Another very minor celebrity sighting

Date: Fri, Aug 1, 2008

I forgot to mention that the other night at the Riviera I was seated next to Allan Pyles, a poker dealer at Binion's, who hosts a weekly podcast called "Man in the Box" over at Hold'em Radio. I have to admit that I've never heard the show, but I'm downloading a couple of episodes now to listen to later. He is a fine player and a smart, funny guy--one of the rare ones that it's an actual pleasure to spend a few hours sitting next to.

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Poker gems, #152

Date: Fri, Aug 1, 2008

Phil Galfond, in interview in Card Player magazine, July 30, 2008 (vol. 21, #15), p. 59.


The way that I judge whether or not a game is too tough for me is that I sit in it for about an hour. If I can't look at every other player and say to myself, "This is a mistake that this player makes, and this is how I can beat him," it is a tough game. If...you think you're playing well but you can't look at all of the other players and know what they are doing wrong, it is because you don't understand what they are doing wrong or you're doing more things wrong yourself.

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Put me on the jury

Date: Thu, Jul 31, 2008

I am so with the casino on this one.

As reported by the Associated Press here:

Stinky gambler fuming over casino ejection

By WAYNE PARRY – 14 hours ago

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Yes, Michael Wax stunk. He's the first to admit
it. The 440-pound Brooklyn man said he was playing poker in an Atlantic City
casino for 17 hours Tuesday and didn't have time to clean up. He understands why
grossed-out gamblers complained about his body odor, but said he didn't deserve
stinky treatment from the casino that asked him to leave.

Dave Coskey, a spokesman for the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, said it is
company policy not to comment on matters involving their customers.

Wax said he told casino officials: "There's no question I stink. I'm not
denying it. I do have an odor. I've been playing for 17 hours."

The 54-year-old limousine company owner, who says he is a frequent gambler
at the Borgata, said a poker room manager followed him into the restroom and
informed him that patrons at his table were complaining about his body
odor.

When he tried to re-take his seat at the table, he said a manager told him
he couldn't play anymore and to leave. He said he asked for a free room to
freshen up, and the casino refused.

He promptly filed a complaint about his
treatment with the Casino Control Commission. His complaint will be reviewed to
determine whether any state gambling laws or regulations were violated, a
commission spokesman said Wednesday.

Wax said his instincts tell him to find a different casino to patronize,
but he likes gambling at the Borgata. He said the casino was out of line to tell
him he stinks in front of other patrons.

"I would like an apology," Wax said.

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Celebrity (very minor celebrity) sighting

Date: Thu, Jul 31, 2008

FidPoker came and sat down in my PokerStars razz game tonight. That's Brian Fidler, winner of the first Daniel Negreanu "protege" contest.

See? I know important people in this business.

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Poker gems, #151

Date: Thu, Jul 31, 2008

Dr. Pauly.

My new addiction is PLO [pot-limit Omaha] Turbo SNGs. Holy shit. Talk about addictive. Playing PLO turbos is similar to smoking crack dipped in chocolate and wrapped in bacon.

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New chips at the Riviera

Date: Wed, Jul 30, 2008

Played at the Riviera last night. I hadn't been there in a few months, and was very surprised to see that they have made a complete relacement of their $5 chips. There appear to be five different new ones, shown above, fronts and backs. They're really quite nice (though the middle one may hold the world record for the most human butts ever displayed on a poker chip). It's a rare esthetic pleasure to play with a set of uniformly new, sharp-edged, and still mostly clean chips.

I can't recall ever seeing a casino entirely replace its stock of chips. The old ones were nowhere to be seen. Usually the old ones continue to exist alongside the new ones. Despite the pleasures of the new set, this is kind of disappointing, because the Riviera used to be one of just a handful of places (Palms, Rio, the old Aladdin, Harrah's, Hard Rock) that issue new chips at the drop of a hat. They had literally dozens of different ones in circulation, and there were many not yet in my collection. What I most liked about the Riviera's practice was issuing commemorative chips for the various oddball conventions that were held there.

I like having and looking at a variety of chips in my three-ring binder. But it's not a serious hobby, and not worth it to me to invest much of either time or money to expand the collection. Basically, if I don't come across a chip while playing, I don't pick it up. So I'm not going to go out of my way to hunt for all of the chips now taken out of circulation. Furthermore, I've never paid more than face value for a chip, and still won't. They're just not that important to me. All of which means that what had been one of the reasons I occasionally hit up the Riviera--the hope of picking up a couple of new interesting chips as souvenirs--is now gone, and the ones I didn't get earlier will just have to remain out of my life.

