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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About Brian Townsend

Date: Tue, Sep 2, 2008

Brian Townsend, a Full Tilt Poker red pro, recent admitted in his blog to having used his personal assistant's FTP account to play online at stakes below what he had previously been accustomed to, thus making it less than obvious to opponents who he was. He did the same on PokerStars with a second account, though I have not seen any information on how he got a second account there, or, if it belonged to somebody else, who that may have been. (Maybe it was the same assistant. I just don't know.)

I read about this first on Pokerati. Their post is here, with a link to Townsend's confession. The comments are worth reading, too, both on Pokerati and on Townsend's blog post. Townsend also started a thread on twoplustwo.com to address questions that people might have, so that he wouldn't be accused of hiding anything. Although he initially promised to answer all questions, he declined to answer some (such as details of how much he won under the disguised accounts) and ignored others. After a couple of days, he announced that he would no longer participate in the thread.

Let me address that aspect of this mess first. It was probably unwise to make a blanket promise to answer all questions, because some questions aren't worth answering, some people will keep coming up with slight variations on questions just to be pests or because they haven't paid attention to what has been said before, etc. I don't think he anticipated the number and tone of questions. I don't really blame him for eventually disengaging from it when it appeared that some people just wouldn't be satisfied no matter what he said.

My impression was that he was unusually and admirably candid. He obviously didn't hire a PR person (he even says so explicitly). As Townsend admits, his language skills are not particularly good, and it shows, kind of awkwardly, in his personal posts, in a way that no PR person would have allowed. But I found it refreshing. It's not often that a public figure who has screwed up opens himself to questions from whoever feels like posting one, and responds personally, even knowing that readers might make fun of his flawed grammar and spelling and inelegant language.

He even admitted that, had opponents not gotten suspicious of his identity and posted their evidence in online forums, he would likely still be using the secret accounts and would not be admitting to it. He admitted that the $25,000 to charity was not his idea, but was imposed on him by CardRunners, the poker training company for which he is one of the most prominent instructors.

He said--believably, I thought--that his reason for starting to use anonymous accounts was not to get an edge on opponents, but because he was embarrassed to have to drop down in stakes due to an abnormally bad year so far. He also said emphatically that he never used multiple accounts to sit at the same table or enter the same tournament. I assume that this is true, because it would have been trivially easy for the sites to check this.

Predictably, opinions expressed in the twoplustwo thread, and in a bunch of blogs I checked for alternative viewpoints, are all over the map, ranging from a call for a lifetime ban from FTP and Stars plus personally reimbursing every cent he won to all opponents he played while using the second accounts, to, basically, "This is no big deal, it happens a lot, nothing need be done about it." Some say he got preferential treatment because he's a big-name star. Others argue that when ordinary folks get caught by FTP opening a second account (most commonly because they want to enroll in a rakeback program), all that happens is that the second account gets cancelled and its funds moved to the first account, and by that standard, Townsend got punished a lot more severely than anybody else. (He is losing his red pro status for six months. Stars will only say that they have handled the situation, but will not state publicly what specific measures, if any, they took.)

My sense is that it is a stretch to label this as "cheating." It's not clearly erroneous to do so, because there was at least a small edge gained, at least temporarily, that would not have been present had the rules been followed. But it's worlds away from using software to look at opponents' hole cards, or collusion, or taking multiple seats at a table or in a tournament simultaneously, or going deep in a tournament and then selling the seat to a "closer." I just can't bring myself to slap Townsend with the label of "cheater."

As others have pointed out, some online sites openly allow changing one's screen name. I remember that Party Poker used to allow a name change every six months, and I changed mine a couple of times--not because I wanted to hide or disguise myself, but because I got tired of them, or thought of ones I liked better. I'm told that the Cake network allows screen name changes even more frequently than that--every week. So using a different screen name is not violating the fundamental rules of poker in the same way that collusion is.

