Five Years

On April 28, 2006, I published my first post on Hard-Boiled Poker, titled “What’s the Rumpus?” The idea to start a blog had come perhaps a week or two before. Not quite spur-of-the-moment, but close.

There was no “five-year plan,” I can assure you. There wasn’t even a second-post plan, to be honest.

I had brooded a while over what to call the sucker, and somewhere along the way thought up the Shamus character behind whom I’d sort-of-hide for the first part of the blog’s history.

I’ve written before here about how I’d begun with an idea to write about poker -- primarily my own low-limit misadventures -- while employing the “hard-boiled” style of the detective novels I loved (and eventually tried to follow in my own novel). It only took a few weeks to discover I couldn’t keep firing out posts about gathering scratch and setting up patsies and running grifts while keeping a straight face. So, much as players eventually find the style that suits them best, I soon settled into a more reasonable “voice” with which to continue.

The passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 in October also affected the direction of the blog. I’d scribbled some about the WSOP that summer and other items in the poker “world” not having to do with my own circumscribed experiences. But now there was lots else for a blogger identifying himself as an “online poker player” to consider.

On April 28, 2007, I was in the midst of publishing a series of posts about a trip to Vegas with Vera Valmore. Posts from that trip described (in absurdly comprehensive detail) some low limit sessions, meeting cool cats like Paul Seldon (one of the very first readers of HBP), Tom Schneider (who’d go on to become the WSOP POY that summer), Wade Andrews (of Hold’em Radio), and Howard Schwartz (proprietor of the Gamblers Book Shop), and an especially entertaining ride on the Deuce titled “What Happens In Vegas Gets Spread All Over the Internet.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d been to Vegas, but it was still a place full of new experiences for me. Had no idea at the time that before long I would be spending entire summers there.

Wasn’t long after those Vegas trip posts I got recruited by John Caldwell and Haley Hintze (then) of PokerNews to help out with some articles over there that summer while the first-string scribes were away to cover the WSOP. That association continued afterwards, and eventually led to my joining the team of bloggers at the WSOP the following year.

On April 28, 2008, I wrote a post titled “Celebrating Seconds” in which I commemorated the blog’s second anniversary with an account of a runner-up finish in a “Saturdays With Pauly” PLO tournament.

Looking back at that post causes me to think that it came at a time when I was probably enjoying playing poker more than I ever had before or perhaps even since. I was also enjoying writing about poker, and excited about the opportunities I getting to write more.

On April 28, 2009, the blog’s anniversary came and went without my even noticing. My post that day was titled “Time Is Money; or, the Return of the Waiting Game.” (Maybe I was in a hurry and hadn’t the time for sitting around celebrating birthdays.) The post followed up an earlier, much-viewed one sharing a story from that year’s SCOOP involving Daniel Negreanu complaining about opponents stalling as the cash bubble neared.

On April 28, 2010, I was just about to leave my full-time job to focus entirely on freelance writing. I’d made the decision many months before, but it would be a couple of days later (on May 1) that the move would become official.

Not too surprising to see I was in an especially self-reflective mood on that day, as evidenced by the post “Detour: Four Years of Hard-Boiled Poker.” That one tells the story of the blog fairly well, if you’re at all curious about that.

Speaking of telling my story, earlier this week I had the chance to do so in an interview with Mike Owens over on CheckRaze. And tonight I happen to be appearing as a guest on “Keep Flopping Aces,” the podcast hosted by Lou Krieger and Shari Geller. (The timing there is coincidental -- it was “Black Friday” and all that has happened since that I’ve been invited to discuss on KFA, not this here blog.)

If you’re interested in hearing the show, it starts at 9 p.m. Eastern time tonight (Thursday, 4/28) over at Rounder’s Radio. You can listen live, and later the show will be archived.

Events of the last couple of weeks had caused me to think about this fifth anniversary of the blog a little differently. I’ll admit I even had a moment -- a couple of days after “Black Friday” -- where I thought maybe this would be a fitting place to write a final post and move on to devote more time and energy to other, non-poker writing. Or perhaps to announce my intention to scale back and post less regularly. After all, I have posted every weekday here since January 1, 2008 (and on some weekends, too).

But it seems after five years of this there’s more to write about than ever before. Even if, as an American with no money in accounts that haven’t been shut down by the feds, that “an online poker player” descriptor is currently inaccurate.

So the scribbling will continue.

Can’t begin to say how appreciative I am of everyone -- all of the way back to my buddy Paul who came on here back in June 2006 to say “Nice blog shamus. Keep up the good work!!!” -- who has spent time reading and responding to all these many “musings” over the past five years.

