heighten your opponents' tendencies. Those who tend to call too much are the ones to show bluffs to, because it will amplify their natural impulse to call you down when you have strong hands. Those who tend to play too tight and already fold more than they should are the ones to bluff without showing. Let them think they're making good laydowns, which will tend to make them continue doing the same.

This table had several calling stations, so I decided to show the semi-bluff. I got compliments all around: "Nice bet," "Nice play," etc. Even though two players plausibly claimed that they folded bigger pairs than my 6s, they smiled, rapped the table, and said, "Well done."

And boy oh boy did it turn out to be a good thing I advertised that move!

On the very next hand, I picked up A-K offsuit. I bet $15 again, and got five suspicious callers. This was going to be another big pot--now I just had to hit the flop, because I had no prayer of another big bluff working in this situation.

The flop was K-K-8, rainbow. Well, I guess that's hitting it, all right! Player A (one of the weakest ones) led out for $10. I called, as did the button. The turn card was a 10. Player A checked this time. I bet $35. Button folded and A went into the tank. I tried hard to behave exactly as I had on the previous hand while I had been waiting for my last opponent's decision.* There's just no doubt in my mind that the effects of that hand were working on Player A. I think he finally decided that he couldn't stand to be the victim of a second consecutive bluff. He said, "OK, if you've got me, you've got me. I'm all in." He pushed in his last $125 or so. I had him covered.

You might guess that I called. You'd be right. Though I didn't need it, the case king hit the river, giving me quads. That beat my opponent's Q-Q handily.

As I was stacking up the chips, the guy who had taken so long to fold on the previous hand said, "Showing that 6-5 worked out pretty well for you."

Funny--I had been thinking exactly the same thing.


(The photo above is one of the atomic clocks maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Get it? "Perfect timing"? OK, it's pretty lame, but I couldn't think of any better illustration.)


*One of the readers with whom I played at Bill's the other night was kind enough to email me the next day, and included this observation: "I really admired your play, you took your time on every move and you were very deliberate in your actions. Always did the same thing every time whether you had the nuts or were bluffing. Very hard to pick up a tell on you. Well played Grump, well played." It's nice to hear that at least sometimes I achieve the effect I aim for.

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Mind games

Date: Sat, Sep 6, 2008

After the First Friday tour (see post immediately prior), I walked down to Binion's. It's not my favorite place, but it, the Golden Nugget, and Fitzgerald's are the only poker rooms within walking distance of my apartment (well, not counting the El Cortez and the Plaza, which are not worthy of consideration), so I keep it in the mix for occasional visits.

(EDIT: On rereading, I realize how absurd this must sound to those of you living in most of the rest of the world. I have "only" five poker rooms within easy walking distance. Oh, poor me! If you live somewhere such that you would feel like you had died and gone to heaven if you had just one poker room within easy reach, I feel for you. I really do. I try not to forget that what I have here is truly an embarrassment of riches. I forgot it for a second when writing the above, but caught my gaffe in proofreading.)

Glad I did. While my friend wandered around downtown Vegas, I made $317 in 80 minutes. It was one of those rare nights where winning was effortless. In addition to a couple of hands in which a continuation bet folded all opposition, essentially my entire profit came from three hands:

1. A-8 suited in the small blind, unraised pot. Pretty mediocre hand in awful position, but no raise, so I added my $2 to the pot ($1-3 game). Flop A-K-9. Another 9 on the turn. River a deuce. I was check-calling. On the river, the guy in Seat 2 bet $60. I had only $51 left at this point. I thought it was most likely that he had missed a flush draw and had nothing, with the other main possibility being a weak ace like I had, which would result in a split pot. I didn't believe he had a 9. So it wasn't a difficult call. Because a lot of players had called on the flop and turn, there was a ton of money in the pot for the call, too. His cards hit the muck the instant my chips went in, so I guess my first thought was correct. More than doubled up there.

2. Very next hand, A-9 of diamonds on the button. Guy on my left raises to $8 from the small blind. OK, I'll bite. Flopped the nut flush draw. His bet was small enough to call. Hit the nuts on the turn. He bet again. Call. Sadly, the river was another diamond, which shut him down, and I couldn't get him to call even a small value bet.