It might be useful to consider whether playing under multiple accounts (not simultaneously) on a site where doing so is against the terms of service is, as the ancient distinction puts it, malum in se or malum prohibitum; that is, inherently wrong or wrong only because it is against the rules. I'd have to put Townsend's "crime" in the latter category. It is a thing prohibited by some online sites but allowed by others.

That doesn't make it OK. Assessing the degree of wrongness is a lot more complicated, I think. Maybe it would be helpful to list the reasons that what he did was wrong, along with the possible consequences, on several different axes:

1. It was wrong because he promised not to do it. He promised this, first, when agreeing to the sites' terms of service upon creating an account. He also presumably made a second contractual agreement, when CardRunners entered a formal business arrangement with FTP, that he would play only under his real name. It is generally wrong to break one's promises, and violate one's contracts, absent compelling countervailing reason to do so.

2. It was wrong because it gave him an advantage that could not be matched by his opponents, unless they, too, broke the rules in a similar manner. That is, opponents he had played before were known to him, but, asymmetrically, he was not known to them. Had this occurred on a site that allows screen name changes, this would not be a consideration, because shifting/hiding identities would be equally available to any who chose to use that option.

However, this is mitigated by the fact that he was still playing at games and stakes that are populated almost exclusively by very savvy, experienced players. Such people will not long be fooled by a wolf in sheep's clothing. He was "outed" by several means acting conjointly, but primary among them was that his smart opponents simply recognized his style of play, and noticed that this new player appeared at the same time as "Brian Townsend" disappeared from the higher-stakes games. In short, any edge he gained by disguising himself did not last long--perhaps as little as a couple of hours of playing time against any reasonably perceptive opponent.

Again, though, it is worth noting that the edge, if any, was not Townsend's motivation--if you believe him on that point, which I tend to do.

3. It was wrong because the revelation of it is an embarrassment to a lot of people and entities Townsend is associated with: CardRunners and its owners and employees and his fellow trainers, as well as FTP. They are all tainted to some degree because people will necessarily wonder how much they knew and when they knew it, and, fairly or unfairly, criticize them for perceived silence/approval/inaction/complicity/conspiracy. He also presumably hurt their wallets, as the businesses will probably take at least a small hit from players who choose StoxPoker or PokerVT or PokerXFactor instead of CardRunners because of the scandal.

4. It was wrong because the associated publicity will undoubtedly convince other online players that this is really not a big deal, and the whole industry may become harder to police. At least some percentage of such players will subsequently step over a line that Townsend himself would not cross, and start playing at cash tables or entering tournaments as two different screen names. In short, Townsend set a bad example and may inadvertantly prompt others to do the same or even worse.

5. It was wrong because it hurts the entire industry to have another scandal when we are trying to convince Congress, state legislatures, courts, national media outlets, and the general public that poker, including online poker, is and should remain an honorable and legal pasttime and tradition. Events such as this may increase the chance that, sooner or later, we will have to endure a horrible litany of governmental regulations just to prevent this kind of thing, making online poker more cumbersome for all and less profitable for the better players.

To his credit, Townsend probably would admit to all of the above, and has said most of those things either explicitly or implicitly in his apology and answers to various questions.

With the possible exception of the first item, all of the wrongs on my list gravitate toward the malum prohibitum side. They would not be issues on a site or network that openly permitted name changes.

Did Phil Laak do wrong by playing the first day of the WSOP Main Event in disguise? There is no rule against it. There is arguably a difference in that in his case it simply leveled the playing field (i.e., nobody at the table knew each other's styles from reputation or previous experience), as opposed to Townsend's situation, in which he was suddenly "cloaked" to opponents, but opponents against whom he had played previously were not "cloaked" to him. But it's not at all clear to me whether being a well-known pro in an event like the WSOP is an advantage (because amateur players shy away from tangling with you) or a disadvantage (because they come after you more, hoping to be able to brag to their friend about who they knocked out). Either way, the point is that this seems to me the functional equilalent of what Townsend did, though his actions were extended longer over time. The point is that Laak wearing a disguise was not unethical, because it was not against the rules, and Townsend's adopting a "disguise" was unethical, almost exclusively because it was against the rules.

