Robyn Hitchcock at the Grey Eagle

Took a nice, leisurely trip up to Asheville this past weekend with Vera Valmore, kind of a mini-vacation inspired by Robyn Hitchcock -- a longtime fave of mine -- having come to play a gig at the Grey Eagle on Saturday.

Hitchcock is someone I’ve been listening to for more than three decades, which means I started picking up his records not that long after he started making them. I wore out the Soft Boys albums, his solo LPs, and those he made fronting the Egyptians, picking up and studying just about everything right through the ’90s and after. And I have continued checking in on the more recent stuff as well, including his latest, The Man Upstairs, released a couple of summers ago.

I saw him play a couple of times way back when -- once during late ’80s, then another time around ’91 -- and in fact I even dragged Vera to the second of those shows. Since then he’s slowed down somewhat, having evolved from a loud, electrified rocker with psychedelic tendencies into a softer, acoustic-based act that strikes newcomers as a kind of weird neo-folk, although the inspired, surreal lyricism remains the most conspicuous common thread tying together the different eras.

Seeing him again kind of paralleled the experience I was describing last week when I located and listened to a boot of a Bruce Springsteen show I’d attended over thirty years ago. I say that because of the uncanny deja-voodoo I experienced as Hitchcock happened to play some of the same songs I’d heard him perform before all those years ago.

One I know he played at the earlier shows was the meditative “Raymond Chandler Evening,” a kind of homage to the hard-boiled writer filled with dark, gritty imagery that contrasts with the sweet arpeggios carrying its catchy melody. (Was delighted when he tossed in an extra verse I’d never heard before, introducing another crime scene into the proceedings.) He followed that Saturday with another one from the same 1986 album Element of Light -- “Bass” -- a song I’m also pretty sure he played when back when I last saw him.

Vera and I had to laugh when he began “Bass.” Earlier in the evening we’d enjoyed a very fun dinner with our poker-playing friends PokerGrump and CardGrrl, and Vera and I both happened to have ordered bass for our entrees. I joked then Hitchcock had a song by that name, though I doubted he’d play it... and then he did.

Someone’s already uploaded that particular track to YouTube, if you’re curious. In fact, I'm noticing other songs from the show on there, too, and have linked to each from the titles in this post. During one of Hitchcock’s many extemporaneous acts of word association used to introduce songs (a signature trait), he joked about skipping ahead in the YouTube video, fully conscious of the fact that many artists’ performances get instantly memorialized in this way.

Hitchcock actually split the bill with the comedian, Eugene Mirman. Hitchcock came on first, playing about 10 or 11 songs, with other highlights including “I'm Only You” and the Dylan cover “Not Dark Yet” with which he opened.

After that Mirman made us laugh for about 45 minutes, then the pair both carried on a suitably absurd conversation onstage for a while before Hitchcock closed the night with “My Wife and My Dead Wife” (another ’80s-era track I’d seen him play in the past). A great time, start to finish.

My only bit of chronicling during the show was to snap that poor-looking pic up above, one showing Hitchcock squinting out into the crowd in a fashion that seems to suit the photo’s lack of clarity. As I was telling PokerGrump and Cardgrrl after our dinner, I’ve lately found myself actively opposing the whole take-a-picture-of-everything urge that so often possesses us these days. (Not to mention the subsequent feeling of being obliged to broadcast those pictures via one’s preferred form of social media.)

I guess I archive plenty enough here on the blog, although that exercise is a little different. Here I force myself to translate experience into words, that act alone being enough to make whatever it is much more memorable than tends to happen when snapping a pic or shooting a short vid.

The whole weekend was like that, really, spent mostly unplugged -- like Hitchcock.

2009 WSOP, Day 13: The Dollar Ain’t What It Used to Be

Was a good day off yesterday. Did not go to the Rio. Mostly just hung out at the home-away-from-home, doing some reading and writing. In the evening I went for dinner with the Poker Grump and Cardgrrl at the Grand Lux Café at the Venetian where we had a delicious meal and enjoyable conversation. Many topics arose, including the Grump’s upcoming shot at a WSOP event this Thursday.

Quick little anecdote about my trip over to the Venetian...

If yr gonna come to Vegas, you need to be ready to do a lot of tipping. And if yr short-stacked like me, you want one-dollar bills for that purpose, as five is too much for you to drop each time.

As I was leaving for dinner, I realized I didn’t have any singles and so went over to ask the fellow manning the hotel desk if he could change a five spot for me. As he was counting out the bills, I was uncrumpling my fiver to hand to him. Grabbed both ends, gave a little tug, and damned if the sucker didn’t tear right in half!

He handed me the bills and I sheepishly held out the two pieces to him. No problem. He had some scotch tape right there at the desk and quickly made the needed repair. As he did, I started to slip the ones in my wallet when I noticed one of them was damaged -- it was only about two-thirds what it should have been.

I laughingly handed the bill back to him for another. “Wow, the dollar sure isn’t as strong as it used to be,” I said as he fished out a fresh one for me. He wordlessly nodded. Not quite sure my little quip landed.

I drove over to the Venetian and as I was walking from the parking deck inside I noticed on the ground three one-dollar bills in the middle of the walkway. I looked around. No one in sight. So I scooped ’em up. I wondered how many people had passed by without even bothering to bend over and pick up the ones.

“An orphaned pot,” the Grump would say later when I related the story.

Cardgrrl asked me during dinner for my thoughts regarding turnouts thus far at the WSOP, and I realized I didn’t have much of a feel for how things were going in that area. I knew some tourneys, like that $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em “Stimulus Special,” had attracted the maximum (or more), but didn’t really know whether any larger trends had emerged as yet.

