End of the line - just about everywhere...

Date: Tue, Apr 22, 2008 Internet

Maybe I won't live long enough to see the Second Coming, or the edge of the universe but I will be able to say this: I saw the day when Calvin Ayre finally grew shy of publicity.

I don't know where to start with this story, whether it's the neat kick in the gonads administered by CardPlayer reporter Bob Pajich ("...self-proclaimed international playboy" - ouch) or the beautiful guff that Calvin manages to talk, right to the very end ("I was really more of a brand ambassador for Bodog...").

If anything, I'm more focused on working out exactly which lines I need to read between. I'm sorry, Calvin but the lifestyle you've enjoyed these last few years and the unabashed self-promotion that went with it, precludes any chance you had of going quietly. Hell, I've just set up a Google news alert against your name.

I can't believe we've heard the whole story here. I really can't.
......................................................................................

I'm sure Brandi Hawbaker's death will incite just as many column inches in blogs and forums as did her life, if not more.

I realised fairly early that this was one of those individuals whom, fairly or unfairly, becomes mired in grubby controversy that she just cannot shake off. Stories like this fill newspapers everywhere and I'm weary of them, so I didn't bother delving much when her name periodically crossed the radar.

For that reason, I don't presume to judge either her or her critics. I judge only the tragedy of a person snuffed out at 26. How you fall from a life that sees you turn a grand into two hundred grand in cash games and being able to take a month's vacation in Miami, to a state of ultimate despair in just months, I cannot begin to imagine.

I don't know how many epitaphs her passing might prompt but if one of them sees poker magazines easing off a tad on constantly selling the Las Vegas dream, it will be no bad thing. Vegas is a squalid, two-faced pit decked in tinsel and at times like this, even the tinsel doesn't look so good.

More and more, these days, I prefer to read about poker tournaments in comparatively ordinary places on this side of the Pond: Barcelona, Warsaw, hell, even Newcastle-upon-Tyne. My mother always maintains that there's a lot to be said for being ordinary and I think she's right.

I'm going off to be ordinary, shortly. Just a few small stakes S&G's before bed. It won't get me anywhere near 200 grand and Miami remains as out of reach as it's ever been but there's not a suicidal bone in my body and I can log onto a poker forum without having my heart in my mouth.

I only wish Brandi Hawbaker could have found a little more ordinariness in her life, before it was too late.
......................................................................................

Trivial in comparison, I know but it's also the end of cheap buffets in Vegas. Seems Sin City's New Big Thing is gentrification:

The move toward luxury in Las Vegas isn't merely a cynical ploy to shake down tourists for ever-more dollars, experts say. The upscaling of Las Vegas is also about survival.

As video poker and slot machines proliferated in racetracks and casinos around the country in the 1980s and 1990s, resorts on the Strip needed to add something new to their offerings, said David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"No one will fly for four hours to play a slot machine anymore," says Schwartz, "but they will fly four hours to stay in a luxury hotel."

I have bad news for you, guys. They've tried gentrification in British soccer. It's no antidote to tackiness...
......................................................................................

Pic of the Day

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Buyers beware - is that a chip off the right block?

Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2008 Internet

So obsessed am I with simply hanging onto my chips, it never occurred to me that I might need to check where they come from. Thom Riemersma puts me straight.

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Is Vegas recession-proof?

Date: Thu, Apr 17, 2008 Internet

One of the oldest tenets in stockmarket wisdom is that a portfolio built on excess never goes bust.

Buy shares in luxury jewellers, luxury car-makers, luxury anything, the theory goes, because the rich don't have recessions.

To listen to those mulling over the fate of Las Vegas, as recession looms over America, the same principle holds good. 'Whales' have the loot to rise above it, so Vegas will too.

Our old friend William Weidner, Sands CEO and foot-stamper-in-chief over the recent retreat from British shores, admits that the trade has felt "a bit" of the recent US slowdown but adds that the town has 'history' where bucking economic trends is concerned:

"Everyone has been consistently wrong about Las Vegas since the beginning," Weidner said, referring to prognosticators from as far back as the 1950s who said that the gambling corridor was verging on being overbuilt.

