Poker Blogs, ca. 2010

Writing that post earlier this week marking four years of Hard-Boiled Poker got me thinking once again about poker blogs -- most specifically how the poker “blogosphere” has changed over that period. I mentioned there how when I started mine there were a number of poker blogs already out there to serve as possible models. Back then it seemed just about anyone who played poker and enjoyed writing even just a little had a blog goin’.

I remember writing a post very early on -- titled “An Existential Pause” -- in which after just a few months of blogging I tried to explain the various purposes I thought a poker blog could serve. I had heard an interesting conversation on the old Lord Admiral Card Club podcast between Cincinnati Sean and Iggy, a.k.a. the “Blogfather” of poker blogs thanks to his long-running Guinness and Poker blog. I took their conversation as a cue to offer my own thoughts about what a poker blog was, or could be.

At a time when I was still trying to figure out what kind of blog mine would be, I suggested “a blog can be any number of things -- a personal diary, a virtual soapbox, a promotional tool, a news outlet, a discussion-starter, a confessional . . . you name it,” concluding that, “ultimately, a blog shapes itself according to the personality of its creator.”

I also added at the end that I had already found the process of writing the blog to have been somewhat illuminating, insofar as it required a bit more self-study than I might have otherwise performed. I was speaking mainly about my poker game, really, although the idea would obviously apply more generally. “Writing a poker blog is like being a detective,” I suggested. “Raymond Chandler once described the detective story as ‘a man’s adventure in search of hidden truth.’ All poker bloggers are shamuses, really. Investigating themselves.”

I continue to subscribe to a number of poker blogs today, although if I had to generalize I’d say that the idea of starting and maintaining a poker blog occurs much less frequently now to players than it did four years ago. Folks are much more likely to start Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, or find other ways to satisfy that impulse to chronicle and/or communicate their adventures, if they have that impulse.

Still, there are plenty of good ones out there, demonstrating that same variety of approaches and angles to all things poker that keeps me following along. Just to give a small sample, let me mention ten bloggers who are among those I tend to click on first over in the reader whenever I see they have published something new. While I’m at it, I’ll mention particular, relatively recent posts from each which are indicative of why I like following ’em.

I always click on a new post from Tommy Angelo whenever I see he’s added something to his blog. Gonna reach back a few weeks to March to point you to a little poker anecdote-slash-riddle of his, which itself saw Angelo reaching back several years to share the story: “You No Gamble” (March 15). Speaking of Angelo, Episode 13 of the Gambling Tales Podcast went up earlier this week and on that one I joined Special K and Falstaff to discuss Angelo’s book, Elements of Poker. Check it out.

Amy Calistri has sort of moved out of the “poker blogging” game, having entered the so-called “straight world” of business investing. She still commments from time to time on the poker/gambling world, though, bringing with her the perspective of someone with a lot of poker reporting experience. Earlier this month she wrote a neat post titled “Frugal Detective Work” (April 4) which wasn’t really about poker (although it begins with an anecdote about Andy Beal), but provided a nifty little example of puzzle-solving that I think should appeal to poker players. And fans of detective stories, too.

Julius Goat’s blog is a great one for fans of the TV show “Lost” and/or video clips demonstrating examples of “awesome” or “crazy.” Other fun stuff there, too, including a new installment of his long-running, award-winning Stupid System strategy guide, “Stupid System 013: Rush Poker” (April 7). Okay, I made that up about the award. Although really, I think anyone who has been following the series would agree the sucker deserves some sort of recognition for its important contribution to our collective poker knowledge.

Most of you know the prolific Poker Grump, I assume. Lots of good stuff from him again this month, including more stories from his adventures at dozens of different Vegas cardrooms. I especially liked one such recent tale, “Beware the Newbie” (April 16), which concerns his having recently played with an absolute novice. The newbie experienced some especially good fortune in the session, thereby producing some very entertaining moments along the way. A well-chosen picture of Mr. Magoo illustrates that one.

Pokerati celebrated its sixth birthday not too long ago. Dan Michalski’s site (to which I occasionally try to contribute) is a great one for breaking poker news, one recent example being his post reporting “Rogue Payment Processor Arrested in Las Vegas Accused of Laundering Full Tilt, PokerStars, UB Money” (April 17). Many times the comments to posts over there add quite a bit to the stories, such as was the case with that post.

Dr. Pauly’s Tao of Poker is of course always a must read, for many reasons. I’ll point you to his “Dispatches from the Mohegan Sun” from a couple of weeks ago: Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. Kind of a preview of the sort of thing we can probably expect to see from Dr. P. once again from the WSOP -- namely, the sort of off-the-beaten-path, stuff-you-can’t-get-elsewhere reporting on poker that often reveals much more about what really happened at a given event than one can get through the usual channels.

F-Train is another blogger whose posts are consistently thoughtful and thought-provoking. He’s also one who will sometimes report or comment on matters one doesn’t generally find being talked about elsewhere. For example, his recent post titled “Tilt Transfer OK?” was an eyebrow-raiser, I thought. There he commented some on Full Tilt Poker’s current legal tribulations, most specifically that federal grand jury investigation we heard about a few weeks back.

There have been a few more eyebrow-raisers over on Haley Hintze’s blog over the past week, too. Haley continues to add to her “Just Conjecturin’” series regarding the insider cheating scandals at Absolute Poker and UB. In the past week, she’s moved over to provide some startling evidence regarding the AP scandal in “Just Conjecturin’, Volume 11: Meanwhile, Over at Absolute Poker, It Seems Scott Tom Really Did It” (April 24) and “Just Conjecturin', Volume 12: The Absolute Scandal and the Day Occam Rolled Over in His Grave” (April 28). I know I’m not the only one hastily clicking on her feed whenever a new post arrives.

