Hard-Boiled Poker 2012 Year in Review (3 of 3)

Okay, one more day of recapping before moving on to new adventures. On Monday I highlighted posts from January-April, and yesterday May-August. Here’s a look at some of what was happening on Hard-Boiled Poker during the last four months of 2012.

September

A post early in the month titled “It Was the Third of September, That Day I’ll Always Remember” veered toward existential brooding about poker and life in the context of thinking about the great Temptations song. A week later the 9/11 anniversary prompted similarly-styled musings in “A Meaningful Interruption.”

“No PPT For You!” and “Partouche Postscript” both addressed the guaranteed-prize-pool controversy at the Partouche Poker Tour and apparent decision to shut down the tour altogether. Then on the poker in popular culture front, in “Playing Poker with Truman and Churchill” I wrote about the famous poker game that preceded the British stateman’s “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946. And later in the month I wrote a post of praise for a favorite sitcom, “Here’s to Cheers,” that discussed a particular episode in which poker was featured.

Andy Bloch gave a long interview to Diamond Flush Poker (another of the nominees for Favorite Poker Blog in the 2013 BLUFF Reader’s Choice Awards), and I responded at length here in a post titled “Full Tilters Talking.” The next day I wrote about another big interview of a poker player -- this time from the mainstream -- in “Esfandiari on Stern.”

Then came Howard Lederer’s big interview with PokerNews, a huge deal at the time, but in retrospect an obviously self-serving first move in a mini-publicity tour designed to reposition him somehow within the poker community after his having been largely responsible for doing serious damage to it over the last several years.

I had written critically of Lederer earlier in the month in a post titled “Bad Cell” which among other topics talks about the 2012 Audi A8 L Quattro that Howard Lederer bought for $156,549 two-and-a-half months after Black Friday. (No shinola.) Then after “The Lederer Files” (the austere title PN gave the lengthy interview) began to appear, I wrote an early reaction in “On the Lederer Files: The ‘Professor’ and the ‘Culture’ of Poker” which took issue with a wild and wholly inaccurate claim by Lederer regarding online poker, ca. 2004-2008.

A few days later in “The Mis-Lederer Files,” I wrote about the interview as a whole, making the overall point that while Lederer appeared desirous to hammer home some thesis about his having been misled, the fact was he was intimately involved in misleading others throughout the FTP fiasco, an effort that continued in part through the PokerNews interview, too.

Also, as a kind of “Lederer Files” postscript, I found an old podcast from either late 2005 or early 2006 and wrote a quick synopsis/review of it here in “Poker Podcast Review: Full Tilt Poker’s Tips from the Pros, Episode 5 -- Your Online Poker Bankroll feat. Howard Lederer.” A short show, but stuffed with ironies in the post-BF, post-“Ponzi” aftermath of the implosion of Full Tilt Poker Version 1.0.

Finally, football (and picking NFL games) became a returned-to topic in September, kicked off (so to speak) in a post titled “Giants or Cowboys?” I also talked about the unforgettable “Fail Mary” climax of that replacement ref controversy in “Everything Is Wild: On the Packers-Seahawks Game; or, Simultaneous Botch.”

October

There were a couple more NFL posts in October: “Icing the Kicker and Running It Twice” and “You Got to Know When to Hold’em, Know When to Punt.” The 1960 Presidential campaign was the focus of “‘We’re not now talking about a poker game’ (Kennedy & Nixon).” And physics, poker, and the usefulness of higher education were discussed in “The Boeree Principle.”

The WSOPE finished up in Cannes in early October, with Phil Hellmuth earning his 13th bracelet by taking down the Main Event. I wrote about him a couple of times, first in “What the Hellmuth?! 2012 WSOP Europe Main Event Nears Finish.” Then in “Hellmuth and the WSOP” I talk about the Poker Brat’s tourney triumphs while also noting how relatively speaking he ain’t such a great ambassador for our favorite card game.

