Why I stick to cash games

All is forgiven

I am pleased to report that I am no longer persona non grata at MGM. After heavy, nationwide behind-the-scenes lobbying by the National Coalition for the Homeless, MGM finally succumbed and revoked its ban. In addition, I will be paid full restitution in the sum of $200. The latter amount does not include any compensation for my tarnished reputation which, to be fair, was already tarnished long before the incident.

I would like to thank Pete P. Peters for his generous offer of legal representation, and to the others who offered moral support.

Banned from all MGM properties

I've been banned from all MGM properties due to an incident at the Aria the other night. I was all-in pre-flop for $202 with 77 against a bigger stack's KK. Before the board was dealt, I asked my opponent if I could keep 2 chips for the valet should I lose, to which he agreed. Then, with everyone concentrating on the cards in the middle of the table, I quickly pocketed the 2 red stacks of $100 each and substituted them with 2 black chips.

The kings held up, I pushed the 2 $1 chips towards my opponent, but withheld the 2 black chips, saying that we agreed that these were for the valet. Needless to say, all hell broke loose, the floor was called and didn't buy my argument that we never specified the denomination of the 2 chips that I could keep. Also, it didn't help matters that I don't own a car.

I shall be taking this up with the Nevada Gaming Commission as soon as I can find suitable pro bono legal representation.

Vignette II

Bellagio 2/5

Once again the conversation at my table had dried up. There were long, uncomfortable bouts of silence and it was time for my schtick :

Me : My missus kicked me out after she caught me measuring my cock.

Dealer : Really?

Me : It just reaches the back of her sister’s throat!

Bummer

Unfortunately I won't be able to play in the $500,000 buy-in Aria Super High Roller Bowl on July 2, as it clashes with my porn slapper job interview. To say I'm peeved would be an understatement.

Vignette

From a Twitter exchange today :

Dealer's choice

I've often wondered what dealers really think about poker players. I just started following @MeanPokerDealer on Twitter, and present a sample of some of his tweets for your enjoyment :

Top 10 Bestselling Poker Books of 2014

Following is an infographic showing the top 10 bestselling poker books of 2014, according to Amazon, which I found here. You may recognize or have read some of them. Interesting, but not surprising, to see Sklansky's 27-year-old classic topping the list.

Happy 10th Birthday

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of this blog. I started this little adventure thanks to the prodding of the late Bob Lassiter, a friend from a past life.

The deck was stacked against my reaching 1 year, let alone 10. I've never owned a computer or had internet access, and have relied on the good graces of the Clark County public library system. It was no easy feat playing a 6-hour session of $0.05-$0.10 NLHE in the halcyon days of pre-UIGEA online poker, when the time limit per user was a ½ hour. I wish to thank all the shushing librarians who turned a blind eye to my frequent loud and obscene outbursts which inevitably accompanied a bad beat or felting.

Las Vegas is not an employment friendly city, especially if one has no connections. As you know by now, I have been struggling on this front for many years, and hopefully the New Year will see a turnaround.

I wish to express gratitude to my fellow bloggers for their support and encouragement, and to my faithful readers for having to put up with my constant tribulations.

Here's to poetic license and the next 10 years!

Job search update

The past week was devoted to some serious job hunting. I participated in no less than 14 interviews, justifying my rental of a cheap suit. Out of the 14, 3 expressed minimal interest, 9 showed complete disinterest, while 2 tore up my handwritten resume even before I had left the room.

I would get my resume prepared and typed by a professional, but there is a limit to what can be crafted with my checkered work history. And next time I'll rent a decent pair of shoes as well, rather than relying on the suit pants to cover up my worn out sandals.

Take me back

I have no recollection of what happened these past 10 weeks, only what I see posted in my blog, allegedly by me. The aliens must have wiped my mind clean just before depositing me back.

Once again, I'm pounding the pavement looking for work. The bastards at Panda Express did not believe my story and fired me promptly upon my return. Real pity, because my promotion prospects there were looking extremely promising.

Meanwhile last night, in an act of desperation, I returned to the very same spot where I was abducted, hoping I might get snatched away again.

Galactic game design

Since they have trouble playing any form of poker, except for open-face Chinese, I was commissioned to come up with variations of hold'em which they may find more entertaining. I proposed the following 3 :

1) "1-card" hold'em, in which each alien looks at 1 hole card only, with the option of looking at the second at any later stage during the hand.

2) "Surrogate" hold'em - the aliens cannot read our human minds, so each will appoint a human to look at the cards and play for them.

3) "1-card surrogate" hold'em, also made up of alien-human pairs, where the alien looks at 1 card only, the human at the second card, and then they are free to do whatever they like.

Can you guess which one is the most popular?

Still here

They are the only inhabitants of their planet. No other life form exists. They survive by breathing an atmospheric gaseous concoction not dissimilar to our own, and thankfully my respiratory apparatus is functional.

They do not communicate by speech, but rather by some form of telepathic interchange. There is full transparency, and no secrets can be withheld from each other.

This presents a problem when they wish to engage in recreational activities such as poker. Which brings me to the reason why I'm here...

Out of This World

I have no idea why and how they singled out my blog from all the millions in the blogosphere. By "they", I am referring to the aliens from the Messier 109 galaxy, who beamed me up into their waiting spaceship on the night of August 26th, while on my way home from another losing 1/3 session at the Aria.

They were very courteous, apologized profusely for the abrupt interruption in my life, assuring me that it was a matter of critical importance to the survival of their civilization. Their leader is called 助ជួយляйלعدة, which to earthlings would sound something like gohfzhmmb.

What am I doing here? When will I return? More in an upcoming post. And yes, they do have the technology to post to Blogger from 85 million light-years away, but if I told you how, they would cut off my 계란గుడ్లు.

Another milestone

There is a Las Vegas-based company, Love Cloud, that caters to those that want to join the Mile High Club (MHC). For $799, one can fly above Sin City in a specially outfitted Cessna 421 for 40 minutes.

Joining this exclusive club has always been a dream of mine. It took me 7 months of hard work to raise the required $799, and I am pleased to report that, as of this afternoon, I finally am a member of the MHC. I couldn't convince anyone to join me and took the flight by myself, but technically I still qualify.