There's an interesting comparison case from earlier this year: Jonathan Little was stripped of his FTP red pro status permanently for allowing some friends to play under his name. Townsend's punishment is less harsh. One cynical poster on twoplustwo attributed this to the fact that Little injured FTP directly, while Townsend "only" injured its customers, and FTP obviously takes the former type of infraction much more seriously. Even I am not that cynical, however. I think the more obvious explanation is the prominence of the promise that was broken. FTP makes playing and chatting with the pros its primary advertising hook. If it turns out that the players using the red pros' names are not actually who they say they are, FTP loses its main claim to fame, and presumably a lot of business. Conversely, if it were to become known that occasionally a red pro played under an assumed name, for whatever reason, I don't think the site's customers would feel the same degree of betrayal and consequent mistrust. Discovering a "ringer" is not the same as discovering that you've been openly lied to.

Of course, a thing being malum prohibitum does not make a violation trivial. But it does or should make one view it in a different light than things that are malum in se. Those who in blogs or forums have blithely lumped Townsend together with the UltimateBlecch/AbsolutePuker crimes, or even with multi-accounters who have confessed to or been caught using multiple accounts at once, or selling accounts, are, in my view, simply not thinking clearly about the situation. They are not the same thing at all.

The English-only rule at poker tables is there to prevent problems. It does not mean that everybody who violates the rule is colluding at the game. The vast majority of the time, they are talking about matters wholly unrelated, and the actual integrity of the game is not compromised. Nor do the violators have any actual mischief in their hearts, even if they know that they are in technical non-compliance with the house rules. The rule needs to be enforced, though, so that nobody at the table has to wonder whether they are being cheated right under their noses. I think Townsend's violation is somewhat similar. It was not done with malicious intent and was not intrinsically a threat to the game's integrity. However, when the rule is in place at a site, it does need to be enforced, (1) so that all players are on a level playing field, (2) to reduce the risk that multiple accounts will be used nefariously, and (3) to prevent general loss of confidence in the game's integrity.

I think Townsend's remorse is sincere, even if it was triggered more by growing public suspicion than by an internal soul-searching. Yeah, he screwed up, but it was in a way that was far more stupid than it was evil or corrupt. I've done plenty of things that could be so categorized. He was embarrassed to be seen having to step down in limits after a nasty losing streak. What poker player cannot empathize with how that feels? Obviously that doesn't make how he decided to handle the problem right, but it's a hell of a lot less venal than setting out to rob people. We have, sadly, plenty of examples of online scandals involving precisely that. I think it is terribly misguided to lump Townsend in with that lot. There are degrees of wrong, and Townsend's simply does not compare with the major scandals of the last couple of years. If he got a "slap on the wrist," as some have complained, rather than the death penalty, it's because that punishment better fits the crime, and reasonable people who are making those decisions are getting it about right.

What Townsend did does not affect me in any direct way, and only in the remotest indirect ways. Since I was not injured by his actions, it is not really my place to offer him forgiveness.

But I offer it anyway.

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Poker--Primm but not so proper

Date: Sun, Aug 31, 2008

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Hard Rock stories

Date: Sat, Aug 30, 2008

Home from the Hard Rock. This was one of the occasional sessions that generated a whole bunch of little stories and observations, none of which really deserve separate posts, so I'm lumping them together here.


New chip

I noticed a bunch of copies of the above-pictured chip in circulation tonight. They don't actually say "2008" on them, but I've never seen them before, and they were all obviously brand-spankin' new--clean, perfectly sharp edges, etc.--so must have just been issued this week. Happy Labor Day, all.


Another jackpot hand

I was in the small blind, unraised pot, with the 6 and 9 of clubs. I threw in the extra dollar to see if I might hit something on the flop.

