Past, Present, and Future

In a remarkably short period of time, the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 has divided the world’s population into three groups -- the still healthy but vulnerable, the sick but able to recover, and the gravely ill.

The first group is thankfully the largest by far. The second is growing swiftly, both in terms of documented cases thanks to increased testing and actual ones. The third is also increasing and seemingly poised to do so at a more alarming pace, if we are to take what has happened in other countries as an ominous guide.

The healthy can be further divided into three more subgroups, separated according to individuals’ relative awareness and understanding of the pandemic and its potential harm.

Of these, one subgroup consists of those who are aware of the danger but refuse to allow it to alter their behavior, somehow clinging to an idea that the life we lived before has not yet changed. You’ve seen the stories from all over of public gatherings continuing to happen (or these last few casinos in America stubbornly refusing to close). If you’ve ventured out at all you’ve probably also seen people who are also failing to follow the advisory to keep distant from one another. Witnessing these behaviors is one of the most bewildering aspects of the crisis, disturbing enough to cause even the most level-headed among us to question everything.

A second subgroup is made up of those who do recognize there is something very frightening taking place, and who as a result are taking precautions. That’s the group to which I belong, and I would hope the majority of you reading this do, too. We are “hunkering down,” practicing “social distancing,” “sheltering at home,” “self-quarantining,” and so on. Unlike those in the previous subgroup, we are the ones trying our best not to become exposed to the virus, or inadvertently to expose others.

The third subgroup among the currently healthy is by far the smallest, comprised of heathcare providers, epidemiologists, virologists, physicians, and experts in other sciences who have a better idea than the rest of do about what is going to happen next. When they aren’t busy trying to help the rest of us survive, they are also the ones who tend to sound the alarms the loudest.

There’s another way of describing the three subgroups of currently healthy people -- those focused on the past, those focused on the present, and those focused on the future.

Those who are looking ahead know what’s coming, or at least have a good idea what could come and how bad it might be. They are working tirelessly to communicate what they know and to help prevent the worst.

Those who are focused on the present are listening to what those future watchers are saying, and doing what they advise.

Those who are living in the past aren’t paying attention to what is happening around them. They act as though for them today is not much different from yesterday. Whether by conscious denial or unpremeditated ignorance, they are making the present much more precarious, the future more formidable.

The Reality Crisis

I am a sucker for apocalyptic fiction.

I think it has something to do with having been a teenager during the 1980s, the last decade of the Cold War when it occasionally seemed genuinely possible an errant spy plane or some skirmish thousands of miles away could erupt into flat-out nuclear war. At least that’s what all those movies very convincingly suggested in ways that lodged permanently into a certain suggestible teen’s still-forming noggin’.

I’m talking about films like The Day After, Testament, Threads, Countdown to Looking Glass, Special Bulletin, When the Wind Blows, Miracle Mile, By Dawn’s Early Light and others belonging to the “here’s what it would be like” or “here’s how it could happen” categories. More fanciful stuff like Mad Max, WarGames, and Red Dawn also kept the possibility firmly foregrounded. Even silly titles like Spies Like Us used the potential of nuclear confrontation between the Soviets and America as a ready situation for the comedy.

When it comes to nuclear nostalgia, the “Duck and Cover” kids hiding under their desks during the 1950s tend to be referenced more often than whatever it was the children of the 1980s were experiencing as Reagan and Gorbachev’s brinkmanship waxed and waned.

Maybe it was just me, but when growing up it often felt like I was “overhearing” that conversation taking place among adults, us kids being mostly excluded from it all. That is to say, I have no memories of being addressed directly about any of it. No one seemed to be delivering specific warnings to me about fallout shelters, stockpiling two-week supplies of food and water, and other ways to Protect and Survive.

But the movies created an impression. So did books like Brave New World, The Plague, Nineteen Eighty-Four (which I first read in 1984), Day of the Triffids, Fahrenheit 451, On the Beach, The Stand, and the like. I’ve revisited a lot of these in recent years, while picking up others like Alas, Babylon, Z for Zachariah, and Swan Song. I’ve gone back to most of the movies, too, being drawn to them no doubt because of that early exposure (pun intended).

Besides Poker & Pop Culture, I’ve written a couple of novels, and in fact over the last couple of years have spent odd hours here and there plotting and writing early chapters of a third novel which unlike the first two is most certainly apocalyptic fiction.

What I have plotted out kind of follows a similar trajectory as the nuclear war stories in that it begins with an event that affects everyone in a detrimental way, only in my story what happens next is great uncertainty and debate about the event itself (among other conflicts).

That’s kind of abstract, I know, but I’m loathe to be more specific. Especially at this moment, when the real world has unexpectedly provided us with its own version of an order-disrupting, destructive event.

Perhaps because of this particular obsession interest, I started following the news out of Wuhan in the Hubei province of China relatively early on. This weekend I checked my history to see I first searched “coronavirus” on January 25, although I am sure I was reading articles about the then burgeoning outbreak a week or two before. In any case, I definitely followed it each day since, although like others here in America who were similarly doing so it seemed safely distant and thus less immediately concerning.

Don’t get me wrong. It was real and intensely horrific in its details, but thanks to the distance as well as China’s robust control of information about what was happening, it also all seemed well out of reach. Or that we seemed well out of reach, depending on how you look at it.

It wasn’t as though America was ignoring it, though. Starting February 2, foreign nationals (aside from immediate family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents) who had been in China at any point during the previous two weeks were prohibited from entering the U.S. And anyone coming from Hubei would be quarantined two weeks as well.

I watched the numbers of cases and deaths in China rise and rise, then appear to settle a bit. I heard about the case in Washington reported on January 21, a man who had been to Wuhan. We reached the last days of February with there still only being 15 cases reported in the entire country, not counting ones contracted by Americans who were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan (and who were eventually flown back to the U.S.).

All of the cases were in Washington and California aside one each in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Texas. None had been reported for the last two weeks. And there were zero deaths. Yet.

I’d like to say I had grown more concerned, being relatively well informed and all as I was. But it wasn’t until Sunday, March 1 that I can say I realized that COVID-19 had arrived in earnest.

Two new cases in Washington had been reported the day before on Saturday, as was the first death. That was Leap Day, February 29. Both were from the same county as the original case in January. However neither of the individuals had been to China, nor had they had any contact with the original patient or with each other. They appeared to be examples of “community transmission,” a phrase and concept with which we have become familiar in the days since.

The next day came a report that researchers examining the virus genomes of both the first confirmed case from January and one of the two new ones found that the latter one was almost certainly descended from the former. A comparison of the genetic sequences revealed both contained a rare variation, almost unique among the nearly 60 samples of the virus they had been sent from China.

What did that mean? It meant that the two cases, despite being separated by six weeks and zero contact between the patients, were almost certainly linked. Further study of the sequences’ similarities enabled the researchers to estimate a range of 150-1,500 people might have been part of the chain of folks who passed it from one to the other, with the most likely range around 300-500.

Hundreds of people, undetected, each becoming a new node from which more (tens? hundreds?) could emanate. That got my attention. I started buying meds and food.

Ten days later we’re all watching basketball and readying for a prime time statement from the Oval Office. There would be a ban on “all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days,” we learned amid mean-spirited shots implying Europe’s culpability for our misfortune. There were additional measures, uncertainly read from the teleprompter and, as it turned out, either inaccurate or not real at all. There were more mistakes and/or misrepresentations than would seem possible in a 10-minute address (never mind one of such consequence), although we wouldn’t know about that until later.

The response was called “the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history.” The virus itself was being strangely characterized as though it were an invading enemy. Or a threat from abroad. It seemed a better fit for one of those movies mentioned above, not for the actual, real crisis.