Skill and luck

If you have a spare 50 minutes, please take the time to watch the keynote speech of Michael Mauboussin, Head of Global Financial Strategies at Credit Suisse, presented at the 17th Asian Investment Conference on the topic "The Success Equation - Untangling Skill and Luck".

Second promotion in as many weeks

After 2 weeks of bagging orders to go, I am now actually greeting and serving customers. It was only a matter of time before management finally recognized my great people skills.

In other news, I am entertaining the idea of a possible poker cruise sometime in 2015.

I've been dreaming of this for years now, and would be interested in hearing from readers who have any experience in stowing away on a ship.

Promotion at work

I knew my 6-week Mandarin language course would eventually pay dividends. My shift manager at Panda Express just informed me that effective today I am being promoted within the Service and Kitchen team to a customer-facing position. Till now I was restricted to the confines of the back kitchen with strict orders not to ever appear within sight of the public. Last week, however, one of the patrons heard me reciting a Hamlet soliloquy in Mandarin, which I sometimes resort to when steam frying the rice. Apparently he wrote to corporate headquarters lamenting the fact that such talent should not be wasted, and demanding an immediate promotion for the yet unseen and unknown employee he had been so impressed with.

In other news, I am now a little closer to the required entry fee for a $150 satellite to Event #55 ($1,500 No-Limit Hold'em), which I will be playing on my only day off for the month, June 28. As posted earlier, I am confident of a very deep run which in turn will provide the bankroll for my much anticipated trip to Macau. I can already picture the look on my shift manager's face when I hand in my immediate notice of resignation.

I turn on the WSOP live stream and who do I see?

At this time of year, I usually persuade the librarian in one of Clark County's public libraries to let me stay after closing so that I can enjoy the WSOP live stream, not to mention the airconditioning. As I sit here, there are 3 players left on the final table in the Seniors Event and one of them is none other than Memphis MOJO!!!

He is putting on a clinic and I hope he takes it down.

Update : MOJO finished in 3rd place for $279,412. Congratulations, great job and well deserved!!

John Grisham's statistical flub

I'm going through a John Grisham phase, having recently finished "The Last Juror" and "The Racketeer". I'm now reading his first work, "A Time to Kill", and like with all his books I just can't put it down once I start. His legal research, not surprisingly, is impeccable. However he appears to have made a mathematical error in Chapter 28 :

           "I hope you do the right thing, Joe Frank. I just hope
            they put you in that jury box. We need some people
            with some sense."

           "Wonder why they picked me?"

           "I heard they fixed up a hundred and fifty summonses.
            They're expectin' about a hundred to show up."

           "What're my chances of gettin' picked?"

           "One in a hundred," said Lela.

           "I feel better then. I really ain't got time to serve,
            what with my farmin' and all."


 There remains the small chance that it was intentional and meant to highlight Lela's lack of numeracy, but I doubt it.

WSOP here again

My, how time flies! The town is once again filled with poker-playing hopefuls about to get their dreams shattered and their souls crushed.

My next day off from Panda Express will be on June 28th, enabling me to play in Event #55 ($1,500 No-Limit Hold'em). I am confident of a deep run and wouldn't be surprised if I made the final table. There just remains the minor detail of overcoming a $1,462 cash flow shortfall.

The poker ecology

Every few years I happen to stumble upon and reread the excellent paper written by Lawrence Harris entitled "The Winners and Losers of the Zero-Sum Game : The Origins of Trading Profits, Price Efficiency and Market Liquidity".

Trading is a zero-sum game when measured relative to underlying fundamental values. No trader can profit without another trader losing. People trade because they obtain external benefits from trading. These benefits include expected returns from holding securities, risk reduction from holding correlated assets and gambling entertainment. 

Three groups of stylized characteristic traders are examined. Winning traders trade for profit. Utilitarian traders trade because their external benefits of trading are greater than their losses. Futile traders expect to profit but for a variety of reasons their expectation are not realized. 

Winning traders make prices efficient and provide most liquidity. Utilitarian and futile traders effectively underwrite the winning traders' efforts. 

In the paper he mentions the similarity between trading and poker. He lists the many types of traders and how, even among the winning styles, one group will profit from another but will lose to other specific styles.

So informed traders will profit from market-makers but lose to bluffers, while parasitic traders will profit from upstairs traders but lose to informed traders. Note that informed traders, market-makers, bluffers, parasitic traders, and upstairs traders are all classified as winners i.e. if skilled, these traders will profit from trading in the long run.

It would be interesting to see a similar analysis for the different poker playing styles.

One step closer to Macau

I successfully completed the 6-week Mandarin language immersion course last week and immediately tested my linguistic prowess by making some very late night phone calls to Chinese sounding names I randomly pulled out of the phone book. Not only did I manage to effortlessly communicate with the parties involved, but I also picked up a few choice curse words that, not surprisingly, weren't on our syllabus.

Paying for the aforementioned course, however, has put a severe dent in my bankroll and may delay my plans somewhat. In the meantime I am frantically trying to raise some funds to at least cover the cost of the cab ride to McCarran, and a standby ticket to Macau. To this end, I am pleased to report that this post is sponsored by Spreaditfast, and I sincerely hope that other sponsors will step forward to help me realize my dreams.

Speaking of dreams, I now dream in Chinese. This is what 6 weeks of immersion does to you. Upon completion of the course, my mind was so clogged that I had forgotten simple and basic skills like peeling a banana and tying my shoelaces. The good news is that these all can be relearnt fairly quickly. In fact I had even forgotten the hand rankings in poker and how to play Texas Hold'em, but thanks to the following video, a great introductory tutorial produced by our friends at PokerStars, I will now be able to hit the ground running when I eventually touch down in Macau.

Next stop : Macau

I'm wasting my time and potential here in Vegas. The games are no longer a challenge. I have my eyes set upon the nosebleed cash games currently being held in Macau, and am presently enrolled in a 6-week Mandarin Chinese language immersion program jointly run by Berlitz and Panda Express. 

More woes

Microsoft will be withdrawing support for its Windows XP operating system on April 8, 2014. As a long time XP user, I can barely afford the daily bus fare to the Strip, let alone buy a new computer in order to update to the Windows 8 (P)OS. It's true that we were given adequate warning, but Microsoft is abandoning millions of faithful users, so fuck them and the horses they rode in on.

Before you get a tattoo ....

.... make sure the guy can spell.

Eureka!

