More on the Travails of Live Tournament Poker

Was directed via Twitter this morning to an interesting blog post by PokerStars Team Online member Mickey “Mement_Mori” Petersen, one titled “My WSOP and why live tournaments are not THAT great.” I think it was Kevmath’s retweeting about it that led me to read the post.

There were a few reasons why I clicked through when invited. Petersen only recently started his blog, but I had read a couple of his earlier posts and so know he’s a good writer and thinker. I’ve also covered Petersen in many tournaments, both online and live, and so thought from the title he might be offering something interesting about how live tourneys differ from online.

I had another thought in mind, though, as began reading. I was remembering this summer’s WSOP and covering one event in which Petersen had played. Like many players, Petersen had an iPad with him and was occasionally checking it between hands.

Kind of amazing, actually, to walk through a tournament these days and notice just how many players have iPads at the tables. It is not a new phenomenon by any means. In fact, that picture below is one taken by B.J. Nemeth from the 2010 WSOP, a shot of Andy Bloch checking his iPad... and reading an article about how he uses an iPad at the poker table (!).

Now, though, there are times when it seems like more players have iPads (and smart phones) than don’t.

At this year’s WSOP, many of those with iPads seemed to be mostly checking Twitter or Facebook, or playing games such as Words With Friends. Others had the PokerNews site up, which was always kind of intriguing (and a little uncanny) to see whenever I had just posted a hand about them. And a few were watching television programs or movies they had downloaded.

In fact, I remember back in May at LAPT Uruguay seeing a player actually playing on PokerStars on his iPad (something I never saw at the WSOP, natch). To someone who doesn’t constantly grind these suckers full time, it can seem a little odd to witness players not really paying attention to the tournaments in which they are participating.

All of which is to say seeing Petersen check his iPad at the table wasn’t all that unusual. But I also recall passing by his table once to see him having put the iPad away and having gotten out a book to read -- an actual hardback book. I remember being kind of struck by the sight of what seemed an artifact of an earlier age. I was also curious to know what he might be reading, although never did find out.

Anyhow, coupled with Petersen’s identity as an “online pro,” that memory made me think perhaps Petersen’s blog post might focus on the tedium of live play. But in fact that isn’t his topic at all. Rather Petersen is concentrating more on the overall profitability of live tourney play, kind of dovetailing on that “ROI at the WSOP” discussion I posted about at the end of last week.

I’ll let you read Petersen’s post for full details, but to summarize, he points out how despite a couple of deep runs in events and results that might suggest a successful summer, his buy-ins did ultimately exceed his cashes.

Petersen also includes an interesting chart in his post tracking his live tourney net profits over the three years he’s been playing in them (143 tourneys total). While he’s been an overall winner (thanks largely to a big cash from his EPT Copenhagen win earlier this year), the chart helps underscore his observation about live tourneys “that relying on them as your sole source of income has an extremely high chance of failing.”

The discussion reminds me a lot of Dan Harrington’s interview in CardPlayer from December 2007 in which he likewise stated in blunt terms that “I don’t think you can consider playing tournaments for a living” and that “the reality in [tournament] poker is that only one or two in every 100 players will make any real money at it.” (Here’s that interview, now hidden behind a paywall at CP.)

I remember Harrington’s interview raising some eyebrows, appearing as it did at a time when his three Harrington on Hold’em tourney strategy books (released from 2004 to 2006) were at the peak of their popularity. Much like Harrington did before, Petersen smartly cuts through the “HUGE misconception about how profitable [tourneys] are,” correctly pointing out “how the media romanti[ci]zes them” by focusing on winnings and ignoring expenses.

I think a lot of players tend to ignore these realities, too, getting caught up in the romance of chasing that one big score that will finally (permanently?) put them into the black. Kind of analogous to being at the tables with the iPads or smart phones or other distractions, which in some cases might cause players not to be fully mindful of what is actually going on.

Like I say, check out Petersen’s thoughtful post for an updated consideration of the realities of live tournament poker.

From the Mayfair Club to Poker’s Most Exclusive Club: Harrington, Seidel Newest Poker Hall of Famers

The votes have been tallied and today comes the announcement that Dan Harrington and Erik Seidel have become the 39th and 40th members of the Poker Hall of Fame. As I mentioned yesterday, the newest inductees will be recognized in a special ceremony at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino as part of the November Nine festivities.

Not a huge surprise to see these two emerge from the list of ten nominees. As was the case for Mike Sexton last year, various factors had combined to make Harrington a favorite this time around. And Seidel, too, had been getting a lot of attention as one of those several “gonna-get-in-eventually” future Hall of Famers whose time appeared to have come.

I think most observers will agree that both players are highly deserving.

Harrington’s four WSOP Main Event final tables -- including one victory -- is one of those jawdropping feats that has to be recognized as an accomplishment worthy of praise. The fact that he made those final tables in three different decades (’80s, ’90s, ’00s) and in events with fields of 152 (1987), 273 (1995, the year he won), 839 (2003), and 2,576 (2004) only makes it more impressive.

“Action Dan” has a second WSOP bracelet (also won in 1995) plus a World Poker Tour title (won in 2007), and has racked up about $6.5 million in tourney winnings while essentially being a part-time player. Also, his books -- especially the Harrington on Hold’em series -- have helped further establish his legacy as an important contributor to the game.

Seidel has also enjoyed a long, lucrative career with over $10 million in career tourney earnings and a whopping eight WSOP bracelets. Seidel’s WSOP wins have come in a variety of games, too, including limit hold’em, Omaha/8, pot-limit Omaha, Deuce-to-Seven, and no-limit hold’em.

The other part of Seidel’s resume that especially impresses is the fact that not only has he cashed 60 times at the WSOP, but he tends to make the most of his cashes, having made 33 final tables, too. That gets him into the all-time top five of both lists (most cashes, most final tables).

In a response to the news of his induction, Seidel made reference to his having gotten his start playing at the old Mayfair Club in New York with Harrington long ago. “Both of us refined our games at the Mayfair Club in New York,” he noted, saying “it’s an extra bonus for me to be going in with Dan Harrington” with whom he has “been great friends for my entire poker career.”

The fact that Harrington and Seidel are going in together will bring renewed attention to the Mayfair Club, a place where many others also played before becoming stars at the WSOP. Other regulars at the underground club (shut down finally in 2000) included Jay Heimowitz, Mickey Appelman, and Howard Lederer. Stu Ungar apparently would stop in there, too, as would Steve Zolotow, Paul Magriel, and others.

The club was featured one week on “Poker After Dark,” with club goers Heimowitz, Lederer, Appelman, Harrington, Zolotow, and Mike Shictman all playing. The club was apparently a model of sorts for the Chesterfield Club in Rounders (1998), the movie in which Seidel’s second-place finish in the 1988 WSOP Main Event (to Johnny Chan) was forever immortalized.

Both Harrington and Seidel were among the nominees on last year’s ballot, and I think when they did not get in last year just about everyone believed they would both be inducted soon. And as I say, I think the timing turned out right for both this time, partly because of the fact that both compared well to the other eight nominees.

