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.

Good Eats and Comfortable Seats

Another fun one yesterday, marked by good eats and comfortable seats. With regard to the latter, I’m referring to the seats you find at both kinds of tables -- the ones where you chow down and the ones where you play cards.

After some breakfast at the hotel and a quick shopping excursion with Vera, she went back for more dressage at the World Cup and I took off to meet Al Schoonmaker and Jim Brier for lunch. We met up over at the Palms where Dr. Al treated Jim and me to the buffet. Had a blast.

Most poker people are probably aware of Dr. Al thanks to his four books concentrating on various psychological issues in poker: The Psychology of Poker, Your Worst Poker Enemy, Your Best Poker Friend, and Poker Winners Are Different. Jim Brier is perhaps less immediately familiar to most, although a few years back he co-authored a well-regarded book with Bob Ciaffone called Middle Limit Hold’em Poker. He also contributed significantly enough to a book by British poker author Byron Jacobs called How Good is Your Limit Hold’em? to be listed on the cover as a collaborator, too. Both especially nice guys. And smart, too.

We discussed a number of different topics during our hour-and-a-half together, including the history of the Wednesday Poker Discussion Group (which dates back to 1999) and its Monday no-limit hold’em-focused offshoot, limit versus no-limit hold’em, risk aversion (and how all three of us had it), the many treasures awaiting bonus and promotion-hunters in Vegas, artificial intelligence and the future prospects for “poker bots,” and the upcoming World Series of Poker.

Dr. Al was nice enough to give me a copy of the one of his four books I didn’t own, and we parted making plans to keep in touch, perhaps at more meetings this summer when in all likelihood I’ll be back in Vegas covering the WSOP.

I thought I would try to squeeze in a short session, though since I played at the Palms several times last summer I wanted to sit down somewhere new. So I hopped in the rental and motored across Flamingo Rd. to the Gold Coast to see if perhaps they had anything at all going on. I’d tried once last summer to play there, but all they had happening then was one full table of old-timers, none of whom seemed ready to budge for another decade or so. Didn’t look much better yesterday, although there were some folks lingering to try to get a second table going, and thanks to some extra effort from the staff we ended up making one happen.

We started three-handed -- fairly absurd, really, although with only a one-dollar rake if the pot reached $10 and just a single blind, it could’ve been a lot worse. And, as it turned out, we only had to play a few hands of that before the table started filling. By the time I left we’d been eight- or nine-handed for a good while. I did pretty well, actually, leaving exactly $45 up for an hour of “work.”

There were a couple of characters in there worth sharing. There was the drinker. Four Captain ’n Cokes during our hour together, and more coming. “I’m not here for a long time, I’m here for a good time,” he said. And random-comment lady. “The coffee isn’t that bad, is it?” she once asked, with no coffee anywhere in sight. And a couple of semi-interesting hands, too. Will talk about ’em next week.

I suppose it might seem silly to some to read about my squeezing in an hour of $2/$4 limit hold’em rather than pursue more potentially lucrative opportunities during my short while here. Fact is, I get so little chance to play live I just don’t feel a special desire to test myself unnecessarily. One nice effect of putting in some hands like this at the lowest limits is that I do feel much, much more confident just dealing with the mechanics of live play than I did even a year ago.

Yeah, I know. Confidence ain’t gonna help but so much at the lowest limits like this. Hell, even skill is only gonna be of marginal benefit at a lot of these tables, where eight-handed flops means you gotta showdown winners or lose, end of story. But I tend to think what I’m doing now is gonna help me down the road, should I venture into higher stakes, tourneys, etc. As we were talking about a lunch a little bit, stepping out of one’s comfort zone ain’t a simple matter.

Came on back to the hotel to decompress a bit before going out for dinner. Later on, Vera and I ventured over to the Hard Rock for a loud dinner at the Pink Taco. The shrimp tacos were quite scrumptious, in fact. And soporific. We wandered around the casino in a daze for a bit afterwards. Looked in on the poker room, where two no-limit tables were filled with players while sixteen more collected dust in the distance. Got back to our hotel and crashed, sleeping soundly despite the planes roaring overhead from nearby McCarran.

Like I say, I’ll have more to write about all of this next week. Today the plan is to visit with David Schwartz over at UNLV and check out the Special Collections at the Center for Gaming Research. Then will be getting together with Pokerati Dan later in the afternoon. Not sure what else is on the agenda as yet. Will probably post something tomorrow, too, so we’ll all find out.