After years of searching for the Holy Grail of poker, I think I may have finally found it. No more looking for a career, Easy Street here I come.

Poker Player has been advertising a revolutionary new book, "Average Joe's Method", in which we are shown how to predict future flops based on the outcomes of previous flops :

Reduced probability is the essential ingredient of my method. Let me explain. As we know, all poker decks consist of 52 cards, however each one of these cards contain 4 of kind. 52 divided by 4 equals 13. We are now working with a reduced number of 13 digits. Based on 10 players per table, each player will have two whole cards which add up to 20. Since there are only 13 digits available, we now understand that 7 players must have the same digit as one of the other players, or a pocket pair. Statistics have shown that pocket pairs occur 6% of the time or once every 17 hands. Let us assume that on average, one player will have a pocket pair during each deal. This now means 6 players will have matching cards to one another. This reduces the card ratio by another 10.8%. We are now playing with 11.8 digits .....

And so it goes, getting more complicated as one proceeds, but not to worry :

My book omits all the mathematics of my method so it's an easy read for anyone.

Thank goodness for that, because I had started losing the flow of his logic. Anyway, the book arrives in 2 days and then it's financial freedom.

I posted this 4 years ago

Watching the Winter Olympics brings back fond memories of when I competed in the 1988 games in Calgary. I was lagging at the back of the field in the biathlon and, out of sheer frustration, decided my only chance was to open fire directly above the heads of the other competitors. Fortunately sanity prevailed and I quashed that plan. I haven't competed since.

Posting chip stack pics

It's become fashionable to post pictures on Twitter, Instagram, and poker forums of big chip stacks during a winning session.

For consistency's sake, where are the pictures after a brutal, losing session?

Bit of a mouthful

These are the home games you want to be invited to :

This post will self-destruct in 10 minutes

Trying an experiment similar to Snapchat's self-destructing mechanism. If this works, I'll be able to retire and not have to worry about finding work again.

Edit (4 hours later)
As can be seen, the post did not self-destruct. Very disappointing, considering I spent over 2 months writing the necessary code which, when applied to the Blogger template interface, should have resulted in this post's automatic disappearance after 10 minutes. Alas, my dreams of retiring were greatly exaggerated and premature.

The Queen and Dolly

Queen Elizabeth and Dolly Parton die on the same day and they both go before an Angel to find out if they'll be admitted to Heaven.

Unfortunately, there's only one space left that day, so the Angel must decide which of them gets in. The Angel asks Dolly if there's some particular reason why she should go to Heaven.

Dolly takes off her top and says, "Look at these, they're the most perfect breasts God ever created, and I'm sure it will please God to be able to see them every day, for eternity."

The Angel thanks Dolly, and asks Her Majesty the same question. The Queen takes a bottle of Perrier out of her purse, drinks it down, then wees into a toilet and pulls the lever.

The Angel says, "OK, your Majesty, you may go in."

Dolly is outraged and asks, "What was that all about? I show you two of God's perfect creations and you turn me down. She wees into a toilet and she gets in! Would you explain that to me?"

"Sorry, Dolly," says the Angel, "but even in Heaven, a Royal Flush

beats a pair - no matter how big they are."

Casino Player Magazine

Among the various magazines available in some Strip poker rooms is Casino Player. Described as "America's gaming lifestyle magazine", it contains articles on gambling strategy as well as up-to-date casino news, and dining and show reviews.

They claim to look out for the player but it's blatantly obvious by the ads and content that they are deeply in bed with the casino industry. This would be fair enough if they didn't resort to the misleading and luring promises on their front cover and inside.

So, for example, on the cover of the June 2013 edition we are promised "tips for FINALLY beating three card poker". Upon looking inside, the article has the more realistic and sober subheading "Lower the casino's edge with these optimal strategies". Somewhat different from the cover's verbiage and offering no solution to overcoming that pesky 3% house edge.

The latest December 2013 issue has "WINNING BACCARAT STRATEGY" emblazoned on the top left of the cover. Once again, when we bother to actually read the article inside, we are informed that by betting on the banker we will win more frequently than betting on the player, but alas the house edge is still 1.06%. Not to disappoint however, the article ends with "So go ahead and win frequently."

But what really caught my eye was a full-page article about the opening of a new $800-million resort casino. In the sidebar there was the following quote :

Remember this : The house doesn't beat the player. It just gives him the opportunity to beat himself.
-Nicholas Dandalos
"Nick the Greek"
(1883 - 1966)

 Aaah, so that's what keeps the Strip lit up.

Sign me up

I may have found my next career choice.

While watching the Nelson Mandela memorial, I couldn't but help notice the ease with which the sign language interpreter conveyed the meaning and emotion of the world leaders' eulogies. It looked fairly simple and I could only discern 7 different signs, making it something even I could master with a little effort.

Once certified, I could be a major asset to any poker room whenever a floor decision needs to be explained to a deaf player.

Finally landed a temporary job

I will be spending the next 2 weeks working as a human directional. Before any of you get overly impressed, it's just a fancy name for a sign twirler. I'll take it though, especially after having botched my last job interview for a position as a wealth management advisor at Morgan Stanley.

I got a fever

The poor fellow in seat 9 was sneezing uncontrollably. Thankfully my seat 3 was outside the contaminated blast zone and therefore in a germ-free area. However I could see the dealer was starting to get visibly agitated and only the internal customer relations training he underwent prevented any verbal response on his part.

Me : Allergies?

Seat 9 : No, I think I'm getting a fever.

Me : I'm a physician. The only prescription is more cowbell.

Seat 9 : Huh?

Vicious animal attack

I apologize for the posting hiatus and am pleased to report that after a 2 week stay at Sunrise Hospital, I was finally released today. A fortnight ago, a confluence of highly unlikely events led to my being set upon by 2 llamas and a miniature horse. Commenting on the incident, officials at the Las Vegas Petting Zoo said it was "extremely unusual and the first of its kind since the zoo's opening 27 years ago".

To its credit, the zoo spared no expense and flew in a highly specialized medical team including 3 groin reconstruction surgeons, ensuring that both my reproductive capacity and voice intonation will thankfully remain intact.

I can now concentrate on rebuilding my career and poker grubstake.

Whoooosh!!!