3. Maybe 30 or 40 minutes later, K-K in the small blind. Guy with Q-Q raised before me, and we got about half the money in before the flop, the other half when the flop looked safe to both of us. Kings held up.

See how easy poker is? I don't know what all the fuss is about, what with books, videos, seminars, blah, blah, blah. Just recognize a bluff, get the nuts on the turn, and take the stack of a guy with Q-Q when you have K-K, and you'll make $238/hour. I just proved it. What's the big frickin' deal???

:-)


OK, so now for the "mind games" part. The guy on my left had just lost a big pot to Seat 2. He quietly lamented to me, "It's the first time he hasn't been bluffing." I agreed with his assessment that the dude was a frequent bluffer.

I'm not sure what prompted me to do this--it's completely out of character for me. I whispered to him, "Look, I'm going to be leaving soon, so I may not be able to take advantage of this. He bets faster when he's got it, slower when he's bluffing."

The guy's eyes widened. He said, "Oh, that's good!" He looked at me as if I were a poker guru. I had some credibility on this because he had seen me pick off the same player's bluff. I had only been at the table about five minutes longer than Seat 9 had been (I was in 8), but he didn't know that--for all he knew, I had been studying Seat 2 for hours.

Now, there was a kernel of truth in what I said. Seat 2 had been much slower and more deliberate with his bet when he tried to bluff me than he was in the hand he won in which he showed down top pair/top kicker. I had definitely noticed that, but it was just one example each way, which isn't enough to really count on. It's a trend to watch and try to verify, but it's not enough evidence to count on yet.

So why did I do this? I think there was a mix of motivations. First, it was fun to play with the guy's mind, especially knowing that my friend would be coming back to pick me up before too long--sort of a feeling of power to mess with him when he was vulnerable and feeling beaten. Second, I wanted to intimidate him a bit--make him think that every player at the table, himself included, was transparent to my all-seeing eyes. I realize that those motivations are kind of at cross-purposes, because what's the point of making him think I'm super-scary when I'll be leaving soon? But this wasn't a well thought-out plan, just a spontaneous impulse to which I uncharacteristically yielded.

Now sitting at home a couple of hours later, I'm dying of curiosity to know what happened. Was I right about the tell? Did the guy try to make a call or fold based on what I had told him? If so, how did it work out? I guess I'll never know.

Remember--advice you receive at the poker table is probably worth what you're paying for it.


**********

Incidentally, this is the first time I've been at Binion's since they've started something apparently new--simultaneous $1-2 and $1-3 NLHE games. This is seriously weird. I don't know of any other place in town that runs both. They have separate waiting lists for the two games, so if you don't care which one you play, you have to know this and ask to be on both lists. I didn't know that at first, and only caught on after I heard names called for both games. I have no idea why they do this. I think it's a terrible idea. Pick one or the other, but there is no good reason that I can think of to be running both at the same time.

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First Friday

Date: Sat, Sep 6, 2008

Did some work at home this afternoon with my usual PokerStars razz $2-4 going on in the background. Had an unusually good day at it: uptick $160 in about two hours of giving it part-time attention.

My visiting friend had read good things in the Fodor guide about a Mexican restaurant called Dona Maria Tamales. This is on Las Vegas Boulevard just north of Charleston, so not far from where I live and also close to where we were heading after dinner. It was truly excellent food--easily the best Mexican I've had since living here. My friend, who is much fussier and more educated about fine dining than I am, agreed that it was superlative. My only concern was that the restrooms were pretty nasty, and you know the old saying--if they don't bother to keep the restrooms clean, when they know you'll see them, you can bet that the kitchen is filthy, because they know you won't be seeing that. Ewww.

Then we headed off to "First Friday," a monthly sort of open house of all of the downtown artsy-fartsy shops and galleries. It's a pretty nice thing to take out-of-town visitors to, because it's unlike anything else they'll ever do in Vegas, and not at all the sort of thing anybody expects this city to offer.