The speech was unsettling -- not just for its content (as remarkable as it was), but also in the way it provided evidence further confirming a severe lack of leadership.

The short speech had just concluded when we learned Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert had the virus. Then that Tom Hanks had it. Then that the NBA had suspended its season. All within minutes. Suddenly it felt a little like 9/11 after the Pentagon was hit. What next?

Well, the shutting down of just about everything else was next, for starters. The market spiraling ever downward. More dire news both here and abroad. And deteriorating faith in leadership, with “I don’t know anything about it” (regarding the elimination of the government’s pandemic response team two years ago and not replacing it) and “I don’t take responsibility at all” (regarding the unpreparedness and slow response to providing testing) now destined to become captions describing this moment in our history.

Way, way back in the day -- like eight weeks ago -- I remember the impeachment trial. Do you? Long time ago, I know. And before that other debates involving our current government that often took the form of one side trusting in available, concrete evidence and the other believing in what appeared an entirely alternate reality unfettered by facts.

I remember referring to what was happening as a “reality crisis,” and noticing some others do the same. Many were still accepting objective, provable facts as a guide for our actions and decisions, but there was a surprisingly large percentage of people who were otherwise informed and thus unwilling to accept such evidence at all.

That crisis was frankly the theme I had thought to pursue in my fictional book, with the event itself actually causing havoc by disturbing our ability to comprehend what exactly had happened. Thus the early part of the book would cover the event and immediate effects, then the rest carry things forward to show how the different ways of interpreting the event created different factions opposed to one another and fighting for control over the present and over how we would view the past.

Again, sorry to be so abstract. But hopefully you can see how the story was inspired by this “reality crisis” that has been produced by American politics of the last three years, and how somehow we arrived at a place where a large percentage of us have chosen to believe a fictional version of reality over the real thing.

This divide has often been mistakenly labeled “partisanship,” but that is misleading in that it suggest traditional differences of opinion or even ideology. It isn’t a political disagreement, it’s an existential one.

Now the reality crisis is affecting the way Americans are responding to the spread of COVID-19, with those already accustomed to denying reality comfortably continuing to do so. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted last Friday and Saturday by and released today shares evidence that supports this observation.

In fact, the poll includes one question directly asking people what they think is real:

“Do you think the coronavirus is a real threat or blown out of proportion?”

Just 56% of adults responded to say they believed COVID-19 was “a real threat,” with 38% saying it was being “blown out of proportion.” That in itself is jawdropping, as anyone who has paid any attention at all to what is happening in other countries and how quickly the spread of the virus and the devastation it causes has taken place should think otherwise.

The reality crisis can be seen in the party identification of respondents -- 76% of Democrats think the threat is real, while only 40% of Republicans do. Meanwhile more than half of Republicans -- 54% -- think the crisis is being overblown, while 20% of Democrats do.

It gets more incredible. This question also appeared on a previous poll taken on January 31 and February 1, when Americans had just begun to hear about what was happening in China and the first travel restrictions were being announced.

Then the overall percentage of adults who thought the threat was real was 66% -- in other words, higher than it is today. In fact, both parties are represented similarly in the earlier poll, with 72% of Republicans and 70% of Democrats saying it is a real threat.

You read that correctly. At the time the earlier poll was taken, there were eight U.S. cases reported and zero deaths. Today there have been nearly 4,700 cases reported and 88 deaths. And today fewer Americans believe the threat is real.

What happened over the intervening six weeks? A lot of downplaying of COVID-19. This effort to make the threat seem less severe (or not “real”) has come from many different sources, but I think anyone who has read this far knows who the most important influencers have been.

Here is the bottom line, though: Those who don’t believe the virus is a real threat are themselves a real threat -- not just to those of us who do, but to everyone.

Not believing in COVID-19 literally makes it stronger. That’s reality.

I’m reminded of a scene from The Day After that takes place about two-thirds of the way into the film, after the bombs have been dropped.

A Missouri family living on a farm has holed up in their basement to avoid being exposed to radioactive fallout. A college student who was trying to hitchhike home when the attack occurred finds the home and the family takes him in. Some days later the older daughter, driven stir crazy by the situation and anxiety over her fiancé, crazily runs out of the house and the hitchhiker goes out to get her.

Surrounded by dead farm animals, he tries to convince her that being outdoors is extremely dangerous. The threat is real.

“You can’t see it. You can’t feel it. You can’t taste it,” he says. “But it’s here. Right now. All around us.”

There are a lot of people in this country and elsewhere who need to be told this, and somehow convinced to believe it.

My novel has been on hold for a while, in part because Poker & Pop Culture got in the way but also because I now have another nonfiction book with an early summer deadline that I need to finish first. Whether or not I’ll be enthused to return to it in June or July is uncertain, given how likely it is that by then reality will have made the fiction I was imagining seem much less interesting. The “novel coronavirus” is challenging the novel, too.

Meanwhile my wife and I are both staying at home on the farm and plan to remain put for as long as is necessary. That means I might well be posting here again from time to time, too. By the way, the photos accompanying this article are from a few months ago and feature one of our fantastic “barn cats,” Nancy, who is equally adept at drama and comedy. (Click ‘em to embiggen.)

Let’s all do our best to stay in touch here, online, for the time being -- with each other, and with reality.

The Humans and the Bots

Had a thought today about the world in which we currently live. It was poker-related, too -- in fact, online poker-related -- so I figured I might share it here.

Post-Black Friday my online poker playing essentially dwindled to some half-hearted noodling on a couple of the small, remaining sites, then disappeared entirely save the occasional play money game on PokerStars.

Not long ago I got an account on this new site called Coin Poker. It went live in November, and I believe it was sometime in December or maybe early January when I hopped on there for the first time. The site is “powered by blockchain technology via Ethereum,” and in fact the games are played with a newly invented cryptocurrency, “Chips” or “CHP” (now listed on a couple of exchanges).

The site had an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) -- actually a “pre-ICO” and then two stages of ICOs -- in which a good chunk of these CHPs were sold for Ethereum. Meanwhile the site has been conducting tournament freerolls to give away the rest of the CHPs. There were a lot of those early on, though the schedule has thinned a little lately.

It’s through the freerolls that I won some CHPs and began a modest “bankroll” on the site, something with which to play in the “cash” games. I haven’t explored where exactly things stand as far as depositing and withdrawing are concerned, and don’t really anticipate doing so soon (unless perhaps I were to run my small total up significantly).

Playing on the site has been diverting, though, and for the first time in several years I have found myself genuinely invested in the games when playing poker online. I’ve even revived some of those earlier online poker memories of pleasure and pain associated with wins and losses, to a lesser degree of course.

When I first started on the site, I’d join the freerolls which like all the games on the site are played either four-handed or six-handed. Very frequently there would be players at the table shown as sitting out, something I grew accustomed to quickly. At a six-handed table there might be three or four seats occupied by the non-playing entrants, and occasionally at four-handed tables I might be the only live one there just scooping up blinds and antes until the field got whittled down.

At the time I assumed the site was filling the empty seats with these “dummy” players just to make the freerolls last a little longer, or perhaps to foster the impression of more traffic than there really was. Whatever the reason, I haven’t noticed the sitter-outers as much lately, or at all, really. As the site has grown a bit more popular, I imagine if there were such a strategy employed before it has now been withdrawn. (I’m only speculating.)

I wasn’t bothered too much by all the players sitting out, although the presence of all of those silent “zombies” at the table did cause me to recall the controversies and occasional hysteria surrounding the use of “bots” in online poker. Coupled with some of the news from the past few weeks (and months), that in turn has made me think about the significant influence such software applications running automated tasks or scripts online now have upon our lives.