I've been reading Card Player magazine for the last 10 years and have yet to encounter a strategy article that I could not easily understand. That is until the latest issue (October 2, 2013) containing Reid Young's "How to beat those pesky loose reraisers (or how to be so pesky!)".

Reid Young is a poker coach and author of "The Blue Book : An Advanced Strategy Guide for No-Limit Hold'em Cash Games", an e-book that was initially priced at $2,500 when it came out in 2010. He also posts on 2+2 as shootaa.

Card Player is available for free in card rooms and the target audience of the articles in the magazine generally reflect this. Some writers will have a series of pieces in consecutive issues, each building on the previous one. However, this is Young's first article on the subject. To be fair, he does state :

"A comprehensive look into all of these topics would take scores of articles,..." 

However, we are then bombarded with the likes of :

"At a particular, though opponent dependent, inflection point on a value curve, the ability to charge an opponent  for drawing to a big hand is diminished by an increasingly large preflop stack size, as long as reraise size is held relatively constant."

and

"The need for an equity based range in certain cases makes clear that with different stack sizes, the polarity of the reraising range varies."

There is no doubt that Reid Young has a lot to offer. However, until he descends from Olympus, Card Player is not the appropriate forum for his material.

I give up

Slept all weekend not wishing to wake up and face the real world, which unfortunately came crumbling down around me on Friday when I failed to pass the Head Lice Removal Technician qualifying exam.

My presentation in front of the examining board was going well as I confidently demonstrated the different species of lice which I held in an open petri dish. An ill-timed sneeze, however, resulted in the accidental infestation of all those within a 5 foot radius of me, thereby prematurely ending any chances of my qualifying.

I'm all out of ideas.

Nearly there

Apologies for the recent lull in posting, but I have been preoccupied with studying for my final certification exams which hopefully will lead to full qualification as a Head Lice Removal Technician.

Final assessment is Friday consisting of a 3-hour written test, followed by practical treatment of a severe infestation case.

I know I can do this.

Tipping the dealer – IV

We have already established that a dealer’s tip expectation is directly correlated to the size of the pot. Because the dealer expects me to share my good fortune with him, I view the dealer as a business partner, to be rewarded when times are good and to be ignored when I'm not doing as well.

For those who wish to avoid this extra overhead, there is always the option of playing online, and a comprehensive list of US sites may be found here.

As a player, winning a pot means nothing to me unless taken in context, and certain criteria have to be met before a dealer is eligible for a tip.

Am I winning for the session?
While this may not concern the dealer, it has a disproportionate influence on the size and frequency of my tipping. If I am winning, I tip generously on big pots, and at least $1 on the smaller ones. If on the other hand I am down for the session, I will hold back on the tips, depending on how deep in the hole I am.

Am I winning in this particular dealer’s down?
I always make a mental note of my stack size each time a new dealer sits down. As my business partner, I take care of her as long as I am profitable during her down. If, however, I start losing, I will wait till I return to my starting level before resuming my tipping.

So, for example, dealer X sits down when I have $500 in front of me, and I lose $200 in the next 10 minutes. I then win a $40 pot. Dealer X will get nothing. I have no qualms about this as X was (or should have been) tipped by those who took my $200.

My relationship with the dealer
Some dealers address me by my first name and always ask how I’m doing. Others barely make eye contact, and haven’t said a word to me in 2 years. You can guess who is going to get the better tips.

The size of the pot
This needs no explanation.

The amount of luck involved
If I win a $200 pot after being a 90% dog on the turn, the dealer’s getting a couple of redbirds, instead of the usual $2 or $3.

Miscellaneous external factors
Some players never tip the dealer. That is their prerogative and I would never make any comment about it. However, if I see a dealer has gone a long time without a tip, I will take extra good care of him should he push a pot my way.

Finally I wish to emphasize that there is no carryover to the next session. If a dealer has “cost” me $300 today, the slate is wiped clean for the next session. Naturally, this also applies to dealers that have been “good” to me.

And that, more or less, is the rationale behind my tipping philosophy.

Breaking the silence

There was an eerie tension in the air at my table last night, most likely due to 2 big pots and even bigger suckouts, separately involving 4 different protagonists. From seat 5, opposite the dealer and where everyone could hear, it was time for my schtick :

Me : Went for my routine check-up today.

Dealer : Is everything OK?

Me : Everything seemed to be going fine until he stuck his index finger up my arse!

Dealer : Well that's a normal procedure.

Me : So you don't think I should change dentists?

Tipping the dealer - III

Conversation that I have heard many times at the poker table :

Player 1 : Hey, the spades royal flush high hand jackpot is only $100. Last time I was here it was over $2,000. Who won it?

Player 2 : Big Al hit it last night. In fact our very own Dealer Dylan dealt it to him and only got a $10 tip.

Player 1 : Is that true, Dylan? You should've dealt it to me, you would've gotten $200.

Dealer Dylan (scowling) : I shouldn't really comment.


For those unfamiliar with the procedure, once a high hand is hit, the dealer shouts out "high hand" and counts down the deck, the floor comes over to visually verify the high hand, tells the dealer to push the pot and go on to the next hand. All the necessary paperwork, including tax forms if necessary, is handled by the floor, and when everything is ready the floor returns to the table with the payment and gives it to the dealer who then disburses it to the lucky winner (after finishing dealing the current hand). In a well run room, a high hand may cost a dealer 1 minute in lost dealing time.

So when dealer Jennifer Gay says "you're tipping for service, not for results", she is in the minority. Every dealer I've spoken to is more "results oriented", like Dylan.

Tipping the dealer - II

Thank you to those that commented in my previous post. It would appear that out of the 8 people who have expressed an opinion to date, a majority of 6 thought that a $1 tip would be appropriate, one person maintained that the dealer didn't deserve "a fucking penny", and one expressed doubts about the situation and preferred to remain on the sidelines.

From the outset let me state that tipping is a very personal matter and that there is no right or wrong answer for each and every situation. For the sake of simplicity let us assume there are 5 general categories of players :

1. Those that never tip.

2. Those that tip intermittently.

3. Those that tip $1 for each pot regardless of size.

4. Those that tip at least $1 depending on the size of the pot.

5. Mr Subliminal (to be defined).


As it happens, in this particular instance I did not tip the dealer. Yet, as I will show later, this dealer would have been better off having 9 Mr Subliminal's at his table than any of the other types.