Of course, any CEO who publicly talked down his trade probably wouldn't be in a job too long and there are contrary voices to be heard on the suggestion that downturns are someone else's problem:

'It's conventional wisdom characteristic of a city and an industry far more accustomed to boom than bust, but it's just not true, experts say. Gamblers, whether motivated by compulsion or hope, don't necessarily double down when the economy spirals and belts tighten.

"It's an old idea that has very little relevance and maybe no relevance to the United States today," industry analyst Eugene Christiansen said.' - AP report for AZCentral.com

The hard-and-fast numbers, too, suggest that Sin City has the potential to go as bust as anywhere else, certainly where mortgage foreclosures are concerned.

I'm not sure I'll shed any tears for gambling's spiritual home just yet, however. Those economic woes of the 1990s referred to in the AZCentral.com story don't seem to have been anything like as grievous as is suggested in this prophecy of doom from the New York Times, published in 1992.

I wasn't gambling back then but I don't recall hearing of the sky falling in on a certain corner of Nevada, so for now, my money's on the Weidner view.

People always seek out their own form of palliative therapy in lean times. Take a survey of what the world's population would do next, were the planet to explode in an hour, and I suspect the majority would opt for sex over prayer...

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Texas: don't hold 'em here

Date: Mon, Apr 14, 2008 Internet

Hard to imagine St Andrews, Lord's or Cooperstown being knocked off their perch any time soon as the respective spiritual homes of golf, cricket and baseball.

If only poker players could say the same for Texas.

According to this report out of South Africa, however, the state that lends its name to the most popular variant of poker doesn't seem terribly thrilled by the association.

"Casinos and poker rooms are completely legal in each of its bordering states, but only minimally in Texas with a lone, isolated casino on the Mexico border [the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino] in Eagle Pass...

...Many popular stories of Texas' poker past are told through the stories of living poker legends such as Doyle Brunson and "Amarillo Slim" Preston. They grin and tell their tales about the times they've had a shotgun held to their faces by the robbers of the illegal games. They tell the tales as if they are ancient history and the games are now safe to play, but this is not the case in Texas."

More power to the elbow of the Texas Card Players' Association, then, as it tries to at least get legalised status for the game with which the Lone Star State is so historically entwined.

And as long as the Poker Hall of Fame refers to a gathering rather than a building, I'll keep touting Eagle Pass as a potential venue. Even if 'Kickapoo' doesn't have quite the same ring to it as 'Cooperstown'...
......................................................................................

Little over a month since its formation, I am delighted to record the first success for Team Wagering War, that exclusive gathering of players 'of a certain age', designed to be a foil to the hordes of fresh-faced young punks pros assembled in teams by the major online poker rooms.

Team WW member and comfortably middle-aged Surinder Sunar was a member of the Great Britain team that "steamrolled their way to victory at the 2008...Poker Nations Cup".

Way to go, Surinder.
.....................................................................

So Luckbox doesn't like the tired cliches trotted out in lazy movie reviews. Despite the grating examples he quotes, though, he must be thankful for small mercies. At least no-one seems to have mentioned knowing when to fold 'em...
......................................................................................

Weekly Free Poker Training Video Available Now
......................................................................................

Poker Pic of the Day - when shades are no longer enough...

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Racing tipsters and a question of emphasis

Date: Fri, Apr 11, 2008 Internet

Just had a mailshot from a racing tipster called Dave Evans.

Turfistes everywhere will know the gist of it already: life-changing wealth for just 10 minutes work a day.

But here's the really eye-catching thing. Exclamation marks!

Ninety-four of them in the first four pages of his sales pitch alone. For the avoidance of doubt, that's this many:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nearly 24 a page. I couldn't be bothered to tally the rest but a quick flick through pages 5 to 16 suggests the strike rate doesn't dip by much, if at all.

At about 400 words a page on average, this equates to a ! every 17 words.

Now contrast this with another tipster, Karl Dennis, whose race letter sales pitch comprises 1,845 words and includes 18 exclamation marks: an average of one every 102 words.

Karl, clearly, is an altogether calmer chap, as I suppose you can be when you talk to prospective customers in terms of £10 stakes, instead of the "...to £100 stakes" glibly bandied around by the vast majority of commercial tipsters until you begin to wonder what planet they, or you, are living on.

