Running as Root

I just won the Wil Wheaton tournament on PokerStars. If you don't know what that is, you can probably find a mention of it either on Wil Wheaton's blog or on Card Squad. Unfortunately Wheaton didn't play this week but I'm still quite happy with the win. I must say the level of play is pretty high, especially for an $11 tournament. If you hate the notion of having to play $55 sit and gos to get decent play, you should give it a try. Did I mention I won?

As a useless trivia question, the third place player, HighOnPokr, had a player icon that is perhaps my favorite Superman artwork. I even carved a pumpkin of it for a previous Halloween:

Gambling Problem?

I was just idly wondering about how much poker I play. I play online while watching television (a bad thing to do) most evenings and I play at multiple tables. Last month I played in 202 sit-and-gos. These are 10 person tournaments that if played to completion, meaning I get 1st or 2nd, last about an hour and a half. My average finish last month was a dismal 5th (I usually do better, etc). Assuming that 5th will take you roughly 45 minutes to get, that means I played around 150 table hours of poker. Hands, on average, take about a minute apiece. This time gets shorter the deeper in you go but it'll work for my calculations. That means for each 5th place finish I see about 45 hands or roughly 9,000 hands last month. My flops seen percentage is conservatively around 15 percent. So, I probably saw 1,350 flops last month. As the title says, that's a lot of poker. Again, there is some wild ass guessing in there, but I think it's probably a fairly accurate number.

Now, do I have a problem? I, of course, say no as it's an entertaining hobby for me. I lost a whopping 65 units of some type of currency last month with all that hot poker action. Some months I win, some I lose, but for the most part I think I've been treading water or trending slightly upward over the past 2 years. The extent of my gambling problem is that I can't get donks to lay down their inside straight draws to pot size bets despite the fact they're 10 to 1 to hit it. I mean, I lost to a 1 outter inside straight flush last month to finish 1 out of the money (I already had my flush). Okay, no one wants to hear or read a bad beat story.

Oh, and my other problem is that internet poker is considered gambling while the state lottery isn't. Poker isn't even in the same category as blackjack, roulette, keno, or the fucking lottery. It is a game of short term luck and long term skill where correct play is more likely to be rewarded over the long haul. The more you play any of those other games (with the exception counting cards in blackjack) the more likely you are to lose.

The Future of Poker

Poker is about making the correct decision more often than the people you're playing. It's also about making your opponent make incorrect decisions or do things they would never do if they could see all of the cards. If you just do that, all of those bad beats (statistical anomalies) will even out. You do this by knowing the odds, knowing people, and knowing a little psychology.

You can read about the odds (The Theory of Poker is muy badass for this), but the people part of the game (which is huge in no limit) has to be learned by playing. If you go to a brick and mortar casino you'll be lucky to see a quarter of the hands an internet player will see in an equal amount of time. Sure, you get to study your opponent's physical mannerisms and ticks (and learn to hide your own), but in my opinion serious players soon begin to hide those fairly well and even start throwing off a lot of false signals. Once they do this, you need to rely less on which way they lean in their chair when they make a bet, how confident they seem, etc. You need to start paying attention to their betting pattern. Incidentally, Caro's Book of Poker Tells is a good start on picking up tells.

If the flop puts up a pair and your opponent bets a lot into you, you have to know that if he's inexperienced it usually means he's bluffing and you may be able to go over the top of him and take the pot right there. However, if he's more experienced he knows that you know that so he bets into you anyway, hoping you'll make the hyper-aggressive re-raise. You also have to learn to identify the maniac or the rock by their betting patterns. Their play 20 hands ago may be a good indicator of what they're holding now.

The way to learn this is to play hands. A lot of hands. Which you can do with zero travel time, virtually no waiting list, a smaller rake, with a higher volume of hands, and from the comfort of your own home on the internet. And that's why the so-called "internet players" have been doing unbelievably good in real life tournaments despite the fact that they're so much younger and supposedly less experienced than the older guys.

To sum up, 1) I play a lot of poker and 2) poker is like sex in that it should be done at home with the assistance of the internet, sometimes in large groups, and occasionally in public. Oh and some people make a lot of money at it.