One other thing. By definition, the "you're tipping for service, not for results" crowd must belong to category 3, no?

Tipping the dealer - I

This will be the first in a series of posts outlining my philosophy and methodology of tipping the dealer. I will start with an actual example that occurred tonight in an unnamed Strip casino.

Dealer X sits down when I have $300 in front of me, and shortly thereafter I call a shortstack's pre-flop all-in with my KK. He has KJo, making me a 91% favorite. The board runs out

9 8 7 T 4

and I lose $120 to his straight. A few hands later, I win a small pot for a $25 profit. How much should I tip the dealer?

Table talk

When I sit down to play poker, all I ask for is a quiet, peaceful session. I'm not interested in where you're from, or what you do for a living. If you mistakenly happen to ask me, I will ignore your question. If you persist, I will deliberately misinform and disinform.

So when the conversation last night turned to why I hadn't said a word in 4 hours, I finally broke my silence.

"I have a major worry."

"What?" they asked.

"I've accidentally swallowed some Scrabble tiles. My next crap could spell disaster."

Ecological breakthrough?

An Australian company, Shark Attack Mitigation Systems (SAMS), has released new shark deterrent design technology that is applied to wetsuits to reduce the chance of shark attack.

Although sharks use a number of senses to locate prey, it is known that vision is the crucial sense in the final stage of an attack. By disrupting a shark's visual perception, an attack can either be diverted altogether or at least delayed to allow time to exit the water.

I can still recall the raised eyebrows as I traipsed into the Bellagio poker room last night dressed in one of these wetsuits. I can personally attest to the effectiveness of this new technology as I had my first winning session in 8½ months.

Know Thy Enemy

The venue : Aria 1/3NL

Pre-flop action : 5 players in an unraised pot

Flop : 9s 5s 3s

Post-flop action : I am the big blind holding As9d and lead out with a $10 bet. It is folded to the button, a young, aggressive "internet type" who raises it to $30. I call.

Turn : 9h

I make it $60, internet punk angrily mucks his 5d3d face-up and says "Nice catch, I had you on the flop."

Now I don't normally engage in any post-hand discussion, not even the customary "nice hand". I will occasionally rap the table when appropriate to acknowledge a well-played hand, and conversely have been known to mutter a subdued, barely audible "motherf*cker" when some drooling imbecile hits his gutshot on the river. This is in line with the philosophy of "mum poker" as espoused by Tommy Angelo, though some may legitimately argue that "barely audible" does not fall into this category.

From the punk's perspective, he sees me as a middle-aged, unsophisticated, unkempt loser, who probably hasn't read a poker book in his life. While this unfortunately is not entirely inaccurate, it's what I want him to think. Unbeknownst to him, I have spent years studying and profiling his internet-playing ass over at CardsChat, an online worldwide poker forum and community. I know what he thinks of me and how he plans to run over me at the table. I respect his knowledge of the game while he has already stereotyped me as an unimaginative nit, thereby affording me a huge advantage.

It is no secret that the transition from online to live play is a difficult one. Firstly, there is the issue of boredom, as witnessed by CardsChat thread titles such as "Live Grind: How to Not Fall Asleep at the Table" and "Tips for keeping concentration during live games?".

Then there is the absence of crutches such as the HUD display and tracking software. In a recent interesting thread  (March 2013) entitled "Playing Live Without Stats? How do you do it?", the opening poster asks  :

       "I am constantly amazed by the number of people who are
        entirely caught up with playing online using the various
        stats programs and such. I was really wondering how the
        heck you guys manage to play live at all.

        Anyone want to take a stab at how you would collect such
        stats playing live?"

Is it any wonder then that these hapless souls spend most of their time hunched over their smartphones, and then have to be prodded by the dealer when it's their turn to act?

Getting back to our hand, I'm sure most readers will have agreed that he did indeed have me on the flop. Well, think again. I was 51.8% to his 48.2% on the flop. Yes, I was ahead the whole time - surprising I know. So while it definitely rankled me to hear his totally unwarranted "nice catch", I refrained from responding. After all, I have a reputation to maintain.

Customer service

I'm losing pot after pot to this Aria regular who keeps sucking out on me. Meanwhile dealers Cody and Amy are fraternizing and laughing it up with the prick while he's stacking my chips. There's 2 more dealers that made my stiffing list. Who else is on the list? A few sycophants who vocally sucked up to the tourists who threw them a redbird or two immediately after they brutally sucked out on me. They should know by now where their bread is buttered.

Automatic sensor taps

The ritzy casino restrooms all have them now. You stick your hand under the tap and the water comes gushing out. 2 problems I have encountered are the water temperature and quantity. At the Aria, the water is so damn hot I defy anyone to keep their hands under there for more than 3 seconds without risking 3rd degree burns.

The other problem is the short length of a burst before you have to remove and reinsert your hands to reactivate the sensor. The Wynn takes the prize here with a record of 12 insertions necessary to complete humming "Happy Birthday" twice.

Head to the grindstone

Not much time for poker or any other activity, as I spend most of my waking hours studying about head lice. The course is very demanding with a 70% dropout rate. Hopefully my hard work will pay dividends.

Downtime

Lost my $100 buy-in in 6½ minutes leaving me 4 hours with nothing to do. Rather than work the rail and try scrounging up another buy-in, I utilized the time by visiting the roulette croupier whose leg was injured during my Big Six Wheel dealer audition. He will be leaving hospital in 1 week and, with intensive follow-up physiotherapy, thankfully will only be left with a slight limp. He was in remarkably good spirits and managed to comfort me as I tearfully sobbed about my earlier $100 loss.

When one door closes ...

Following the recent fiasco at my dealer audition, I am pleased to report that I have been accepted into a 3-month training course leading to certification as a fully qualified Head Lice Removal Technician.

Further updates to follow.

Career update

Last December I enrolled in an advanced 3rd year calculus class at UNLV, helping me overcome the theoretical difficulties I was facing in the Big Six Wheel dealer training curriculum.

Yesterday was the final exam and live audition. The exam went well, but owing to a bad case of nerves I botched up the audition by spinning the wheel so hard I actually dislodged the whole contraption from the floor, causing it to fall backwards into the adjoining roulette pit where it severely grazed a croupier in the leg. Amid all the chaos, I noticed that the now horizontal wheel had stopped on 5, and calmly made the corresponding payouts hoping that I could still ace the audition, but it wasn't to be.