It’s an enormous subject, but in particular I’m thinking about those indictments handed down last Friday by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that charge 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities with conspiracy to defraud the United States via their attempts to meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. If you’ve read through the 37-page document spelling out what happened (or heard it summarized), you’re familiar with some of the methods employed by these agents to manipulate news and opinion consumed by Americans during the campaign, especially via social media.

The report describes in detail how a Russian company called the “Internet Research Agency” (a name sounding equally generic and sinister) employed hundreds to help generate content published via fake accounts with invented personas on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, content that was in turn disseminated far and wide “via retweets, reposts, and similar means.”

The network has been characterized as a “bot farm” and even this week there was evidence of the network or something similar continuing to operate via the rapid spread of various messages (including false ones) in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Lakeland, Florida a week ago.

One of the more curious aspects of the “disinformation operation” (as some have described it) is the way invented news and opinion gets picked up and further distributed by unsuspecting social media users (i.e., Americans not involved with the operation). The indictment describes “unwitting members, volunteers, and supporters” of the campaign the Russians were supporting as having performed such work along with others “involved in local community outreach, as well as grassroots groups.”

In other words, certain messages and information “campaigns” begun by this Internet Research Agency were initially promulgated by a vast number of fake accounts with programs or “bots” helping extend their reach and influence. Then actual, living and breathing humans receiving those messages (and unaware of or unconcerned about their origin) passed them along as well, increasing their audience and influence.

Setting aside questions of legality and jurisdiction (and ignoring entirely the many other areas being explored by Mueller and his team), I just want to isolate that phenomenon of an automated message sent via a “bot” being received and then resent by a human. The fake accounts being directed by the scripts are simply executing commands. The humans who then receive and resend those messages do so consciously, although they, too, act by rote in a sense, simply hitting “like” and “retweet” in what is often an uncritical fashion. (Bot-like, you could say, depending on your predilection for irony.)

When playing against the “dummy” non-players in those freerolls, I could comfortably bet or raise against them every single time, knowing full well that even though they might resemble “human” players sitting there at the table, they weren’t going to play back at me. They were programmed simply to fold every time the action was on them. If you’ve ever played against “the computer” in crude games (including poker games), you’ve probably similarly been able to pick up on the program’s patterns and exploit them to your favor.

Of course, increasingly sophisticated programs have been created to run much more challenging poker playing “bots,” including those powered by artificial intelligence. These programs can in fact exploit the tendencies of humans who often find it very difficult to randomize their actions and thereby avoid detectable patterns. It’s much harder to know what to do against these, as some of the more recent efforts in this area have demonstrated.

Many of those who forwarded along memes, photos, articles, and other bot-created content during the 2016 presidential campaign weren’t aware of the original source of that information (were “unwitting”). They were -- and are, still -- being exploited, in a way, by others who know how they tend to “play” when using social media.

The “game” is getting a lot harder. As far as social media is concerned -- and news and politics and everything else in our lives that has now become so greatly influenced by message-delivering mechanism of social media -- it’s becoming more and more difficult to know who is human and who is a bot pretending to be human.

Especially when the humans keep acting like the bots.

(EDIT [added 3/19/18]: Speaking of CoinPoker and bots, there’s an interesting new article on PartTime Poker sharing some research regarding the site’s unusual traffic patterns. The title gives you an idea of the article’s conclusion -- "CoinPoker’s Traffic is a Farce.")

Image: “Reply - Retweet- Favorite” (adapted), David Berkowitz. CC BY 2.0.

Down the JFK Rabbit Hole

Over the last several years I’ve spent an unexpected amount of time rooting around the John F. Kennedy assassination rabbit hole. As have many, and as many more will continue to do for a long, long time.

It could’ve only happened one way, right? There’s a single, unequivocal reality down in that rabbit hole somewhere. Has to be, even if I don’t expect there’s enough time in this lifetime to dig deep enough to find it.

I became piqued in part because of a growing curiosity about Richard Nixon’s life and career, an interest that necessarily had me also wanting to read and learn more about U.S. politics and government from the end of WWII through the mid-1970s. That meant learning more about Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, and, of course, Kennedy.

The 50th anniversary of the assassination further ignited my inquisitiveness, in particular with all of the media coverage of the event (a lot of which got renewed attention in late November 2013). You can more or less relive the entire sequence right through the funeral in dozens of different ways now via YouTube, if you like. Additionally, it’s not hard at all to find most of the contemporary reporting on the event in newspapers, magazines, not to mention those first few books that began to emerge in the following years.

I’ve done enough reporting of my own (both about poker and otherwise) to be fascinated by the challenge journalists faced to report on the assassination as it was occurring, as well as what followed (including Lee Harvey Oswald’s killing by Jack Ruby). And as most know, the reporters themselves became a big part of the story during those four days in Dallas.

I’ll admit that by now I’ve become so familiar with all of the reporting and the early shaping of the story of the JFK assassination it has become like a song I’ve heard hundreds of times. Additional deep-diving has me in the position of being acquainted with a lot of the supporting cast in the crazily complicated story, although I wouldn’t claim to possess the sort of granular level of knowledge of those who’ve spent lifetimes studying-slash-obsessing over the event.

I’ve read The Warren Report, a.k.a. The Official Report on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It’s an amazing narrative, actually, one that reads a bit like a faith-based text deliberately designed to reassure and comfort.

Along the way hundreds of complications arise that potentially challenge the Commission’s central arguments that (1) Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, that (2) he fired three shots (one missing, two inflicting all wounds on Kennedy and Governor John B. Connally), and that (3) the Commission found no evidence of a conspiracy involving Oswald and/or Jack Ruby and others. However after each such challenge is acknowledged it is immediately declared invalid or inconclusive, which has a reassuring effect upon those inclined to agree with those central arguments while agitating those who are not.

I’ve also read the Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives that was produced in 1979 following a couple of years’ worth of study and investigation. Whereas the Warren Report has the effect of putting one’s mind at ease, the also flawed and incomplete HSCA report has precisely the opposite effect, inspiring suspicion and doubt about the Warren Commission’s conclusions without really offering anything concrete to serve as an alternate explanation of the assassination.

The HSCA report’s finding that “the committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” is a frustrating one. I’m no fan of adverbs, generally speaking, but to throw a “probably” into a pronouncement like that is almost maddening. As it happens, that finding is based on another, less equivocal one having to do with an examination of acoustical evidence (from which it was determined four shots were fired), which was swiftly shown by others to be less than reliable.

Indeed, the HSCA report was so derided from all sides (including by some who worked on it and subsequently maintained the report didn’t reflect their findings) it has faded from the collective’s memory. Many still overlook that latter effort made by U.S. lawmakers to try to get to the bottom of the assassination, continuing to point back to 1964 and the Warren Commission’s conclusion as the government’s “official” and ultimate conclusion on the matter.

I was up on it all enough to know a long while back that the release of these new “JFK files” was coming last week, so I wasn’t surprised when the date approached and stories about the assassination again began to appear. (Nor was I that surprised the current administration appeared to bungle the release despite the date being known for 25 years, but that’s another matter.)

I’ve only heard bits and pieces about what is in the released files, but I’ll be intrigued to find out more. I’ve found myself coming around to a point of view that largely coincides with the one Edward Jay Epstein has articulated especially well (I think). As a young man Epstein published the first book raising some questions about the Warrent Commission, titled Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth (the first of several books on the assassination he’d eventually write).

Epstein’s book came out a few months before the bestselling Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane who I’ve always thought to have been much less admirable as a scholar, though nonetheless a compelling and important character in the early blossoming of the JFK conspiracy industry.

Epstein has written many times about what he thinks happened on November 22, 1963 with his thoughts scattered through many books and articles. If you’re curious, you can hear him summarize his view in a fairly succinct way on a podcast recorded in 2015 for The New Criterion, one titled “Edward Jay Epstein on the mysteries surrounding the Kennedy assassination.” You can search around online for more thorough versions of his argument, shared by Epstein himself and by others who have presented and commented on his analysis.