Certainly a bit of sadness, but I suppose it's possible that there are greater tragedies than this in the world.

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Huge improvement to PokerStars

Date: Tue, Jul 29, 2008

When I tried to log onto PokerStars a short time ago, there was a software update waiting to be installed. OK, no big deal. Usually these things are some minor security or feature enhancement that one doesn't even notice in playing. But when the game started, I noticed a funny little red dot next to the "previous hand" number. I clicked on it out of curiosity, and was surprised and delighted to find an instant hand replayer! This is a point on which Stars has lagged way behind Full Tilt and some other sites for a surprisingly long time. But they've finally implemented it, and from checking it just this once, it looks like they did the typically fine PokerStars job with its functionality.

Nice work, PS!

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KNPR gets it wrong, wrong, wrong

Date: Tue, Jul 29, 2008

KNPR is the local public radio news station. Every weekday they have a program called "State of Nevada." I was listening to it yesterday evening as I drove out to the Excalibur. The segment of interest was about online gaming. You can listen to and/or download the show, as well as see guest information and relevant links, here.

The guest was Kathryn LaTour, professor in the department of hotel administration at UNLV. She is the co-author of a recent study comparing gamblers' behavior and feelings about live casino gaming versus online gaming. You can read more about the study through the links collected at the site noted above.

The regular host of "State of Nevada" is Dave Berns. I generally like him. His voice is easy to listen to. He usually does his homework. He is unfailingly polite and respectful, yet won't let public figures duck hard questions that are put to them.

On this show, however, he completely dropped the ball. The very first words of the segment were, "Internet gambling is illegal in this country." This assertion was repeated several times in the broadcast. In fact, at one point Berns specifically said, "And let's be clear, it is illegal under the 1962-63 Federal Wire Tap Law." Another time he questions LaTour about how honest her subjects could have been about their online gaming activities, when answering her questions meant that they were admitting to "breaking federal law."

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

First of all, the law in question is the "Interstate Wire Act of 1961" or "Federal Wire Act," not the "1962-63 Federal Wire Tap Law."

Of far more importance, though, is that this law does nothing to criminalize the playing of Internet poker (which was the most common form of online gambling among the users profiled in LaTour's study). The key operative language is this:

Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a
wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign
commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or
wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire
communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a
result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or
wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years,
or both.

Note, first, that the crime requires "being engaged in the business of betting or wagering." That clearly means that the statute is directed at those who are running the operation, not the users of the service.

Secondly, the crime is limited to being in the business of betting on a "sporting event or contest." (By standard rules of interpretation of statutes, "contest" there cannot be construed as a broad, stand-alone word, but must be limited or modified by the adjective "sporting" in the same way that the word "event" is.) No court could possibly find that poker falls under that definition.

This plain understanding of the law has been confirmed by the only two federal courts to consider the question, one trial court and one appellate court, in the same case. You can read the appellate decision here. The pertinent sentence is this: "Because the Wire Act does not prohibit non-sports internet gambling, any debts incurred in connection with such gambling are not illegal."

Let's also be clear that the 2006 UIGEA did not change that. Explicit in its terms is a declaration that it it not criminalizing any activity that was not already illegal under existing state or federal law. UIGEA is all about funding and money transfers, not about gambling, and it is directly solely at gambling sites, not banks or other financial institutions, and certainly not at individual gamblers.

For lots more on all of this stuff, see the archives of columns written by I. Nelson Rose, perhaps the foremost authority on gambling law, here and here.

Now let's turn to Ms. LaTour. To be blunt about it, it's astonishing that she would undertake to conduct and publish a study about online gambling when she has no idea what she's talking about.

First, she readily concurs with Berns about all Internet gambling being illegal. She says this unequivocally several times, and says, "Right," in agreement with Berns's comment, quoted above, about the "Federal Wire Tap Law." (She obviously doesn't know enough about the statutes to correct his errors.)

Second, she says that her research was conducted when the World Series of Poker was still allowing players to "earn points" toward entering WSOP tournaments through online play. A few minutes later she repeats this idea, this time saying that the WSOP let players "accrue points" towards tournament entry via playing online.

In truth, of course, there has never been any "points" system for gaining entry into WSOP tournaments. Online players, though sites unaffiliated with the WSOP, have been able to win the money to enter WSOP events. Previously, the sites would pay the entry fees directly to the WSOP. After the passage of the UIGEA, the WSOP got nervous about even this amount of involvement with the poker sites, so those sites switched to simply paying the winners the cash, and leaving it to them to register for the WSOP event and pay the entry fee themselves. (Of course, some just kept the money.)