I guess I kinda did. The flop was the 10, 7, and 8 of clubs. (See photo below.) I flopped a straight flush. It has been only 11 days since my previous flopped straight flush. The interval between the first and second ones had been about 16 months, and now less than two weeks!





Unlike the other recent one at Planet Hollywood, this one was not the mortal nuts. It was the best possible hand at the moment, but in theory it could be beaten if an opponent held two parts of a royal flush and hit the remaining two perfect cards to combine with the 10 of clubs on the flop to make a royal flush. I was not too worried about this possibility. I would have bet everything I own and everything I could borrow that my hand would still be best when the board was complete.

I was actually a lot more concerned about getting the pot to the minimum required, after my little fiasco at the Palms a while back, where I forgot about that requirement and the pot was $1 short of what was necessary. At Planet Hollywood, I had two opponents who did the betting for me, but tonight nobody was interested in the pot. Finally somebody made a $5 bet on the turn, and I min-raised him to $10 in order to virtually ensure a call. Whew! That did it. I made another bet on the river, but he folded what had been just a straight draw that missed.

How hard is it to flop a straight flush with a suited 6-9? Well, there are only two specific combinations of cards that will work: the 7-8-10 of the same suit, as I got, or the 5-7-8. With the two hole cards out of the deck, there are 19,600 different flops possible (disregarding what order they come in, since that is irrelevant), as given by the operation C(50,3). So only about one time out of 10,000 that you see a suited 6-9 will you flop a straight flush.

I'll say it yet again: My unlucky streak is definitely over!

The high-hand bonus was reasonably high this time: I got $231 for my display of exceptional poker skill. That's one of the highest I've ever hit--might actually be the highest, since I don't keep track of them, though I have a vague memory of there having been one over $300 a long time ago.

It was a rough poker night otherwise, with almost nothing working out well for me. That extra $231 boost turned what would have been an "L" in my books into a "W," and that would have broken a nice little streak of Ws I have going, so I was doubly grateful for it.


Celebrity recognition

Fairly late in my six-hour session, two guys on vacation together sat down on my immediate left, in seats 2 and 3. I'm not sure what prompted it, but the guy in 3 said to the guy in 2, while pointing to me, "Show him that picture. I'll bet he'll know who it is. He looks like he follows poker." Uh-oh. The pressure was on.

Fortunately, I did indeed recognize the photo on Seat 2's cell phone. It was Jack Ury, the oldest man to play in the World Series of Poker. (I quoted him for a "Poker Gems" entry here.) Turns out that the guy in Seat 2 is Mr. Ury's grandson. (Come to think of it, maybe it's great-grandson. This guy looked to be in his mid-20s, and Jack Ury is 93, so great-grandson would fit the chronology more naturally.)

I hear that the ESPN cameras spent a lot of time at Jack's table again this year, so when their coverage of the Main Event begins Tuesday evening, we may well get to see and hear more of him. That would certainly be more welcome than a lot of the buffoons and jerks and malcontents they tend to highlight.


The Duke has found Hard Rock

I saw "The Duke" at the Hard Rock tonight. I haven't seen him in months.

"The Duke" is a legend in local poker-playing circles. And by "legend" I mean "laughingstock."

If you've ever seen him, you'll know him by description, even if you haven't heard his nickname before. He goes to poker rooms dressed to the nines: Expensive tailored double-breasted suit, a dapper hat, a carnation in his lapel, pencil-thin moustache, tie bar, jewelry, long hair in a neat ponytail. He seems to prefer downtown, but ventures out to the Strip sometimes. I've spotted him at Caesars and a couple of other places in addition to the Golden Nugget and Binion's, which appear to be his main hangouts.

He gravitates toward games with no cap on the buy-in, so that he can pull his trademark stunt: He plops anywhere between $10,000 and $50,000 cash on the table. Mind you, this can even be in a $1-$2 NLHE game, in which it is uncommon to see even a stack of $1000.

