The Partial Information Game

Was just following the coverage of the start of Day 2a/2b of the World Series of Poker Main Event and was distracted momentarily by all of the tweets reporting how WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart got things going with a request that all first-time Main Event players stand up to be recognized.

I’m guessing it was a heart-in-the-right-place kind of request, one designed to highlight just how many new players came to participate in poker’s most prestigious event this year. But the rapid-fire responses highlighted a perhaps obvious consequence of the first-timers identifying themselves in such a way.

“The @WSOP has all the first times stand up, all the pros be very thankful. #WillAllTheFishPleaseStandUp #WSOP” tweeted Remko Rinkema. “The fish actually tagged themselves this time,” said AlCantHang, while Chris Tessaro added “No word if they then applied bulls eyes.”

A couple of pros chimed in amid my timeline. “Thank you @WSOP for getting all the first timers to stand up and identify themselves,” said Mizzi. “Now I know who to punish #3barrelbluffs.” Steve O’Dwyer, meanwhile, looked at the situation from the first-timers’ point of view. “How much equity did @wsopSUITd [Stewart] just cost the WSOP first timers by asking them to stand and identify themselves?” he wondered.

As I read the tweets I began to think about the possibility of experienced players standing as a kind of early “bluff” suggesting to their opponents they were less savvy than they actually were. Then Bluff’s Lance Bradley articulated the same thought: “Wonder how many non-first timers, local regs stood up to purposely misidentify themselves as first timers. #LevelsOnLevels.”

Another worthwhile point made by several was to note that just because a player was in the Main Event for the first time, that didn’t necessarily make the player a novice.

Still, interesting to consider just how the players who remained seated interpreted the situation when watching their tablemates stand up before play began today.

2013 WSOP, Day 26: Cold

“Is Daniel out?”

So asked Shaun Deeb of me with about 40 players left in Event No. 41, the $5,000 PLO 6-max. event. I glanced at Daniel Negreanu’s table and he was still there, albeit completely obscured by his long-sleeved hooded jacket. Uncharacteristically for him, he had the hood up over his head, as photographed to the left for PokerNews/WSOP.

I jerked a thumb in Negreanu’s direction. Daniel wasn’t out. He was in, both the tourney and a large, heavy plaid cocoon.

“Keeping warm,” I said. “Good idea,” answered Deeb.

When I landed at McCarran Airport last week, I tweeted that I’d arrived, noting how my first order of business was to remove the jacket I’d been wearing aboard the plane. The hot, dry Vegas air was immediately apparent upon my first exposure outside the airport, and as usual the temps have been hovering in the 90s or low 100s for much of the time I’ve been here so far.

Several responded to be prepared to put my jacket back on once I’d made it to the Rio. It’s cold, they said. Real cold.

People have complained about it being too cold in the spacious ballrooms of the Rio where the World Series of Poker and other associated tourneys play out every single summer I’ve come out, so no one was telling me anything I didn’t already know. Sure enough, when I visited the Rio that night and entered the mostly empty Amazon room where a couple of tourneys had reached their end stages, there was a chill in the air. But I had my jacket and a sweater, and as I was writing about last week, everything seemed in its place in an almost comfortable sort of way. Including the chill.

Last night we were stationed in the far right corner of the Amazon. Again, like just about every day I’ve been there so far, the Amazon was mostly empty with Day 2s playing out in the corners and Day 3s finishing up on the main and secondary stages.

Players started complaining about the cold mid-afternoon, and after a while it became apparent that it really did seem colder than usual. I started out in a heavy shirt, then added the sweater, then added the jacket. All of the players were wrapped up in jackets and hoods, and while no one in our event had taken to wearing gloves, we were hearing stories of some in other events who had.

I’d say Negreanu finally reached a boiling point, but the metaphor seems inappropriate. After talking to the TDs about the situation a few times, he’d return from the dinner break with a digital thermometer, just to get an idea how cold it really was.

I’d mentioned to my reporting colleague Matt W. at one point that I’d guessed it to have been at least 15 degrees’ difference between the hallway and inside the Amazon. “I thought walking in I could see my breath,” I joked, and while I couldn’t actually do that, the change was so abrupt it did uncannily feel like stepping outdoors during winter rather than coming inside during summer.

Negreanu later tweeted the results of his test. I think he might’ve deleted the photo since, but I believe it read 60 degrees. Not sure if it was actually that cold in there, but the lower 60s is likely.