I won’t rehearse Epstein’s entire argument, although even a highly abbreviated version takes a little while to get through. It begins with an assertion that while Oswald was most certainly the lone shooter that day, he certainly had made some interesting and meaningful contacts with others, in particular with both the Russian and Cuban embassies in Mexico in late September-early October 1963.

Epstein notes how failed attempts by the U.S. to remove Fidel Castro from power (including by assassination) had understandably gotten the attention of the Cuban leader. On September 7, 1963, Castro gave an impromptu interview to an AP reporter in Havana in which he shared his intention to respond to attacks both against the country and himself, and a couple of days later an article including some of Castro’s quotes appeared.

A couple of days later an article including quotes from Castro was published in various newspapers, including in the Times-Picayune in New Orleans where Oswald was (and assuredly read the article). Castro speaks out against the U.S. aiding rebels’ attacks in Cuba.

“Prime Minister Fidel Castro said Saturday night ‘United States leaders’ would be in danger if they helped in any attempt to do away with leaders of Cuba,” the article reports. “Bitterly denouncing what he called U.S.-prompted raids on Cuban territory, Castro said, ‘We are prepared to fight them and answer in kind. United States leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorists’ plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe.’”

Differently edited versions of the AP article appeared in other places, and in fact the versions showing up in The New York Times and Washington Post didn’t include the threatening line from Castro, which meant most Americans weren’t aware of it. In fact even after the assassination few were attaching much significance to the statement (including the Warren Commission who didn’t reference it at all).

Epstein suggests Oswald, already a Castro-supporter, might have been inspired by the threat. While the specific purpose for Oswald’s Mexico trip is hard to pinpoint, he surmises it was motivated in part by Oswald’s desire to offer his services to support Castro and Cuba. Included in there is Oswald apparently making explicit his willingness to kill JFK, perhaps even delivered in the form of a threat. Such a threat was delivered to officials in the Cuban embassy and was passed along to Castro. The CIA may or may not have been aware of Oswald’s threat as well, since they periodically monitored conversations there. The FBI knew about it, too.

Meanwhile Epstein spells out a parallel plot to assassinate Castro playing out, and in fact on the day of the JFK assassination a meeting occurs in Paris between a U.S. representative and a confidant of Castro’s named Rolando Cubela to advance that plot. The U.S. thought Cubela who had close access to Castro and could pull off an assassination was working with them as a double agent, but in fact he was reporting back to Castro about the plot. (In fact Cubela was the source of knowledge from which Castro was drawing when making his statement about U.S. attempts to kill him.)

The parallel plot is fascinating, and relevant to speculation about whether or not Oswald was acting at the direct behest of Castro and Cuba when he killed Kennedy. In that podcast I link to above, Epstein leaves that as a somewhat open question, saying that Oswald could well have still been acting on his own (though inspired by Castro’s obvious motive), or perhaps Oswald could have misinterpreted statements from Cuban officials in response to his stated threat.

All of which is to say I’m fairly convinced both that Oswald acted alone and that there were many different entities -- including Castro and Cuba, the Soviets, and American intelligence agencies privy to Oswald’s pre-assassination actions and statements -- who had knowledge of and/or contact with Oswald beforehand and thus motive not to publicize that knowledge and/or contact afterwards. In other words, there were plenty of actual “conspiracies” surrounding the assassination, though I believe they likely had more to do with covering up potentially compromising-looking relationships and connections after the fact than with planning and executing the actual event.

I don’t think anyone is expecting anything definitive enough to convince everyone of a single, unequivocal narrative to explain what happened. The newly released files may shed some additional light on Oswald’s Mexico adventure. They may also include something more about those who knew about the trip when it happened and afterwards.

Even so, I imagine it’ll remain quite dim way down the JFK rabbit hole.

Image: z161 from Zapruder plus view reenactment, public domain.

Short Trip Report

I was in Maryland last week helping cover a World Poker Tour event, the WPT Maryland Live! one in Hanover (near Baltimore).

In contrast to most trips I only had to take a short flight up from Charlotte for this one. Indeed, the flight took less time than did my drive from the farm to the airport. Was great fun reuniting with some of the WPT crew with whom I’ve worked in the past, and I very much enjoyed making some new friends in Brittany Paige and Matt Clark alongside whom I worked and reported.

Also got to reunite with and meet several players, too, as will happen. Andrew Brokos (of the Thinking Poker Podcast) went out just shy of the final 30, and Ari Engel a little after that, and it was nice to chat with each of them again. The friendly and gregarious Kenny Nguyen made it to eighth and kept us all entertained the entire way.

I additionally got a chance to meet the winner Art Papazyan, who in fact was claiming his second WPT title in about five weeks after having won the WPT Legends of Poker in late August where he outlasted Phil Hellmuth heads-up. (The photo above is from the last stages of the tournament, just before Papazyan won.)

Papazyan had some funny stories about playing against Hellmuth, and while he insisted he isn’t a “tournament pro” (being more of a cash game guy), the two victories in close succession probably ensures the California player will be participating in a few more tournaments going forward. They definitely ensure he has a lock on the WPT Player of the Year for this, the tour’s 16th season.

There were five days of poker, all but the last one quite long. Following the second one I was up into the wee hours handling some administrative stuff when I saw the first tweets regarding the shooting in Las Vegas. I clicked through a link one on of them to hear the chatter on the police scanner sharing reports of multiple shooters at several different casinos.

By the time I went to sleep a couple of hours later, there was still a lot of confusion on the scanner, on Twitter, and on cable news (which I’d turned on) about what had happened. Or was still happening (no one was sure). The toll of the violence perpetrated by what turned out to be a single individual wasn’t known yet, either. That didn’t come until Monday.

I got back to Las Vegas last summer for the WSOP Main Event, my first visit there in four years.

I’d never want to live in Vegas permanently. In fact, the 16 consecutive nights I spent at the Rio in July probably represents a maximum possible stay for me at this point in my life. That says more about me than about Vegas. I’m always going to be more small town (or small farm) than big city, regardless of local legislative predilections regarding card games and such.

But I’ve spent enough time in Las Vegas over the years to have developed a meaningful connection to the place and to many people who do live there, a connection that compounded the heartache caused by yet another senseless act of violence.

Can’t say I have anything especially profound to add right now to the discussion about what happened or even to larger conversations regarding gun violence in the United States. Some (not all) lawmakers are saying the usual things about future action, but none of it is very assuring. Nor does it seem likely that even this horror will move those who can perhaps do something to help lessen the likelihood of future acts of violence to do so. Like some others I’ve been thinking a little about the shooter’s background as a gambler and as a result unavoidably considering connections as part of an impracticable attempt at explaining something that resists rational explanation.

But that’s mostly just the intellect vainly trying to distract the emotions.

Back home now for a while until the next trip. Glad to be here helping take care of everybody.

New Album: Ex Machina

It was one year ago today I released my seven albums over on Bandcamp all at once. Or “rereleased” one could say, as they all had been floating around in highly obscure fashion as cassettes and/or compact discs since way back in the day.

The music contained on all seven was recorded from the late 1980s through the early 2000s. In other words, it’s safe to say even the newest tracks on the seventh one, Circular Logic, were all well over a decade old, with some of the earliest material dating back more than a quarter-century (sheesh).

Here they are (all available for free download, if you’re curious):

Daisy Hawkins (1987-1990)

Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose (1989-1991)

Perpetuum Mobile (1990-1991)

The Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator (1991-1995)

Imbroglio (1991-1993)

Welcome to Muscle Beach (1993-1999)

Circular Logic (2000-2003)

I describe each of the albums in a post here from last year. Clicking through to my Bandcamp page also gets you to more information about each album (and each track). Six of the seven albums are all instrumental, with my pop-rock opus Welcome to Muscle Beach the only one featuring songs with lyrics & my vocals. (It’s my Revolver, I joke.)