I also remember seeing Karl's ad in the now-obsolete Odds On magazine when I first became a punter, 10 years ago. Longevity among racing tipsters is as rare and impressive as it as among football managers.

Dave Evans, on the other hand, I don't know from Adam, although that can't be held against him as damning evidence, of course. Maybe he can help someone earn £200 a day or £25,000 a year and help them join the 5% of punters who win (as long as they "ACT NOW!!!")

If anyone reading this decides to ACT NOW!!! could they please let me know how they get on because I'm just starting to wonder if there might be the seeds of a racing system here, in which a tipster's merit can be proven to correlate to his exclamation mark average. Or, indeed his CAPITAL LETTER AVERAGE!!!

Call it the Hysteria System. For now.

Read Full Poker Blog Post

All friends now: casinos and counters debate '21'

Date: Wed, Apr 9, 2008 Internet

With the Spacey factor bringing the film 21 major publicity on this side of the Atlantic, here's an audio of the 'inside story' on the team who inspired the book behind the film.
.....................................................................................

Notwithstanding the exemption tacked on near the end, Richard Marcus can have no complaints if this post brings him a call from Greg Raymer's lawyers. If memory serves me right, Richard, there's such a thing as 'innuendo' in the laws on defamation. You stick a photo of Raymer in his trademark shades beneath the words Do Sunglasses Hide Poker Cheats? and you're asking for trouble.

Even if it's not illegal, it's plain rude.
......................................................................................

Can't see any problem with this idea, though:

Australian Government will pay welfare to ‘problem parents’ using debit cards

The cards will come with built-in bars to stop welfare money being spent on gambling, alcohol or drugs.

Now imagine such cards being made available for purchase by city-dwellers with a social conscience, to hand out whenever someone waves a 'wife and kids to support' sign under their noses. Just to see how long it takes for panhandling to die out...
......................................................................................

Best Vegas hang-outs for intellectuals.

"Politicians used to vilify 'intellectuals' as joyless snobs. But the pendulum has swung in America, and entertainers such as Jon Stewart and Tina Fey have convinced mainstreamers that intellectuals aren't just provocative, they're fun."

Well, I try.

Links to the some of the bars named and famed:

• The Beauty Bar
• Downtown Cocktail Lounge
• The Bunkhouse
• Double Down Saloon
• McMullan's Irish Pub
• Freakin' Frog
• House of Blues
• Revolution Lounge
  

Just watched the Beauty Bar video: good to see that 'intellectual' doesn't mean 'devoid of women'. And British readers, I'm sure, will be delighted to see that Vic Reeves has found DJ work...
......................................................................................

Poker Pic of the Day XV

Read Full Poker Blog Post

High interest rates the key to winning poker

Date: Wed, Apr 2, 2008 Internet

Playing poker with my two sons earlier this evening, following the arrival of our new poker set (one of the few I've seen that actually includes a feasible number of chips).

After an hour, Older Son is down to his last five chips, cleaned out largely by Younger Son, who impressively slow-played a nut straight after all his previous tells suggested that he had two pairs. (Whether this was a deliberate set-up, I hardly dare hope but it's still pretty impressive for a nine-year-old).

"I'm just going all-in next time," says Older Son, disconsolately.

"Now then, don't rush," I caution him. "Remember that story I told you about Jack Straus? From one lousy chip to world champion?"

"One difference, Dad," he replies. "Jack Straus wasn't bored..."
.......................................................................................

“Cases of pathological gambling, hypersexuality, and compulsive eating...have been reported in patients treated [with Mirapex].”

So says the prescribing information for Mirapex, a drug for Restless Leg Syndrome, as reported here.

And, in answer to the question you're now all asking: you get your Mirapex here.
.......................................................................................

Poker pic of the day XIV. I think these are Italian politicians but whatever, I still love the concept.

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Spin this...

Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2008 Internet

Another in a series highlighting those fabulous PR coups that make you rejoice to be a gambler...

'Archdiocese: pastor gambled church funds'

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned: at prices between evens and 33-to-1..."