Since having covered the NAPT Venetian back in February, I’ve been enjoying following Thomas “gnightmoon” Fuller’s blog. Fuller made the final table of the Main Event there, which finally turned up on ESPN2 earlier this week. He took that occasion to write a little something about the experience in “NAPT Venetian TV Premiere” (April 25).

Finally, I also like checking in over at the ESPN Poker Club to read what their bloggers, including Gary Wise and Andrew Feldman, have to say. Yesterday Feldman opined a bit on the low turnout at the WSOP Circuit event at Caesars Palace this week in “WSOP Circuit Continues to Struggle” (April 29), providing some insights into what’s going on with that tour and with the professional tourney circuit, generally speaking.

That by no means covers all of the blogs I’ve been following of late, but those were some posts that kind of stood out for me as particularly interesting and/or entertaining.

Two more blogger-related bits of news to pass along. One, I am working on creating a separate page here for my ever-growing “Blogroll.” Have a few too many outgoing links here on the main page, and so am doing a little bit of tidying up. Will keep you updated on that.

Also, in the near future my weekly Betfair poker column will be including some contributions from a number of your favorite poker bloggers offering their thoughts about the upcoming WSOP. Will let you know about that, too.

Meanwhile, click on some of them links above and enjoy yourself. Then go have a good weekend.

Cleaning House

This here house has a lot of storage space. Can be both a good and bad thing. Mostly good, I guess.

Having the space makes it easy to keep the main living area clear, as one can always momentarily hide an unneeded item behind a closed door. Then again, always being able to squirrel away this or that tends to lessen the likelihood of tossing unneeded possessions out, even when it is probably best to do so. Eventually those roomy storage spaces become crowded enough to inspire a purge, which is what I found myself doing this weekend.

I had a goal in mind. There was an old futon frame and mattress tucked way in the back, behind all of the boxes and neglected bric-a-brac. Had thoughts of pulling that sucker out and perhaps selling it, but in order to do that everything else had to come out of there first.

Aside from various outdated electronics (CD players, a couple of old small TVs, a busted turntable), the great majority of the space was filled with two items -- books and papers.

I noticed this morning that Amy Calistri was doing some spring cleaning herself recently which involved making some decisions about which of her books to take down to the used bookstore to sell. Like Amy, I have considerable difficulty parting with books once I’ve obtained them. (I’ve written here before about the fairly ridiculous number of poker books I have on my shelves.)

To summarize the problem: if I’ve read the book, I know I don’t want to get rid of it; if I haven’t, well, maybe one day I will.

All of which means there is an entire bookshelf stacked with books in the storage space (see the photo above), plus probably a dozen more boxes’ worth with which to deal, too. Rather than thinking of what to take to the used bookstore (like Amy), I’m plotting a strategy to include a couple more bookcases in the home office and thus bring some of these back from their dark, dank exile.

Meanwhile the papers, barely tamed within overstuffed boxes held together with duct tape, consist of various scribblings, class notes, old columns, juvenilia, and whatnot of limited sentimental value and even less practical worth. But while I don’t anticipate being able to trash or sell the books, I might well be able to toss some of this stuff, the great majority of which is of little interest (even to the author).

I have current writing projects in mind, including plans for a second novel, another mystery in the hard-boiled manner. Am not anticipating continuing the detective character who narrates Same Difference and create a series (as a couple who’ve read it have asked). Rather I am contemplating something new, with a different set of characters. Also am thinking of having the new one set during more recent times, as opposed to SD which is set in the 1970s. By the way, the novel can be purchased via Amazon now, and can even be included in orders for free shipping, I believe.

None of this stuff up in storage is going to be of use, though, for these new projects. So into the dumpster some (most?) will go.

Kind of amazing the psychological effect this purging business can have -- how removing clutter of the past can help one think more clearly about the future. I imagine it is a process most poker players, at least the ones who continue to work on their games, tend to go through every now and then as well.

When you first start playing, the mind is open, ready to receive whatever information and knowledge can be boxed up and stored away via the experience of playing those initial hands.

The more you play, though, the more you learn, including the fact that some what you were saving from before -- maybe most of it -- isn’t really relevant anymore. Those notes you took earlier on might have been helpful at the time, but now they are superfluous. Or perhaps just plain wrong. Time to chuck ’em.

A couple of reasons, then, that it’s good to have some storage space. Nice to have somewhere to put stuff. And also nice to be able to clear it out.

Does the WSOP Need a Commish?

As I’m sure most of you have heard by now, a delay was indeed granted for compliance with the finalized regulations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, meaning U.S. banks and other financial institutions will not be required to block transactions with online gambling sites until June 1, 2010. Doesn’t mean they cannot block such transactions already -- they have been able to do that since January 19, 2009, in fact -- but doing so is still not mandatory.

So another six months to see if any other legislation might get moved along here. Will be keeping an eye on that hearing scheduled for Thursday, December 3 at 10:00 a.m., the one where the House Financial Services Committee will be discussing Rep. Barney Frank’s two bills -- one to make the UIGEA delay a full year, and the other to introduce a mechanism with which to regulate online gambling in this country.