The music was played on various instruments (guitars, bass, keyboards, pianos, percussion, keyboards and synths, and a midi sequencer) and produced using an old Tascam 4-track cassette recorder which I still own although is hardly in working condition anymore.

These days with Garage Band and similar programs the work of producing such self-made music has become so much simpler to do. Indeed, the process of digitizing these old tracks and releasing it all on my own has become trivially easy today compared to what had to be done way back when in order to get your recorded music heard by even a small audience.

Among the dozens of unrealized ideas I have laying about currently, one of them has been to create some videos to go along with various songs. In fact, I’d like to put all of it up on YouTube at some point -- I even have a dedicated YouTube channel for it -- but just haven’t gotten around to it.

I’d also like to find a way to create new music, although again it’s a matter of reestablishing some sort of “home studio” in which to do some recording. Meanwhile, I have been experimenting with some of the older tracks (including some unreleased stuff), and from one of those experiments I came up with something interesting enough I’ve decided to release it as a new album today.

The album is called Ex Machina and can safely be described as my first wholly “ambient” LP -- a single, almost 37-minute track called “Ex Machina (Redux).”

For this one, I took the opening track of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose -- a short loop of electric guitar and effects -- and slowed it down a lot (like 800 percent) which resulted in a much longer, still uncannily melodic piece. I then reversed that track and spliced the two segments together, added a few more treatments to it all, and the long piece is the result.

Unlike practically everything else from the earlier albums, this one works pretty well as “writing music” (I’d suggest), for those who like to have something to accompany their scribbling. Or if you’re still playing online poker, it might work as a soundtrack for that, too.

I’ve even made a video for this one, a very slow pan across a panorama photo of the farm capturing a fairly stunning sunset from a few months ago. Here it is:

It’s probably hard to believe, but every sound you hear was made with an electric guitar. No shinola.

Feedback plays a big role, of course. In fact that’s where the name of the track came from, as the primary melody was spontaneously generated from the feedback being manipuated by the effects rack I was using. In other words, while a human played the notes, a machine (or multiple machines, really) served as co-composers, to be sure.

Speaking of feedback, let me know what you think! And if you like it, go ahead and download the audio over on Bandcamp.

Back to Vegas

This morning I was trying to calculate just how many days I’ve been in Las Vegas before. It’s probably the one place where I’ve lived the most without having actually moved there.

Going off to college or grad school doesn’t count, as those were genuine “moves” wherein I was more or less living full-time somewhere new. Nor does that year Vera and I spent living in France, even though we knew all along that was a temporary thing.

I spent six summers total reporting on the World Series of Poker (from 2008-2013). The first three I was there the entire way, meaning stays of about seven-and-a-half weeks. The latter three times I only went for four weeks. Add to that other visits here and there, and it probably adds up to 10 months or so living in hotel rooms and apartments in Sin City.

Feels like a lot, although I have friends and colleagues who have spent a lot more of their lives in Vegas while actually living elsewhere. And some who started out going there for a few weeks at at time, then moved there permanently.

In any case, the time I’ve spent in Vegas has been more than enough to make coming back here today seem a bit like some kind of faux homecoming.

So many familiar sights and sounds. I’m staying in the Rio this time, too, and already I’m realizing I long ago memorized many of the details of the place. Have already made that long walk through the casino, down the halls and past the Penn & Teller, down to the ballrooms where everything is still full blast as the last prelims play out and they ready for the Main to start tomorrow.

I’ll be here 16 nights altogether to help report on this year’s WSOP Main Event. More features and interviews and “color” this time than in the past when it was mostly all about hand reports and chip counts for your humble scribbler.

A couple more differences from past summers -- I won’t be updating here everyday along the way, although I will try to check in occasionally. And with the November Nine having been jettisoned (finally), I’ll finally see the sucker through to the end.

Best part of this whole trip is getting to reunite with many friends, a lot of whom I’ve worked with or alongside before, and most of whom I’ve only been interacting online since my last Vegas trip. A lot of been-there-done-that feel, then, but a lot to look forward to as well.

Image: “Las Vegas: Welcome to Vegas” (adapted), WriterGal39. CC BY-ND 2.0.

New Poker Reads to Recommend

Checking in briefly to let you know I’m still here, up to my eyeballs at the moment with World Series of Poker-related stuff as well as teaching a summer session version of my “Poker in American Film and Culture.”

There’s also the usual, endless amount of farm work to be done. We’ve picked up a new barn cat who just appeared one day and has now moved in permanently. Just six months or so, and impossibly cute. We call her Nancy.

But you didn’t come here for news flashes about felines. Let me share something of use to you -- recommendations of a couple of new poker titles, both of which can be filed under the heading of something a little out-of-the-ordinary when it comes to this niche genre.

One is my friend Tommy Angelo’s new one Painless Poker, a book he first started telling me about several years ago and which has finally made it to the presses. I’m about halfway through this one now, and it has been an entirely enjoyable ride thus far.

Painless Poker is an entirely unique poker book, compiling both a wide variety of advice to players and some enjoyable, insightful character creation and examples of storytelling. If you’ve read Tommy’s earlier books -- Elements of Poker or A Rubber Band Story and Other Poker Tales -- you’ll recognize he takes a similar approach toward combining entertainment and enlightenment with Painless Poker.

Rather than explain the narrative frame, I’ll let Tommy do that himself -- check out this interview we did for PokerNews a while back that introduces the book and includes an excerpt: “Tommy Angelo Presents His New Book ‘Painless Poker.’”

The other book I wanted to recommend is a nifty, slim history telling the remarkable story of poker’s prominence in Gardena, California during the middle decades of the 20th century, a book called Gardena Poker Clubs: A High-Stakes History by Max Votolato.

I found out about this book after doing a bit of writing myself about California Poker for my ongoing “Poker & Pop Culture” series of articles for PokerNews. One article in particular concentrated on a recent documentary Votolato made titled Freeway City that presented the history of Gardena with considerable attention given to the role the several famous poker rooms played in the city’s story.

The experience making that film led Votolato to follow-up with the book where he could share a lot more about the various figures and card clubs. It’s a neat, well-made volume with lots of pictures -- really a valuable resource to those interested in poker’s historical development during the 20th century.

So there are a couple of summer reads for you. And of course, if you’re looking for something besides poker to read about while on the beach, you can always pick up my novel Obsessica as well.

Revelation Regarding the (Alleged) Moss-Dandolos Match

Busy days here on the farm of late, although like everyone I’ve been following all that has gone on at the World Series of Poker thus far. Hard to believe they are only about two weeks into the series, as they’ve already gotten up to the 30th event today.

Have been glad to track the updates on PokerNews once more, and am tuning in over at PokerGO now and then. Speaking of the latter, they finally did get PayPal working and so I got a monthly subscription. They have it on Roku now, too, although I never have been able to get anything to load over there (it seems to stick in a “Retrieving” cycle and never quite opens the live event).

I did want to touch base, though, and let visitors know about a recent “Poker & Pop Culture” column of mine that relates somewhat to the history of the WSOP.

A few weeks back I ran a revised and expanded version of a column focusing on a famous heads-up poker game between Johnny Moss and Nick “The Greek” Dandolos. If you’re reading this blog you’ve probably heard of that match before.

According to most accounts, the pair got together sometime around 1951 (or thereabouts) at Binion’s Horseshoe to play a high-stakes match that lasted several months, with Moss ultimately said to have come away a big winner ($2 million or more, say some). The game was open to the public, goes the story, and for that reason sometimes gets linked to the later idea of the WSOP first run at Binion’s in 1970.