I wrote a piece last week for Betfair Poker in which I discussed “Age and the Poker Hall of Fame.” There I pointed out how the great majority of the 38 individuals who had been inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame -- all but three, in fact -- were aged 50 and above (or were deceased) when they got in. Harrington is 64, meaning only Tom McEvoy at 65 was older among this year’s nominees. And Seidel will be turning 51 a couple of days before the ceremony in November.

Among the other nominees, only McEvoy, Linda Johnson (aged 57), and Barry Greenstein (aged 55) were also more than 50. Even though there is no specific rule regarding a minimum age for induction into the Poker Hall of Fame, I think it still remains a factor for most voters, which means when it comes down to it, those candidates who are older will be competing against one another as long as the WSOP continues to limit the number who can be inducted each year (which I have no doubt they will continue to do).

All of which probably means McEvoy, Johnson, and Greenstein each have a good chance of making it in next year, since it is doubtful there are other players aged 50 or above who will emerge between now and 2011 to challenge them.

I’ve mentioned here before how I had the chance to participate in the voting for this year’s Poker Hall of Fame as one of the members of the media panel. I’m very grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate in the process, and while I’m not going to share specifics of my vote, I will place myself in that group who believe Harrington and Seidel are both highly deserving of the honor. Congrats to both!

2010 WSOP, Day 47: The Roving Reporter

My assignments yesterday helping cover the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event were a little out of the ordinary. I started out in the suddenly eerily-quiet Pavilion (pictured). Just me and one reporter -- Mickey, one of the best -- were there to cover things as the final 16 tables broke into the Amazon.

Two of those tables were gone before we even started, having been designated feature tables and relocated to the main room. And another broke as the first hands were dealt. In all it would only take an hour-and-a-half or so for the rest to go as well.

We actually got to report a few hands and some other color before we left, including the story of Philip Goossens, the player who ended Day 2 of the Main Event with an above average stack, but had to leave -- apparently because the package he’d won only covered expenses through the weekend, and he couldn’t pay out of pocket to change his flight or for extra nights’ lodging. His stack made it all of the way through Day 3, but only made it through an orbit on Day 4 before finally vanishing.

When I got over to the Amazon I ended up over at the two feature tables -- the ones that will be getting a lot of play once ESPN shows their stuff for Day 3. In the past we’ve had trouble getting access to these tables, which has been unfortunate because usually there are notable players at them. But I was able to get close to both and spent the rest of the day roving back and forth between them, gathering hands and stories from each.

I’d thought at first it might be a somewhat tedious gig just watching the two tables, but there ended up being quite a lot going on at both. We are getting to that stage of the tournament, actually, where just about everything that is happening is rising to the level of being newsworthy.

Among the players who moved through those seats during the day were Johnny Chan, who continued to build his big stack throughout the day (he’s in 13th place entering today). Others passing through included Dan Harrington, J.P. Kelly, Jonathan Tamayo, Brett Richey, Michael Mizrachi, Frank Kassela, Gavin Smith, Chris Bjorin, Jean-Robert Bellande, Vince Van Patten, Karina Jett, Matthew Brown, and Max Casal.

Probably my favorite bit during the day was being there as Gavin Smith was asking Dan Harrington about the origins of “M” and joking with Action Dan that he should have called it “H” or perhaps “Dan.” Here is the post sharing that conversation.

Of course, the most exciting moments of the day were associated with the bursting of the cash bubble. You probably heard that we’d gotten close -- within four eliminations of getting to the final 747 and the cash -- when it was decided to go ahead and take the 90-minute dinner break a few minutes ahead of schedule, then come back to begin hand-for-hand play.

Kind of funny -- when asked at the start of the day when I thought the bubble would burst, I had said either just before or after dinner. “You were right both ways,” said B.J. Nemeth to me later. It would have burst just before dinner if they’d chose to play it out then, but instead the decision was made to wait.

Some hastily declared taking the break at that moment was “the worst decision in the history of the WSOP,” though I didn’t really think it was such a bad idea. Things get a little crazy when the bubble bursts, and I thought taking the break just before would give tourney officials a chance to get all their ducks in a row as far as handling the payouts were concerned, as well as perhaps finding the short stacks and making sure they had their numbers right.

The delay also allowed everyone to get hyped for the big moment. I was back at my seat at the main feature table a few minutes before play resumed, and I was enjoying overhearing the dealers and tourney officials chatting about the upcoming hand-for-hand play.

“If it goes an hour,” said one, “I’d like to put the line at 13.5 hands.” (That would end up being much too high of a line, as it turned out.) “You see some wild things,” said another. “I’ve seen them open fold queens, kings...” “Oh, I’ve seen them fold aces!”

Once play resumed I was talking to Matt (a field reporter) who said he thought taking the break wasn’t such a good idea, mainly because it increased the likelihood of collusion. It was a good point, I thought. There was at least one hand (reported in the blog) of a player down to just 4,000 chips getting a walk in his big blind, which maybe seemed even more sketchy given the fact that there’d been that long break before hand-for-hand.

Hand-for-hand ended up lasting six hands total, and it ended up taking just about an hour all told. The 748th-place finisher, Tim McDonald, was awarded a free entry into next year’s Main Event. Interestingly, the fellow who had that distinction last year, Kia Hamadani, made the cash this time around. In fact, he’ll be back for today’s Day 5. My colleague Heath wrote an awesome post detailing his story.

At the feature tables, Gavin Smith busted shortly after, making a minimum-cash. He’d pushed all in at least three times right before the bubble burst, but had had no callers. Finally he was all in with pocket treys against Max Casal's ace-rag, the big stack at the table with over a million. An ace flopped, and Smith couldn't catch up. A short-stacked Frank Kassela went out shortly thereafter in a wild three-way all-in, though by cashing he locked up a share of the WSOP Player of the Year.

All in all it was a fun day at the WSOP for me, made more so by the fact that I was working alongside B.J. Nemeth for much of the time, both in the Pavilion and at the feature tables. I have an interview with Nemeth focusing mainly on his photographing the WSOP coming out on Friday over at the Betfair poker site. He’s a great colleague and friend, and as anyone who follows poker at all knows, his contributions to the coverage of the WSOP and poker are significant. Indeed, when it comes to the professional poker circuit, he is the quintessential “roving reporter.”

One other highlight of the day involved B.J., actually. Shortly after the cash bubble burst and we were on a break, a player who was at the main feature table, Dan Harkenrider, came over to compliment B.J. for his reporting and his contributions over on The Poker Beat.

Harkenrider talked a little about how playing in the Main Event was something of a rare thing for him, and getting to learn more about the WSOP via Nemeth’s reporting genuinely helped him prepare for the experience.

I got a real kick out of seeing B.J. receive those kind (and much deserved) words. If somehow you aren’t familiar with B.J.’s work, do check out his WSOP photo blog and also that Betfair interview on Friday, which I’ll remind you of once it goes up.

Back to the Amazon room today, where they are already taking out tables as the field continues to shrink. There are 574 players left and I think the plan is going to be to try to track ’em all. Check in over at PokerNews’ live reporting page to follow along.