Mid-month I appeared as a guest on “The Thinking Poker Podcast.” I was invited once again this year to participate as a voter for the Poker Hall of Fame, and in “Apples, Oranges, and the Poker Hall of Fame” I offered some thoughts about the process, nominees, and this year’s winners. Full Tilt Poker came up again a couple of times in October in “Fact-Checking; or, The Professor’s Plight” and “Full Tilt Poker Relaunch Soon (No Shinola).” And I also made a brief excursion to discuss (again) federal legislation (that again, ain’t happening) in “Meanwhile, Reid-Kyl.”

When the teaser for Full House with Johnny Chan appeared on YouTube, I couldn’t help but respond in “Here’s Johnny, Welcoming Us to His Mansion.” I would actually get a chance to ask Chan about the show a couple of weeks later in Macau, although he told me (with a laugh) that he couldn’t really discuss it.

October ended with the WSOP Main Event final table, and in the days leading up to it I wrote a post titled “For the Record: Keeping Score at the WSOP” which addressed the value and significance of hand-for-hand reporting. I then wrote about an interesting hand from 10-handed play that became even more so once we got to see everyone’s hole cards on ESPN in “Poker’s Possible Worlds; or, ‘Easy Fold for Jesse.’”

I scribbled some reactions to both days of play in “2012 WSOP Main Event Final Table (Day 1 of 2)” and “2012 WSOP Main Event Final Table (2 of 2).” Then after going back through all 399 hands of the final table and comparing ESPN’s “almost live” coverage with PokerNews’ reporting, I pulled together a mammoth post listing all of the hole cards that were revealed on the broadcast, “2012 WSOP Main Event Final Table Hole Cards (Complete).”

November

November began with something altogether new for your humble scribe, a trip all of the way to Macau to cover a couple of Asia Championship of Poker events.

It was a memorable trip, including a little bit of sight-seeing in between working nine straight (long) days. I did get to visit the Venetian Macao, the world’s largest casino. And the ACOP Main Event ended most strangely, with two players ending six hours’ worth of heads-up play by shoving all-in blind and splitting the prize money.

I posted here all along the way, starting out by sharing some “Traveling Travails” (i.e., a canceled flight adding an extra day to the journey over). I finally arrived at my destination more than 8,000 miles from home, then covered the ACOP Warm-Up event (Days 1a, 1b, 2, and 3) and the Main Event (Days 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). Then in “Skipping Steps (Leaving Macau)” I wrote about the journey home.

Once back in the U.S. I again complained about not really having much in the way of online poker to enjoy in “Faraway Poker,” although my mood improved when I considered the comments of a political prognosticator and poker player in “A (Nate) Silver Lining for Online Poker.”

Pretty soon I was back in front of the set watching NFL football and “Talkin’ Thanksgiving and ‘Hero Picks’” and about a wild play that happened on “Fourth and 29.” And perhaps because I was again focused on picking football games, I was inspired to consider “Gambling as an Object of Inquiry.”

That post about gambling took me back to California Split screenwriter Joseph Walsh’s fun memoir, Gambler on the Loose, which in turn led to another exchange of emails with the writer that resulted in my sharing “A Slim Story from Joseph Walsh” (about “Amarillo Slim” Preston).

December

Last month began sadly with the news that poker author and podcaster Lou Krieger had passed away following a brief, valiant fight with cancer. Even for those of us who knew of his condition, it was a sudden shock, and the poker world will greatly miss such an important contributor to our community. I tried in “Lou Krieger” to sum up some thoughts about my friend.

In December I wrote about 16th-century French literature in “Gargantua’s Games,” the latest poker craze in “Eating It Up: Open-Face Chinese Poker,” and Richard Nixon (again) in “More On Tricky Dick.”