Below is a tiny sampling of the arts, crafts, ware, antiques, clothes, etc., that are for sale at the permanent galleries and the various temporary ones that get set up in a closed-off few blocks of Casino Center street--plus a few other sights of the evening, bands, break dancers, girls in their underwear and body paint, that sort of thing.

One of my favorite contemporary artists (and this allows me to slip in minimal poker content!) is Matt Rinard, and some of his stuff was on display at a high-end printing shop. You can see his main web site here and some from his poker-themed series here.

I had my good camera along, so there are much larger versions of these photos available for the mere effort of a click on them. Enjoy.

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Night of strangeness

Date: Thu, Sep 4, 2008

Last night was another of those days when a bunch of little odd things happened, which I will collect into a single omnibus post.


The weirdness of variance

I started the evening at the Palms. It was one of those magical sessions where everything went right. I did not lose a single hand at showdown. If I had A-Q, I'd get a flop like Q-8-2, and get my bets called down on every street by a guy holding Q-J. Never had a bluff called, never called what I thought was a bluff without being right. I didn't do anything tricky, really--just ABC poker. I made $270 in a little less than two hours, way above my average earning rate, not because I played like a genius, but because there always seemed to be somebody with the second-best hand willing to pay me off, which makes all the difference in one's profit.

I'm playing very conservatively these days, in terms of bankroll management, because even after the second half of August turned around for me, I still finished the month about $1200 down, due to the devastating first half of the month. So until the bankroll fully recovers, I'm looking to hit-and-run more than usual--make $100 to $300 somewhere and leave to lock in that profit. Conventional wisdom is that if a game is good, you should stay as long as it remains good. That means risking what I've made so far, rather than packing up and leaving. In normal times, I'm entirely willing to do that, hoping to turn a small profit into a big profit. But for the time being, I need to get my wins in smaller, surer chunks, risking as little as possible.

That's why I left after less than two hours, even though the game still seemed beatable, and went in search of profit elsewhere. I moseyed down the road to Bill's, always a reliable money-maker. But it was a very different crowd at Bill's last night than usual. More of the seats were occupied by decent players. There were still two or three pure calling stations, but there were people with whom I could actually play poker, if you know what I mean.

But I took a big hit early, and spent the rest of the session s-l-o-w-l-y grinding my way back up. Finally I made it, and was actually up by a whole $4 after 3 1/2 hours of play! The climb back was hard enough that I did not feel like pressing things any further, so I clocked out.

So that's the weirdness of variance in this always-unpredictable game: At the Palms, where the game is usually juicy but with high variance because of a lot of bluffers and gamblers, my stack just rose rapidly and steadily upward, and I made $147/hour with never a really difficult decision to make. Then at Bill's, where I can usually take people's money without even breaking a sweat, it was a mighty up-and-down struggle just to make $1/hour.

Go figure.


What do you do with a marked card?

The last time I was at Bill's (August 27), I had noticed that the five of spades had a visibly worn spot on its back. I did my usual procedure--waited until I had seen it twice and confirmed both times that I could identify it, then waited again until there was a moment when it was folded by another player and I could "name that card" to the dealer, thus proving that the card was indeed identifiable by its back. They took that deck out of play and replaced it.

Naturally, I assumed that they would replace the defective card before putting the deck back into use. So I was quite surprised last night when, on one deal, I noticed a little worn spot on one of my hole cards before I looked at them, and then discovered that it was the five of spades! They had simply taken the deck with the bad card out of use for that night, then put it back into service the next day without replacing the card.

This is inexcusable. I've railed before about the Flamingo's reluctance to replace a defective card. Now I have to tar Bill's with the same brush.

Message to dealers and floor staff at Bill's (and everyplace else, for that matter): When a player points out an identifiable defect in a card back, especially when he does so in a manner that proves that he can tell what the card is without looking at its face, it is your duty and obligation to replace that card. Period. No exceptions, no excuses. Even if you think that only one player in a thousand is observant enough (or obsessive enough, or nitty enough, or however you'd like to describe it) to notice, and even if you're right about that guess, that is all it takes to taint the game. If you care anything at all about game integrity, you must replace a card that even one person can identify.