To me, being so egregiously and repeatedly wrong about two fundamental points of fact so closely related to the subject she was studying strips Ms. LaTour of every shred of credibility. It's frankly an embarrassment to the state to have a professor in our flagship institution of higher learning, in the department for which UNLV is most well-known, not have bothered to learn the most basic facts about online gambling in general, and online poker in particular, before setting out to publish research on that subject. It may not quite constitute academic dishonesty, but it absolutely constitutes an appalling degree of academic laziness and/or ineptitude.

I have emailed both Mr. Berns and Ms. LaTour, pointing them to this post, and inviting their comments in reaction. If I get a response of something either of them might wish to say about my critiques, I'll post an addendum here.


Finally, let me address something a caller to the show said. (I didn't catch his name.) He told his story of having gotten caught up in playing video poker online. He dropped about $1500 on the game, then got very lucky and hit a royal flush, paying him about $4500, cashed out, and never went back to it. But he says that when he was losing he didn't feel like it was real money involved, because he was playing on his credit card. That experience, he said, makes him opposed to online gambling, because other people will similarly lose a lot without realizing that it's "real money."

It is so frustrating and annoying how many people just can't make the basic distinction between "I think you are wrong and/or foolish to engage in that conduct" and "You shouldn't be allowed to engage in that conduct." The list of activities to which you can attach that observation is practically unlimited: Gambling (live or online), pornography, prostitution, owning a gun, driving a gas-guzzling SUV, riding an all-terrain vehicle, riding a Jet Ski, riding a motorcycle without a helmet, skydiving, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, smoking marijuana, burning an American flag, eating foods make with trans fats, buying unpasteurized milk from the farmer next door, wearing overly saggy pants, cursing, spanking a child, breastfeeding in public, driving without a seatbelt, having sex with somebody you are not married to and/or a member of the same gender, etc. If there is any way to conclude that an activity is unwise or immoral for you to engage in, there will be a contingent of people trying to use legislative force to prevent you from choosing to do it.

This caller was such a person. In retrospect, he believes that he was foolish and perhaps in financial danger because of the choices he was making, so based on that experience, he wants to impose his will on all 300 million of his fellow Americans. I suppose he figures that if he has little or no self-control or perspective on the matter of online gambling, well then obviously nobody else could, either. He thinks he knows what you should and should not do better than you can decide it for yourself.

This arrogance, this impulse to control everybody else in all sorts of ways, is completely anathema to me. It is antithetical to liberty, which I cherish above all other values, and which was the cornerstone of this nation's founding. I never cease to be astonished at how little most modern Americans care about it.

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Strange session at the Rio

Date: Tue, Jul 29, 2008

Sunday evening at the Rio turned out to be one of the most peculiar poker sessions I've ever put in. For all practical purposes, I played only one hand.

I sat down in Seat 1, and in the first hand I watched a woman in Seat 4 put in a pre-flop raise to $30--pretty unusual for most $1/$3 games, even coming over a straddle, as it was.

My second hand I was dealt A-Q offsuit in early position. Again there was a straddle. With so little knowledge of the table, I decided not to press this hand, just call and see what developed, ready to trash it if needed. But the same woman raised again, this time to $35. Now, it's not impossible for a player to pick up two good hands in a row, but this was unusual enough to make me wonder if she was a hyper-aggressive type, with a lot less than the bet size was representing. Hard to know so soon after sitting down.

Even stranger, though, was that her whopping raise was called by both of the players immediately after her. I noted, however, that they both appeared mighty reluctant about it. When the action came back to me, I decided to shove my entire $100 buy-in. My thinking was that A-Q played pretty well against whatever this woman could have, assuming she had the kind of wide raising range that I'm suspecting from watching her first two pots. I think she will call, but given the reticence of the two late-position callers, I think they will fold, perhaps reading my limp-shove as the A-A or K-K that such a move often signifies. If I'm right about my guesses, my A-Q will be heads-up against maybe a top-20 hand, with the extra $70 in dead money in the pot giving me an excellent price.

But that's not quite what happened. The woman called, as I had predicted, but then so did both other callers! Oops! I don't really like A-Q against three opponents! Oh well. Can't take it back now.

The flop was Q-x-x, which was about as good as I could hope for. All three opponents checked. The turn was another small card, and the woman pushed all in. The other two guys folded. We exposed our cards, and I was delighted to learn that she had J-J. My hand held, and I more than tripled up just that fast.