Nanks for thothing

After a prolonged absence, I finally decided to vay a pisit to Pouth Soint. Chothing has nanged. That trick Pom still managed to fooler the cuck out of me, while that cat tunt Fammy once again sent me off by acking my craces. They both can buck my salty salls.

Can't You Hear Me Knockin'?

I get home with my free copy of Bluff Magazine and, as is my habit, immediately turn to Dr. Pauly McGuire's regular article, this time entitled "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'?".

I don my headphones, fire up the Stones' live performance of said song on YouTube, and enjoy the double pleasure of reading one of my favorite poker writers while listening to one of my favorite rock groups.

Buying some outs

As I'm wont to do on a Sunday afternoon, I am lying on my folding cot catching up on my poker reading. In her regular column in Poker Player (February 25, 2013), Barbara Connors writes about the concept of "buying outs". She does, however, make an error in the following paragraph :

Say you call to see a flop with A-7 of spades and the flop comes down J-8-3 with two spades. You have nine outs to the nut flush, which is pretty simple and straightforward, except that the flush is not the only draw you have going for you here. You could also hit one of the remaining three aces, which would give you top pair. Problem is, your top pair would be married to a mediocre kicker. If one of your opponents has a better ace, say ace-king or ace-queen, your three ace outs are tainted, because spiking an ace will only bring you heartache and an expensive second-best hand. But if you think a wellplaced raise can push this particular opponent out of the pot, you’re effectively buying three more outs for your hand, giving yourself a total of 12 good outs to win.

The first reader to correctly identify the mistake wins a free self-administered colonic irrigation.

Hand Analysis I

This will be the first in a series of posts where I will attempt to convey the incisive analysis that lies behind my decision making process during the play of a no-limit hold'em poker hand. The importance of maintaining a high state of vigilance, in order to detect the constant stream of clues being dangled in front of us, can not be overemphasized.

The following hand took place in a 2/5 game at the Aria on 2/10/2013. The game is fairly lively with a good amount of pre-flop raising and re-raising. Effective stacks are $500, and I am UTG+1 in seat 5.

UTG folds and I look down at 2 black aces. I immediately bite the inside of my cheeks and upper tongue so as not to display any manifestation of bliss.

While I pause and think about how much to raise, I notice that Seat 6 to my left, a 20-something internet punk replete with hoodie and headphones, is cutting out chips.

In the meantime, the dealer alerts me that blood is starting to flow out of the sides of my mouth. I must have bitten off a chunk of my tongue. However, I don't let this distract me as it should grow back.

I decide the best course of action is to just limp in and re-raise the punk when it gets back to me. So I timidly push in a redbird.

To my chagrin, Seat 6 just calls my $5 and then continues cutting out chips. How the hell am I supposed to know the prick has OCD.

It's folded to the middle-aged lady in Seat 9 who now starts freaking out and accuses me of being a vampire, but still manages a call.

"Towel on table 12," shouts the dealer as blood starts to drip onto the felt.

Both small and big blind call, and we see the flop 5-handed :

Ah 3h 3s

I am now starting to feel a little lightheaded, probably from the loss of blood. I peek again at my cards and to my dismay notice that they are now wet red aces.

"Towel on table 12," I shout.

It's a dangerous flop and I won't be lulled into a false sense of security. I have a boat but there are backdoor straight flush and quads possibilities. If someone has flopped quads then so be it.

It is checked to me. I start swaying to and fro, my head spinning like a top. My cards on the table in front of me are now barely visible and the chip used to protect them starts floating away.

With my last remaining strength I feebly announce "all-in".

All this is apparently too much for the lady in Seat 9 who faints headfirst onto the table. The dealer declares her hand dead and extricates the 2 cards from under her left cheek, but not before accidentally exposing them :

3d 3c

I manage to hang on till the pot is pushed my way and then pass out, just as the floor arrives with a towel.

One more for Snopes

Last June, there was a report in the Las Vegas Sun, together with accompanying photo, about a roulette wheel at the Rio hitting the number 19 an incredible seven times in a row.

Knowing that the odds of this happening are about 3 billion to 1, I immediately dismissed this and attributed it to some electronic malfunction.

Sure enough, the very next day a Rio spokesman told the paper, "There was no one playing at that table. It was just a diagnostic test being done."

In her latest column in Poker Player (February 11, 2013), Barbara Rogers writes :

A good friend of mine, Mike from Rhode Island, played in a game recently where the same player was dealt pocket aces four times in a row. What’s even more incredible is they were the same suit each time, ace of clubs, and the ace of diamonds. As hard as it is to believe, it’s true; you know anything can happen in this game of ours. The chances of it happening are comparable to: winning the lottery 5 times or getting struck by lightning three times in your lifetime. The chance of random aces three times in a row is 1 in 10,793,308. One players’ response to “ace man” was “there is no (f -in) way you have pocket aces four times in a row, I call!”

The chance of random aces three times in a row is actually 1 in 10,793,861 and, had this been the case, I could have believed the story. But the odds of being dealt the exact same hand 3 times in a row are about 2.3 billion to 1, so I have to call BS on Mike's yarn.

Keeping it together

I won't lie, I was literally LMAO when I read fellow poker blogger Stump's tweet last night.

Is that all you got?

Though they may temporarily sting me, they are the lifeblood of my upward sloping equity curve. I am referring to the never-ending array of inferior local wannabe players like the young sweet-looking bitch sitting in the 4 seat last night at Caesars who, while inflicting some initial damage to my stack with a ridiculous play meant more to impress a nearby friend than anything else, eventually left the table broke.

Freezeout at the Aria

Last night, the actual measured temperature in the Aria poker room was lower than the outdoor sub-freezing Las Vegas Valley. 6 dealers and 23 players were treated for frostbite and hypothermia, while several elderly locals were medevaced onto a waiting helicopter ambulance. I was fortunate to survive the ordeal by huddling under table 18, and was found by an enterprising St. Bernard.

The engineering department is looking into the matter.

The gift that keeps on giving

Not having fully recovered from Sal's Xmas present, I have now developed a lingering dry hacking cough and am once again bed-ridden. The last time I measured my temperature, it was 101.8. The doctor has put me on Azithromycin and Phenergan. I am coughing non-stop and cannot get any decent semblance of sleep.