Last night I again waited for an appropriate moment. When the dealer had finished the scramble and was about to start the shuffle, I noticed that the marked card was on top of the deck, so I quickly pointed it out to her, saying, "If that's the five of spades, I think you should replace it." It was, of course. This time, I was disgusted enough with how they had handled the situation that I took the card from her and deliberately creased it myself--something I've never done in a casino before--so that they couldn't pull the same inadequate, cheap-ass trick of just taking the deck out of circulation for one night, then using it again without actually remedying the problem.

Shame on you, Bill's.


Close but no cigar

An off-duty Bill's/Imperial Palace dealer was one of the players at the table last night. He was a good player and a lot of fun to spend time with.

I wasn't paying much attention to the hand in which this occurred, because I wasn't involved. (Yeah, I know I should watch everything all the time. But attention does lapse sometimes.) On the last street, I became aware that he was acting really strange, taking way longer than he had before, staring at the pot, etc. I couldn't tell what was going on. There were two 7s and two queens on board, so I assumed he had a difficult decision to make--double-paired boards tend to be very tricky to play. But then he did the strangest thing: he made the absolute minimum bet of $1. That made no sense at all. Even stranger, his only remaining opponent folded. Heck, I'd call almost anything for a $1 bet.

When he folded, the dealer-player shouted "No!" and sunk his head down.

Here's why. He had flopped quad 7s. Bill's recently instituted high-hand jackpots. I think it's $50 for four of a kind and $100 for straight flushes, but don't quote me on that. But as with my recent incident at the Palms, the pot was $1 short of what it needed to be to qualify for the jackpot. So he was trying to communicate to his opponent what was going on and induce a mercy call, without violating the rules about discussing the hand in progress. (Uncalled bets do not count as part of the pot for purposes of the jackpot requirements.)

After it was over, people naturally asked him why he wasn't just more open about the situation, tell the other player that he'd reimburse him for the call if he called and lost, or other such trickery that people often resort to in this spot. He said, honorably and admirably, "I'm not going to cheat the casino I work for." (Of course, one shouldn't cheat any other casino either. I don't think he was implying that he would act unethically elsewhere--just that he felt an especially acute obligation to stay entirely clear of even any gray zones where his own facility was involved.)

No jackpot for you!


Readers, readers everywhere!

I've had a good number of readers spot me and say hello at in a poker room. But last night broke the record. It had never been more than one in a day before, and yesterday it was three! I had one sharing the table at the Palms, then two sharing the table at Bill's! That's pretty statistically amazing, when you consider the number of people playing poker in Las Vegas yesterday evening, and the percentage of the poker-playing public that are readers of this blog (still just a tiny, elite minority, I'm afraid).

Because of the ensuing conversation, two other players asked for the URL, and I wrote it down for them, so perhaps there are two new readers today as a result. If so, welcome to them.

Always a pleasure to meet you folks.

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Touristy day

Date: Thu, Sep 4, 2008

I have a friend visiting from out of town, so took the day off from poker and did a few touristy things.

1. Went to lunch at Rosati's Pizza. I had never been there before. Excellent.

2. Took a tour of the Ethel M chocolate factory. Unfortunately, they're not cranking out candy 24 hours a day--just on an as-needed basis, and we happened to catch them when there was not much happening. But everything still looked yummy:












I bought a 4-oz. bar of mint chocolate and a 24-piece sampler box. Haven't tried them yet (a little too full of pizza), but I anticipate all goodness.

3. Kind of strangely, connected with the chocolate factory is what I think is the only desert botanical gardens in the valley. It showcases plants that are native to the southwest/Mohave desert/Mexico areas. It's a really nice spot to walk around for half an hour or an hour, depending on your interest in such things and heat tolerance. Lots of cute little lizards running around, too. There are a lot more different kinds of plants native to the area than I would have guessed. Some of them even have color! I wished I had brought my good camera, instead of just the crummy cell phone camera.




