This table, I was quickly to learn, was one of the most insanely hyperaggressive I have ever played at. In fact, short of the ones in which one or more players were going all-in before even looking at their cards, it might be #1 on my all-time manic tables list.

It was therefore, in a sense, fortunate that after that big hand I went completely card-dead--just an endless stream of J-4, Q-2, 8-3, etc. I had no difficult decisions about what kind of ammunition was good enough to take to war against this small army of LAGs, because the dealer was giving me nothing more than a peashooter. So I spent the next hour folding and watching the crazed fun from the sidelines.

I did win one more small pot, when, miraculously, I found myself against a single opponent. He checked the flop. It had missed me completely, but since I knew that he had watched me fold about a million hands in a row, I thought I would probably have some credibility here, bluffed at it, and won. That pot basically compensated for the blinds I was paying while sitting passively by.

There were two or three more spots in which I called a normal-sized pre-flop raise, but caught complete air on the flop and had to give it up. And that was the sum total of my action for the session.

I left 1 1/4 hours after I arrived, cashing out for a $226 profit (not including the three nice chips shown above to add to my collection).

I guess sometimes one hand is all you need to make a session worth having played.

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Weird (but cute) card protectors

Date: Tue, Jul 29, 2008

At the Excalibur tonight, a couple of seats to my right was a middle-aged woman with two odd card protectors. As you can see, I hope, one of them is a turtle, the other an anteater or maybe an aardvark. (I'm pretty sure that's the first time the word "aardvark" has been used in this blog.) Each of them had a head that would bobble around when the thing was moved.

Cute. Weird, but cute.

She asked why I wanted to take a picture of them. I explained that I used such things as filler material for my poker blog when I didn't have anything meaningful to write about. She said that if I was going to feature her little friends, I should be sure to note that their names are, respectively, Sparky and Diablo. Duly noted.

When these guys weren't working well enough for her, in terms of bringing good luck, she had others to supplement her little army. One was a yellow duck, looking just like the classic bathtub rubber ducky, except made of hard plastic. Press a button on it, and little beams of light shoot out of its mouth and it quacks. Similarly, a Holstein cow would flash and moo when activated.

Amazing how little it takes to keep us poker players amused during a long stretch of unplayable hands.

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Be careful what you wish for

Date: Tue, Jul 29, 2008

Just got home from an enjoyable and profitable session at the Excalibur.

Early on in the evening, I picked up Q-Q in first position. Bleah. It's really difficult to play this kind of hand from bad position, but I can't exactly throw it away, either. So I make a small raise, and get called by every single player at the table! Ugh. This story has just started, and it already has "bad ending" written all over it.

The flop was A-10-2. More ugh. Seven opponents--how many of them are holding an ace? Probably three, with my luck. Well, sometimes one has to be brave. I go after it with a bet about 2/3 the size of the pot, hoping against hope that anybody with an ace concludes that I have a better one and gives up. It almost works. I get rid of everybody except one caller, a young man who, it was easy to tell from the moment I had sat down, was a relative novice at poker. Well, that's it. He has me beat, and there's no point throwing any more money at it. I plan to check it down, fold if he bets.

But wait--the turn card is another queen, giving me a set! Yay! Maybe not a bad ending after all! I move all in. My lone remaining opponent calls. We both show our cards. He had flopped two pairs with his A-2. He sees what he's up against and groans. But then he figures out that there is some hope in the situation, stands up, and starts loudly calling out for the card he wants to come on the river:

"TWO! TWO! TWO!"

I barely had time to register the implications of what he was saying--and definitely didn't have time to explain to him that what he was asking the poker gods to send would be of no help to him. It obviously didn't dawn on him that queens full of deuces beats deuces full of aces every day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

Anyway, just as I'm clearing my head about his odd wish, the dealer slaps onto the table the river card: a deuce!

The young man positively exploded with exuberation. He was jumping up and down, yelling, pumping his fists. Then he realized that he was being impolite, reached across the table to shake my hand, and said, "Oh, man, I'm sorry!"

I was highly amused by the whole situation. I shook his hand and replied, with absolute sincerity and a heartfelt smile, "There's nothing to apologize for." I meant it more literally than he knew. I figured it's not my job to burst his bubble. The dealer would do that soon enough. (At least I was mostly trusting that the dealer would not make the same hand-reading error that my opponent had, and I watched him like a hawk to be sure he didn't kill the wrong hand or push the pot to the wrong seat.)

The dealer was trying to get the young man's attention, and finally he calmed down enough to listen. The dealer said, "He [pointing to me] still wins." The young man said, "No, I got a full house." The dealer then pointed out that my full house was higher.