No one it seemed could avoid talking about the cold. Nolan Dalla wrote a humorous post about the cold on his blog. AlCantHang compiled various tweets about the situation for PokerListings -- some serious, some less so. Jess Welman earned the highest grin-producing score by making reference to the nine bracelets won by Canadians this year, as passed along by Bryan Devonshire:

“There’s a reason why Canadians are winning all the bracelets: they’re more acclimated to the weather.”

Once Negreanu busted from our event in 34th yesterday, he voiced further complaints over Twitter, and the response was that someone had apparently fiddled with the thermostat yesterday -- that is, we weren’t all imagining things -- and that it would be set at 74 going forward.

I return to the Rio today to cover the third and final day of Event No. 41, currently led by Steve “gboro780” Gross. We’ll see if it is less cold inside the Amazon today. And if not, how well people keep their cool.

2011 WSOP, Day 44: Unwind

The schedule for the World Series of Poker Main Event possesses a certain aesthetic appeal. Six days of poker, then take the seventh day off. Then six more. They’ve followed the same pattern the last couple of years, and I think it works fairly well.

Kind of resembles Wimbledon, with the early rounds taken care of during the first week, a day off for all, then the good stuff leading up to the final at fortnight’s end. Of course, with the WSOP ME we then have to wait another four months for the final, the climax here being the determining of the November Nine.

Was chatting with Jennifer Shahade a little last night about the schedule. She’s playing in the Main Event, and has made it through to Day 3. “You’ve been in the Main Event for a week,” I said. When I told her I kind of liked the format she noted how it wasn’t the best for players. Indeed, make it through the first two days and you’ve had to pay for a week’s worth of Vegas.

And on top of that, you’ve won nothing at all yet.

The day off was fun and relatively restful. After I spent the morning writing, the Poker Grump and I hit the Palms buffet mid-afternoon where I enjoyed an improbable mix of entrees and desserts while we talked about his Main Event experience and other topics.

Later came the WSOP Media tournament, which also provided a lot of entertainment. Like last year, about 130 participated, and it was fun to meet and talk to a number of folks I’ve mostly seen while criss-crossing between tables over the last three weeks.

AlCantHang was trying to sell his action on Twitter prior to the event -- which was inspired, given this was a freeroll. Al was actually the first to be eliminated, for which he won a small golden statue of a toilet. Had his pocket aces cracked by the mighty K-3. I wasn’t able to better my third-place finish of a year ago, finishing up around 40th or so after a couple of hours of play.

Annie Duke played, too, giving everyone copies of her book Decide to Play Great Poker. After covering her in numerous tourneys in the past, I finally met Annie a few days before, and so it wasn’t a first meeting when early on she was moved to my table to sit on my immediate left.

We joked around a bit, but didn’t get involved in any big hands. Once I opened from the cutoff as a sort-of-steal (had K-10), she reraised from the button, then a player pushed all in from the blinds and I got out.

Once the blinds and antes had risen to a certain point, we were all relatively short, essentially in push-or-fold territory. Somewhere in there Annie was all in with pocket jacks once against the player to my right who had A-4 or something and survived. As it happened, I’d later be all in with J-J against the same guy -- this time with A-9-suited -- and he’d river the flush to send me out.

I stuck around some after getting busted, but left prior to the tourney’s conclusion, finding out later that Annie actually won the sucker, defeating Zimba (a.k.a. @PokerCurious) heads up. F-Train final tabled, finishing seventh.

Next came some more pub trivia at McFadden’s. We had a big group there, and so formed two teams. I played with Absinthe, Katkin, Ebhizzle, Poker Grump, F-Train, and Timtern. Meanwhile, at the next table the squad was comprised of Andrew Feldman, Oskar Garcia, Lance Bradley, B.J. Nemeth, and Gary Wise (who arrived yesterday). Our team won, they took second, and a group including Vanessa Selbst, Liv Boeree, and Jeff Madsen took third.

I ended the night hanging out for a while at the Gold Coast bowling alley where the WSOP staff and all the interns were having a great time, as were a number of other media types. Al had a neat come-from-behind bookend to his day there, picking up a cool hundy off of WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla after nailing an improbable spare by clearing nine pins on the second ball.

The bowling alley is where I spoke with Jennifer. I spotted a few other ME players there as well, trying to relax as they readied for the mental challenge that awaits them today.