4. Finally, we stopped by the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve. Unfortunately, we hadn't checked the schedule beforehand, and just assumed it had normal hours of operation. Nope. It closes at 3:00 p.m., with last entry at 2:45. The clock in my car read exactly 2:45 as we entered. So all we could do was kind of see one edge of the pond and the beginning of the walking trail--couldn't walk around or do it justice. But it sure looked like another nice place to spend a little time. I imagine it would be best very early in the morning (they open at 6:00 a.m.). But getting a poker player up and out of bed and actually at something early in the morning? That's just not going to happen.

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Poker gems, #161

Date: Wed, Sep 3, 2008

Jason Alexander, interview for ESPN's 9/2/08 broadcast of the WSOP Main Event:


I'm not in this to become the greatest poker player in the world. I just keep it fun. More or less, I'm one of the guys. I just have a hell of a lot more money than they do, and I'm an internationally beloved superstar. Other than that, there's no difference between me and the other guys.

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HBPRS, #8

Date: Wed, Sep 3, 2008

Another episode of the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show is now up here, including a segment from yours truly.

Interesting that Shamus chose to illustrate my little contribution in the show notes with an engraving by William Hogarth. You would have to be a meticulous--perhaps even obsessive--reader to have noticed and remembered this little fact, but I once mentioned that the pseudonym under which I both blog and play online poker, is taken directly from what is perhaps Hogarth's most famous series of illustrations, "A Rake's Progress," featuring the character Tom Rakewell. There are many days when I feel as he is shown in Plate 6: "Scene Six takes us to another gaming house where we witness Tom Rakewell's second, inevitable loss of fortune. Half mad, wig torn from his head, he wrenches his fist at the Heavens. Quite literally, by having married the old hag and now losing her fortune, all his cards have been played. He has sealed his own deplorable fate." I just hope to avoid the other Rakewell's subsequent stages of downfall: debtor's prison and the madhouse.

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Celebrity sighting

Date: Wed, Sep 3, 2008

I played briefly at the Excalibur today with Bob Bright, whom I recognized from the horrible "Cash Poker" TV show. It was only a few hands--maybe 10 minutes before he and his party left. Also playing with him were two women, who I gather from bits of their interactions were his wife and daughter.

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"It can only be attributable to human error"

Date: Tue, Sep 2, 2008

I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.


I was reading the forum pages of allvegaspoker.com today, and came across a story from "South Point Perry," an experienced dealer/floor person. He has been among the most vocal critics of the Excalibur's decision to install PokerTek electronic tables. Here's what Perry says happened during a recent trip to the Excalibur (full story here):

We then proceed to the Excalibur. Maybe you have heard, they made some
changes. At 1am in the morning they have 3 games going. This is only a week into
this Photodrek experiment. Mike and I ask Bruce the floor guy to set up pot
limit Omaha. We sit down and play PLO high heads up, $.50/$1.00. A third player
sits down, Justin, a dealer at Harrah's.

We play for three hands. I make a full house and the machine SPLITS the
pot. At this point we stop the game and call over Bruce. This is where the early
birthday gift comes in. It takes Bruce 45 minutes to get in touch with a
PokerTek. He lets us know that the game was mislabeled on the computer. I ask if
he can transfer the money. He says no. In a capped game, this is significant as
I would almost have the same amount as Justin.

so the machine F*#&ed up. Well, I don't like to curse, lets say it
PokerTeked up. Justin, was very patient and a totally gentleman through the
whole thing. He's an Excellant dealer too. Visit him at Harrah's. Bruce tried
everything he could to make the situation right. I bring up these two guys
because if this stupid calculator/PDA/Adding Machine/Nintendo thing is going to
work, it will be because of patient Compitent employees. Not because of the
black box.

Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

It sounds like the machine was set on Omaha/8 rather than straight Omaha. The first odd thing about this is that Omaha/8 is almost always played limit, rather than no-limit or pot-limit. It seems impossible that the players wouldn't have noticed this right away, because the menus for limit and no-limit are very different. (I've done both.) So I have to guess that they can set up an Omaha/8 game as pot-limit. I suppose that that is admirable flexibility, but I don't think they'll get a lot of call for that combination.

I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.