As I was writing about earlier this week, the blog has led to a lot of interesting, exciting opportunities for me over the years. But most importantly it has been the means by which I’ve gotten to know countless people -- including many amazing, creative, funny, smart people I today unhesitatingly list among my closest friends.

Thanks again, everybody. I’m so grateful this here blog enabled us to get together.

Podcast Plug: The Gamblers Book Club Podcast

Here’s a podcast recommendation for you. Go check out the 12/12/08 episode of the Gamblers Book Club podcast featuring a couple of great interviews with Las Vegas-based journalists, Jack Sheehan and Norm Clarke. Actually, go check out all of the episodes, if you haven’t been listening to Howard Schwartz’s show. Definitely one of my faves at the moment.

Schwartz, the proprietor of the Gamblers Book Shop in Las Vegas, is a living, breathing encyclopedia of all things Vegas and gambling. He generally interviews authors and other folks from the gambling industry for his show (new episodes come out every two weeks). They record the show right there in the shop. I’ve been listening since I first found out about the show about a year ago, and I can’t remember a single episode that hasn’t been informative & entertaining.

Have to say I especially enjoyed the Jack Sheehan interview from that 12/12 show. To be honest, I wasn’t that familiar with Sheehan before hearing the interview. I was aware of one book that he edited titled The Players: The Men Who Made Vegas (1996), a book I recall leafing through, in fact, in the Gamblers Book Shop. (Now that I think about it, I believe Schwartz actually recommended it to me, which is probably why I remember it.)

I see from Sheehan’s website and hunting around elsewhere online that he’s authored about a dozen books, including a couple about golf that he co-authored with PGA pro Peter Jacobsen. He’s also written a few more Vegas-related books, including Skin City: Behind the Scenes of the Las Vegas Sex Industry (2005).

On the show, Schwartz introduced Sheehan as an important historian of Vegas, and again recommended The Players as “one of the most important references ever written” about some of the city’s most important figures. Schwartz also referred to his guest as a “humorist,” and over the course of the 35-40 minute interview, Sheehan showed that he’s indeed earned that appellation, as he had me cracking up on a few occasions.

They spent most of the first part of the interview discussing Jimmy Chagra, the infamous drug-trafficker who often played in the biggest poker games in Vegas during the 1970s. Chagra was the one who hired Woody Harrelson’s father to kill the federal judge who presided over Chagra’s 1978 drug trial. Chagra ended up spending a lot of time in prison, then was out as part of the federal witness protection program when he died in Arizona last summer.

Sheehan tells about the fascinating interview he did with Chagra in 2006. He is working on a book about Chagra and is also currently shopping a screenplay around Hollywood (called Do a Nickel) about him.

He and Schwartz also talk about Sheehan’s many other ongoing projects, touching on numerous Vegas luminaries and other behind-the-scenes stuff along the way. Sheehan also offers some interesting observations about the tribulations of freelance writing (a subject of particular interest to yr humble gumshoe).

The Clarke interview is good, too. He and Schwartz discuss his new book, Norm Clarke’s Vegas Confidential, which is drawn from his regular celebrity gossip column that appears in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. But for poker/gambling folks, the Sheehan one is particularly fun and interesting.

There’s a newer episode of the podcast up, too, featuring an interview with Gentleman Jack Newton, a long-time gambler who has a new book out titled Confessions of a Crossroad Gambler.

Haven’t heard that one yet (dated 1/9/09). But if the first 30-plus episodes are any indication, I’m guessing I’ll probably enjoy it.

Chance, Though Not the Only Element of the Franklin Circuit Court, Is the Element Which Defines Its Essence

Okay, so I’m paraphrasing. Even so, that seems to sum up what was signified by yesterday’s order from the Franklin Circuit Court to allow the state to seize 141 domains hosting gambling sites if the sites do not block Kentucky residents’ access.

“Disappointed” was the word the Poker Players Alliance used in its response to yesterday’s order. The PPA is disappointed in the way the order dismisses the notion that poker is a skill-based game. The PPA is also disappointed in other implications of the ruling, saying it has “set a dangerous precedent for censorship on the Internet.” A lot is up in the air at the moment, it seems. Hard to tell how much of this here ruling is even enforceable (never mind constitutional). I suppose we’ll find out in the coming weeks.

I’d probably use other words, too. Outraged. Appalled. Dismayed. Others come to mind as well.

The milder “disappointed” I’ll reserve to describe my play in yesterday’s LeTune Challenge, another one of those blogger tourneys to which I was fortunate enough to be invited. This one was hosted by RakeBrain, and 30-plus bloggers were recruited to play a “HA” (pot-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha) tourney over on Full Tilt Poker.