It’ll be a grind. It always is. Some of the days may be relatively short. Indeed, I’m hearing today’s Day 3 may only go four levels. However it goes, they’ll try to manage it so as to get to 27 next Monday (Day 7) and nine on Tuesday (Day 8). Most of the players will only be at it another day or two; a select few will be there to the end. Meanwhile, pretty much all of the media -- including your humble scribbler -- have six more days of work ahead.

So it was good to rest. Play some cards. Be challenged to remember Oscar Wilde plays and the name of Spongebob’s starfish friend. To unwind. ’Cos everyone is gonna get wound up good and tight here over the next six days.

2011 WSOP, Day 30: Coincidences

Well, I did end up back at the Rio on my day off yesterday. Even stopped by both the Amazon and Pavilion rooms, though not for long.

I spent much of the morning and early afternoon writing in my room. Then later in the day came a nice visit with Jen Newell who is in town for a few days and who just so happens to be staying in the same home-away-from-home as I am. The two of us made our way to the Rio, took seats at the so-called “hooker bar,” and were soon joined by Lori a.k.a. PokerVixen, Marie Lizette, and AlCantHang.

Among the topics of conversation was the sudden shutdown of Full Tilt Poker yesterday, an event that unfortunately affects Al in particular given his association with the Full Tilt Poker blog (which may or may not be down). I would say Al arriving to join us on the day FTP went down was another coincidence, but then again, the bar seemed like an appropriate destination for him.

A little over ten weeks have passed since Black Friday, the day the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed that indictment and civil complaint versus the “Big Three” online sites and associated individuals. PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, the two largest sites in the world, immediately stopped allowing Americans to play. Meanwhile, the Cereus sites (Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker) allowed U.S. players to continue playing for several weeks -- despite there being no prospect for their withdrawing funds -- before finally shutting their doors to American players.

Next came the business of cashing out. PokerStars handled that quickly and efficiently, initiating the process less than two weeks after April 15 and sending wire transfers or checks to all players who’d requested cashouts by early-to-mid May. But UB/AP remained mum on the matter, still offering no means for U.S. players to cash out. Full Tilt Poker didn’t exactly remain mum, but didn’t say much, either, leaving its U.S. customers in the dark regarding the prospect of seeing their money.

While many wrote off UB/AP long ago as a mostly rogue outfit plagued by cheaters, schemers, and aided along the way by a few naïve apologists, Full Tilt Poker has always enjoyed a good reputation in the online poker community. While some (including myself) for various reasons preferred to play on PokerStars -- not the least of which being a difference in support, with Stars always being vastly more responsive -- FTP nonetheless was always one of the two most recommended sites for American players.

In the minds of many, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker were basically Pepsi and Coke. For a lot of us, we ordered one or the other first, and that became the one we generally ordered thereafter. But either would do.

That way of thinking about the two sites changed drastically after Black Friday, of course. When that much anticipated May 15 “announcement” provided no further indication of how FTP was going to pay back players, many began to lose hope. The Phil Ivey announcement and lawsuit that came a couple of weeks later further indicated trouble ahead for those of us with funds on the site. About three weeks ago, F-Train provided a catalogue of failures by Full Tilt both before and after April 15.

It was getting more and more obvious. Full Tilt Poker was no PokerStars. Not by a long shot.

And now the Alderney Gambling Control Commission, a group that regulates eGambling from the teeny, tiny island of Alderney (just three miles long and 1.5 miles wide) located amid the Channel Islands between England and France, has told Pocket Kings, Ltd. to stop providing software and other support to Full Tilt Poker. The demand follows an investigation by the AGCC of Full Tilt launched in the wake of Black Friday

In other words, the game is over. When you click on that Full Tilt Poker icon on your desktop today, the client won’t even load. Only if you wrote down somewhere how much you had on FTP do you know what that amount is. And, it seems, what you’ve lost.

From the Wall Street Journal report, it doesn’t necessarily sound like the failure to provide a means for U.S. players to cash out directly prompted the AGCC’s action. Rather it was the allegations in the DOJ’s indictment -- including accusations of bank fraud and money laundering -- that forced the AGCC’s hand. “The nature of the findings [in the indictment] necessitated the taking of immediate action in the public interest,” said the AGCC.

However, the non-payment of U.S. players may have accelerated the process somewhat, as the Alderney folks had already expressed concern to Full Tilt execs over the delay. From the outside, it looks almost analogous to Ivey’s decision to break ties with FTP, although Ivey’s relationship to the site is obviously much different from that of the AGCC.