I haven't seen elation slammed down into dejection that fast very many times in my life. He groaned, dropped his face, and walked out of the room looking like somebody had just shot his dog.

As the dealer was scooping up the cards to start the next hand, he shook his head and wryly noted, "He should have asked for an ace."

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Poker gems, #150

Date: Mon, Jul 28, 2008

William S. Burroughs. See here for full citation.


This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

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That's why, sir

Date: Mon, Jul 28, 2008

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Proverbs
27:17, New International Version.

My razz game has advanced another small step. A hand I played a couple of days ago illustrates how. It's not rocket science, as they say, and those fluent in the game will probably read this post and think, "Well, DUH!" But it's one level deeper than I had been playing and thinking.

I was dealt (6 2) 3. The action was raised by a player named "Mailfish42" before it got to me. He was showing an 8. I obviously have a better hand than he does. Besides, I'm in late position, and the only players left behind me are a guy showing a 9 and the bring-in, who has a jack. So a raise is practically mandatory here. Mailfish calls.

On 4th street, I get a 7, so I now have (6 2) 3 7. Mailfish has (x x) 8 3. I bet, he calls. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

Fifth street is where it got at least mildly interesting. I was handed a queen, so I have (6 2) 3 7 Q. Mailfish popped into the lead with (x x) 8 3 9. He bet. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I would have thought, "Well, he has a better hand now, so I'll just call." But after watching some better players raise in this kind of spot, and thinking about why they did it, I have come to realize that it's a smart move. I clicked "raise."

Mailfish paused, clearly not expecting this. He even typed in the chat box, "Ha!" and then "Why raise?" I didn't respond. Not my job to give him lessons. Then he called.

Well, Mr. Mailfish, here's why. Yes, if the hand were to end now, you'd win, because your 9-low beats my Q-low. But I know that I need to catch only one more good card to have you beat, and if I do, then you have to catch two more good cards to win--and there are only two more coming. Put another way, if I get any non-pairing card 9 or below, and you don't improve, then I win. If I get an A, 4, or 5, on 6th street, I'll have a made 7-low and be ahead even if you improve so that your 9 is no longer playing. In short, I have a better draw, and I think I'm more likely to have the winning hand by the time all the cards are out. That makes getting more big bets into the pot right now A Good Thing.

Using the fabulous simulator tool found here, I can confirm mathematically what was apparent to me in a non-quantitative way during the hand. Let's assign my opponent, as down cards, two randomly selected different ranks below 8. That gives me about 55% equity in the pot, and him only 45%. Even if he has the best possible hole cards--an ace and a deuce--I still have a narrow edge, 51% to 49%. Those calculations were run without accounting for the dead cards. I actually improve on all measures by about four percentage points when the dead cards are figured in, because they included pairs to two of my good cards (the 6 and 7) but none for his 3 or 8, so he's a little more likely to hit a brick than I am.

Even better, if that 3 secretly paired him, I'm up by a whopping 70%/30% equity, and one more good card will cinch it for me. I'm not relying on that, but it's a consideration.

On 6th street, I think he may have had his eyes opened. I picked up a beautiful ace. He paired his 3. I bet. He said, "mmm," thought a bit, folded, then added, "wp" (which I assume means "well played"). One more card being dealt out was all it took for him to go from questioning and laughing at my raise to complimenting it.

Of course, it could have turned out differently--and often does in razz. But a raise there was unquestionably the right thing to do. Getting an opponent to shovel more money into the pot when I stand a better chance of winning it than he does seems like a no-brainer to me now, though, as I admitted earlier, this insight had escaped me until quite recently. I was focused just on how the cards stood at the moment, rather than trying to peek into the future.

Several days ago I was playing with one of the regular inhabitants of the Stars razz tables, and he watched me put in a similar raise when I was behind but had a better draw. He's an observant fellow, and typed in the chat box after the hand, "You've changed your game." Yes, I have--a little to the better, I think.

I wonder if Mailfish42 has actually figured this out now, or just wrote it off as getting unlucky on 6th street, without learning anything from the experience. I'm hoping the latter.

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Poker words, #4

Date: Sun, Jul 27, 2008

Two new ones (to me, anyway):

chopblocker

In a facility that allows the small blind and big blind to "chop," i.e., take back the blinds and move on to the next hand if nobody before them has entered, a player, usually in late position, who limps in, thus foiling the blinds' anticipated and desired chop. "Oh, man, don't be a chopblocker!"


bring-in bitch

In stud-type games, a player who is being hit with way more than his fair share of the bring-in bets. "Looks like I'm going to be the bring-in bitch for this table."

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