The delay is terrific news, in my view, and while regulation isn’t necessarily desirable -- particularly if certain states, namely my own, opt out -- it doesn’t look as bad as a world in which the UIGEA has been fully implemented.

Indeed, the misbegotten law has already done significant damage in the poker world, negatively affecting both online and live poker as well as the various industries associated with both. Sure, the UIGEA has certainly provided me with a lot to write about here at Hard-Boiled Poker over the last three-plus years, but the overall effect of the law has been exceedingly negative. Will be glad to see the sucker taken care of once and for all.

Speaking of the “UIGEA era,” I was thinking again over the weekend about the World Series of Poker and how a little over two weeks ago, Jeffrey Pollack stepped down from his post as the first-ever WSOP Commissioner. Since Pollack’s resignation, a few folks have written further about how he’ll be remembered, and indeed, one aspect of his tenure as Commish will be how it mostly coincided with this awful law that single-handedly slowed down what appeared at the time to be unstoppable growth for the Series.

In “The Pollack Legacy: The Good, the Bad, and the Silly,” Amy Calistri does a good job compiling various moments of significance during Pollack’s time with the WSOP. In her discussion, Calistri notes how “After the UIGEA, people were ready to stick a fork in poker,” and how she and others all “argued that the UIGEA would accelerate the end of the poker boom.” However, the WSOP rebounded from the hit, and Pollack’s contribution to that recovery was certainly, as Calistri says, a “significant accomplishment” for which he’ll be remembered.

T.J. Cloutier also wrote a little something about Pollack last week, a piece titled “Poker Has Lost a Good Man.” In his article, Cloutier talks a bit about how Harrah’s apparently created “a position one level above” Pollack’s, someone who would henceforth “be a buffer between [Pollack] and top management,” and speculates about whether that bit of reorganization might have provided a kind of encouragement for Pollack to step down.

Cloutier, who served as a member of the Players Advisory Council (a Pollack creation), notes that while Pollack always “had to answer to corporate management,” in his view “he was pretty much in control of the World Series.” The implication, then, is that given a situation in which the Commissioner no longer enjoyed such control, Pollack chose to move on. Not sure what the hierarchy really is at present, but the fact that soon after Pollack’s resignation Harrah’s stated it has “no intention at this time to replace the Commissioner role” does suggest the corporation feels that moving forward the operational management of the WSOP can continue without any Commish appearing to guide the ship.

Does the WSOP need a Commissioner? It did, after all, make it 35 years without one.

Gary Trask of Casino City Times thinks so. In a recent article, Trask argues that the Series “needs someone -- not a group of people -- to act as the face of the brand.” He has a point, and indeed, as one further considers the “Pollack legacy,” one might add how he succeeded in making the whole idea of having someone “act as the face of the brand” seem essential for the WSOP. (In the post-Binion’s era of the WSOP, that is.)

As Trask notes, one especially important function of the Commissioner is to provide “a voice to do the same and take the heat when something goes awry” -- something that will surely happen, no matter how well managed things go. Trask goes onto suggest his top ten current poker professionals who could serve as Commish, although I think most would agree that it probably wouldn’t do to have a pro come along to fill the position. (Trask puts the well-liked Mike Sexton atop his list, perhaps the only serious suggestion among the ten.)

While not everyone was always happy with Pollack, the consensus seems to be mostly favorable regarding his legacy, and the fact that it seems difficult to imagine a replacement is probably further evidence of his having served a successful term in the position. I agree with Trask that it is probably a mistake to move forward without having someone acting as WSOP Commissioner, although I cannot easily imagine who would be the person to fill that politically-challenging role.

I know I wouldn’t want to.

900 Posts? Get Real

These milestone posts generally tend to inspire a bit a navel-gazing. That is to say, more navel-gazing than usually occurs -- ’cos the blog is always gonna be a bit that.

You know, those what-the-hell-do-I-think-I’m-up-to here kind of posts. Knowing that number 900 was coming up today, I was thinking a bit along those lines over the weekend when I came across an interesting post by Amy Calistri from yesterday regarding the passing of Bob Stupak.

Not so unusual to encounter an interesting post by Amy -- all of her posts are. After a few years of poker writing, Amy not too long ago took a step back from poker to rejoin the so-called “straight” world. Among her many credits before moving on was having co-authored Mike Matusow’s autobiography, Check-Raising the Devil, published earlier this year (read more). She does still keep her blog, Aimlessly Chasing Amy, though, where she’ll occasionally reflect on poker-related items.

As I say, Amy was noting the death at age 67 of Vegas entrepreneur and poker player Bob Stupak, who succumbed over the weekend after a lengthy struggle with leukemia. His varied life included many notable milestones, the most prominent (literally and figuratively) probably being his having been responsible for the building of the Stratosphere, that unmistakable, 1,149-foot addition to the Vegas skyline.

Stupak’s significance to poker and poker history is considerable, too. He made a half-dozen WSOP final tables over the years in a variety of games, winning a bracelet in 1989 in the $5000 Deuce-to-Seven Draw event. He also made a final table of an early WPT event, and some may remember him from a TV appearance there in 2003 or perhaps a little later on “High Stakes Poker” where he played during the first season.

Additionally, Stupak was part of the story of the early days of creating “poker bots” or computer programs to compete with humans in poker, insofar as he was the human opponent to Mike Caro’s computer in a quarter-million dollar match that was shown on “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” There are many other intriguing tales surrounding Stupak, including those stemming from his political campaigns, failed attempts to become the mayor of Las Vegas and then, more recently, the state’s Lieutenant Governor. But as the many tweets from the poker pros over the last couple of days indicate, he was a fairly central figure in the poker world, thus making it needful to note his passing.