It Goes Without Saying

From the Department of Redundancy Department: Yesterday my local sports page featured not one but two editorials by regular columnists calling for Tiger Woods to tell the world what exactly happened during the wee hours of last Friday morning when he crashed his Escalade.

The op-eds ran side by side, both beginning on page one of the sports section, then continued together on page four. But it wasn’t one of those “you take one side, I’ll take the other” deals -- no, both writers were making the same point, in almost the same terms.

Both mentioned how Woods named his yacht “Privacy.” Both brought up David Letterman as a counterexample of public confession. Both seized Woods’ statement that “This situation is my fault” (from his website) as opening the door to a wider range of possible behaviors or actions for which he might be culpable.

“There's a difference in hiding something and choosing to keep it private,” concluded one. “Clearly, you're hiding something here,” said the other, speaking directly to Woods. “Explain yourself. First, to the police. Then, to the public.”

More than a little presumptuous, really. Not to mention superfluous. I wondered if the writers had themselves been too private about what they’d chosen to write about for their columns yesterday -- a little talk over the cubicles might’ve prevented our having to read the same message twice like that.

Of course, they weren’t the only ones making the same argument. Most of the media seems to have taken up an identical cause over the last day or two, appearing to devote more attention to the Woods incident than to the news that 30,000 more troops are heading to Afghanistan. By doing so, they prove their own argument that the less Woods says, the more others will speculate about him.

You’ve probably picked up on my cynicism regarding it all by now, and indeed, I have no intention to provide any sort of “op-ed” (in either direction) on the topic. Instead, I’ll just make an observation about it all that is perhaps obvious to poker players. Some, anyway. The kind of thing that goes without saying. Namely...

The less you say, the more others will speculate about you.

In terms of poker news, we’ve kind of witnessed a version of this idea with the whole “Who Is Isildur1?” phenomenon of the last few weeks. But I’m referring more specifically to the frequently encountered situation at the tables wherein the player who refuses to give any extraneous information via speech or physical tells becomes increasingly provocative to others, especially if that player is winning and/or has otherwise demonstrated a proficiency with his or her play.

In the second volume of his Harrington on Cash Games, Dan Harrington includes a chapter on “Tells and Observations” in which he largely diminishes the importance of reading others’ physical tells (making note of betting patterns is more important, he argues), but does say that “controlling your own tells is ‘Job Number One.’”

Harrington offers some advice regarding how to go about revealing as little as possible about yourself, including describing what he calls “The Patrik Antonius Way.” Explains Harrington, the Finnish pro well exemplifies the “classically simple” method of information-hiding when “he just sits at the table, stiff as a board, and stares silently at a fixed point in space.”

If you think about it, these same sports writers have been heaping praise on Woods for years for what might be called his “classically simple” method of hiding (or keeping private) any extraneous information on the golf course -- of being able to shut out all and incredibly maintain his famous “focus.” He’ll show emotion sometimes, sure, but there’s no disturbing him from that next shot. And that ability to focus disturbs his opponents.

Or it can, anyway. Many have noted the “Tiger Woods Effect” over the years, whereby other players play less well when partnered with him or even when playing in the same tournament. In fact, there was a scientific study published late last year by Jennifer Brown (a professor in Northwestern University’s Department of Marketing and Strategy) that attempted to quantify “the (adverse) incentive effects of competing with superstars” in which Woods was used as a primary example. Among other findings, Brown noted how in the tourneys she studied players averaged 0.8 strokes less per tournament when Woods was also playing.

Says Brown, “My calculations suggest that Woods’s PGA Tour earnings would have fallen from $48.1 million to $43.2 million between 1999 and 2006 had his competitors’ performance not suffered the superstar effect.” “Viewed in this light,” the effect of Woods’s mere presence in the field represents “is economically substantial,” she concludes.

Brown isn’t specifically referring to Woods’s ability to resist giving his opponents extraneous information while playing, but I think we can add his unwavering focus on the course to the list of qualities that unnerve his opponents, perhaps increasing the significance of that “superstar effect.”

Anyhow, now the superstar ain’t talking. And that’s causing everyone else to talk about him. Such a strategy works well -- can even be “economically substantial” -- at the poker table, or even on the golf course. But as the preponderance of these editorials suggests, I guess the “effect” is probably a little less desirable here.

2009 WSOP, Day 36: Then Again, With the Name “Short-Stacked,” This Was Bound to Happen Sooner or Later

So I played in a poker tournament yesterday, and something sort of memorable happened. Kind of thing yr humble gumshoe never really would’ve thought he’d experience.

Was doing okay for a while, chipping up a little, then falling back below average. Something like 150 or more entered, and by the time we’d gotten near the end of the eighth level it appeared less than half that number remained.

By then we’d arrived at the late-middle stages of the fast-structured tourney, and the blinds and antes had suddenly gotten uncomfortably large for my shrinking stack. One thing had led to another and, well, I’d let the unforgivable happen and my “M” had slipped down to about 2.

You know, Dan Harrington’s “M” -- that number that comes from dividing your stack size by the total amount of blinds/antes one pays per orbit? As Harrington explains in his Harrington on Hold'em books, when your “M” falls below 5, you’re in what he calls the “Red Zone” -- not a good spot to be. In fact, I was getting close to being in the “Dead Zone” (an “M” of 1 or less).

As I vainly tried to riffle my few remaining chips, guess who gets moved to my table?

Dan Harrington. No shinola.

Got a terrific opportunity yesterday to run over during the afternoon/early evening and play in this very fun charity tournament hosted by Howard and Suzie Lederer. The event was held at the Golden Nugget, and all of the money raised went to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Las Vegas.

There were several Full Tilt folks there and playing -- I’m sure I didn’t see them all, but I did spot Andy Bloch, David Singer, Michael Craig, Lee Watkinson there in the Grand room where the tourney was held, as well as a few other pros like Annie Duke, Dennis Phillips, and Harrington. There was a big party afterwards -- the “World Series of Barbecue” -- held at the “Tank” (the big pool) where I saw a lot of other folks who may or may not have played in the event, including Gavin Smith, Erica Schoenberg, Jeff Madsen, Joe Sebok, and many others.

It was a rebuy event, and so the play early on was not surprisingly a bit loosey goosey. I had chipped up a little to about 2,300 (we started with 2,000), then had a wild hand where I picked up under the gun and raised to 450 (blinds were 75/150). The player to my left then pushed all in for 1,350, and the player to his left thought a while then called. It folded back to me and I shoved, and the third player, who had me covered, thought a bit more and called.

With my kings I was up against pocket jacks to my left and two seats over. Flop comes 6-7-8. Turn a nine. River a ten. Pocket jacks wins the main pot, and I get about 700 or so back splitting the side pot with ten-nine.

Chipped back up a bit and got to the end of the rebuy period with just under the starting stack, so I rebought, then did the add-on and so was up at about 5,500 or so when we started back. (Huge thanks to PokerNews for funding the adventure for me, and for helping out the Boys & Girls Clubs.) In one of the first hands back from the break after the rebuy period was over, I picked up A-K, raised, and all folded. Very next hand got pocket aces, raised again, and again all folded.