Got to play a bit with my bud Spaceman against whom I was also pitted in that Run Good Challenge last month. After getting moved to his table, he immediately commented that I probably liked the fact that PLO was in the mix. I said something facetious about the glass being half-empty.

The fact is, I don’t really like PLO tourneys that much. The game’s too volatile, really, for tournament play. At least it feels that way to me. Was recently listening to Jeff Hwang talking about the same subject on the latest episode of Howard Schwartz’s Gamblers Book Club podcast. Hwang is the author of the terrific Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy and has also started contributing strategy columns on PLO to Card Player. When Schwartz asked Hwang about his tourney record, Hwang said he mainly played cash games, and that he felt PLO wasn’t a game that was very well suited for tourneys.

A debatable issue, I suppose. All I know is, I’m much more comfortable playing PLO in a ring game than in a tourney.

I played okay for the first hour or so. I’d built up to around 2,000, then had a hiccup of a hand versus PokerPeaker. We were playing hold’em. It folded to my button, I raised with A-7 offsuit, then PokerPeaker repopped it from the small blind. After his reraise, he had less than 300 chips behind, and I rashly put him all in only to see his Big Slick. An ace and king both flopped, and I’d stupidly thrown away a third of my stack.

One orbit later we were still playing hold’em. I was on the button again with pocket eights and again open-raised. This time LawChica repopped it from the big blind, and I had no choice but to go with it. When LawChica also turned over A-K, I was starting to feel a little snake-bitten, but my eights held up and I was back in bidness.

Made it to the first break with 2,434, putting me 11th of the 19 remaining. Held steady for awhile, then completely mangled a PLO hand to knock me back down to about 1,000. Made at least three mistakes on the hand, maybe four. This, frankly, is the hand where I’d most readily use the word “disappointed.” It is also a hand that proves beyond doubt that the Franklin Circuit Court is dead wrong when it says “no matter how skillful or cunning the player, who wins and who loses is determined by the hands the players hold.”

I had 2,334 when the hand began. It was folded to me in the cutoff where I had been dealt . First mistake was even playing this weak-ass cheese. I was vaguely influenced by the fact that Fuel55, sitting on my left, was AWOL, and so I essentially had the button if I wanted it. So I limped for 120. That was the second mistake, I think. Shoulda raised if I’m playing at all there.

So me and both blinds -- LawChica and PokerPeaker -- see the flop come . They both check, and I bet the pot with my top two pair. They both call, and I even say out loud “straight draw.” Another trey comes on the turn, and they both check again. I’m frozen, and make my third mistake of the hand by checking as well. I have to bet there if I’m going to proceed at all in this hand.

The river brings the , and both check again. Mesmerized by the pair on board, I somehow forget about the straight draws and make a horrible bet of 950 (about two-thirds the pot). Both LawChica and PokerPeaker call, and both show 10-9-x-x to split the booty.

Just terrible, that bluff. Bet just the right amount to solicit the calls. But so it goes. I pick up A-A-x-x single-suited soon after and push, and double up a just-arrived Fuel55. Left with less than 500, I push again with K-Q-J-7. This time LawChica has the aces, and when an ace flops I’m out the door in 16th.

Thanks again to RakeBrain for the invite! Would’ve liked to have had that one hand back, but to be honest I think my chances were less than favorable getting to the top four paying spots anyhow.

Unless, of course, as the Commonwealth of Kentucky insists, “Chance, though not the only element of a game of poker, is the element which defines its essence.” If that were true, well then, we all could win!

Reporting on the 1979 WSOP

When in Vegas this summer, I made a point of stopping by the Gamblers Book Shop. I’d been there before when I had met the shop’s friendly and knowledgeable proprietor, Howard Schwartz. I enjoyed chatting with him again this time. By the way, let me once again recommend Howard’s podcast which he records right there in the bookstore. Lots of terrific interviews among the two dozen or so shows he’s done thus far. If you haven’t heard the show already, the three-part episode he did during the WSOP is a great place to start.

While there I picked up a couple of books as well as some back issues of Gambling Times from the late 70s and early 80s. The issues I chose all included coverage of the World Series of Poker. As I was there covering the WSOP myself, I was curious to look back on how the Series had been reported on back in its relative infancy, before the “boom.”

The first issue of Gambling Times was produced back in 1977. In these early issues, only a handful of the 100 or so pages would concern poker, with much more attention being given to sports betting, blackjack, backgammon, gambling theory, and other features. To give you an idea of how the WSOP was covered, let me summarize the six-page article in the October 1979 issue by John Hill titled “Highlights of the World Series of Poker.”