The other thing not explained in the story is how things were labeled. That is, were the consoles showing PLO while the game was actually playing O/8? Or did the tech simply push the wrong button, and O/8 was both playing and being displayed as such, without the players noticing until the split pot occurred? Enquiring minds want to know.


I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.


This incident reminds me of a story from the second time I used the Excalibur machines, the second night they were open. I wasn't planning on relating this incident here, because I don't have an ending to the story, and stories without endings are inherently unsatisfying. But Perry's experience makes me think I should tell it anyway. Perhaps there are other stories that need to be publicized, and this one will help call them out of the woodwork.


This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.... I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.


I opened the pot for a raise with A-J. In the end, I would have won it if I stayed in, because an ace came on the river. But when I missed the flop and turn, I was bet out of the pot. Two other players stayed in. One had a pocket 7s. The other's hole cards are unknown, which is kind of the critical point of the story.

There was a queen on the flop and a 9 on the turn. I think I bet the flop, even though I missed it, and both opponents called--but maybe it got checked around. I don't remember for sure anymore, and it really doesn't matter. There was a bet and a call on the turn, at which point I folded. The ace on the river froze the action, and it went check-check.

The computer then displayed Player A's 7-7 and pushed him the pot. Player B's cards were not revealed. Here's where the first oddity occurred. You can set your options to always muck your cards and never show them where it is not required. If you don't have that option turned on, and you either lose a pot or win one without having to show (i.e., because you make a bet that nobody calls), the system will ask you if you want to show the high card, the low card, or both. I was watching Player B, and he clearly wanted to show what he had, because he thought he had won, but he was not given that option. We concluded that he must have the "auto-muck" option on, but after the hand ended, I watched as he opened his menu, and it was not on. So the first peculiarity is that he wasn't given the opportunity to show his cards.

Of more importance, though, if he is correct, is that Player B claimed that he had a 9 in his hand and should have won at showdown. He was adamant about this right from the start. Of course, nobody else saw his cards, so there is no independent verification of this. But I can tell you that he certainly looked and acted, from the very first instant that the pot was going to his opponent, like a guy who had just been cheated out of a pot that rightfully belonged to him. I am certain that he sincerely believed that he had a 9 and should have won. On the other hand, there have been a few occasions when I have been metaphysically certain of what my hole cards were, and then discovered, to my great chagrin and astonishment, that I was wrong when I turned them over at the showdown.

The player talked to the PokerTek folks. They eventually stopped the game and, from the central monitor at the poker room desk, had the system replay the hand. That was pretty cool. Unfortunately, it didn't clarify anything, because it didn't show Player B's hole cards on the replay, which was the only meaningful question.

Out of curiosity, and because I thought I might be able to help him explain what had happened (English was his second language, so he sometimes had a bit of difficulty conveying his thoughts, as well as the technical aspects of what he did with respect to the menus, trying to show his cards, etc.), I followed B to the central desk while he and the PokerTek people tried to resolve the claim.

They couldn't. As it turns out, players' hole cards that are not revealed in the usual course of play are stored in the computer, but in an encrypted form, and by design nobody at the Excalibur can unencrypt them. They have to send the data files back to company headquarters for analysis. This makes some sense from a security standpoint, but is understandably frustrating to the player who thinks he got swindled out of a pot, and can't get an answer right away.

So they took the player's name and contact information and promised to get back to him when they had an answer.

My guess is that it is more likely that the poor guy honestly had a memory glitch, and he did not actually have the winning hand. But ya never know.


Let me put it this way, Mr. Amor. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.


(For those who haven't gotten it on their own, the title of this post and the italicized inserts are all quotations from the very scary HAL 9000 computer in the Kubrick/Clarke classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, as captured on IMDB's "memorable quotes" page for the film. Of course, any perceived resemblance between HAL and the PokerTek computer is purely coincidental.)


Addendum

LasVegasMichael, another participant in Perry's game, gives this additional information about the incident:

The machine was labeled (on the screens) as PLO, not PLO 8. His computer
said that it was PLO High Only, yet the program was PLO 8.

Come to find out, Excal only had the program at the .50/1 level for PLO8.
Ot play PLO high only, you would need to play 1/2.

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