The month also saw me make a couple more tourney reporting trips. I first helped cover the WSOP Circuit event at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City for PokerNews, reporting back here as I did (Days 1, 2, and 3). Then I went right back out on another PN assignment to help cover the Sands Bethlehem DeepStack Extravaganza Main Event in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (Days 1a, 1b, 2, and 3). Both were fun events, and while the workdays were super-long (as usual), I greatly enjoyed working with my long-time colleague Mickey Doft on both, as well as with rock star photographer Joe Giron in Bethlehem.

Back home, I had a chance to interview for PokerListings one of my favorite poker writers, Anthony Holden (Big Deal, Bigger Deal, Holden on Hold’em), and mentioned that here in a post titled “Holden On...”

Once back I also got to jump online a little to mess around on Hero Poker, that is until Hero decided to close shop as I noted in “A Hero-ic Effort (Hero Poker Steps Aside).” I had my balance shipped over to another Merge site, Carbon Poker, thus compelling me to write a couple of related posts -- “2013 and the Fall and Rise of Online Poker in the U.S.” and “Merge Move and Super Stretchy Screaming Monkeys.”

I always feel a little bit of dread whenever I begin these end-of-year recap posts, caused both by anticipating the tedium of the compiling process and a touch of self-loathing associated with looking back and reading my own words. (Really, who but the most vain among us can stand looking in the mirror for so long?) But as has been the case in past years, I end the task feeling somewhat content about it all, even reassured that amid all the quantity there might well have been a few instances of quality popping up here and there.

Again, thanks to all who’ve spent any time at all reading Hard-Boiled Poker in 2012. I hope you found the visits worthwhile.

Hard-Boiled Poker 2012 Year in Review (2 of 3)

Happy New Year, all. Am continuing with the recapping business today, after yesterday moving through January-April Gonna minimize the ado, and just do it.

May

Started the month “Talkin’ Titanic” while alluding to another Pop Poker piece over on PokerListings looking at various poker-related stories connected to the doomed passenger liner and blockbuster film. Also on the pop culture front, a little later I was writing about “Rounders’ Game of Tell and Show” as well as “Playing Poker with Sanford and Son.”

As the month went by I commented on various news of the day in posts like “WSOP Asia Pacific Adds More Bracelets,” “WSOP Stirring Things Up for 2012,” and “Buddhist Monks Busted.” Also talked about Lock Poker leaving Merge for its own network in “A Necessarily Small Revolution.”

In “Human Interest” I reflected on a thoughtful blog post by Phil Galfond (someone whose blog probably should’ve been nominated this year for the BLUFF Reader’s Choice Awards’ Favorite Poker Blog). And “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forums” gave me another chance to practice some photoshopping skills while commenting on 2+2 still being down.

Then late in the month I had the opportunity to make a return trip down to Punta del Este, Uruguay to cover another LAPT event, and so spent a week writing about packing, arriving, the “pregame,” covering Days 1, 2, 3, and 4, then finally departing. It was a great time and again I loved the chance to work with some terrific folks. I say that despite the fact that the trip home was unexpectedly arduous, with two canceled flights, a lot of poor communication and handling by American Airlines, and a frustrated Shamus getting back home to write a post about AA titled “The Best Hand in Hold’em, the Worst in Air Travel.”

June

As was the case in 2011, I’d spend the first part of the WSOP at home, then traveled out to Las Vegas in mid-June to help PokerNews cover the last month of the WSOP.

The first couple of weeks of the month thus saw me frequently commenting on the Series from afar, such as in “The Big One for One Drop One Month Away,” “WSOP Weekend: Beefs, Blunders, and Bloch,” “Six-Bet Shove Surprise, Redux,” “Everyone Following the Phils,” “Matros Exceeds Expectations,” and “Hellmuth, Again.” I also offered an early comparison addressing turnouts at this year’s Series in a post titled “Spot the Differences (Comparing 2011 & 2012 WSOPs).”