The other remarkable thing about his poker room visits is that he doesn't play poker. He dumps his chips and money on the table, then wanders off. I have no idea what he does during these hours, but it isn't poker. He comes back every 30 or 60 minutes to play one hand, thus preserving his seat in the game, then leaves again. I've never yet seen him do anything but fold the one or two hands it takes for him to hold his seat for another block of time, though I've heard stories from others that he does actually play one now and again. When he does, I hear that his main strategy is to grab his bundles of cash and push them in, forcing his opponents to a decision for all of their chips.

True to form, tonight when I looked over at Duke's table, he was there only about one time in ten. I would see him walk in, apparently play a hand, and be walking out of the room again within two minutes, and stay out for long stretches.

His conduct is really terribly rude, because he ties up a seat that all of the other players would want to see occupied by somebody actually engaged in the game. If I ran a poker room, I would crack down on him, and not let him get away with playing just one or two hands an hour.

If there is to be a cluster of name-brand pros playing anywhere in town (e.g., a charity tournament), Duke will be there. He loves to be seen with them and pretend that they are all his friends. Maybe he has fooled himself into thinking that they are.

I used there a key phrase to understanding this odd little man: "be seen." His poker room visits have nothing whatsoever to do with poker, and everything to do with being seen. It's a pretty sick, pathetic personality that invests so much time and effort in that goal.


Marsh

I also saw another colorful poker character tonight. Marsh is a guy I used to play with regularly at the Hilton, but have only bumped into a couple of times in the year or so since that room closed. He looks like a classic 1960s hippie transported forward in time: long, straggly grey hair, tie-dye shirt, fringed leather jacket, tinted John Lennon glasses, the works. But he's a very cool guy and a decent poker player--always one of my favorites to have at the table.

The most fascinating thing he tends to wear is a t-shirt on which he has imprinted a blown-up version of his actual Nevada driver's license. I've never asked him about it, but it seems apparent that the reason for this is to show off the fact that his real, actual, legal name is "Marsh Mallow." There are some Mallows in the phone book, though Marsh is not listed. I don't know if he was given that name at birth or changed in at some point. If the latter, I don't know why. But he seems awfully proud of it, however it happened.


Hypocrisy abounds

By far the largest pot of the night happened when three deep-stacked players got into a raising war, ending up with all of them getting all in. One started with about $300, the other two each had well over $400. $1100+ pots just don't happen very often in $1-2 games.

The hand actually looked pretty uninteresting before and on the flop. In fact, I can't even tell you exactly what happened, because I wasn't involved and it looked like nothing much was going to be happening. Then on the turn the raises started and, astonishingly, kept coming until all the chips were in.

Player A had K-3. Player C had K-5. The flop had been K-5-3. I think the turn was a 10. The river card gave the pot to Player A when he hit another 3, with all the money already in, to make a full house.

Player A was the shortest stack, so there was a side pot between B and C, which C took. B never showed his cards.

The strange thing, though, was that as soon as he saw his two opponents' hands, Player B started bemoaning how badly they played, going all in with K-3 and K-5. He kept this up, on and off, for at least ten minutes. Yet he never showed his own hand, and when asked what he had had, just replied, "It doesn't matter." There had been two diamonds on board by the turn, and after B left the table our best guess was that he had been on a flush draw, maybe some sort of combined straight and flush draw. He had definitely been the most reluctant to get his chips into the middle.

But still, he apparently couldn't beat Player C's two pair (kings and fives), else he would have shown his cards and claimed the side pot. So he was openly, loudly, and at length chastizing two players for getting their money in with better hands than he had when he called their bets! This was one of the most brazen displays of poker hypocrisy that I've ever witnessed.