Soon the blinds and antes got big, I lost a little on a failed blind steal attempt, and I was slipping toward the Red Zone. With about five big blinds left I pushed all in with 10-9 and again all folded. A little later I was all in again with A-10 against a fellow who reraised to isolate me with A-4, but the board came 8-8-9-9-8 and we chopped. So I had something like 2,300 left with blinds of 400/800 and a 100 ante when Harrington got moved to our table.

Got to stick around for a couple of orbits with him there, though was not involved in any hands against him. Finally I open-pushed my miserable stack with , the same player who’d reraised before with A-4 did it again, then a third player pushed all in as well. They had pocket eights and pocket aces, respectively. An eight flopped, and an ace came on the turn. And I was toast.

Would’ve been very cool to go deep in the sucker, as there was a ton of swag waiting for those making the final table, plus a seat on “Poker After Dark” for the winner. But it was a blast nonetheless. I went out on the last hand before the second break, and so got a chance to talk to “Action Dan” afterwards.

I introduced myself, then joked how embarrassing it was -- me sitting there with an “M” of 2 and he comes to the table. Harrington laughed and said it happens to him now and then, too. “Sometimes ya look down and see deuce-seven and ya just cahn’t bring yourself to play it,” he said in that familiar Boston brogue.

I had actually begun yesterday blogging the second day of Event No. 56, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, then left to go play in the tourney and returned to finish out the sucker, blogging the last six hours. (Big thanks to tbostic for coming in and filling my seat during the interim.) The tourney got down to 16 players by the end. I’ll be back over there today to see the thing through.

Huge kudos, by the way, to Julie Schneider for finishing third (!) in Event No. 55, the $2,500 2-7 Limit Triple Draw event. Just plain awesome. Once that tournament and the other one (Event No. 54, the last of the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events) had concluded, the Amazon Room turned pretty quiet last night as our final bracelet event played out.

Today there ought to be a little more noise. There will be the Ante Up for Africa thing happening, to which a lot of celebrities will come. ESPN is filming it, too, so that should probably attract even more to the event. I think we’re going to be tucked away in the same corner of the Amazon Room where we ended last night (the Orange section) to play out Event No. 56 -- in other words, far away from the feature tables where ESPN will be filming the celebs. A bit of an anticlimax for a tournament in which the winner gets over $1 million, really.

These six-max guys like the action, and I’m reasonably confident none of them will allow their “M” to slip down to 2. Not willingly, anyhow. Follow along over on PokerNews’ live reporting page.

Minimalism

Some of you might’ve noticed that title from yesterday’s post was a play on the title of a short story by the American writer Raymond Carver, a story called “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”

The story appears in a collection of the same title that was published in the early 1980s, a few years before Carver died (in 1988). Carver’s fame peaked right around the time of his death and just after, actually. Robert Altman was kind of riding the Carver wave there when made an interesting, unwieldy film called Short Cuts in 1993 that cleverly weaved together a number of different Carver stories into a lengthy feature.

Not a lot “happens” in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” Two couples sit around a kitchen table one afternoon drinking gin and sharing anecdotes about themselves and others, all of which present differing definitions of “love.” Eventually the sun goes down, the bottle is empty, and the story just ends.

In terms of plot, the story sort of resembles a poker game. The four characters each have their own “styles,” with one (Mel, the cardiologist) kind of dominating the action. And there’s no particular “resolution” -- the story just ends.

Carver often got grouped with a few other writers like Bobbie Ann Mason, Tobias Wolff, Frederick Barthelme, and others into a category called “minimalism.” The category gets defined in different ways, but chiefly refers to a “lean” or “sparse” style that eschews flowery description and other judgmental intrusions in favor of letting the characters speak for themselves. The style or subgenre can be traced back to writers like Ernest Hemingway and even some “hard-boiled” guys like James Cain and Jim Thompson.

Actually, the name “minimalism” is a bit misleading when it comes to Carver, and, indeed, to most of the writers who usually get filed under that heading. But I suppose the main idea -- that when it comes to the storytelling the author tries to keep out of the way and let the reader decide what to think of the characters -- is a valid way of describing these authors’ approach.

Thinking about Carver got me wondering about how one could be said to employ a “minimalist” style at the poker table.

I’m not necessarily talking about the business of minimizing one’s tells at a live game, the kind of thing Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie talk about in Harrington on Cash Games, Volume II when they discuss “The Patrik Antonius Way” in which the Finnish player “just sits at a table, stiff as a board, and stares silently at a fixed point in space... giv[ing] a good expression of a catatonic trance” while his opponent decides what to do.

No, what I was thinking about was how that effect the so-called “minimalist” writers sought to achieve -- namely, not to “tip their hands” (so to speak) with regard to how they intended their stories to be interpreted -- was probably also an effect one desires to achieve at the poker table. That is, playing your hands in a manner that hides your intentions, your values, your “style.” You let your “cards speak” -- and your bets and your folds -- just as the authors let their characters speak, withholding overt judgments by which to guide readers’ interpretations. Let your opponents try to figure it all out. Show, don’t tell.

The paradox is that it takes maximum effort to be a minimalist. I think that’s one reason why Carver and some of the other writers who were pegged as such didn’t necessarily care for the designation -- it made it sound like they weren’t trying!

It’s a lot easier just to sit there and explain yourself over and over to everyone else. In fact, next time you’re playing, take a look around the table and notice how many of your opponents are doing just that.

Do Not Ask for Whom the Tells Show

Gonna be a lot of folks standing in line today as America finally decides who will be our next president. Lots of big races in the Senate and House, too. Expected turnout (overall) is supposed to be huge -- like in the 70% range, much higher than the usual 50% of registered voters who vote. And some of those lines are sure to be superlong. I believe 34 states (and the District of Columbia) had some sort of early voting, and while a lot of people took advantage, the majority of ballots will be cast today.

I voted about ten days ago. Went down to one of the public libraries near where I live, stood in line for just 45 minutes, and used one of those touch screen machines to cast my vote. Remembering a much longer wait back in 2004, I took a book this time, the second volume of Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie’s Harrington on Cash Games.

I’ve finished both books now. As was the case with the Harrington on Hold’em books, these are highly readable, smart discussions of strategy. I’m certain not everyone is buying into all of the various pieces of advice associated with the tight-aggressive style that gets the most attention in the two books, but there’s definitely a lot in there worth a poker player’s time.

When I was standing in line, I remember reading most of Part Eight, a kind of digression from the primary strategy discussion titled “Tells and Observations.” As you might expect from Harrington, the position taken is that physical tells such as those outlined with great specificity by Mike Caro in Caro’s Book of Poker Tells aren’t nearly as important as recognizing betting patterns.

As the authors put it, “the whole science of spotting tells is more difficult and less useful than most people suppose.” They refer to their 2+2 colleague Mason Malmuth’s point that “tells are only useful when they cause you to make the right decision when otherwise you would have made the wrong one.” And that circumstance -- the one where you actually are able to apply the info you (think you) have obtained in a way that is profitable -- they maintain just doesn’t come up all that often.