Meanwhile, I continued to express frustration about the lack of online options for U.S. poker players in “Looking for a Game.” And I used a birthday and visit to the eye doctor as an excuse for some “shot in the dark”-style meditation in “A Momentary Loss of Focus.”

Once I arrived in Vegas, I began the daily reports as usual, beginning with a flight shared with a dangerously drunk passenger recounted in “Everybody Hang On!!!” After that I was “Easing In” to the heavy work schedule, describing “The Vibe” at my fifth consecutive WSOP, and listening to the cocktail waiter’s call of “‘WHATTTAREDBOOOOLLLL!’”

In “The Future Is Now,” I reported on that ultimately unsuccessful “ChipTic” experiment tried at this year’s WSOP. I got to cover Norman Chad’s final table and found it especially entertaining to watch “Adults Playing Games.” And I shared my thoughts about a controversial hand in the $50K Players Championship in “Attempts at Time Travel at the WSOP.”

After working a week without a break, my buddy F-Train took me up to Red Rock Canyon for a hike, which after all of those days inside the Rio felt kind of like visiting the moon. I talked about the day and shared some pics in “Hot Rocks.” Then the next day the always perceptive Tommy Angelo knew what I’d done without my even telling him, as I reported in a post called “In Which My Shoes Give Away Where I Have Been.”

From there the Series kept “Cruising Along,” leading up to my covering the Ladies Event and lamenting the decision by a few men to play in “That’s a Bummer, Man (Men in the Ladies Event).”

July

On a day in early July I started out helping cover the conclusion of the Ladies event, then moved over to assist with the reporting on the “Big One for One Drop.” Made for a unique day, and I shared some thoughts about the contrast between the two events in “Same But Different.” I was then off on the day the “Big One” concluded, but did go watch the finale in person and reported on the spectacle in a post titled after the first-prize amount, “$18,346,873.”

I commented on a minor WSOP-related debate in “Cheering Is Allowed and Encouraged.” Pretty soon the Main Event had begun and was quickly “Flying Along” with another big turnout, the final total discussed in part in “And Doyle Makes 6,598.”

I had one last day off and was able to play in a tournament myself -- discussed in “H.O.R.S.E. Play” -- then came the final stretch run to the end of play in mid-July. On Day 2c, I had a chance to spend some time “Blogging Blom.” On Day 4 the cash bubble burst, discussed in “Atmospheric Disturbances.” And by Day 6 we were “Racing to the End,” that being the day of The Great WSOP Media Chair Race in which B.J. Nemeth demonstrated an uncanny knack for impersonating Evel Knievel.

In “C’est Fini” I described the utterly wild final day of play in July that saw the last two women, Gaelle Baumann and Elisabeth Hille, “double bubble” the final table by going out in 10th and 11th. It was easily the most dramatic day of the summer, and one of the most intriguing I’ve experienced at the WSOP in the last five years. Then after offering a postlude in “Like a Dream,” I closed my “Reporter’s Notebook” and headed home.

After I got back, a post about “ROI at the WSOP” ended up being one of the most read of the year here at HBP. The last days of July saw me create my Hard-Boiled Poker Home Games, something I talked about in “Home Game Hijinks,” then comment on a few news items in “Tar Heel Poker” and “Black Friday Defendants Behind Bars.” The big news story of the summer then arrived at month’s end when PokerStars settled with the DOJ, acquiring Full Tilt Poker in the process, as discussed in “Reporting from the Echo Chamber” and “PokerStars Standing Tall in the Saddle.”

August

That Stars-DOJ-FTP deal made headlines in the mainstream, and as always tends to happen in these cases the story (and poker, generally speaking) was presented in some creative and occasionally wildly inaccurate ways, as noted in “A Complicated Deal: Reporting on the Stars-DOJ-FTP Agreement.”

Meanwhile, the summer Olympics had begun, and soon I was “Defending Dressage” against detractors (a sport in which my beloved Vera competes). Was talking about horses some more in a post called “Poker, John Wayne, and Law and Order,” before turning back to the Olympics in “Tuning Into the Human Race” and “Closing Thoughts (NBC & Olympics).”