The next time I see a dealer sniffling and snorting, I will notify the shift supervisor. I'm not talking about the occasional sneeze or sniffle. I'm referring to dealers with bright red, runny noses - for everyone's sake take the day off. I understand that missing a day hurts the pocket, but I'll be fucked if I'm going to go through this shit again.

Chris the #@!%

We've all got our favorite dreaded dealer. You know, the one that consistently manages to fuck up a good session. Mine is Chris, a pimply-faced youngish-looking lad who, without fail, sends me packing every time he sits in the box.

Now despite his horrific track record, I always think that this time will be different and never bother to leave the table when he shows his ugly face. "Give the cunt a chance, this can't last forever," I say to myself.

So once again tonight, not 5 minutes after he starts dealing, the prick conjures up a queen-high flop which is enough to get my AQ felted by a set of 5's.

You would think I'd learn by now.

A gift from Sal

Last week Venetian poker dealer Sal spent almost as much time blowing his nose into tissues as he did dealing the cards. So it came as no surprise when I contracted a severe cold a couple of days later and was confined to bed. After all, it is the Season of Giving.

New magic show opens at Venetian

I was privileged to witness the Xmas Eve premiere opening of "The Amazing Andrew", a magic show starring the talented Venetian poker dealer Andrew. Here's a preview :

Scene 1 : At 11:30pm I have $50 in front of me and it's only a matter of time before I will be walking out into the cold 35 degree Las Vegas night without a penny.

Scene 2 : Sensing my desperation, Andrew comes to my rescue and deals me As Ad. I can barely contain my excitement when an early position player (EPP) raises to $15. I quickly push my $50 across the betting line and EPP calls.

Scene 3 : EPP has Ah Qs and I am a 93% favorite. I breathe a sigh of relief and for the first time in 6 hours I finally lean back in my chair, ready to enjoy the show.

Scene 4 : With the flourish he is known for, Andrew deals out the dream flop : Tc 6h 6s. I am now 98% certain to double up, which in turn means a warm meal.

Scene 5 : This is when everything turns to shit. The room darkens with the spotlight on the board and Andrew's 2 hands. There is a drum roll and Andrew deals the turn : Jd. I lean forward slightly, inadvertently breaking wind. Not missing a beat, Andrew then delivers the coup de grace when he places the Ks on the river.
Magic. Pure fucking magic. This guy puts Copperfield to shame. And all this without even a sexy magician's assistant.

Final scene : As I exit the room cursing Andrew and his lineage, the curtain falls.

In good company

While sitting at a 2/5 must-move table at the Venetian yesterday, I noticed Collin Moshman in the 8 seat and Ed Miller in seat 10. I was sent to another table after 5 minutes so I didn't get a chance to witness their play. Still, what are the odds of finding 3 celebrated poker writers on one table?

Simon, Venetian dealer and missing link

One of the functions of this blog is to act as my personal safety valve. Ever since that apelike simian, Simon, set foot in the Venetian, he has dealt me a continuous stream of coolers, bad beats, crappy cards, and missed flops. It is wickedly uncanny and no dealer even comes close. This stuttering baboon has cost me thousands of dollars. Variance, it would seem, has long since been replaced by voodoo.

Tonight was no exception. Well, fuck you Simon and the evolutionary chain you rode in on.

WPBT

Last weekend, poker bloggers gathered in Las Vegas for the traditional winter WPBT get-together. I have been attending since the summer of 2005, but circumstances were such that I couldn't make it this time and tweeted my apologies to that effect.

However, I was fortunate enough to meet lightning36 who made the effort to come and see me.

Little GTO

There's an interesting thread on 2+2 about whether the top poker pros use game theory as part of their strategy. It appears that some do while others are blessed with an innate ability that acts as a substitute.

Today there are bots employing GTO (game theory optimal) strategies that could beat any human in heads-up limit hold'em (LHE). In the beginning of the thread, no less than Durrrr (Tom Dwan) issued a challenge whereby he was willing to take on any bot in LHE. There were a few takers but as of yet, Durrrr has not agreed.

No limit hold'em (NLHE), with its different betting structure, is a much more complex endeavor when it comes to programming a GTO bot. In fact, the largest game ever solved was checkers (2007), which took a team led by Jonathan Schaeffer nearly 16 years and involved 200 desktop computers. NLHE is more complicated than checkers.

Incidentally, Professor Schaeffer had this to say about solving chess :

"The number of chess positions possible (as calculated in several chess books, a couple of which are chess encyclopedias which probably quote from other sources) is greater than the number of atoms in the universe (assuming that it is 10-15 billion light-years in diameter). So roughly, the complete game tree would not fit on a computer the size of the universe. But, the entire game tree does not have to be on the computer at once. And many positions are not important. Some experts in artificial intelligence think that a very large computer (larger than any in existence, but certainly smaller than a planet) may be able to solve chess by calculating for a few thousand years, maybe for hundreds of years."

Better than a slowroll

I'm sitting in the 5 seat and a local to my right comes back with a visually appealing dish which he starts eating at the table. I ask him what it is and he gruffly replies "What's it look like?"

Hmmm, I have no idea and just say "Sorry for asking."

Shortly thereafter, he moves to the 2 seat, and about an hour later he is all-in against the 9 seat who calls. Shithead shows a set of 8's while the 9 seat tables 64 for a straight. Shithead gets up and leans forward as he has trouble discerning the winning hand at the opposite end of the table.

"Is that a straight?" he asks.

"What's it look like?" I chime in without missing a beat.

A chimp and a chair

After 495 days...

Full Tilt Poker officially reopened for real money play today at 12:00PM GMT (4:00AM PT). As was to be expected, there were some teething problems (cashier functionality, inability to login etc.), but this didn't prevent FTP from regaining number 2 spot with over 40,000 players online after a few hours.

As the countdown proceeded and with 15 minutes to go before FTP went live, one particular poster on 2+2 couldn't contain himself :

Full Tilt is ready to go

With worldwide re-launch slated for November 6, USA players will at least be able to enjoy the best poker software for play money only. I just downloaded and logged into Full Tilt, and found that Rush Poker is almost as addictive with play money.