That column, titled “Moss and Dandolos at the Horseshoe - Legend or Myth?” was really more about the many stories about the game than about the game itself.

I included in there how one of the most referenced sources for details regarding the match is Al Alvarez’s The Biggest Game in Town (1983), a favorite poker book of mine that I’ve written about here many, many times over the years.

I also included a bit from Jesse May regarding how some of those who talked to Alvarez for his book (including Moss) likely embellished their tales more than a little bit.

In any case, about a week after that column went up I had a nice surprise when I got a note from a person who works for Jack Binion. The note asked if I could get in touch, as Mr. Binion had some information to share about the Moss-Dandolos story that could help clear up a lot of the uncertainty surrounding it.

I called and after a couple more exchanges ended up getting some fairly remarkable memories from Jack Binion regarding the alleged match. I say “alleged” because one of the clarifications he made was to explain that the match never really happened! At least not at Binion’s, and not in public. And likely not for the super-high stakes often cited, either.

I won’t give away the rest of the story here, but instead point you over to the newer article that shares Jack Binion’s insight:

”Poker & Pop Culture: Jack Binion Sorts Fact From Fiction Regarding Moss-Dandolos Match.”

It’s Getting Better All the Time: 50 Years of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

I was probably around 12 years old when I got my first copy of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP, perhaps just a little earlier.

That’s the age -- 12 -- of the protagonist in my new novel Obsessica. Have had some more readers and a couple of very nice reviews over on Amazon since the last time I brought it up over here. I’m actually in the middle of getting the ebook version together, and also have some other plans to promote it a little more going forward -- more on that soon.

I was chatting with someone about the book and stumbled into an observation about 12-year-olds. It’s an idea that might well have come from the narrator of Obsessica, who is writing as an adult about something he experienced when he was that age.

“We’re all 12, really, or thereabouts,” I said. “That is, there’s a point in there somewhere before we’ve grown up when we become who we end up being, and no matter how much we change after that we can’t really leave behind that first-finished-draft of ourselves.”

If that’s true, it matters that I was around 12 when I first listened to and loved Sgt. Pepper.

Later I would learn more about the Beatles, reading books and like many engaging in a kind of protracted study of every little detail of their history, including all things Sgt. Pepper. But well before that more intellectual engagement took place came the deep impression caused by many, many listenings back when I was a kid -- back when the record, like other things I experienced, inevitably became part of who I am.

I love the songs. All of them. And the idea. During their first few years of recording and performing, the Beatles provided a kind of template for the whole concept of a “band” (at least in the realm of popular music). Then with Sgt. Pepper they invented a fictional version of themselves to enable even greater experimentation.

They were already larger than life by then. But Sgt. Pepper was an even greater revelation -- about what the Beatles could do, and about what could be done by others, too.

In the title song, Sgt. Pepper is a character described as having “taught the band to play.” Like a mentor or muse or something. Which, of course, is what the album has served as for countless bands and musicians and people who yearn to be creative in other ways.

People talk about it being a “concept album” which it is. To me the analogue is a short story collection like Dubliners, Winesburg, Ohio, Nine Stories, or What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Different episodes, different characters, different moods, all connected by common thematic threads relating a particular ethos and vision emanating from the artist.

Sgt. Pepper features a variety of characters and voices and perspectives, complemented by the many different styles -- rock, blues, music hall, psychedelic, vaudeville, classical, traditional Indian, avant-garde -- all made to fit inside so-called “pop” formats.

The variety was more than enough to stimulate my still forming brain, with the record almost feeling like one “novelty” song after another. It’s rocking and relaxing, moving and melodramatic, catchy and complex, funny and frightening.

I suppose it’s true that an impressionable 12-year-old probably experiences these things more deeply than a cynical adult. But there I was, listening to Sgt. Pepper over and again on the stereo console, ensuring that decades later I’d still be thinking these thoughts and feeling these feelings when listening again.

I’ve written here about the Beatles many times before, including telling the story of my father playing the Red and Blue albums on eight-track player that came with an old Plymouth Valiant, and going with Vera to see the Cirque du Soleil show Love, and going to see Cheap Trick perform the whole of Sgt. Pepper, also in Las Vegas.

And (I must not omit) describing the card game I invented last year called “Sgt. Pepper,” a Badugi variant. Here are the complete rules:

Pulling out my Sgt. Pepper LP today, I’m finding tucked inside a copy of the fan mag The Beatles Monthly, dated June 1987. Yes, I’m old enough to remember when it was twenty years ago today the Beatles released their album that begins with the lyric “it was twenty years ago today.”

And now it’s fifty years ago today, the LP being released in the U.K. on June 1, 1967 and in the U.S. the next day. And everyone is listening to and talking about Sgt. Pepper and acting like kids again.

And I’m setting the needle down to listen -- again -- knowing even before the orchestra starts warming up that it’s guaranteed to raise a smile.

Pursuing Poker

Spent the last couple of days watching poker on my computer. The PokerStars Championship Sochi series is running, and as I’m staying on the farm for that one I’ve had occasion to check in now and then from here to follow the coverage both on the PokerStars blog and via PokerStars TV.

Then yesterday I had Day 1 of the Super High Roller Bowl on all day, that $300K buy-in tournament that started last night and lasts for several days. Both events are serving as a kind of prelude to the World Series of Poker that gets cranking on Wednesday.

Did very much enjoy seeing Kevin Hart knock out Phil Hellmuth on Day 1. Hellmuth had a bit of a cooler versus Justin Bonomo early (flopped set versus flopped straight), then as a short stack lost all his chips in a set-under-set hand versus Hart.

In fact, when the cards were dealt and Hellmuth had pocket treys versus Hart’s queens, I was already imagining a Q-3-x flop and that’s exactly what happened. Such fun.

Realizing the NBA Finals don’t start until Thursday -- a full week since the last game of the conference finals completed -- I had to joke on Twitter that poker had found a “sweet spot” amid what amounted to a “November Nine-like wait” for basketball to return.

Indeed, the entire WSOP, right through the Main Event that will go until July 22nd, will more or less function to fill a fairly dead spot in the sports calendar between the NBA and NFL. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m all on board with getting rid of the November Nine and playing the Main down to a winner this summer with only a couple of days’ delay before the final table.

This new PokerGO channel that PokerCentral has created seems okay from the outside, although there are obviously a lot of kinks still to be ironed out. While it’s nice to be able simply to click through and watch (as with PokerStars TV) -- ideal, really -- I’m not too bothered by the subscription model they’ve set up and $10 a month doesn’t seem like a lot to fuss over, as long as the sucker works.

(That said, I’m still waiting for the PayPal option to become functional, as I prefer that route to using a credit card. And I’m looking forward to them getting Roku up and running as they are saying they will, as I’d much rather watch on the teevee than the laptop.)

Still feel like televised (or online streaming) poker remains a super niche form of entertainment, and frankly can’t imagine it being otherwise. There’s always a dream to grow televised poker into something bigger than it is, something resembling or even competing with other sports or entertainment. In other words, something like it was 13-14 years ago, when the televised poker boom first boomed.

That ain’t happening again, of course. But a more modest goal of providing something worth checking out when other desired distractions aren’t available isn’t such a bad one.

Images: PokerStars; PokerCentral / PokerGO.

The Recreational Poker Writer

For a couple of months now I’ve been aware of an anniversary of sorts coming up on the calendar. No, I’m not talking about me and Vera’s anniversary (although that’s coming up, too). Rather a poker-related one.

It was exactly 10 years ago today I wrote my first article for PokerNews.