It was in early August that I first wrote about the Epic Poker League website having been deleted altogether, something that had actually happened a few weeks before following FS+G’s sale of its meager assets. In “We Are Sorry, www.epicpoker.com Cannot Be Found” I talked about how the removal of the site disappointed me personally, since I’d contributed more than two dozen pieces about poker and popular culture there. (I plan to repost a number of them in 2013, by the way, either here or perhaps elsewhere.) Speaking of, I did post another short one about “Poker in the Movies” here.

Further consequences of the Stars-DOJ-FTP deal were addressed in “Not-So-Easy Money (On U.S. Players Withdrawing from Full Tilt Poker)” and “Exit FTPDoug, Enter FTPMarkus.” I offered another somewhat cynical op-ed regarding the Poker Players Alliance in “On the PPA; or, Fight, Fight Fight!” I also talked about what appears to be a very weird (and highly blinkered) angle being taken by Bringing Down the House author Ben Mezrich with regard to his new book project about the Absolute Poker boys in “The ‘Very American’ Story of Online Poker.”

The “skill-vs.-luck” debate then came up in a couple of posts near the end of the month, “Poker Wins One (Luck or Skill?)” and “More on Luck vs. Skill in Poker: Two New Academic Studies Reach Opposite Conclusions.” With the elections starting to near I wrote about “Platforms and Parties.” And I finally read Moneyball by Michael Lewis, then wrote two posts spelling out why I think poker players would like the book -- “More Than Meets the Eye: Moneyball and Poker” and “More on Moneyball.”

All right, that’s two out of three. Back tomorrow with September through December, then we can all stop looking back and start moving forward.

Hard-Boiled Poker 2012 Year in Review (1 of 3)

At the end of 2011, I was expressing uncertainty over whether or not I was going to continue with the same new-post-every-weekday schedule I’ve followed for quite a while now. I kept on thinking out loud about “scaling back” during the year, too. As I’d always been more of an online player than live, my poker playing had already been scaled back (by necessity) post-Black Friday. Made me wonder if I’d have reason to keep writing so frequently about poker going forward.

But the end of 2012 has arrived, and somehow I never did slow my posting pace. For the fifth year running, I continued to post each weekday, plus on the weekends, too, such as when away on various tourney reporting trips. Added up to 281 posts, including this one.

As I’ve said before, that’s a damn lot of scribbling. But as I’ve also said before, quantity ain’t necessarily quality. Always cringe a little at writers boasting of having written so many thousand words, as if they’re accumulating poker chips or something. Writing more words isn’t hard. Writing more words worth reading is.

All of which is to say, for those who’ve stuck with me over the years -- as well as the new readers who’ve only found the blog over the last 12 months -- thanks a ton for reading. And I hope that somewhere in all this scribbling there has been something worthwhile for you.

I had considered handling this “year in review” business in a single post today rather than divide it up as I have done in the past. But in the name of keeping things a manageable length, I’m scrapping that ideer and again presenting my recap of 2012 in three posts. Here’s January through April...

January

The year began with my being unable to resist sharing the news that I’d won Pauly’s Pub “Pigskin Pick’em” football pool, something I vainly discussed in the first post of 2012, “Page 2 of 366; or, Following the Crowd.” Came up short in the pool this year, by the way, ultimately finishing five games back after making a lot of chancy choices yesterday in an effort to close the gap. Ended up only picking 166 of 256 games correctly, with the two co-leaders getting 171. Looking back, I see I somehow got 180 of 256 a year ago to win the pool by three games, although I think the difference can probably be explained by there having been more “chalk” last year and more surprises in 2012.