Dunno if I would be quite so dismissive of tells, though I do share the pair’s skepticism about being able to break the whole subject down like a “science.” Which is kind of ironic, given that Harrington and Robertie (and Malmuth) tend so frequently toward advice that is somehow “less human”-sounding than most.

You know what I mean -- all of those inordinately long compilations of probabilities when faced with a particular decision in one of their sample hand “problems.” There’s one in Volume II (Hand 6-2) where “you” call a middle-position raise from the cutoff with a pair of sevens, the flop comes 9-7-3 rainbow, and your opponent bets out about three-fourths of the pot. Then we get seven pages running through all of the possibilities (“He has nothing and we raise,” “He has nothing and we call,” “He has something and we raise,” “He has something and we call”), culminating with a chart (or “matrix”) showing the expected EV based on the probabilities established by this exhaustively thorough analysis. Certainly a useful discussion, though I can’t imagine any humans really play poker this way.

Anyhow, even if the authors are dismissive of the value of recognizing others’ tells, they do stress the importance of minimizing one’s own tells. They recommend minimizing one’s movements as much as possible (“The Patrik Antonius Way”), or following what they call “The Scripted Defense” whereby one follows the same, idiosyncratic pattern of movements every time one acts. Again, the idea seems to be to minimize one’s “human”-ness if possible.

There have been a few articles over the last few months analyzing the “tells” of Barack Obama and John McCain. For instance, this July article from the Telegraph concluded that both candidates need to work on their tells. Perhaps at one time -- such as during the debates -- that might have been a genuine concern. Of course, as far as the campaign goes, all that ends today.

Whomever comes out on top, he’ll have a hell of lot more than tells to worry about.

Weapons of Choice

I’ve been perusing Arnold Snyder’s first book about hold’em tournaments, titled The Poker Tournament Formula (2006). The book concentrates largely on “fast” tournaments, i.e., tourneys with rapidly rising blind/ante structures that require players to master strategies that Snyder collectively refers to as “speed play.” A sequel, The Poker Tournament Formula 2, came out this summer, and it focuses more on “slow” tournaments with large starting stacks and longer levels with more gradual increases of blinds/antes.

Incidentally, “Arnold Snyder” is actually a pseudonym for a successful tourney player who has also written some well-regarded books on blackjack. He writes quite clearly and has many interesting ideas that build upon and, in some cases, refute well-known concepts appearing in other books such as Dan Harrington’s Harrington on Hold’em series. For example, in the second book Snyder offers a particular criticism and clarification of Harrington’s much-lauded “M” concept that I would think most hold’em tourney players would find persuasive (or at least intriguing).

In this first book Snyder starts out with an explanation of how to analyze the structure of a given tournament and thus determine whether or not it is “fast,” “medium,” or “slow.” Snyder provides some formulas to help figure out the “patience factor” of a given tournament based on its starting chips and schedule of play, as well as the relative “skill level” one might therefore associate with the tournament.

I’m not going to get into the specifics of Snyder’s formulas (which do seem quite helpful), but wanted instead just to share one observation he makes early on in the first book regarding the relative importance of cards, chips, and position.

Snyder believes that in tournaments with fast structures, “your cards are the least important of your three weapons.” Also, echoing Doyle Brunson’s point from Super/System, Snyder believes that “position is the most important weapon you have in... a fast no-limit hold’em tournament.” That said, “it’s usually best not to tangle with a big chip stack when you’re really just making a position play.”

Thus when assessing the relative value of cards, chips, and position in these fast tourneys, Snyder suggests thinking of of the three factors as a version of the “rock-paper-scissors” game. He even offers a helpful mnemonic device for remembering what beats what: “Cards are made of paper. Chips are something you could throw, like a rock. If you can remember those two, there’s nothing left for position except scissors.”

Thus, cards beat chips (paper beats rock). Chips beat position (rock beats scissors). And position beats cards (scissors beats paper).

An interesting analogy. Of course, as Snyder goes on to explain, there are a few reasons why it is incorrect to think of hold’em tourneys as simply an elaboration on the game of Rochambeau. For one, in rock-paper-scissors, all three weapons are always of equal value, no matter what. In hold’em tourneys, the relative strength of your three weapons is constantly changing -- as is the case for your opponents, too -- and so it is important to recognize where you stand with regard to each when determining how best to proceed.

I’m hardly doing Snyder’s idea justice here -- you’ll have to go check out his book yourself for more explanation. Interesting stuff, though.

Even so, I haven’t left my usual pot-limit Omaha and H.O.R.S.E. ring games and started jumping into any hold’em tourneys just yet. Although I am thinking of playing in a certain one tonight.

Most reading this blog probably know all about it already, but Dr. Pauly is hosting a $5.00+$0.50 no-limit hold’em tourney on PokerStars tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time as a way of celebrating the fifth anniversary of Tao of Poker. And in addition to the usual prize pool, the winner will receive an entry into a $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament during the Borgata Poker Open (September 12th) as well as two nights’ stay there Borgata Hotel & Spa in Atlantic City.

Pretty swell deal, there. Like I say, I’m probably going to be playing, although I might be distracted for the first hour as tonight ESPN is showing the final table of Event No. 4, the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em event which I covered for PokerNews. That airs from 8-10 p.m. Eastern time.

Whether I make it or not, let me encourage everyone reading to join in the fun. And don’t forget yr weapons.

Sartre’s Gambler (3 of 3)

If you ever to listen to PokerRoad Radio, you’ve probably heard a clip of T.J. Cloutier from his appearance on PRR back in early March. They’ve been using it repeatedly as a bumper on all of their shows. The clip begins with co-host Ali Nejad asking Cloutier what advice he has for players who are running bad or “who feel snakebit.”

“I wake up every day with a new attitude,” Cloutier responds. “I’m not gonna worry about what happened yeseterday. I just go on to the next day.” Then he adds, “How can anybody who’s won about 11 million in poker and lost about 3 million in craps worry about what happened yesterday?”

That last question elicits laughter -- and a bit of sarcasm -- from the PokerRoad crew. It’s a very existentialist thing for Cloutier to say, actually. In fact, every time I hear that clip, it makes me think again about Sartre’s gambler.

By describing each day as a new one -- or, to say it differently, to distinguish between what one is or does today from what one was or has done previously -- is to regard the past as Sartre does, as an example of “nothingness” that Cloutier says he chooses not to draw upon as he endeavors to make meaning of the present.

Of course, it isn’t as though Cloutier is “reborn” each day. There’s obviously a lot that he has experienced during those previous thousands of days that does help him figure out what today means for him. But his “attitude” or philosophy is basically existentialist, at least in the way he puts it. And frankly, all poker players who have enjoyed long-term success almost without exception adopt a similar approach in the way they view and interpret the game.

As a way to close the discussion, let me refer to three examples of poker writers also evoking this very existentialist view of life in their discussions of poker.