I’d been writing on this blog for over a year by then. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I believe that PN article had to have been the first poker-related bit of scribbling for which I’d ever been paid. Which means, in turn, it represents the first, tiny indicator of what would become a big life pivot about four years after that -- away from full-time teaching and into full-time freelancing.

The article was a short one, just five paragraphs -- “Poker Bill Fails to Pass Louisiana House.” Pretty standard stuff, and the kind of thing we’d end up reading (and some of us writing) over and over for the entire decade that followed.

But even if I might look back with ambivalence (and even a little cynicism) at such a slight morsel of reporting, I do remember the excitement at seeing something I’d written show up on the site.

I’d placed some articles in academic journals, wrote columns and book reviews for The Charlotte Observer, and even had some poems published before (no shinola). But this was something new and different.

Like a lot of poker “enthusiasts” then (and now), I couldn’t get enough of poker -- playing the game, thinking about it, reading about it, and writing about it.

Getting paid even just a little for a poker article offered the same sort of thrill as winning those first few real money pots when playing online. In neither case did I think a career was in the offing, but both involved realizing a small profit from doing something that was already fun and intellectually stimulating.

I have Haley Hintze and John Caldwell to thank (again) for having recruited me to write that first article way back when. And a ton of other folks thereafter for giving me opportunities and helping guide me to become more than just a “recreational” poker writer.

Even now, so many years later, it doesn’t seem like a “regular” gig, even if that’s what it has been for quite a while. The constant flux of the poker world -- with people always coming and going -- is one obvious reason for that feeling, I’m sure.

But another is the fact that there’s still a lot of “play” involved when doing such “work.” And that’s a very good thing, whatever your job is.

Photo: courtesy Carlos Monti / PokerStars blog.

Racing to Monaco (and Back)

Sorry for the lack of updates of late. The last two weeks have been taken up with travel and tournament reporting, another trip to Monaco for the PokerStars Championship Monte-Carlo having carried me away from the farm.

This was my third trip to Monte-Carlo, site of the annual Monaco Grand Prix happening later this month. Not at all a bad place to spend time either working or vacationing. The temps were a little cooler than usual and there was some rain off and on, though for the most part the weather was nice and I had one of those fantastic fifth-floor views looking out on the Mediterranean and the cruise ships passing to and fro.

The poker was fun, kicked off by a €100,000 Super High Roller that drew a decent-sized field of 61 entries (counting re-entries). Comedian and actor Kevin Hart was there, as he was in the Bahamas back in January, and he added some entertainment during the first day especially, and into Day 2 until he busted well shy of the cash.

On several occasions Hart got the attentions of those of us reporting on the event, delivering us quotes with explicit instructions that the lines be shared as though representing our own thoughts and commentary, not his.

“Reporter, reporter!” he’d say (for example). “I have a quote for you, but it has to come from you. Say... ‘Kevin Hart is making poker cool for the first time ever. He is taking poker in a sexy direction.’”

And so on. Late on Day 1 he managed to pick up aces and knock out two short-stacked players in a three-way preflop all-in, after which his quote -- or rather our comment about him (as dictated by Hart) -- was “Kevin Hart says that poker... is a science. And in this science experiment, he’s f**king the pros!”

I happened to catch Hart’s knockout on Day 2. All in with pocket sevens versus Byron Kaverman’s ace-four, two aces flopped, a seven came on the turn, then a four on the river. Hart took it well, though, then the next day came a press conference in which a new partnership was announced between Hart and PokerStars. Not sure what all it will entail, other than his being involved with promoting the game and site going forward.

There was no media event per se this time, although we did get to play in a charity event which added up to a couple of hours of entertainment for your humble scribbler.

Didn’t get over to it until well after it had begun, which meant mostly nursing a short stack and never quite being able to get anything going chip-wise. (That's me with position on fellow media event expert Frank Op de Woerd of PokerNews.) But there were a lot of laughs at my table where Team PokerStars Pros Vanessa Selbst, Fatima Moreira de Melo, and Felipe Ramos were seated to start, thanks largely to Felipe’s jokes and the subsequent (even funnier) analysis of his joke-telling style.

Both the Main Event and High Roller were interesting as well, with one highlight coming near the end when I had a chance to talk with Daniel Dvoress who had a red-hot series, making three high roller final tables (including the Super High Roller), cashing in a fourth high roller, and cashing in the Main as well. Friendly, smart guy who incredibly has accumulated about $5 million in cashes over the last few years without (1) playing at the WSOP or (2) winning a tournament. (Here’s the PokerStars blog post with our conversation.)

The trip home had one out-of-the-ordinary incident to report. Took a morning flight from Nice to London, landing at Heathrow Airport about two-and-a-half hours before my scheduled flight back to the U.S. Was going on less than two hours’ sleep, actually, after having had to take care of a lot of extra work stuff before crashing in the hotel one last time.

Disembarked and wound my way through the terminal to a bus ready to take us over to Terminal 3 and my gate. After a short wait we filled the bus and sat for a while, then were told to get back off the bus and reenter the terminal. Eventually there came an announcement -- a “slight incident” at Terminal 3 had occurred, and no one was allowed to go there at all.

I wasn’t too concerned until I checked Twitter, where a couple of different stories were being breathlessly passed around to explain the delay. One was a terror suspect had been arrested at Terminal 3 after arriving. Another had to do with a suspicious package. Lots of references to all of Heathrow being on “lock down” and no flights coming or going.

I was convinced I wasn’t going anywhere soon.

Much to my surprise, though, about 40 minutes later we were back on the bus, and while I ended up having to hurry a bit I made it onto my on-time flight without much problem. Later learned the arrest had happened the day before. Meanwhile there wasn’t any suspicious package that caused the delay, but rather a dude running through security with his bag without waiting for it to go through an extra check. In other words, it really was a “slight incident.”

Got me thinking of how misleading Twitter can be with these things, quickly spreading inaccurate or outright false information that can be nonetheless convincing.

Glad to be back on the farm, where I’ll be staying put for the next couple of months -- and posting a bit more.

Photos: courtesy Neil Stoddart, Manuel Kovsca / PokerStars blog.

Absolute Anticlimax

There was an item of news in the poker world last week, the sort of thing about which I might have written several blog posts had it occurred five or six years ago. After all, it was about an online poker site -- two sites, actually -- and cheating and scandal and illegality and all sorts of things your humble scribbler used to spend lots of time and energy opining about back in the day.

It has taken me a whole week even to acknowledge the story, though. Probably because it doesn’t affect me directly at all, and for those it does affect it has come so late as to make it seem we are in a place almost entirely distinct from where we all were when the story began.

It’s like one of those way, way, way late sequels. Or when a band who after shining brightly when young get back together many years later to try to reignite things with new material.

One of my faves, Robyn Hitchcock, actually has a new album out today (and the tracks I’ve heard are terrific). His old band, the Soft Boys, did one of those reunion records in the early 2000s about two decades after they’d split, and in an interview once he referred to it as “a bit of reactivating the undead by bringing back” and reanimating the band for that one-off.

That’s kind of how it feels writing about Absolute Poker and UltimateBet again, this time to report that almost six years after “Black Friday” -- the anniversary for which just passed -- players who had funds on Absolute Poker and UltimateBet and never were able to withdraw them are finally getting a chance to get that money back.

This has to be the slowest of any slow play in poker history.

For those keeping score, there were three sites named in the indictment and civil complaint unsealed on April 15, 2011 by the Department of Justice -- PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker -- with a fourth site, UltimateBet, then part of the “Cereus Network” along with Absolute, similarly affected by the DOJ’s action.

All four sites were subsequently prohibited from allowing players from the United States to continue playing on them. PokerStars shut us off right away. It took Full Tilt Poker an extra couple of days, but soon we got the stop-you-can’t-go-any-further pop-ups over there, too.