The first third of the article gives a quick rundown of how the “soft-spoken amateur Hal Fowler” managed to upset all expectations to become the first non-professional to win the WSOP Main Event. Fowler took the 10th annual WSOP title after defeating Bobby Hoff in a five-hour heads-up battle.

The article picks up the action with five players remaining, and describes in a cursory fashion the hands with which Fowler managed to knock out Johnny Moss (in 5th), Sam Moon (in 4th), and George Huber (in 3rd). We then get a four-paragraph overview of the heads-up battle, which includes descriptions of exactly two hands. The first is one in which Fowler bluffs Hoff off of a medium-sized pot and shows deuce-six offsuit. The second is the final hand in which Fowler cracks Hoff’s aces after turning a gutshot straight, thereby claiming the bracelet.

Hill then shares some reactions to Fowler’s victory, including an interesting one from Junior Whited: “That’s going to prove to people that anyone can come in here and win half a million dollars. It’s not all Texas anymore.” Indeed, while the “Fowler Effect” wasn’t nearly as wide-reaching as what we’d see in 2003, there was a tremendous symbolic significance to the amateur having broken through.

The rest of the article relates various other happenings of note from the four-week-long Series. There’s the story of a Social Security administrator named J.J. Whalen who had won an entry into the Main Event after having been one of 300 who’d ordered an advance copy of Doyle Brunson’s How I Won A Million Dollars Playing Poker (later renamed Super/System). For those who had bought advance copies, a drawing was held, and Whalen had won an all-expense paid trip to Las Vegas and an ME entry. His wife, Elsie, is quoted saying she didn’t know her husband had spent $100 on the book. “I don’t think I would have stood for it if I had known,” she said. Whalen was knocked out of the tourney on the first day.

There’s a discussion of the side games, including a reference to Jimmy Chagra (pictured at left) winnning approximately $4 million playing blackjack and craps during the WSOP. Chagra, a large-scale drug trafficker, has a place in poker history as a frequent donator to the big games during the 70s. (EDIT [added 7/28/08]: The morning after this post, Chagra succumbed to his battle with cancer. He was 63.)

Of course, Hill doesn’t mention any of Chagra’s other, nefarious activities in the article. Nor does he say anything about the drug-taking of Bobby Hoff and Hal Fowler during the WSOP Main Event, recounted in detail in Des Wilson’s Ghosts at the Table. (One wonders if there were an early version of Dr. Pauly hanging out at Binion’s that spring taking notes on such matters.)

There’s an interesting, brief reference to Stu Ungar being there and not being able to get anyone to play gin rummy with him. (Ungar, of course, would win the WSOP Main Event the next two years running.) It is curious to see how Ungar’s presence -- and prowess -- was already being openly acknowledged in 1979. As Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson write about in One of a Kind, Ungar had only come out west the year before

There’s also discussion of CBS’s coverage of the event. This was the period in WSOP history when CBS was filming the Main Event for its CBS Sports Spectacular. According to Hill, there had been “several incidents… the year before between newsmen and the CBS crew jockeying for position in the cramped space of the tournament area.” Even though the Main Event had only started with 54 entrants (just six tables), every inch of space there in Binion’s was taken up with the crew and their equipment, “hordes of spectators, relatives of players, well-wishers, and newspersons.” Apparently the year before “one overzealous camera assistant incurred the wrath of virtually all the newsmen and relatives of players sitting inside the ropes by bodily shoving people out of the vicinity of the camera he was tending.” According to Jerry Adler, producer of the 1979 coverage, measures had been taken to avoid such unpleasantness this time around.

That passage certainly made me think of this year’s Series, where we PokerNews folks and others covering the action were often sharing space with the ESPN guys, especially as play wound down to the last few tables of the Main Event. Unlike what happened thirty years before, in 2008 those of us covering the WSOP all seemed to coexist quite amicably. (In fact, toward the end one of the ESPN guys made a point to come over and compliment the PokerNews crew on how smoothly the entire operation had run.)

The article winds up with some references to various celebrities who made appearances at the 1979 WSOP. Gabe Kaplan played his second Main Event. Lily Tomlin stopped by. And Kenny Rogers came around to sing his new hit song, “The Gambler.”

An interesting article. Also interesting to contrast not only how huge the WSOP has become since the late 1970s, but how the nature and scope of its coverage has changed, too. Would be very cool to go back in time and see full-fledged, wall-to-wall reporting of these old WSOP Main Events. Further details of that Fowler-Hoff heads up battle would be fascinating to read through as well.

Then again, having all of those details would probably demythologize the WSOP’s history in detrimental ways. And frankly, even in today’s world of (relatively) comprehensive WSOP coverage, there’s always going to be much, much more that is left untold.