One comes from one of my favorite passages in Small Stakes Hold ‘em by Ed Miller, David Sklansky, and Mason Malmuth, that short little section early on titled “Random and Independent Events.” After talking a bit about how the human brain has a remarkable capacity for seeking out and identifying patterns, the trio explain how easy it is at the poker table to make the error of seeing patterns where none exist. “When it comes to gambling,” they point out, “mistaking false patterns as real has led many to ruin.”

In particular, many sometimes falsely conclude that the cards dealt in one hand have something to do with what gets dealt in the next. The authors underscore the importance of avoiding such a fallacy by using italics: “The cards dealt on any poker hand are, for practical purposes, completely random and independent of the cards dealt on any previous hands.” Indeed, the cards are simply “existents,” or “pieces of plastic” with “no knowledge, no memory, no cosmic plan.” An obvious point, perhaps, but we’ve all made that mistake at one time or another. (He can’t have aces again, can he?)

The second passage I’ll quote comes from the first volume of Dan Harrington’s Harrington on Hold ’em. It’s a point he makes over and over again when talking us through sample hands, particularly when he is narrating one in which his player has made an error early in the hand, and now faces a new quandary later on. “Once you’re in a hand,” he explains, “every subsequent decision has to be determined by your hand, the pot odds, and the total table situation.” Like the authors of SSHE, Harrington brings in the italics to emphasize the point: “Every betting decision is a new problem. Don’t forget that.”

Finally, I’ll share something from Barry Tanenbaum’s epilogue to his terrific Advanced Limit Hold ’em Strategy (published last year). Tanenbaum is especially gifted at explaining poker-related concepts, and in fact a lot of them apply regardless of the game one is playing.

The epilogue is titled “Forgive Yourself” and there Tanenbaum stresses the importance of not brooding over yr screw-ups (which, for most of us, are inevitable) and instead focusing on the next hand. “A positive attitude is essential,” Tanenbaum argues, thus the need to avoid beating oneself up over that missed bet or incorrect fold. “The better you get at not dwelling on past mistakes other than to learn from them and move on,” says Tanenbaum, “the better your play will be.”

Sounds a lot like Cloutier. And Sartre, in a way . . . .

The point, I suppose, is to understand that as humans we necessarily allow a lot of stuff that isn’t really “there” -- a lot of “nothingness” -- to creep into our understanding of what is there, such as all the different “existents” (cards, chips, people) gathered around a poker table at any given moment. We take that “nothingness” (be it from memories of the past, or ideas of the future, or wherever) and make meaning of our present. We can’t help it. We’re human.

But as we do, we should try to recognize and avoid those circumstances when we might be tempted to make meaning and then apply it incorrectly (and thus go down that path that “has led many to ruin”), e.g., expecting the next hand to balance the previous one, allowing a preflop mistake to affect unduly a post-flop decision, letting a bad session affect our play in the next one, and so forth.

All important to keep in mind, I would think. I just hope I remember it tomorrow.

“M”

Got the opportunity to catch up on a few of the podcasts I missed last week. Most interesting among them was Dan Harrington’s appearance over on the Two Plus Two Pokercast.

“Action Dan” is an intriguing figure. Particularly notable is his overall lack of gamble -- i.e., his aversion to taking unnecessary risks -- perhaps the only trait he possesses that I can reasonably claim to share. Definitely distinguishes him from yr average poker pro. Also enjoyed the discussion of pot limit Omaha at the end of the show with Ian “iggymcfly” Gordon, frequent contributor to the 2+2 Omaha forum.

Of course, everyone’s currently a-buzz over the new Harrington books on NLHE cash games. Can’t say I’m as excited as most (since I’m not really playing NLHE these days), but I may still have to have a look. Harrington himself admitted on the show that while he believes the new books are even better written than the famed Harrington on Hold ’em series, they aren’t likely to be regarded as ground-breaking as the tourney books were.

Probably the single most-cited concept from the Harrington on Hold ’em series is the idea of “M” or “M-ratio” -- that figure intended to represent the number of rounds a player can survive in a tournament without voluntarily putting any chips into the middle. One’s “M” equals the size of one’s stack divided by the blinds and antes required per round. Harrington explains at length in the second HOH volume how changes in one’s “M” should affect one’s starting hand requirements and other decisions.

Listening to the other podcasts reminded me that even though Harrington is often lauded with having been a pioneer of sorts for having presenting the idea of “M,” he didn’t really originate it. In fact, in the book Harrington himself credits the concept to fellow backgammon whiz Paul Magriel (to whom the “M” refers). Couple of other references in the other shows from last week also indicated the idea had made the rounds a bit before finding its way into HOH.

On Ante Up! last week, Kill Everyone co-author Steven Heston talked about the circumstances under which the new book and its predecessor, Kill Phil were composed. Heston claims that he and his co-contributors had been speaking of a couple of different ideas -- referred to in the books as “CPR” (“cost per round”) and “CSI” (“chip status index”) -- even before Harrington’s books had come out. Indeed, if I understand the term correctly, “CSI” is essentially the same thing as Harrington’s “M.”

Also heard Kirk Morrison make reference last week to “CPR” on Phil Gordon’s podcast, The Poker Edge. Morrison, of course, was a successful tourney player in the 1990s, then took a hiatus until a couple of years ago when he made a triumphant return to the circuit. Although he didn’t specify it on the podcast, his use of “CPR” seems as though it might’ve dated from his earlier time on the tour. Steve Zolotow, in his CardPlayer articles about “CPR” from the summer of 2006 (Part I & Part II), says he’d “used the abbreviation CPR for years, and was surprised to learn that Blair ‘Kill Phil’ Rodman had independently started using it.” Harrington actually mentions Zolotow on the Two Plus Two show as a fellow member of the old Mayfair Poker Group (along with Howard Lederer, Erik Seidel, and Jay Heimowitz).

Of course, even if the groundwork for Harrington’s “M” was laid well before he spelled out the theory in the second volume of HOH, he deserves a lot of credit for helping elevate the concept to such an significant status in discussions of tourney poker strategy and theory. Indeed, one cannot reasonably enter such discussions without at least acknowledging the concept, regardless of what significance one does or does not ascribe to it.

Will be interesting to see if the Harrington on Cash Games books provide any ideas that even come close to rivalling the popularity of “M.” (Would bet against it.)

WSOP Final Table Hand No. 218: Honest Abe

Was over on Full Tilt Poker this afternoon and realized there were more playing that $200/$400 Omaha Hi-Lo game (twelve players, including Allen Cunningham) than $0.50/$1.00 limit hold’em (eight players, including your humble servant). Starting to think FTP is a great site for watching, but not so hot for playing . . . at least if yr a short-stack like me. (Ranted about this circumstance once before, actually.)

Speaking of watching poker . . . I have two more hands from the WSOP Main Event Final Table to talk about. I see that ESPN’s edited version of the Main Event has made it through day four so far (six episodes down, six to go). Not sure when exactly they’ll be getting to the final table, but I’ll probably take a peek to see some hole cards on a few of these hands.