The failure to allow Americans to cash out caused both Ivey and the AGCC to withdraw their support for the site. In Ivey’s case, his support came from his image and its power to attract players. But the AGCC’s support was such that its removal could shut down Full Tilt Poker completely, and that is precisely what has happened. If this were a poker tournament, Ivey’s move crippled the site, and the AGCC took the remaining chips. But really, Full Tilt played the endgame so badly, it was probably destined to go out sooner or later anyway.

When I return to the Rio today to help cover Event No. 51 ($1,500 PLO/8), I will be curious to see whether those FTP pros who have been wearing their patches thus far will still continue to do so. Also will be interesting just to hear the chatter at the tables and elsewhere regarding the shutdown.

To get back to yesterday, I eventually met up with PokerGrump and the one and only Julius Goat for dinner. As a long time fan of Goat’s often hilarious blog (and tweets), I was pleased when I found out his short trip to the WSOP was coinciding with the time I would be here. Like many, JuliusGoat used some of the funds he’d cashed out from PokerStars to take a shot in a WSOP preliminary event, which he did on Tuesday.

He made it through much of Day 1 before being eliminated, and he shared details of that experience with us over dinner amid talk of each other’s blogs and the uniqueness of “meeting” people after having read thousands of words written by them first. Among the many things we three have in common, we all started our blogs at roughly the same time (five-ish years ago) by creating these “characters” (a grump, a shamus, and a wise-cracking goat) through which we initially spoke. Then, gradually, all three of us opened things up in ways that made those characters more like our true selves.

We also talked some about PokerGrump’s getting the golden ticket in that Dan Cates promotion whereby he is actually going to get to play in the WSOP Main Event! (Read all about that here.) I do hope the Grump was paying attention last night to the wise words of the author of Stupid/System, a book that will surely give him an edge over many in the ME. We were joined as well by cmitch, then still alive in Event No. 48 (he would eventually go out in 125th), and it was nice to meet him as well. The coincidences continued to pile up as somewhere along the way we discovered cmitch and I have the same birthday.

The three of us then went to McFadden’s for the pub trivia (a return to the game about which I wrote last week), and were able to continue our conversations there while being challenged to remember the actor’s names, the decades in which historical events occurred, things Britney Spears said, and other items. After that, Julius Goat and I walked back across the Rio to the poker to check in on the tournament he had played as well as the rest of the scene there late last night, including a couple of final tables playing out for Events No. 46 (the $10,000 NLHE 6-max.) and No. 47 (the $2,500 Omaha/8-Stud/8).

Was great fun meeting the man behind the cigar, glasses, and painted on mustache. Of all the coincidences of yesterday, I was most glad of the one that put us both here in Vegas at the same time so we could meet.

Railbirds Gather for Durrrr Challenge II

You probably heard something about this second version of Tom Dwan’s “Durrrr Challenge” having recently taken off over at Full Tilt Poker. Looks like the sucker kicked off one week ago (August 27th), with Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates having stepped up to take on Dwan.

It’s been a long, long time -- like 18 months now -- since the first “Durrrr Challenge” was issued and accepted by Patrik Antonius. So long ago it is hard to remember what the original terms for these here challenges.

Looking back, it was early 2009 when Dwan said he’d play anyone -- except Phil Galfond -- to play four tables of heads up simultaneously, either pot-limit Omaha or no-limit hold’em, at a minimum of $200/$400 blinds. The challenge would last for 50,000 hands, and if Dwan’s opponent was up at the end -- even by just a buck -- Dwan would give his opponent a handsome prize of $1.5 million on top of the winnings. Meanwhile, if Dwan ended ahead, his opponent would owe him an additional $500,000.

Antonius was the first to try -- with PLO the chosen game -- and there was a lot of initial hype as the pair started playing their first hands. We also heard at the time that Phil Ivey would be next in line to take on Dwan, but that match has yet to materialize.

A few months passed, and by the summer it was obvious it was going to take Antonius and Dwan much longer than most had thought it would take to get through the 50,000 hands. According to the Full Tilt Poker site’s tracking of the progress of that first challenge, they’ve now played 39,436 hands and Dwan enjoys a hefty lead of about $2.06 million. As Dwan explained earlier in the week on This Week in Poker, his lead isn’t necessarily insurmountable, but he’s definitely looking as though he is in position to finish off the Finn.