Both of those sites also made agreements with the feds right away to get back their domains (after they were momentarily seized). Those agreements involved ensuring funds went to the Americans, something PokerStars did immediately, but Full Tilt Poker never did, having shamefully squandered everyone’s money.

Eventually that led to the DOJ amending the civil complaint in September 2011 with further charges against Full Tilt Poker and new names added, and branding the site a “ponzi scheme” in an accompanying presser.

It took AP and UB a couple of extra weeks to make a similar agreement with the DOJ. Meanwhile, the sites blithely continued to allow U.S. players to play more than a month later (without their having any means of withdrawing). Finally both sites totally shut down -- not just to U.S. players, but the “ROW”-ers, too (rest of world) -- and as was the case with FTP no one was able to cash out a cent.

During the summer of 2012 PokerStars managed another deal with the DOJ, paying a big settlement that included acquiring Full Tilt Poker’s assets and making available outstanding FTP balances to U.S. players. Stars then reopened Full Tilt in November 2012 (outside the U.S., natch). Last year the two sites’ player pools were merged as one.

The reimbursement process was lengthy. I took part in it, finally getting my Full Tilt Poker funds in June 2014, more than three years after being shut out of the site.

(Incidentally, I’m convinced that by going through the withdrawal process which required me to submit bank account information to the DOJ in order to receive my funds, Fifth Third bank chose to close my account without warning and with zero explanation, very likely encouraged to do so by a DOJ initiative called “Operation Choke Point.”)

Anyhow, to get back to those rogue Cereus sites, Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, up until last week it appeared as though anyone with funds on those two sites at the time they went offline were never going to see that money again. Suddenly, though, came an announcement that a process similar to the one by which Full Tilt Poker players were able to recover their funds had begun for those who had money in accounts when Absolute Poker and UltimateBet closed up their respective scam-sites.

Am glad for those affected, although truthfully I can’t say I’ve had a lot of empathy for them during their six-year-long plight. That’s because not only did I not have any money on either AP or UB, I’d withdrawn from both at the first whiff of the insider cheating scandal on one of them (Absolute) in October 2007.

For those coming to all of this well after the fact, you can search this blog for “Absolute Poker” or “UltimateBet” and find plenty. This post from February 2008 links to a lot of other articles about the Absolute scandal, while this one from May 2008 is an early one among many relating details of the even bigger scandal that erupted on UB.

Also, if all of this is only vaguely familiar to you or if you aren’t up at all on the story of “Black Friday” and its aftermath, I wrote an article a year ago for PokerNews describing a lot of it in detail: “Black Friday: Reliving Poker’s Darkest Day Five Years Later.”

Just prior to Black Friday, UltimateBet in particular had somehow crept its way back into the limelight by signing a lot of “team pros” some of whom did work to rehabilitate the site’s post-scandal image. As it soon turned out, whatever the spokespersons’ intentions might have been at the time, it was all incredibly damaging to the poker community and, truthfully, to the subsequently dim prospects for online poker in the U.S.

This news regarding Absolute Poker and UltimateBet and the unveiling of the website where claims can be made by players (through June 9, 2017) took many by surprise, and I noticed a couple of articles describing it having come from “out of nowhere.”

I also saw some attempts to connect the DOJ’s decision to start the process with Preet Bharara’s headline-grabbing dismissal along with a number of other U.S. Attorneys by the Trump administration last month. Bharara, for those who don’t know, was the one who brought the charges against the founders of the implicated sites (and others) that were unsealed on Black Friday. He was also the one who called Full Tilt Poker a “ponzi scheme.”

Truthfully, it seems more likely that the news is more directly connected to Absolute Poker founder Scott Tom -- one of those named in the indictment and civil complaint -- having finally returned to the U.S. in February to face the charges against him. (Tom pleaded not guilty.)

Whatever prompted it, I’m sure the players are glad about it. To me it’s all the faintest hint of a whisper of an echo of a story finally lumbering, zombie-like, toward a much-belated anticlimax. And like Robyn Hitchcock was saying, it feels a bit like reactivating the undead to write about it.

Heads-Up and Humility

Wanted to share a short thought I had related to that Masters championship that concluded on Sunday. Actually the thought was inspired from both an impression of the ending of the golf tournament and after following the last live updates from the PokerStars Championships Macau Main Event final table, also taking place on Sunday.

I say the latter took place on Sunday, although in truth while it was Sunday morning and early afternoon here, it was Sunday evening and Monday morning in Macau, as the tournament didn’t conclude until around 2 a.m. their time. That reminded me of my lone visit to Macau back in late 2012 and the very long and late final day of the Asia Championship of Poker.

That day play didn’t end until around 3 a.m. I’ll skip over the details -- all recorded here in a blog post written after I’d gotten back -- but what followed was a kind of mad scramble by me afterwards to make my plane out of Hong Kong that morning. In fact, I didn’t make my flight, but things worked out in the end.

Much like happened back in 2012, heads-up lasted an inordinately long time at inaugural PSC Macau Main Event. In fact, it lasted about twice as long, as the final two in my tournament went about six hours while the final two last weekend -- Tianyuan Tang and eventual winner Elliot Smith -- went something close to 12 hours before finishing.

I followed the updates while chatting online with some of the fellas there reporting. I also noticed some of the talk on Twitter, with a few judgments passed along here and there about the heads-up skills of the final pair.

Televised coverage of the final round of the Masters began just about the time play ended in Macau, and as you know that ended up with a kind of protracted “heads-up” finish between Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia. By the last few holes those two had broken ahead of the chase pack, then both missed some big putts down the stretch before Garcia managed to take it down on the first playoff hole.

Heads-up is hard, man. No relaxing. No matter if it lasts a few minutes or hours and hours.

Garcia’s a poker player, as many readers of this blog probably know, regularly playing at the Bahamas each January and also turning up in tournaments in Spain. Has even cashed a handful of times, including in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event once a few years ago, although I’m not aware of him ever making it to heads-up in a poker tournament. (He does have a third-place finish, though.)

When Garcia and Rose were battling at the end -- and especially after each missed big pressure-packed putts -- there was also some censure of their play. I’m remembering someone describing the play as a “disgrace” and comparing some missed putts to what amateurs might do when playing a round for $20. That’s part of the fun of following major sporting events, though -- the armchair quarterbacking and coaching, I mean. Adds a lot to the overall entertainment.

Anyhow, the combination of these two “heads-up” matches and the crowds of onlookers made me think a little bit of my own experience, in particular that recent poker tournament I played in which I made it to heads-up and with dozens of people watching and cheering came up short of winning the sucker.

I’ve gotten to heads-up in poker tournaments plenty of times before, winning some and losing others. That might’ve been the first time there was a significant rail, though. I remember thinking afterwards that I’d played heads-up okay for the most part, though obviously second-guessed a few decisions and concluded I could’ve handled it differently. I might have thought as well for just a moment or two about what others might have thought about it all, but didn’t waste a lot of time with that, to be honest.

I’ve watched countless number of players going at it heads-up to conclude tournaments before, and I know it’s always very tempting to cast judgments as an observer. Sometimes it’s obvious enough when a player makes a mistake or poor play. In that case, criticism is essentially going to be objective and informed. A lot of times, though, it’s harder to know from the outside all the variables making up the context of each decision and/or action.

Over what is now approaching a decade of reporting on poker tournaments, I’m a long way away from having the judging instinct when watching and reporting on hands. There’s always more information than can be understood or appreciated by a spectator, even when you know the hole cards.

All in all, I’ve become less quick to jump on even the more obvious mistakes competitors will make to betray themselves as less than graceful under pressure. Especially when they’re heads-up.

Image: “one on ones,” Jurgen Appelo. CC BY 2.0.