He was seriously on tilt. A few hands later, after rebuying for $300, he got felted again. He had a made hand of some sort (I think it was just top pair), and lost when a gambling-type guy hit a flush draw after all the money was in. This put him on Super Duper Ultra Monkey Tilt, which was highly amusing to watch. Unfortunately, right at that point he was granted his wish for a table change, and went elsewhere to spew his chips. Dang! I wanted me some of that action! He left still spouting off about the horrible play, saying that he hoped he would find a table where people actually knew how to play poker.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of observing the crazy personality traits that poker brings out in people.


OK, you can breathe again now

Maybe an hour after that big hand, Player A, now stacked at around $900, tangled with the other big stack at the table--the same one who had earlier hit the flush to felt the hypocrite for the second time--who was sitting on about $700. I don't remember who started the bets and raises, but they went back and forth reraising each other until they were both all in--and we hadn't even seen a flop yet! I'm quite sure I've never seen a $1400 pot before the flop in a $1-2 game.

Well, the reason for the bidding war soon became clear: A-A versus A-A. There was some drama when the flop brought two spades, but that tension was short-lived when the turn card did not follow suit.

Each player made $15 or so on the hand, because of a couple of others who called the first raise before dropping out of the contest. Heck, it was almost worth that much just in entertainment value!


And that was my rather strange night at the Hard Rock.

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How do you win a poker tournament?

Date: Fri, Aug 29, 2008

I'm reading along in the June, 2008, issue of Bluff magazine, Jennifer Tilly's monthly column. She tells the tale of finishing deep in the L.A. Poker Classic, which you can read in full here. Here's how she prepared for Day 5 of that event:

I have been reading a lot of feng shui books lately. According to Asian
tradition, gold increases personal power and diamonds attract wealth. I put on
my Very Large diamond, and my WSOP gold bracelet, and then for good measure
stack more gold bracelets up and down my arm. Around my neck I wear a bear claw
necklace Michael Horse gave me for strength, and turquoise for wisdom. I know I
look goofy, but so what? All poker players are a bit off.

Next I go in the
closet and find my ganesh (remover of obstacles) that I used to put on the
table. Until I decided it made me look weak and retired it. Somewhat
embarrassed, I hide it in my purse. The blinds and antes are really high. I’ll
need to double up almost immediately. Skill alone is not enough at this point.
I’m going to need a heavy dose of luck.

I drive to work admiring my VL
diamond in the sun, and then I suddenly decide to call my sister Meg. Family
lore has it that she possesses supernatural powers. Perhaps if she is aware of
the situation and sending me positive energy, it might be the extra push I need
to get those pocket aces.

Meg is very excited when I tell her what’s going
on. “Wait, Jenny!” she gasps, “I’ll put it on my blog! That way everybody who
reads my blog can help!” She runs out of the room and returns a few minutes later
out of breath. “I did it!” she crows happily. “I told everyone to take a few
minutes out of their day to send good wishes your way and then I included the
link so they can follow along.” I hang up feeling that all that positive energy
will surely translate to one good hand.

Feng shui. Gold to bring power. Diamonds to attract wealth. Bear claw for strength. Turquoise for wisdom. A Hindu deity to remove obstacles. A sister's supernatural powers. Anonymous blog readers sending positive mental energy.

Tell me this. If you were a member of Congress, and Jennifer Tilly visited you to convince you about the need for laws to treat poker differently from other forms of gambling because poker is a game of skill, wouldn't you just point to her own words here, and then laugh her out of your office?

If you were an attorney trying a case involving an ambiguous state law, and the case turned on the judge finding that poker is primarily a game of skill, would you want that judge to have read this article?

I've read many different books full of advice on winning poker tournaments, but not one of them mentioned gold, diamonds, bear claws, turquoise, ganeshes, magical siblings, or infusions of mental energy from distant strangers. Does Jennifer Tilly really know things that have escaped (or at least not been revealed by) Dan Harrington, Arnold Snyder, Tom McEvoy, T. J. Cloutier, Gus Hansen, the whole Full Tilt crew, etc.?

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