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Poker night - don't forget the homemade Italian sodas...

Date: Fri, Mar 28, 2008 Internet

Evite's Poker Party planner might be aimed primarily at women (just a quick scroll through flickr.com suggests there aren't too many male-orientated poker nights where "suits and ties or cocktail dress makes a simple get-together seem like an event") but the e-invitations are good and the nibbles recipes (more here) should soothe many a savage beast.

You can keep them there Sidecars coming all night, too (see drinks section) although the other suggestions for liquid refreshment betray, I think, the essentially feminine theme of this package as a whole:

"Homemade Italian sodas give your poker night a nice Monte Carlo feel"

Right. As long as you're so stoned already that your bathroom's starting to look like Casino Square. But that's probably just me being a bloke.
......................................................................................

Poker pic of the Day XIII

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Eruptile dysfunction - 11 top poker strops

Date: Tue, Mar 25, 2008 Internet

Schadenfreude day on Wagering War. Courtesy of the staff at Bluff magazine, feel better about your emotional fortitude as you watch poker's toys leave the pram in the 11 Biggest Blow-ups of All Time.
.......................................................................................

Having thoroughly enjoyed Bringing Down the House, I wasn't surprised to find it seized upon by Hollywood. Nor that, yet again, the book may be better than the movie.

There's them that are lukewarm on '21' and then there's them that are decidedly cool. Others, meanwhile, choose to focus on where the film was shot and on gambling movies in general.

Start to make your own mind up: you'll find a trailer here.





......................................................................................

Poker pic of the Day

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Drawing lots for His garments? I know just the place...

Date: Fri, Mar 21, 2008 Internet

I'm a reasonable enough Christian, I suppose, in outlook at least. I acknowledge that Britain is now a secular society and I believe that we have free will as to whether we believe or not.

So I don't blow the gasket some do when I consider that this Good Friday is the first on which British bookmakers have been allowed to open for business.

I just feel sad at the warped Puritanical work ethic that decrees that leisure must always be subjugated to profit: the same mindset that underpins the sneers that follow a man out of the office when he dares don his coat at five o'clock or the sad executive machismo that makes unused holiday allowance a badge of honour.

So I commend bookmakers William Hill for making clocking on today purely voluntary for its staff. A reasonable compromise, I think.

Another ten years, indeed, and British Christians will probably look back on such largesse as a golden age of spirituality...

......................................................................................

How bizarre. Just as I'm updating this poker blog, my young son, who knows nothing of the game, brings me a cup of tea and an Oreo.

Spooky....


.....................................................................................

Rule Amendments for 2008 WSOP Announced:

“Excessive celebration through extended theatrics, inappropriate behavior, or physical actions, gestures, or conduct may be subject to penalty. Any player that engages a member of the tournament staff during the celebration or utilizes any property of Harrah’s will be penalized in accordance with Rules No. 31 and/or 51. Harrah’s property includes but is not limited to chairs, tournament tables, and stanchions.”

Given that the WSOP organisers have time on their hands for 11 months of the year, could I suggest some much-needed consultancy work in world soccer, where goal celebrations by purportedly grown men are getting beyond a joke?
......................................................................................

Characteristically trenchant, the Daily Mail's Patrick Collins believes it's about time the bookies put some money back into sport.
......................................................................................

Poker Room Review: Cities of Gold Casino, Sante Fe, NM
......................................................................................

Full Tilt Poker Referral Codes Released:

gives new players to Full Tilt Poker (A) a 100% match bonus up to a $600 maximum and (B) entry into exclusive Poker News freerolls.
......................................................................................

Zynga Launches Myspace Poker
.....................................................................................

Poker Pic of the Day XI - now here's a chap who may need to swot up on his WSOP 2008 rules...

Read Full Poker Blog Post

The camera doesn't lie - poker old-timers photoshoot 101

Date: Mon, Mar 17, 2008 Internet

If 16 is the age of consent, 61 is the age of relent. However much of a stud you think you are, the scars of time mean it's probably a very different image you're projecting to others. Like it or not, hit 61 and it's time to back off.