Amy’s post had a couple of purposes (besides sharing some of her photos of Stupak from the 2006 World Poker Open, one of which I have included here). One was to reflect on Stupak a bit, but the other was to reflect on the somewhat surprising lack of coverage his death received in the poker media. There were a couple of articles out there (e.g., Card Player had one). And of course Pokerati was on top of it. But mostly silence elsewhere. Which seemed strange, but, perhaps, understandable.

Amy notes that she realizes that while “the news used to be a public service,” these days “it’s mostly a thinly veiled ratings grab.” True for all news, for sure. Including poker news. “Hey I know times are tough,” she continues. “With poker affiliate and ad money vanishing like [fill in the blank]’s bankroll, the mad traffic grab is on. And I get the fact that an article with Durrr in the headline or a guy whacking off in the Borgata will get more reads than Bob Stupak’s obituary. But c’mon.”

It’s true, of course, that most poker news seems primarily designed at accumulating hits and, most importantly, generating click-throughs on those affiliate links and banners which can potentially generate the hosting sites some revenue. Like the deal of the cards and the order of betting, that’s how the game is played.

Amy’s Check-Raising collaborator, the Poker Shrink, Tim Lavalli, recently noted that he, too, was bowing out of the poker media game, not long ago announcing his “retirement” in a interesting “Exit Interview from the World of Poker.” He also acknowledged how money has become tight in the poker media game, thus making it harder to accommodate what we might call “real” reporting. “With poker magazines down more than 50% in pages printed and online sites getting 90% less poker ad spots,” writes Lavalli, “there simply is no money left to pay for ongoing quality poker journalism.”

Regarding that latter point, I’m one of those strange people who doesn’t instinctively react to the phrase “poker journalism” with a smirk or derisive comment to “get real.” There are others who feel as I do, I know. And there are some among them who are consistently producing quality poker journalism, though much of it seems to happen despite sites’ pressure not to be overtaken in that “mad traffic grab.”

Getting back to the navel-gazing... I don’t know how valuable my occasional reflections here are in the grand scheme of things. But I enjoy using this space to try to add something to the conversation now and then. And while I’ll happily sell you an ad or try to make a little cabbage if I can, that’s never been a primary purpose or something that unduly affects what I write about here.

The Poker Shrink added one last piece of advice to his “exit interview”: “When the time comes, get out before you burn out.” I guess all this reflecting tells me I ain’t quite there yet. Gonna stick with this Hard-Boiled stuff for a while, I think.

Hell, only a hundred more ’til a thousand.

Check-Raising the Devil by Mike Matusow, with Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli

This week Mike Matusow’s autobiography, titled Check-Raising the Devil, finally hits the shelves -- both virtual and actual. If you didn’t know it already, two of our friends, Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli, helped Matusow write the book, which tells the story of his rise and fall. And rise and fall and rise and fall. And rise.

Starts in the early 1990s with Matusow in his early twenties playing video poker and living in a trailer, then eventually moves through his becoming a poker pro and winning three WSOP bracelets and over $7 million in tourney earnings. Along the way, Matusow describes in detail his period of drug use and self-destructive behavior during the early part of this decade, his getting clean and properly diagnosed as suffering from both bipolar disorder and ADHD, his arrest for drug trafficking and six-month jail term, and his triumphant return to poker as well as to a more balanced existence.

I’ve had the chance to read Check-Raising the Devil and can say without hesitation that it is a compelling story, very well presented. It most certainly does not lionize Matusow, and in fact most often brings him down to our level (or below) in its bald confessions of the author’s many limitiations -- some involuntarily imposed on Matusow (e.g., his disorders, other psychological issues), others brought on himself (e.g., the drug use, his ruinous sports betting). Actually, it isn’t always simple to sort through where Matusow’s culpability begins and ends, but on the whole the book doesn’t do too much passing of the buck. This is a man owning up to everything -- the good and the bad.

So Check-Raising is a very interesting character study, and since he’s a character most of us already know at least a little bit about (probably more than a little), the book is all the more intriguing.

The book also provides a nifty overview of the last ten years or so of poker from the point of view of a professional player who was there for just about every major happening -- both live and online. There’s much about the WSOP in there, as well as other major tourneys. There’s some chronicling of the online scene, too, including Matusow’s getting cheated by Russ Hamilton over at UltimateBet. (No punches pulled there.)

All of which is to say, there’s a lot to recommend here for both casual fans and hardcore players. Matusow’s life to this point has been full of extremes, although there’s a lot in his story to which most of us can relate, including the highs and lows caused by poker itself. Even if we haven’t experienced the euphoric triumphs and soul-crushing defeats to the degree Matusow has, we all know what he’s talking about.

I also want particularly to recommend what I perceive to be the contribution of our friends, Amy and Tim. This is an especially well written and well presented book (better than yr average poker text, and I’ve read a bunch), and we’ve got to believe Amy and Tim had a lot to do with that being the case.

When you start a blog, then keep at it for a while, it doesn’t take too long to become aware of this here nifty community of blogs, forums, podcasts, and other interwebby connections via which people with similar interests interact. And while there are tons of poker blogs, forums, podcasts, and now Twitter pages and so forth, the community is nevertheless still relatively small, especially compared to some other ones out there. So if you keep writing -- and, importantly, keep reading -- you are gonna find these folks eventually, I’d think.