Disclaimer: I only play poker on the internet for "play money" for entertainment purposes because gambling is wrong (except the lottery). And since this post has the word "poker" in it a bazillion times I should have just titled it "Spam-a-lama-ding-dong."

World Poker Tour - Legends of Poker

I watched the Legends of Poker tournament on the Travel Channel last night. Another very good tournament in the WPT series. If you haven't watched this or any of the other WPT tournaments, I highly recommend them on entertainment value.

Generally though, you won't learn any sound poker strategy for several reasons. The first is that out of a field of hundreds of players, you're watching the 6 player final table. At this point in the tournament it is a very different game than what makes up 95% of your tournament time. Patience, a high tolerance for boredom, and a love of folding make up most of a typical massive multiplayer tournament. Also the hands you are allowed to see are usually very carefully selected, with huge bluffs and all-in showdowns taking priority.

If you plan on watching the show and hate people ruining the end for you, you should stop reading now.

Spoiler Time

Kenna James played some very good poker, demonstrating his very accurate reading ability and his willingness to let go of big hands when there is a strong enough possibility that he is beat, no matter how good his hand looks. For example, he folded AK off suit to a junk board against the big blind, who could have had just about anything. That's discipline. Although I think he should have raised earlier in the hand to determine where he was exactly.

The final two came down to Kenna James and Alex Kahaner. Finishing in 1st place is worth $1,125,900 while 2nd is worth a mere $588,210. A difference of $537,690.

On the last hand Kahaner is dealt JT off while James gets A4 off. Now, forgive me a bit, I'm doing this from memory. But I believe James is first to act and he puts in a large raise. Kahaner thinks a bit and raises 1.5 million chips. James goes into the tank for a while and finally re-raises all in (the "I just got caught" look on Kahaner's face at that moment is priceless).

Now that's a very good read, to know your weak ace is good. He should also be pretty sure that his opponent can't call because he's represented such a strong hand. Yes, he is correct mathematically making this move (but only slightly). He's somewhere in the neighborhood of 54% to win the hand. His real value in this hand comes from being aggressive and putting a tremendous amount of pressure on his opponent.

I'll Flip You For It

Now Kahaner should fold if he's a typical professional player. He should wait for a spot where he's an overwhelming favorite. He should bide his time. However, he doesn't and I like it and I'll tell you why. Kenna James demonstrated his ability to read people and make correct, difficult decisions all night at the table. I think he was the best poker player there, especially considering several of the finalists were amateurs.

If Kahaner can just make the leap that James doesn't have two overcards or a pair higher than 9s, he really should just call the all in bet. Why? Because if Mike Tyson demanded I bet him a sum of money on either a) the outcome of a boxing match between me and him or b) the outcome of a coin flip then I'm going to have to go with option b. It's not just that he's going to beat the shit out of me, it's that I stand NO chance in the boxing match. At least with the coin flip I'm 50/50.

I think Kahaner was in a similar situation. Given enough time and enough hands, Kenna James was going to outplay him before and after the flop on a regular basis. Sure, Kahaner may have gotten lucky enough to pick up pocket aces in the big blind while James was being overly aggressive, but it's doubtful. More than likely he would just get bitch slapped around the table for 15-20 hands until he finally made a desperation move with something that looks like aces to short-stacked amateurs like me. I'd say without a coin flip situation his chances of winning are somewhere around 20%. If you'd like me to pull more numbers out of my ass, just let me know.

So, given that, I think he has to jump on the opportunity to flip a coin (or very close to it) for $500k.

And the Winner is

Kahaner flops an open ended straight draw. He then completes the upper end on the turn and the lower (completely unnecessary) end on the river. He wins over a million dollars on his "bad" move.

Kenna James was of course in disbelief at the call and the beat. However, unlike someone like Hellmuth, in his closing interview he complimented both the Bicycle Casino for putting on a great tournament and Kahaner for being a class act. He's becoming one of my new favorites to watch.

Bad Beats and Lucky Draws - 1 1/2 stars out of 5

The full book title is Beats and Lucky Draws : Poker Strategies, Winning Hands, and Stories from the Professional Poker Tour. I guess they wanted to cram a summary of the book in the title for good measure. That or they're competing for some sort of longest title award in the field of poker books. The book is mostly Hellmuth and a handful of guest writers summarizing and doing some very very light analysis on pivotal hands they were involved in or witnessed. About 90% of the hands written about are Texas hold'em.