Exactly one-third of the 57 bracelet events have gotten underway by now, so I thought it would be semi-interesting to compare field sizes from 2008 and 2009 thus far.

Of the 19 events that have started, four are technically “new” events insofar as there was not an equivalent game/buy-in last year. Of the remaining 15 events, nine attracted fewer entrants, and six attracted more.

Some of what you see here is a bit skewed. For example, I’m comparing Event No. 7 to the first $1,500 NLHE event last year, which was at the start of the schedule last year. Obviously many of those who would’ve played in that one opted instead for the “Stimulus Special” this year. That column listing “projections” comes from the WSOP Staff Resource Guide -- they nailed some of the projections with uncanny accuracy, while others were off more than a little.

Not really enough here yet from which to draw conclusions, so I’ll keep tallying this as we go. I think overall, though, it is starting to shape up as many expected -- namely, not a lot of growth or decline, but a year in which the WSOP essentially holds steady.

Which I think, given all of the current economic woes, would be a definite triumph. As we poker players know, sometimes walking away even is a victory in and of itself.

I go back to the Rio today to help cover the second day of Event No. 19, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. Follow along over on PokerNews’ live reporting page.

Shamus in Vegas: Episode 3 -- Food for Thought

“Poor Vera. Dinner with five poker bloggers?”

So said the Poker Grump to me as we arranged our outing at the Grand Luxe Café at the Venetian. Would be the two of us, Cardgrrl, F-Train, BWoP, and Vera Valmore. Vera isn’t a poker player, but as I’ve documented here before has a lot of patience with those of us who like to tell poker stories. Of course, thinking back to the Wednesday Poker Discussion Group, I later joked with Vera about how she might not have liked a “hand of the day” that lasted two hours.

Vera knew the Grump, F-Train, and BWoP from last summer, and we were both looking forward to meeting Cardgrrl. Dinner was a lot of fun and really there wasn’t as much poker talk as one might have expected. Vera was quizzed a bit about the World Cup. Cardgrrl talked about her adventures in DC and her “year of risky business.” BWoP shared some about her non-pokery work. Poker Grump also told us a bit of his former life in the “straight world.” And F-Train filled us in on his upcoming trip to San Remo and Monte Carlo.

F-Train also told us about a recent incident where some kids had thrown rocks at he and BWoP’s house, breaking a window. That led to a funny discussion of children. You know, children? Those little people who look like us but aren’t as strong and don’t seem to be quite as smart?

Some of the details of F-Train’s story reminded me of one my earliest memories in which I got caught throwing rocks at passing cars. Hey, I was a little person. Not too bright. And unduly influenced by a neighbor girl named Eva. (Insert obvious scriptural allusion here.) In an uncanny prefiguring of F-Train’s account of what happened when he confronted the rock-throwing kids, I recalled how one driver had stopped to confront me and Eva. When he got out of his vehicle -- “$5,000!” I remember him yelling, which gives you an idea how long ago we’re talking -- Eva had suddenly vanished, scampering back to her house and leaving me to face the big person’s wrath. I suppose Adam was in a slightly tougher spot back in the garden, but little Shamus’ predicament was not to be envied, lemme tell ya.

We called it a night by about 10 p.m. Both Poker Grump and BWoP had books for me (thanks!), and since the meals were so oversized we also had take out to carry, too. So we took several bundles, as well as the memory of a fun time, back to the hotel.

On Thursday, Vera went back over to the show while I met Al Schoonmaker and Jim Brier for lunch over at the Palms buffet. I’ve already related some about our meeting, so I won’t repeat too much here. It was Dr. Al who had recommended the Wednesday Poker Discussion Group to me before (he regularly attends those meetings), and so we talked a bit about that and its history. We also talked some about the differences between limit and no-limit hold’em, as both Schoonmaker and Brier were essentially limit players up until recently. Most of you are probably familiar with Dr. Al’s books on poker psychology. Brier, too, is a poker author, and once co-wrote with Bob Ciaffone a well-regarded strategy text called Middle Limit Hold’em Poker (2002). In fact, Brier has been credited by several for the whole idea of emphasizing hand samples in poker strategy texts, such as one finds in his book with Ciaffone, the Harrington on Hold’em books, and many other publications.

The three of us also discussed the prospects for computers or “poker bots” to become advanced enough to compete in no-limit hold’em. Brier and I were of the opinion it would be a long time, if ever, for that to come to pass, but Schoonmaker seemed to think a bit more of the possibility. After an hour-and-a-half, we parted in the Palms parking lot, and that’s when I decided to head over to the Gold Coast to see if I could again squeeze in another short session. I did manage to find a game, and so will talk about that tomorrow.

Before signing off today, though, I have to mention how sad it was to hear yesterday of Justin Shronk’s passing. I met Shronk last summer at the World Series of Poker, and like everyone else found him a funny, friendly, smart dude whose presence added significantly to the poker reporting scene. Others knew him a lot better than I did, so I’ll let you find their thoughts about Shronk on other sites and blogs.

I was at the Bellagio last Saturday as the WPT World Championship was getting started, and I swear I thought I saw Shronk, although I must’ve been mistaken. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to experience similar moments at tour stops over the next few months -- thinking he’s there when he isn’t. ’Cause, well, Shronk belongs there. And it’ll be hard to accept that he won’t be. So my very best to those who were closest to him, especially those over at PokerRoad, where the traveling is going to be a bit tougher for a while.

However, as these stories of my meals in Vegas with poker writers attest, this here “poker community” is a great group with which to be involved. So I know that everyone is going to be there for each other, just like Shronk was always there for them.