It was probably just a few months after I began writing Hard-Boiled Poker that I became aware of Amy Calistri’s blog, Aimlessly Chasing Amy. I’m pretty sure it was via Iggy that I did. There was a good long stretch there during which we all routinely found each other through Iggy’s “uberposts.” Soon after that I was listening to Amy when she co-hosted Keep Flopping Aces with Lou Krieger. She gave that gig up about a year ago, I believe, somewhere around the time she also went back into the “real” world of business and scaled back her work with poker media.

Found Tim Lavalli not too longer after that, if I remember correctly. Probably was those series of investigative articles he wrote with Calistri about the extra two million chips that mysteriously showed up during the latter stages of the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, titled “Two Million Questions: Will Poker Answer?” That series began in September 2006 (if yr interested, click here for part one). Somewhere around there I started reading Lavalli’s “Poker Shrink” articles (which he began in 2006) as well as his personal blog.

Ended up meeting Tim last summer near the end of the WSOP. Didn’t get the chance to meet Amy, who after several years in a row at the WSOP didn’t make the 2008 one. Am hopeful to see both this time around to congratulate them on having made it through the several-years-long journey that got them to the book’s publication this week.

I’ll also thank them, because while Matusow’s story is itself somewhat inspiring, as a writer I’m also inspired by seeing Tim and Amy -- two of “us” -- realize this terrific achievement and get themselves “into print.” Am looking forward to seeing others in the blogging community make that move as well one day. And those that do, I assume, probably will have been inspired somewhat by Tim and Amy, too.

(By the way, if you are interested in hearing more about the book and how it was written, tune into to Keep Flopping Aces this Thursday [5/14] where Matusow, Lavalli, and possibly Calistri will be Lou Krieger’s guests.)

Ladies Night: PokerListings Grand Finale

It occurred to me after Change100 had defeated Spaceman in that heads-up match to secure the final spot in the PokerListings Run Good Challenge Super Happy Grand Final Championship that the field today would be evenly divided by sex -- three women and three men. Have to say, it was pretty cool to be playing today, as everyone who qualified for the final stood to make some extra cabbage. (Read details here.)

I can’t say I thought much further about the half-men/half-women thang after I’d first noticed it, though. Didn’t think about it all until about an hour or so into the match. That’s when I realized the ladies were killin’ the guys.

In other words, I was the last dude standin’...!

Michele Lewis got off to a quick start, crippling PokerListings Dan with a flopped flush versus his flopped top set, then finishing him off in a pocket jacks vs. pocket tens showdown. After winning the first two PL tourneys, Dan ended up as Gigli in the last two. As was the case in Week 3, I can’t say I felt too bad to see a tough player like Dan go out early. Sort of like Tom Brady going down the first week of the season -- anything seems possible after that.

Dr. Pauly would be the next to go. We were in Level 4 (blinds 50/100). The good doctor had 2,675 when the hand began -- fifth of five. Michele raised to 300 from the button, I meekly folded in the small blind, and Pauly repopped it to 900 from the big. Michele called, and the flop came . Pauly shoved, Michele instacalled, and Pauly showed... the hammer. Deuce-seven offsuit. The hand with which he had crushed Kid Dynamite back in Week 1.

Unfortunately for him, Michele had a ten in her hand.

I actually would win a hand later on with the hammer, though I have to admit I felt a little sheepish about it. I showed, of course. But I tend to fold whenever I get dealt the favorite hand of bloggers -- one I assume folks are playing with regularity at the Bash this weekend. I frankly haven’t the cojones to play the hammer the way it deserves to be played. When I saw the good doctor drawing dead today, it was a little like seeing a fellow comrade jump on a grenade to save the rest of us.

It had to be done. That’s all there is to it.

And then we were four. Me and the ladies.

The hand right after Pauly’s bustout was kind of interesting, I thought. Michele had limped from the cutoff, and I decided to limp as well from the button with 8-6. The flop came 6-2-2 rainbow. “Hammer one hand too soon,” said Amy Calistri. The table checked to me. There was 400 in the pot. I started to make a half-pot bet, then decided for funsies to bet 222.

The blinds folded, and Michele quickly typed “????????????????????” Then “222?” Then she raised to 500. “Is that what u have?” I typed, then folded. She showed the . “Runnin’ gooood,” she would type afterwards, echoing the especially well-chosen name of the series.

Kind of a cheeky play, on my part. I pretty much have to bet it, though. So why not throw out something weird like that to get everyone wonderin’? Have to say, I was glad to have lost very little there, as I would’ve been in sad shape had we gone any further with that one.

After that hand, I had a bit more than 3,500, which actually was second place though not by much. At that point, I ran into a particularly bad stretch of starting hands. (Indeed, the whole day was pretty much below average in terms of cards for me.) Meanwhile, Change started to build up a stack -- and play more aggressively, raising to 420 a lot preflop. (Was she transmitting some sort of message with her bet sizes, too?) Between her and Michele (where I was seated), not to mention the increasing blinds, it started to become increasingly uncomfortable for yr humble gumshoe.

Pretty soon we were in a situation where Amy and I had extremely short stacks (me about 1,500 and her even less), while our aggressive opponents had about 8K (Michele) and 5K (Change). Amy and I were trying to wait each other out, folding most hands. She managed to double up a couple of times, though, and finally I was forced to push with A-2 suited against both Change and Michele. Change happened to have ace-jack on that one, and I was cooked.