By the time we get to this particular hand, they were down to Jamie Gold (nearly 62 million), Paul Wasicka (about 16 million), and Michael Binger (around 12.5 million). The mood around the table has lightened considerably since Cunningham went out. It’s about 3 a.m., so they’ve been at it for eleven hours or so, minus the breaks. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson is now in the booth with Ali Nejad and Phil Gordon answering questions about three-handed play. Ends up delivering a mini-sermon here on the subject. And it was good.

What would Jesus do? Well he’d never limp from the button. Rather, when on the button, he says to raise half the time and fold the other half. He says definitely play any king or ace. When in the small blind, he says to call a third of the time, fold a third of the time, and raise a third of the time.

On Hand No. 217, Gold had raised to 1 million from the button. (The blinds are still 200,000/400,000 with a 50,000 chip ante.) Wasicka folded in the small blind, then Binger moved all-in from the big blind. Instead of deciding on his own what to do next, Gold asked Binger what he wanted him to do.

“It’s fifty-fifty,” Gold explains. “You wanna go all-in fifty-fifty? You tell me . . . call or fold.” Binger smiles nervously. “I don’t know what you have,” he says. “I’m telling you, I don’t have much,” Gold replies. “If I had a big hand, I’d call you in five seconds.” Gold is grinning from ear to ear. Binger asks him “You have a pair or an ace?” Gold slowly blinks, saying “I don’t have a pair.” Finally, after some more hem-and-hawing, Binger says he can’t tell Gold what to do. Gold nods and tosses his cards into the muck.

As the cards are dealt for Hand No. 218, Nejad confidently suggests “Michael Binger is showing that he is unafraid of Jamie Gold.” Nejad is dead wrong, of course. Anyone paying even a little bit of attention can see Binger just now demonstrating that he’s very afraid of Jamie Gold. The man has him outchipped five-to-one, and Binger has little desire to tangle with the chip leader when the difference between second and third place is two million clams.

Binger also seems to be having difficulty figuring out what Gold has from how he’s playing. Case in point: Hand No. 218.

The action moves fairly quickly here until we get to the river. Wasicka folds on the button, Binger raises to 1 million from the SB, and Gold calls from the BB. The flop is . Binger checks, Gold casually throws out a minimum bet of 400,000, and Binger calls. The pot is 2,950,000. The turn is the and both players quickly check. The river is the . Binger checks and Gold casually stacks twelve green chips and pushes them in the middle -- a bet of 1,200,000.

“Ten and jack?” quickly asks Binger. Gold appears amused at the question. He smiles and exhales. There is absolutely zero chance he has a straight here. “I’ll show ya,” says Gold. Binger looks up at the dealer and asks “Can he show me before I make my decision?” The table shares a chuckle.

Then Gold actually flips one card over quickly, briefly exposing it before turning it back down. Binger leans forward in an exaggerated gesture, asking “What was that?’ “I dunno,” Gold shrugs. “Was that the jack of diamonds?” says Binger.

“He can’t do that,” says Gordon. “If the tournament director sees him do that, that is a ten-minute penalty.” The commentators will continue to discuss the violation for the next couple of hands, and while Gold is never assessed any penalty, it ultimately matters very little. Sitting out ten minutes at this juncture would’ve caused Gold to miss at most four or five hands, perhaps six if Binger and Wasicka agreed to fold each hand immediately after it was dealt. That’s two orbits or so -- at most a 1.5 million chip hit to Gold’s massive stack, probably evenly divided between the two short stacks. Not a factor.

The subsequent exchange between Gold and Binger is one of the better examples of table talk in the whole broadcast.

Gold: “You wanna donate, donate.”
Binger: “I’m thinking about it.”
Gold: “I’m probably bluffing, man.”
Binger: “I know.”
Gold: “1.2 million, man . . . . Put it in . . . .”

In the booth, Ferguson says “The bet actually does smell a lot like a bluff.” Gordon agrees. “He’s been Honest Abe so far when he’s talking at the table,” Nejad chimes in.

Binger: “Aye-yi-yi.” (He slaps his hand to his forehead.)
Gold: “I bet small enough so you can call. Then you’ll see my hand.”

Binger takes a moment to calculate pot odds and then compute what percentage of the time Gold would have to be bluffing to justify a call here. You know what I’m talking about. That piece of mental calisthenics you read about in Harrington on Hold ’em but have yet really to implement in your game. The pot is nearly 3 million. Gold bet 1.2 million, so Binger is looking at about 3.5-to-1 odds to call. As Harrington explains, that means Binger needs to be right only once every 4.5 times he calls here to break even. As Binger himself finally concludes, “if you’re bluffing like 20-30% of the time, I gotta call.” “So you’re priced in,” says Gold. “Here you go. Let’s call. Get it over with. You’ll see my hand . . . and . . . rock ‘n roll! I’ll show you either way.”

Binger continues to deliberate. “You got me,” Gold finally confesses. “C’mon!”

Binger folds and Gold immediately shows his . Jack-high. In other words, jack squat.

“Aaaaaugghhh,” cries Binger, doing a nice imitation of Charlie Brown just after Lucy pulls the football away. Again.

[EDIT (added 9/28/06): The hole card cameras on ESPN's edited version of the final table show us Binger indeed folded the best hand -- .]

Binger shakes his head, takes a swig from his water bottle, slaps the padded table edge, and tells Gold good hand. “I told you you got me,” says Gold. “I’m having fun. Easy for me to say, with a stack like this . . . .”

Gold’s having fun, all right. So is the viewer. (Good thing, too, since the outcome has been all but decided.) A great example, really, of where the live broadcast beats the edited version.

Okay, one more hand (Hand No. 229) and we can get on with our lives. Meanwhile, I’ll be railing that crazy Omaha Hi-Lo game on FTP . . . .

Photo: “The first 1953 $5 Silver Certificate printed (Smithsonian)” (inset), National Museum of American History. Public Domain.

Gold Looking Golden, For Now

They are down to just three tables at the WSOP Main Event. Jamie Gold has a commanding lead -- not unlike where Raymer sat in 2004 when they were approaching the final table. Allen Cunningham (at 13th) is easily the most recognizable name left of the remaining 27. Very different from a year ago, when there were quite a few familiar names still left at this stage (including Mike Matusow [1st in chips w/27 to go], Phil Ivey [2nd], Greg Raymer [5th], Minh Ly [12th], Tim Phan [15th], and Sean Sheikhan [26th]). Of course, all of the better-known players other than Mike the Mouth would be done by the time they reached the final table.

I thought it would be interesting to compare the chip counts from last year to what we have entering today. Click on the picture to see a Word document that compares the final 27 from both years. Besides chip counts, I’ve also noted the percentage of chips in play each player held/holds, as well as each player's “M” ratio (as detailed in Harrington on Hold ’em, Vol. 2). The “M” ratio is the amount of chips divided by the blinds plus the antes for each round. Harrington suggests that if your “M” falls below 10, you no longer are able to maneuver very much and thus must make a move quickly. It looks like close to half of the remaining players are either in this situation or close to it, so there ought to be a lot of action fairly early today.