Perhaps because that match seems to be somewhat in hand for Dwan, he’s begun a second challenge with Cates -- with the game being no-limit hold’em this time -- and the pair didn’t take long to move through the first 6,800 hands or so. Dwan is already down something like $700,000, as shown on this here graph appearing in the Two Plus Two forum sticky devoted to the Dwan-Cates challenge (click to enlarge):



Looks like they’re still getting the official tracking page together for Durrrr Challenge II over on the Full Tilt site, but meanwhile AlCantHang has set up this here page to report on the proceedings. Dr. Pauly has chimed in over there as well with a guest post commenting on it all; check it out: “Freaky Styley: Durrrr and Jungleman12.”

Most of the talk seems to suggest this second match will probably finish much more quickly than did the first with Antonius, and in fact might even conclude before the Antonius one does. Interesting how the second challenge appeared to get the forum guys and most other pokery people excited again about watching online poker, despite the fact that the first one had become kind of a running joke, with “Durrrr Challenge” having become a handy metaphor for anything tedious or slow-moving.

I’ll admit I remain highly intrigued by it all, and like most folks continue to find Dwan a highly compelling figure. On the most recent episode of the TwoPlusTwo Pokercast, Scott Seiver -- another interesting figure, not to mention excellent poker player (both online and live) -- commented a bit on the challenge. (An excellent interview, by the way, with a highly articulate, smart, and likable guy.)

Seiver was asked for his take on why he thought Dwan was issuing the challenge, in particular why he thought Dwan was willing to give that 3-to-1 advantage to his opponents. Seiver said he didn’t know exactly what Dwan might be thinking, but that he thought it had to do both with the publicity it drew and the fact that when playing that many hands offering 3-to-1 “isn’t that big of a deal.”

“If you’re the better player, you’re going to make enough money to overcome any odds you basically give as a side bet,” explained Seiver. He later added another comment about the challenge that I thought was very insightful, and perhaps helped explain why it remains interesting:

“To be able to play something like the Durrrr Challenge where you are in the spotlight and playing 50,000 hands against the same opponent, you can’t ever let doubt or fear creep in. And that’s what I think is one of Tom Dwan’s best assets, that he just has so much confidence and he doesn’t have the fear to make the right play.... Sometimes you know what a right play is, but it’s tough to actually pull the trigger on it. I think that’s one of Tom’s biggest strengths.”

I’m sure Dwan has his moments in which he experiences doubt, or even fear. If he’s human, that is. But still, it’s fascinating (I think) to see someone operate in a way that suggests he has neither, and even inspiring to see someone act with confidence, whatever it is that person is trying to accomplish.

Wake-Up Call

Body still on east coast time, so I’m awake much too early here in Las Vegas this morning. Good thing, as I got a 6:40 a.m. wake-up call I had not ordered. But I’d been up for a while anyhow. First, thinking. Then, writing.

Travel yesterday was mostly painless. Am proud to report I successfully kept my pants on the entire remainder of the trip. (Explanation here.)

Boarded the plane around 11 o’clock yesterday morning. As I passed through first class to my seat, I noticed Boston Celtic legend Bill Russell sitting there talking on his cell phone, idly scratching his familiar salt-and-pepper beard. Had a cap with a little number 6 on it. I immediately decided that sharing my trip with a 11-time NBA champion meant I must be boarding a winners-only flight.

The journey was relatively smooth, made even more so by those groovy noise-canceling headphones I mentioned earlier in the week. Pretty much kept ’em on the entire way, cycling through the Bowie’s Station to Station, the Divine Comedy’s Absent Friends (a new fave), Miles’ Tribute to Jack Johnson, and a couple of soundtracks -- Koyaanisqatsi and Repo Man.

As we started our descent, I took the suckers off and the roar was deafening. No one else seemed to notice, though.

We landed a half-hour early (about 1 p.m. Vegas time), and soon I was checking in to my home-away-from-home for the next seven-and-a-half-weeks. Spent the afternoon unpacking, then went for a fun (and tasty) tapas dinner at Firefly with F-Train, California Jen, and AlCantHang.

The 2010 World Series of Poker begins in two days. Still feels like a long ways off, although that feeling will be disappearing PDQ, I think. Once we turn the corner this weekend and get to Monday (when there will be four different events happening) and Tuesday (when there will be six!), the effect will be similar to taking off those headphones. Calm suddenly replaced by a friggin’ cacophony.