That left the three ladies -- Change, Amy, and Michele. Amy would get bounced in third fairly soon after me (at Change’s expense, I think). Thanks to those couple of bustouts and another good hand or two, Change would take the chip lead, then finally get Michele all in on a hand in which Change had pocket rockets. Just like Gus Hansen at the 2007 Aussie Millions, Change would take down the sucker with the best starting hand in hold’em. Maybe she’ll write an “every hand revealed” book about today’s tourney, too.

Congrats to everyone who made today’s final -- and especially to Change for taking it down -- and big thanks again to PokerListings for hosting the sucker. Big fun from beginning to end. Word is we’ll be having another one of these sometime in the future, probably with a larger field of bloggers along for the ride.

As far as overall results for this here extravaganza, I made out like a bandit. Also -- perhaps unsurprisingly -- I’ve picked the tourney bug again big time, and am therefore now thinking seriously about getting back into playing MTTs (after a couple of years of primarily focusing on cash games). So maybe there will be some discussion of friggin’ no-limit hold’em -- the game everyone and his brother sister plays -- on this here poker blog movin’ forward.

In Which It Is Demonstrated Why Pocket Jacks Are Sometimes Called “Hooks”

So we played this little blogger event on Saturday, the PokerListings Run Good Challenge. By invite only. A nifty little freeroll with some decent cabbage for those who finish in the top three ($600/$300/$100). Only 12 were invited, and of those only 11 showed up (I think the “Entities” from Wicked Chops missed it). And Pokerati Dan also came too late to make anything happen, and so we were really starting with 10. A decent shot at some money, no matter how you look at it. Of course, as the name suggests, it would help to run good.

I’m hardly playing these no-limit hold’em tourneys at all these days, but as I’ve mentioned the last few weeks I have been reading quite a bit and so had some ideas swimming around in the ol’ cerebral stew about how I was a-gonna approach this sucker. Wasn’t terribly confident going in, but once things got started I quickly felt better, realizing I might’ve actually picked up a thing or two from my reading. Books are our friends.

To give you an idea how it went for me, I took a peek after all was said and done at my stats and discovered I’d managed to claim a ton of pots without showing. Out of 35 pots I won, PokerStars is actually saying I’d only shown three times the entire event. (That was of 130 hands total.) Not quite sure if that’s entirely accurate, but I do know I was avoiding the showdowns pretty much throughout.

Grabbed a medium-sized pot early to push out to 1,900 or so when everyone else was still hovering around the starting 1,500, and that gave me room to operate a little more freely and accumulate a bit. Maneuvered my way up over the 3,000-chip mark before the first hour was up, which had me in second or third place for most of those first four levels. During that time we’d lose Change100 and Matt from PokerListings, and just after the one-hour break the nine players remaining were consolidated onto one table. My opponents: Dr. Pauly, Amy Calistri, Kid Dynamite, Michele Lewis, the Poker Shrink, Spaceman, Poker Listings Dan, and Pokerati Dan.

At that point I had a little less than 3,000 in chips, which in fact put me in second behind the current leader, Poker Listings Dan, the strategy writer over at PokerListings, who had approximately twice that. It was at that point where I feel like I played only so-so poker, folding for a couple of orbits when I probably could have gotten involved a time or two. Was trying to gauge the table, though.

Finally at the start of Level 6 (blinds 100/200), I got active again. And players started busting. First Pokerati Dan, who’d blinded all of the way down to 95 chips before playing his first hand, got bounced. (“I played too tight,” said Dan in chat from the rail.) Then the Poker Shrink.

Then a short-stacked Dr. Pauly put a brutal beat on Kid Dynamite when he shoved his last 1,655 with the hammer (7-2) and got called by the Kid who held . The flop was benign, but the turn and river both came deuces, and the Kid was crippled. He’d go out in seventh, followed soon thereafter by the Spaceman (6th) and Amy (5th).

At four-handed (the money bubble), I was again in second place with roughly the same stack (3,160) I had when the final table started, a bit less than half of what Dan Skolovy had. After a dozen hands or so, I had held steady, but Dr. Pauly had snuck ahead of me, having about 4,200. Self-proclaimed “last woman sitting” was Michele Lewis with about 2,000.

Then came this hand. I’m a-gonna tell you what happened, but I offer it to all-a-you well-versed MTTers as a “what would you do?”

I’m on the button with 3,460 and get dealt . Blinds are still 100/200. Dan from Poker Listings, who has 6,785, raised to 600 from UTG/the cutoff. Now Dan is the head strategy writer over there at the PL, and we’d all already picked up that one key part of his strategy was either to raise or fold preflop, and almost never limp. So when he raises there, his range is fairly wide, I’m thinking. Probably has a better than average hand to raise my button, but not necessarily something better than pocket jacks.

Here’s where I ask you, what would you do?

Folding seemed weak. Calling with position might’ve been a good choice here, but if an ace, king, or queen flops -- more likely than not -- and Dan bets out, I’ve got a tough decision. If I call, the pot would be 1,200, and I’d have 2,860 left.

I decided I wanted to raise, and given my stack size figured I couldn’t make a real raise without pushing all in. So I did. Pauly and Michele folded, and Dan took a few seconds before calling and turning over . I was surprised he’d call with that, but elated that I was 70-30 to win here. (Do you call in that spot? What, really, could my range be there?)

Alas, an ace flopped, I couldn’t catch up, and I was out on the bubble.