Reviewing the Reviewer

Andrew "Foucault" Brokos, professional poker player, coach, and book reviewer, writes a very interesting article titled "Stop Worrying About Draws" in Card Player magazine (October 17, 2012), the gist of which is that just because there is a potential flush or straight draw on the flop, the likelihood of someone actually having such a draw is not as high as it would appear.

He shows how for different flops the number of possible combinations of potential draws are relatively small compared to the total number of actual possible combinations.

In doing so, however, he slips up a couple of times with his calculations.

"There are six times as many ways to be dealt 9-8 offsuit as 9-8 suited, though admittedly many players will fold the former to a raise."

This is clearly wrong. There are 16 combinations of any 2 different ranks, 4 of which are suited. So there are 3 times as many ways to be dealt 9-8 offsuit as 9-8 suited.

A little further on, Brokos states :

"Two-card straight draws are almost always less likely than two-card flush draws because they require two cards of a particular rank. Whereas any two of eleven remaining hearts (110 combinations) produce a nine-out flush draw on a Th 7h 2c flop, a player must hold one of four eights and one of four nines (16 combinations) to have an eight-out straight draw."

Once again he errs. There are 55 combinations, not 110. Nevertheless, his conclusion is still valid :

"Thus protecting your hand from straight draws is generally less important than protecting from flush draws."

All in all, a thought-provoking article.

Poker Hall of Shame X

At the Venetian, Myrna deals me AcKc and I end up in a pot with 2 other players. The flop comes

9s 9c Tc

It is checked around and the turn is

4c

But wait a minute! The imbecile who is first to act claims that he never checked. Myrna then calls the floor and explains that she didn't know he had a hand. Floor rules that the next (river) card will be the turn card and that the 4c will be shuffled back in the deck and a new river card will be selected. What happened to "significant action" having taken place?

Also note that the imbecile is in Seat 10, I am in Seat 1 and the last to act (LTA) is in Seat 2. So it's not as if I acted out of turn. I only checked when Myrna turned and pointed to me. Needless to say, Seat 1 rarely can see what Seat 10 is doing and relies heavily on the dealer for prompting.

New turn is 6h.

Imbecile checks, I check, LTA checks.

New river is 4d.

Check, check, check.

Both players table KTo and split the pot. Myrna sees my AcKc, sighs and apologizes to me. I say nothing.

Myrna was not paying attention and cost me money. A good dealer should know that there were 3 players in the hand. Had this occurred in Bobby's Room, it could have meant instant dismissal. I am not as critical of the floor decision as I am unfamiliar with the exact criteria for applying "significant action".

Beware of the hidden gutshot

I raise with AKs in late position and the big blind is the only caller. We see a flop of

A K 3 (rainbow)

Bingo! Pretty safe flop for me so let's slowplay this and not chase away our quarry.

BB checks as do I.

Turn is a harmless 2.

BB checks again so it's time to start trying to extract something from this hand.

I bet and get checkraised. WTF?! The bastard is surely making a play. Apart from a set, I don't see any other threat so I push.

BB insta-calls, river is a useless 8, and I am shown 54s for the wheel.

The House of Pain

It was rare to see so many grizzled veterans sitting at the poker table with their mouths agape, yet this is what happened at the Bellagio the other night.

Normal raised pot preflop with 2 protagonists, followed by a rainbow flop of K 7 3.

Postflop action was bet, raise, re-raise, all-in, call.

The board then ran out to (K 7 3) T J.

Following protocol, the called all-in sheepishly tabled AQ for the nut straight, while the other guy just stared in disbelief, throwing his AK faceup into the muck.

As the dealer was pushing the huge pot and before we all recovered, the young nerdy gentleman sitting next to me had already keyed in the hand into his smartphone app and whispered, "Geez, AK was 98.1% favorite on the flop!"

Yeah, that's sure to give me some comfort next time I get sucked out on when only a 93% favorite.

We chose this path

I have no one to blame for the sick feeling I have in the pit of my stomach but myself. The greasy sack of shit in the 2 seat who called my huge all-in raise with an open ender despite the terrible odds, and the prick of a dealer with a shaved head who so conveniently conjured up the requisite suckout card, are simply nausea-inducing lowlifes that come with the territory, and shouldn't really affect me. Yet every so often there is a perfect confluence of circumstances whereby my well-entrenched embracement of variance seems to vanish. Like at the Aria now.

Poker Hall of Shame IX

On Sunday I played for 6 hours at the MGM Grand poker room, not by any means a long session for me. They have a cheap, primitive, non-swivel, non-adjustable chair, the designers of which deserve to be publicly flogged. Today my buttock muscles were sore for the first time in the 10 years that I've been playing poker in Las Vegas. I'm walking around like I've shat myself.

Howard Lederer breaks his silence

The Lederer Files, a video interview Howard Lederer did with PokerNews, was released this week. The 7-part series can be seen on YouTube.

Throughout this whole saga, my policy has been to refrain from any serious commentary that could jeopardize the prospects of the players getting repaid, and I continue to keep the Full Tilt ad on my blog to this day. Anything I had to add was usually of a lighthearted nature. In keeping with this practice, I present some choice snippets from the Lederer Files :

A Big Thank You!

Without going into exact details (though it does involve a rather nasty bad beat), I dove headfirst into the Grand Canal at the Venetian late last night. I would like to personally thank Greg, the quick thinking and courageous young gentleman who jumped in and saved me from almost certain drowning.

Career update

Unfortunately, Big Six Wheel dealer training is proceeding at a very slow pace, much like the motion of the wheel itself. I have no problem with the physical aspects of actually spinning the wheel, nor with the payout calculations. However, I don't see why we have to master such advanced topics as angular velocity, acceleration and kinetic energy, and effects of friction, some of which require solving third-order nonlinear partial differential equations.

Colon hydrotherapy is starting to look good again.

Seven Deuce

Late night session at the Aria and someone suggested we introduce seven deuce to liven things up. Basically, this means that anyone winning with 72, either at showdown or through bluffing, gets paid an agreed-upon sum (in our case $10) by each other player.

The motion was unanimously adopted and naturally the dynamic of the game changed. There were several big pots where players holding 72 risked large amounts of money just to be able to table their bluff and reap the additional $80 reward. I wasn't so bold but did manage to win the $80 when I called a button raise with 72 in the BB, and took the small pot down on the turn.

Here is an example of a well-executed 72 bluff :





Sometimes, however, things get out of control :