Was soon after writing about “A Cure for Pokeritis (1912),” a 100-year-old poker movie. Actually in that post I was pointing to a column I’d written for the Epic Poker League blog about the film which just a few months later was scrubbed from the internet entirely (more on that below -- see March). Then came a post asking “New Jersey to Join the Online Poker Race?” (today that seems closer to happening), a topic that came up again a couple of weeks later in “Patchwork Poker.”

Along the way came a post comparing “The Hunger Games and Poker Tournaments,” then another one called “The Hangover’s Game of Chicken” in which I talked about a non sequitur from the film in poker terms. I wrote one of several 2012 posts about my noodling around with a small roll online in “Still About Even.” (I’m still noodling... and still about even.) And in “A Thousand Words (or So) About Bill Simmons,” a post that among other things addresses that issue of prolixity I bring up above.

As the month came to a close, I found myself posting more than once about my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class. I reported on a conversation I had with another college teacher who’d also taught a poker-themed course (in probability) in “Teachers Talking Out of School.” And I shared a crazy “Stranger Than Fiction” story from my class in which we played a hand of poker that both defied probability and uncannily resembled a famous poker hand from the movies.

February

I began 2012 dropping various hints about a new novel on which I was working, also brought up in post titled “On Endings, Wished For and Otherwise.” Just to report back on that project, I did manage to finish an initial draft of the sucker during the year, and am now moving into the final edits and revising with an eye toward publication in the spring. This’ll be my second, following Same Difference. (And no, it isn’t a sequel.)

Of course, the sordid story of Full Tilt Poker (Version 1.0) continued to dominate headlines during the year. Still is, really. In fact just yesterday Matt Glantz was tweeting to an oblivious-seeming Phil Gordon regarding FTP’s implosion, and at one point Glantz referred to “the way u orangutans managed to drive that cash machine 6ft under.” An apt characterization of what happened, I’d say.

I couldn’t avoid writing about FTP a lot during 2012, including in February referring to a Glantz-authored post about the issue in “A Glantz-ing Blow: Making Noise About Full Tilt’s Silence.” In another post titled “Playing By a Different Set of Rules” I juxtaposed the FTP saga with an anecdote from an 1899 collection of poker-related tales titled Queer Luck. Later in the month I shared another story from the same collection in a post titled “Crossing the Boarder-Line of Dishonour” and in that instance let the reader draw the FTP connections. The topic also came up in a short one about Daniel Negreanu’s FTP-directed vitriol, “Kid Poker Not Kidding Around,” and another about Doyle Brunson with the self-explanatory title “Daniel Damns, Doyle Defends.”

Meanwhile the Super Bowl came along to distract us all, and I wrote about the wild ending of that game between the New York Giants and New England Patriots in “Logic and Emotion, Poker and the Super Bowl.”

“Subject:Poker Signs Off” addressed the much-talked-about poker news blog and its decision to shut down after nine months of posting. Then in “Online Gaming in the U.S.: Reservations from the Reservations” I talked about a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in which the subject of online gambling was the focus. That post also refers to my having appeared on the podcast “Keep Flopping Aces,” co-hosted by Lou Krieger. Sadly Lou passed away earlier this month, one of several losses the poker community suffered in 2012, including that of the popular Russian player Nikolay Evdakov who died in February.

In “Recommended Reading for Poker Writers” I pointed readers to an interesting series of posts by Barry Carter. I addressed Jason Somerville’s courageous decision to make his sexual orientation public in “The Challenge to Look at Ourselves.” And the topic of online poker legislation came up again in “2013,” the title of which alludes to a target date many were then bringing up in that context.

March

On the last day of February -- leap day, in fact -- the Epic Poker League’s parent company, Federated Sports + Gaming, filed for bankruptcy. Soon it was revealed the EPL had accumulated over $8 million in debt in just over a year. At the time the filing was made public, FS+G Executive Chairman Jeffrey Pollack said the league would continue and still planned to stage its fourth Season 1 tourney and the $1 million freeroll “championship.” Thus did I title my March 1st post “Epic Limbo,” although as we soon learned this was no “limbo” -- it was the end.