So while I brood a little about how I might’ve folded into the money, Dan from Poker Listings eliminated Michele in 3rd on the very next next hand, then after 130 hands of back-and-forthing with Pauly would take first. That means the first-place prize money gets rolled over into the next tourney (this coming Saturday), although I’m not sure how it’ll be distributed.

My consolation prize: I get some leaderboard points for finishing in the top six. After three weeks of this, those who end up in the top six get to play a fourth freeroll the last Saturday of the month.

And I guess another consolation prize is the feeling that, for the most part, I played a tournament well. Congrats to Dan, Pauly, and Michele! And thanks again to PokerListings for the invite -- was a ton of fun, for sure.

Television & Poker; or, the Search for a Happy Medium

Busy weekend, a lot of it spent in the car. Have been trying to visit various family and friends before my summer in Vegas. I’ll be leaving in just under two weeks to go help PokerNews cover the World Series of Poker.

Had the iPod-like device with me and ran through all of the several podcasts I had recently downloaded, many of which concerned the much-discussed decision by ESPN and Harrah’s to move the final table of the WSOP Main Event to November. Heard WSOP Commish Jeffrey Pollack interviewed on a few of the shows. Some were recorded prior to the announcement, such as the April 7 episode of WSOP Radio (posted April 8). In those Pollack remains reticent when asked about the “rumor” of a possible change. Others were recorded afterwards, such as the May 1 episode of Keep Flopping Aces in which Pollack jubilantly echoes all of the points he’d made earlier in the day during the WSOP presser.

Over on Wise Hand Poker, Gary Wise interviewed recently-hired WSOP Communications Director Seth Polanski (on his May 7 show). I’d heard Polanski on another Rounder’s Radio show back on April 2nd (Pumped on Poker), at which time he didn’t even hint at the possibility of the change. Polanski’s resumé includes performing similar roles for the NFL Network and Fox Sports. On Wise’s show, he explained he thought one of the reasons why he had been hired a couple of months ago by the WSOP was to help facilitate this very move, so he obviously knew something back in early April.

After his interview with Polanski, Wise spoke briefly about why he was in favor of the change. Wise referenced the recent decline in popularity of poker on television and how it suggests “the poker boom as passed.” Linking falling TV ratings to the game’s overall health, Wise stated that “the only way to sustain the growth of the community . . . is to keep poker as a televisable entity popular.”

Wise then mentioned the history of televised game shows, and how the most popular of them -- his examples included Twenty One and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? -- were often short-lived, having too quickly exhausted their appeal. He pointed out how Twenty One was so popular (in the late 1950s), attendance at baseball games went down on those nights when it aired. However, theorized Wise, the “adrenaline rush” of the show quickly wore off. “Within two years of that kind of popularity, Twenty One was off the air, and without some serious adjustment, televised poker was facing the same kind of fate. That’s why a change is needed.”

Wise’s example here wasn’t the best chosen. Twenty One was not cancelled because of poor ratings. In fact, when it first aired in September 1956, it was not a hit initially. Only after the producers began manipulating the results (apparently at the insistence of the show’s advertiser, Geritol) and started feeding contestants answers and “scripting” a more exciting drama, did the show become a cultural phenomena worthy of the cover of Time. When an unhappy contestant who had been made to lose came forward with allegations of impropriety, a federal investigation ensued, and Twenty One was unceremoniously yanked from the airwaves in October 1958. (The scandal was dramatized with some embellishment in the 1994 film Quiz Show.)

So the show didn’t fail because people became tired of it. It failed because the game it was depicting had become unacceptably corrupt.

Once I ran out of podcasts, I turned on AM radio (something I rarely do these days). Landed on Sporting News radio, where Dave Harbison was hosting his SNR Pregame show. Apparently he was taking calls on any topic. The first call I heard was about the NHL playoffs. Then the second caller had the following question for Harbison:

“Where do these sports networks come off showing so much poker?”

I’m not making this up. This was just before noon yesterday.

Harbison answered the caller by explaining that the networks need programming, and while he himself didn’t watch poker, enough people apparently did for it to be an acceptable way to fill the time on the sports networks. The caller didn’t like that explanation, and said that since poker didn’t involve athletic ability, he didn’t consider it a sport. “Well, neither does a hot-dog eating contest,” Harbison replied. “But they show that, too.”

Harbison then offered a brief dissertation on media, in which he actually brought up Marshall McLuhan’s famous argument from Understanding Media (first published in 1964) that the “medium is the message.” Although he glossed over most of the particulars of McLuhan’s thesis, Harbison’s essentially seemed to be applying the idea correctly when he said that when in comes to, say, a network like ESPN, the medium itself is more important than the content. As McLuhan states -- I had to pull out my musty copy of Understanding Media to find the quote -- “it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action,” even if the “content” may once in while distract us from that fact.

After a couple of minutes, I sensed the sports talk show host becoming self-conscious about having unintentionally revealed his theoretical chops. He hastily ended the discussion by referring the caller to McLuhan’s book, then took a call about a recent list of the best baseball parks.

I switched off the radio and meditated a bit on what I’d been hearing. When it comes to televised poker, the decision to move the final table to November clearly indicates the relative importance of the “medium” and the “content.” (For more on this point, see Amy Calistri’s wistful post from yesterday, titled “The Way We Were: Computers and Final Tables.”) And while Wise might’ve picked a different example than Twenty One, his point still makes sense -- and perhaps is even more illustrative of this situation than he intended it to be.