Notice how last year the nine who made the final table were all among the top 13 with 27 left. Only a couple of the short stacks managed to move up significantly before bowing out (Sean Sheikhan from 26th to 11th and Ayhan Alsancak from 27th to 10th), while only a couple of the big stacks busted out quickly (Ivey and Raymer). This would suggest that we certainly should expect folks like Jamie Gold, Erik Freberg, David Einhorn, and Rhett Butler to be at the final table Thursday. You never know, of course. Just ’cause it’s glittering today doesn’t mean it’ll be gold tomorrow . . . .

Raising Hellmuth

Well, the Poker Brat did it. Phil Hellmuth, Jr. won the $1,000 NL Hold ‘em with rebuys event (Event No. 34), besting a field of 754 to grab his tenth WSOP bracelet. It didn’t appear too likely once Daryn Firicano busted out in third and Hellmuth was left to battle Juha Helppi. (You might remember Helppi was the fellow who as an amateur beat out Phil Gordon in that amateurs-vs.-pros WPT event from the first season.) When heads-up play began, Hellmuth was outchipped 2-to-1. Six hands later Helppi had a 3-to-1 advantage. Then came that wild, miraculous hand that turned the tide.

Helppi was sitting pretty with about $1,850,000 in chips while Hellmuth was down to $650,000. The blinds were $15,000/$30,000 with a $5,000 ante. Helppi raised to $90,000 from the button and Hellmuth moved all in from the big blind. Helppi called and it was his versus Hellmuth’s . The flop was a crowd-electrifying , giving Hellmuth a set but also giving Helppi nine outs to a possible tourney-winning flush. The came on the turn, completing the Finnish player’s flush and leaving Hellmuth ten outs to fill up or make quads. Fortunately for Hellmuth, the came on the river and he survived, pulling about even in chips. Over the next thirty hands or so, Hellmuth slowly increased his lead before finally taking the last of the chips when his outlasted Helppi's .

Not that huge of a surprise, really, considering how the Brat has been going at this year’s series. He had already seen a couple of final tables, including a second place finish (out of 622) in the $5,000 NL Hold ’em event (Event No. 9). Of course, Hellmuth would've been the center of attention anyway. Everyone seems to have an opinion about him. His books and DVDs routinely receive a fair amount of criticism on message boards, newsgroups, and blogs. Despite his many accomplishments, it has almost become a cliché for poker players to dismiss outright his best-selling Play Poker Like the Pros.

I’d mentioned in an earlier post that I’d read Hellmuth’s book and intended at some point to say something about it, so I thought this might be as good of an occasion as any to do so. Play Poker Like the Pros is hardly the best or most helpful poker book I’ve read, but I’ll grant that it does possess some merit, especially for someone brand new to poker.

Nearly half of Play Poker Like the Pros concerns limit hold ‘em cash games. Hellmuth outlines a “beginner” strategy whereby one is encouraged only to play “top ten” premium hands, and almost always to play them aggressively (to “ram and jam” the pot). This advice gets targeted a lot by critics, particularly since Hellmuth includes 77 in his “top ten,” a hand that rarely survives the “ram and jam” approach unless one is up against a set of meek opponents (or if you’ve so well established your tight image no one will play back at you). He goes on to add other possible hands to the mix for “intermediate” and “advanced” play, and offers a lot of specific advice about post-flop play and dealing with various, commonly-faced scenarios.

Another issue Hellmuth discusses early on in Play Poker Like the Pros is how to interpret other players’ styles and act accordingly. His infamous “animal types”-approach to classifying players has been mocked by many -- Hellmuth calls the conservative rock a “mouse,” the loose-aggressive maniac a “jackal,” the immovable calling station an “elephant,” and so forth. Even if the idea is reductive (or even silly), the approach isn’t that bad of a way of introducing the importance of paying attention to what others are doing at the table.

The first poker book I ever read was David Sklansky’s Hold ’em Poker, a decent primer for learning about starting hand groupings, pot odds, and other strategies. While Sklansky does explain at times how to interpret another player’s action during a hand, he really is focusing throughout on a single kind of opponent, the kind that played the somewhat-tight $10-$20 limit game at the Mirage back in the 70s and 80s when he wrote and revised the book. Sklansky’s advice is theoretically sound, but it doesn’t always apply very well to the looser games one encounters online (esp. at lower limits). Just being aware of different styles (as Hellmuth encourages the limit hold ’em player to be) is a benefit, especially to the beginning player. (Of course, Miller/Sklansky/Malmuth go way beyond Hellmuth in this regard with their Small Stakes Hold ’em, a much much better resource for dealing with loose low limit games, though not necessarily the best book for beginners.)

Play Poker Like the Pros also includes a much briefer discussion of pot-limit and no-limit hold ’em cash games, as well as a tiny chapter (only a dozen pages or so) about limit hold ’em tourneys. I’ve never gotten much at all out of these chapters, and indeed, it is somewhat baffling to consider how little Hellmuth has to offer here to the person wanting to learn how to play hold ’em tourneys. (All ten of his WSOP bracelets have been in hold ‘em events.)

Finally, Hellmuth includes chapters on Pot Limit Omaha, Omaha 8-or-better, Seven-Card Stud, Stud 8-or-better, and Razz, as well as a cursory discussion of playing online. These chapters on other games are not bad to have around as a reference, I suppose. As I mentioned earlier, the chapter on Razz is apparently one of the few strategy discussions of that game available. Still, none of this material really distinguishes the book that greatly.

People continue to buy Play Poker Like the Pros, though certainly not at the clip they were a couple of years ago. Looking over at Amazon’s up-to-the-minute listing of top-selling poker books, there are 25 other poker books outselling Play Poker Like the Pros at the moment I'm publishing this post. Looks like the Brat’s win didn’t really cause that much of a jump in sales. Meanwhile, Dan Harrington is riding high, with both Volume I and Volume III of his Harrington on Hold ’em coming close to cracking the top 100 selling books overall. That’s among all the books Amazon sells! (Harrington did say on The Circuit the other night one of the main reasons he wrote his Hold ’em volumes was for the money . . . . Action Dan knows what he’s doing, all right.)

The loudest censure of Play Poker Like the Pros usually concerns the large amount of anecdotal material Hellmuth includes, most of which reads as more of that ego-massage-type behavior we've come to expect from Hellmuth. I’m not going to disagree with that criticism here -- especially in the chapters about non-hold ’em games, one gets the sense at times that Hellmuth's purpose is more to prove his worth in these games than to teach strategy.

As far as instruction goes, there are much better books about limit hold ’em than Hellmuth’s, no doubt. And for the NL hold ’em tourney player, the book has practically no value at all. That being said, while I don’t necessarily recommend the book outright, I’ll admit to have benefitted somewhat from the experience of having read it as a novice player. That’s why I usually don’t rush to join the chorus of Hellmuth-haters whenever the subject of Play Poker Like the Pros comes up.

I usually don't rush to defend him either, though. Hellmuth takes care of that just fine on his own.

Image: Phil Hellmuth, Play Poker Like the Pros (2003), Amazon.