The PokerNews folks are all arriving, schedules are being set, and other preparations made. At the moment, it looks like I actually won’t start live blogging until after I return from Peru (I leave next Monday), but I’m glad to be here nonetheless for all the pregame stuff. And I’ll still be at the Rio on Friday and some this weekend, too, to witness the first few acts of this year’s circus.

Will probably be heading over to that Brunson Beer Pong thing this afternoon “masterminded” by our buddy Pokerati Dan. (Had to go with scare quotes there -- sorry, Wolfman.) You can read more about this important pre-WSOP event over on Pokerati, or listen to Episode 15 of the Gambling Tales Podcast on which Dan broke it all down for Special K.

So fun now. But work to come. Soon there will be a lot of folks -- tourney organizers, players, reporters -- ordering a lot of wake-up calls. Or they’ll be ordered for them.

Let’s Hear It for the Noise

Sometime last summer, an enterprising person somewhere began placing a single comment -- in Chinese -- on one of my old posts every night at a certain time. Took me a couple or three times to notice the pattern, at which point I was curious enough to fuss with an online translation site for a minute or two to learn more. Couldn’t quite make out the entire meaning, but was able to figure out the comment had something to do with one of those many, heavily-advertised products designed to help treat erectile dysfunction.

It was anticlimactic, you might say.

Since my post was not, in fact, about erectile dysfunction, I thought it reasonable to delete the comment. I didn’t have comment moderation turned on at the time, so it would appear briefly on the site until I checked my email, got the notice of the comment, and deleted it. A minor annoyance, and eventually the comments stopped appearing.

Shortly after, I began to see a couple more of these non sequiturs regularly appearing as comments on other posts, and so finally decided it was time to turn the comment moderation on for good. As anyone who has commented on the blog over the last four or five months knows, you now have to wait for me to publish the comment for it to appear. I hope this extra step doesn’t prevent anyone from giving their feedback. I check my email frequently, so usually there isn’t much of a wait for comments to appear. And generally I publish ’em all (although I won’t always if they contain a superfluous link out).

Meanwhile, the spammy comments continue to arrive. I’m now rejecting these at a rate of about ten per day. They cover a wide range of non-pokery topics, are written in numerous languages (real and invented), and are primarily authored by our good friend “Anonymous” (natch). Mostly futile, these attempts. And still not much of a bother, really, as it is easy to reject several comments at once with just a few clicks.

As I mentioned, I get an email notification every time a comment is made, and so one kind of sour effect of all the spammy comments is the fact that my email box is now routinely filled with these non-messages. A minor bummer, actually, to check in and see new items waiting, but instead of finding real messages discover this applesauce instead.

Such has been the case pretty much ever since we all got our first email accounts back in the mid-90s, I suppose, with “junk e-mail” almost always coming at a higher clip than actual communications. We set up filters and try to manage the situation, thereby finding ways to endure all of the static. Such is our world, I guess, full of “noise” that we mostly accept as necessary accompaniment to the elusive “signals” we seek and deliver.

I’ve yet to have the chance to check out this new “Rush Poker” over at Full Tilt Poker, but from the summaries I’ve been reading it sounds like part of its appeal might be to filter out some of the “noise” one occasionally encounters at the online tables. Sounds like a truly novel concept, actually. If I understand it correctly, players join not a single table, but a “pool” of players that get distributed and redistributed constantly in order to keep all in action at all times. The moment a player folds, he or she is whisked to another table and dealt a new hand (against new opponents), so no down time. Wild.

For more on the Rush Poker concept, including some evaluation and discussion of consequences, you can check out the summaries/responses by F-Train, TripJax, and AlCantHang. Folks are buzzing about Rush Poker a lot on the forums, too, but I prefer reading blog posts about it. (You know, less noise.)

You can also head over to the Full Tilt website for a full explanation of how the game works, a list of Frequently Asked Questions, or a quick video tutorial with Phil Gordon.

Of course, as I assume some who’ve tried Rush Poker may already be ready to argue, a lot of the “noise” that is being filtered out is in fact what makes poker most fun and challenging -- e.g., the ability to learn opponents’ tendencies, to pick up patterns, to communicate. That is to say, not “noise” at all, but the game’s many “signals” that seem as though they’ve been mostly muted in this variation.

Am still curious to check it out, though. And to hear others’ feedback regarding Rush Poker. Just don’t link out to a Viagra retailer when leaving your comment.