Using this picture, whose caption - 'Doyle and some Dollies' - invites the very type of sneer I'm trying to avert, I offer the following tips for those of the game's elder statesmen who'd like their photo-ops to play up the 'stately' part and downplay the 'elder':

• Keep your distance - drip with bling in your autumn years if you must but not with women a third of your age. Keep some daylight between yourself and les femmes: there's way too much nestling for my liking in our picture. It looks like the opening scene in a mature porn movie. So I'm told.
• Keep 'em covered - Nothing like taut, tanned young flesh to throw voluminous earlobes and a meaty wattle into stark relief. A couple of flattering yet discreet polo shirts and our photo just might have begun to suggest a meeting of minds instead of a mismatch of bodies.
• You lookin' at me? - Adoring glances should be reverential, not rampant. Look at the simpering expression from the lady on the right of our picture - "Y'know, I could still be attracted to a man of this age," she invites us to believe. Of course, madam: and if he waited on tables, as opposed to crushing them...?
  
• Cover your modesty - Note Doyle's smart move with the hat. The only thing worse than young women fawning over old men is young women fawning over old men with comb-overs.

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Poker's senior moment long overdue

Date: Mon, Mar 10, 2008 Internet

If there was one abiding image of this year's Aussie Millions, it was this one.

In a game full of fresh-faced young studs and latter-day Viking raiders, Antonio Casale stood out like Methuselah at a Club 18-30 rave.

No doubt the organisers, maybe deeper down than they realised, gritted their teeth at the idea of the world's 'happening' game of the moment suddenly resembling a scene from Cocoon. If I was still 25, maybe I too might have turned up my nose at the discordance of it all.

But I'm 47 in four months' time. So I rejoiced.

It bothers me that if and when I finally reach a level of competence where I might warrant an appearance at a live tournament, how at home will I feel if I'm old enough to have grandfathered everyone else at my table?

Will it work in my favour that I'm the only one old enough to know which way round a baseball cap goes ("the guy's hands shake; how dangerous can he be?!")? Or will I be seen as the doddering old fool slobbering over the buffet at a party to which I should never have been invited?

I'm scared it might be the latter, so for my money, there can't be enough Antonio Casales gettin' down wiv da yoof. In fact, it got me looking around to see how many other, er, venerable players are still knocking around the tournament scene.

I started with the upper echelons of the all-time money list as laid down in the Card Player database and my heart sang to see just how many silver warriors are still cashing in out there.

And then I thought, hell, if Full Tilt can build not so much a team as a legion of young fresh-faced turks, why shouldn't someone do the same for those accomplished players who remember where they were when Kennedy was shot?

Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present Team Wagering War - not a sponsor's basketball vest in sight and an inspiration to those of us either in or on the threshold of our autumn years. Led by charter member Antonio Casale, their exploits shall henceforth be recorded on these pages as a reminder that acne is not in fact a prerequisite for greatness in the modern game:

Antonio Casale
Chris Bjorin
Raymond Rahme
Barry Johnston
Randall Holland
Mel Judah
Surinder Sunar
Minh Ly
John Gale
John Spadavecchia
Tom Franklin
Chris Tsiprailidis
James Bechtel
Thor Hansen
Blair Rodman
Bruno Fitoussi
Jay Heimowitz
Brad Daugherty


(no Doyle Brunson, you'll notice. Like all legends, Doyle is ageless, so he's disqualified. I'm looking for that heady mix of talent AND mortality here)

Read Full Poker Blog Post

Poker mortgages: sub-prime in extremis...

Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2008 Internet

Here's a poker article where 'the long game' means something more than just reaching the final table. There should be more written along the lines of Making Your Money Work for You Away from the Poker Table. Even if I did smile at this bit:

"Once you have that in order, contact the bank that you normally deal with and have most of your accounts at. If you are planning on getting a mortgage without a co-signer, then plan on putting down 25% of the mortgage as a down payment...Don't lie about how you make your money. Tell them that you are a professional poker player. I've heard of many different schemes that people use to make it look like they are earning money as a 'consultant' or whatever. Don't do it. Honesty is the best policy."

Something tells me there's a website to be made from videos of bank manager reactions when would-be borrowers announce that they play poker for a living...

Read Full Poker Blog Post