If you enjoy reading or hearing about other peoples' bad beat stories then this is a great book for you. I'm not really one of those people though, so I found the book barely entertaining and completely non-educational in terms of poker theory. The "analysis" usually boils down to Phil writing, "I like my raise here" or "I don't like my call here." I realize this isn't supposed to be a book on poker theory, but maybe it should have been. It's a shame because his other book Play Poker Like the Pros is a lot better. I recommend it for a low math, easy theory introduction to basic poker strategy for most of the more popular types of games today (Hold'em, Stud, Stud 8/b, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, etc).

My other big dislike of this book is that it is used as an opportunity for Phil to congratulate other players in print. The whole thing comes off as feeling fake:

• "Congratulations, Noel Furlong, you are the 1999 World Champion of Poker!"
• "Continued good luck and good health to you, Gus!"
• "Two big WPT tourneys in one week and two nor'easter winners: congratulations to Paul Darden and Howard Lederer."

It seems like he's trying to develop this "gentleman of poker" reputation. As if he's grown up somewhere along the way. It makes for reading that is too syrupy for me. And besides, I don't care if he's an asshole or fussy baby at the table. The guy knows how to play hold'em like nobody's business. Also, people love to hate him. I think he needs to fully embrace this and become the pro wrestling villain of poker.

To sum up, skip this book unless you really like hand histories. I'd also try to get it on the cheap since it's not too popular (I got my copy new for $3 at a local book outlet).

I caught up on some of my TiVo'ed shows tonight. One of the programs was the World Poker Tour. The wife and I are big fans of poker in person, online, and on television. Usually the TV variety involves way too many bad decisions, poor bluffs, etc that seem to pay off for the foolish.

Every now and then you get to watch a show where you see some really good poker play. I would there have been two recent instances of this for me. One was the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Tournament of Champions in 2004. Annie Duke, despite some so-so play early on, came back and showed the importance of psychology during a poker game. The second would have to be the Championship Poker at the Plaza (also 2004) in which Daniel Negreanu displayed impeccable reading ability and general all round poker savvy. I think he has the best ability to accurately read people in poker today and is one of my favorite players.

After watching the WPT episode Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino, I'd have to rank it up there with, if not above, the other two. You can view the WPT television schedule online at the WPT site. I don't want to put any spoilers on here, but if you appreciate really good poker, you should try and catch an upcoming re-air. The show is two hours and the beginning is pretty standard television poker. The heads up finish, however, had me laughing my ass off at how good it was. It is well worth the investment in time.

One of the poker blogs I read quoted an interesting stat:

There now are 411 Indian casinos in the United States, operated by 223 tribes in 28 states. More than half the 341 federally recognized Indian tribes in the continental United States operate casinos.

While another page I was reading mentioned that 38 states have lotteries. Most of what I read about state lotteries lead me to believe that they're not nearly as good as the states originally imagined and that they often lead to more problems that full-blown casinos:

Many legislators express strong opposition to casino gambling, often characterizing tax-paying casinos as destroyers of families or potential havens for organized crime (the organized crime bogeyman is at best a specious charge in today's highly regulated gaming industry). In point of fact, if the casino industry established payout formulas identical to the typical state lottery, there would be legislative investigations and demands to shut down the industry for gouging patrons. Moreover, in their rush to grab ever-increasing amounts of lottery dollars from the masses, state legislators totally ignore a wealth of statistical data indicating that the poorest members of society are the persons most likely to play state lotteries and, in addition, are often the most likely to develop a gambling problem. Hypocrisy is the word that comes to mind.

As a big fan of poker (who the hell isn't lately) I really wish a little more attention was paid to the legalized gambling concept in my state. Is it too much to ask for to be able to go to a locally run poker club and enjoy a hold 'em tournament for real money (as opposed to trips and VCRs) without being raided?

Meanwhile all those precious dollars are going to casinos on reservations or to offshore internet companies that promote quasi-legal online gambling.