Back in 2011, I’d been asked to contribute to the EPL blog. For about six months I wrote a weekly column about poker and popular culture, and when EPL went under they still owed me for a few of the last pieces, thereby making me one of the dozens of creditors included in their filing. The money I lost wasn’t that significant, but I was disappointed soon after when the entire EPL website -- including the 26 pieces I’d written -- was deleted. (See the August section of tomorrow’s post for more on that.)

More sour news followed with Full Tilt Poker CEO Ray Bitar offering a short, unenlightening interview that I discussed in “A Bitar Taste.” On 3/14 I wrote about Kate Bush and a mathematical constant in “Humble π.” In “Poker, the Antisocial Social Game” I talk about one of poker’s many paradoxes, then try to focus on another one in “What You See Is What You Get.” Erick “E-Dog” Lindgren’s gambling debts are addressed in “Hero Call.” And in “Sports Talk: Reality and Romance” I complain a little about how so much sports commentary favors talking about feelings rather than facts (something that happens a lot in poker, too).

Near the month’s conclusion an interesting poker documentary premiered, and I discussed it a couple of times in “All In: The Poker Movie Premieres Today” and “More Thoughts on All In: The Poker Movie: Building a Boom.” Meanwhile, I was writing about the lottery in “Mega Madness” and NCAA basketball pools in “Breaking Down My Broken Bracket” and “A Meteoric Rise, NCAA-Pool Wise,” further evidence that I was playing less poker and instead dabbling in other forms of low-stakes gambling.

April

Speaking of, I somehow staged a ridiculously lucky comeback in my NCAA pool to win the sucker, and so had to report on that in “Not Winning-the-Lottery Lucky, But Still...”

Following the EPL fizzle, PokerListings invited me to carry my poker in popular culture column to them. It had been called “Community Cards” on the EPL blog, but we gave it a new name over on PL -- “Pop Poker.”

And while we’re on the subject of comparing poker to other parts of the culture, I wrote a post talking about the relative popularity of poker and golf, goofily titled “A Tradition That’s Totally Way, Way Different From All the Other Ones.” I also would talk more about two of my favorite poker movies in April in posts titled “Does the Kid Know Jack?” and “Selling Stories in California Split.”

The one-year anniversary of Black Friday came around, inspiring a lengthy reflection, “Black Friday Stories; or, Where Were You?” plus a second shorter one, “One Year Later.” I discussed more Epic Poker League fallout in “Epic URLs; or, Something Wicked That Way Went.” And on a happier note, a nifty video about an inventive kid and his games inspired “Take the Fun Pass.”

After a few months of silence over at Tao of Poker, our buddy Dr. Pauly popped up in April to tell us he was checking out from the poker-writing scene for a while. Readers of this blog know how much of a kindred spirit I consider the good doctor, and so I couldn’t let that occasion pass without some notice here -- “Positively Pauly” (published on 4/20, natch).

“Sexton’s Scolding” addressed the WPT host’s opinions on poker player fashion. In “Developing: PokerStars to Buy Full Tilt Poker?” and “Seeing Stars, Tapie Taps Out,” I opined at length about the big story of the day. And in “Sources Are Reporting,” I opined some more about how that story was being reported.

Poker’s most popular forum went down for a couple of weeks, which caused me to exercise my own photoshop skills for a post titled “Someone Figured Out Two Plus Two.” And I offered my own thoughts regarding the passing of a controversial yet undeniably important figure in the history of poker in “‘Amarillo Slim’ Preston (1928-2012).”

Back tomorrow with May through August. Meanwhile, for those who’ve gotten all of the way to the end of this one, I’ll point you to the 2013 BLUFF Magazine’s Reader’s Choice Awards where you can vote for Hard-Boiled Poker for Favorite Poker Blog if you’re so inclined.