Regardless of the content, the medium -- television -- introduces certain requirements in order to survive -- that is, in order to retain its ability to “shape” or “control the scale and form of human association and action.” I think Wise is correct to say the medium demands a certain element of “novelty” or “innovation” or “change” in order to keep viewers engaged. So the content, while relatively less meaningful in and of itself, must nevertheless be constantly manipulated and repackaged so as to keep the relationship between broadcaster and viewer alive.

Of course, as the example of Twenty One aptly demonstrates, it is possible to manipulate the content too much, corrupting it to the point where it is no longer viable for its given medium. Television audiences (and federal officials) could not tolerate an ethically-ambiguous, “scripted” game show in late 1958. Nor would they, I imagine tolerate similar shenanigans were they to happen with the WSOP. (Let’s all hope this change doesn’t invite anything along those lines.)

Then again, audiences won’t tolerate stasis, either. So those who create television shows have to keep changing the content in order to sustain themselves. I suppose there’s a middle ground in there somewhere, where the content continues to be revisited and altered but not to the point where it is no longer acceptable for its given medium.

One thing’s for sure, though. There’s no way to keep everyone happy.

Going the Extra Mile

B.J. Nemeth, terrific tournament reporter for PokerNews and other outlets, has weighed in on the idea to postpone the final table of the WSOP Main Event in order to televise it live (or “plausibly live”) at some later date -- discussed a couple of days ago here. (Incidentally, the latest buzz appears to suggest we won’t necessarily see this change happen this summer, but will most certainly see something like it in 2009.)

Head over to Tao of Poker and read Nemeth’s thoughts in the post dated April 8th. There Nemeth provides some good arguments for why he thinks the idea to create a “must see” final table event is a good one for poker. And while I still have reservations -- the main one concerning the notion of waiting three whole months to complete the tournament -- I can appreciate where Nemeth is coming from.

Regardless of the position being argued, I especially like this kind of thoughtful, well-reasoned editorial. I appreciate writers who take the time to present their ideas clearly and thoughtfully, taking into consideration the audience’s needs (for clarity, for sound reasoning, etc.). Nice, also, to see a subject like this addressed with a sense of historical perspective (which Nemeth definitely has).

Fact is, there are a number folks out there -- if you’re willing to seek ’em out -- who are writing about poker who will take the time to think ideas through and communicate them as effectively as they can. Poker ain’t all that different from the rest of the world, in that respect . . . .

Speaking of, was reading this week about the recently-awarded Pulitzer prizes for journalism. Looks like The Washington Post was the big winner this time around, being recognized for their in-depth reports on subjects like the mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, the Virginia Tech shootings, the political influence of Dick Cheney, among others. A lot of times the stories that get singled out for praise in this way are investigative pieces that bring together all of the most-valued characteristics of excellent journalism -- characteristics that make them “distinguished” in the judges’ minds.

The criteria for judging are always somewhat subjective, of course, but to my way of thinking, the best journalism usually demonstrates a high degree of intellectual rigor, a faithfulness to “journalistic ethics” or responsible reporting, and evidence of supreme effort. Usually the winners are multi-part articles that (1) required a great deal from the author(s) in terms of investigative work, and (2) were written with an eye toward the “greater good” -- i.e., report on issues or concerns in a way that was both constructive and clearly of benefit to the community of readers.

All of which caused me to reflect a bit on poker journalism. Can we perhaps point to examples of that sort of excellence in our little corner of the news landscape? Thinking back over the last couple of years, three spring to mind:

Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli’s multi-part investigation of the two million extra chips that suddenly materialized near the end of the 2006 WSOP Main Event. The pair produced three exhaustive articles in September 2006, then a follow-up in early 2007 that shared industry reaction:

“Two Million Questions. Will Poker Answer?: Part One”
“Two Million Questions. Will Poker Answer?: Part Two”
“Two Million Questions. Will Poker Answer?: Part Three”
“Two Million Chips: Six Months After”

Haley Hintze’s “Anatomy of a Cybersquatter” series of reports from early 2007 documenting the curious twists and turns in the battle over the “wsop.com” domain. Hintze meticulously presented the story in seven installments:

“Introduction: Binion’s Horseshoe on the Ropes”
“Part 1: Bad Blood Runs Deep”
“Part 2: Cybersquatting 101”
“Part 3: From “World Series of Poker” to “WSOP””
“Part 4: The Lawyers Always Get Theirs”
“Part 5: One for All, and All for One”
“Part 6: Not Quite Coda”

Jennifer Newell’s recent Poker Player Newspaper series on the Absolute Poker scandal. Her articles appeared from November 2007 to January 2008:

“An Absolute Mess, Part 1”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 2”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 3”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 4”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 5”

Of course, Newell’s series brought together and presented a lot of information compiled by those other super sleuths who helped crack the AP scandal in the first place. (And, as I wrote about a few weeks ago, still more folks also reported on that one as well.) By the way, I recently noticed Serge “Adanthar” Ravitch mention on his blog that the 60 Minutes story on Absolute Poker is “probably happening (at least, my segment is definitely getting shot).” Gary Wise mentioned on his podcast last week that he’d been interviewed as well.

Plenty of other recent examples of excellence in poker journalism, too, of course. These were just a few that came to mind. Do go enjoy (and be inspired by) those series if you hadn’t already. And for more thoughtful discussion about poker, do check out Nemeth’s thoughts regarding that plan for a big ol’ ME final table extravaganza, as well.