Bodogoholics Anonymous

“If you paid me to sit for a year and think only of ways to make online poker less good, I doubt I could improve upon ‘anonymous tables.’”

So tweeted @JuliusGoat yesterday, responding to Bodog’s sudden move to “anonymous tables” last week and the subsequent brouhaha. As the respected author of the award-avoiding Stupid/System, I trust Mr. Goat’s judgment here.

Because the man definitely knows stupid.

I’ve seen a number of comments over the last few days regarding the switch. The forum posters seem to hate-hate-HATE it. And if what they are saying is to be believed, many who played on the site are talking about withdrawing their funds and never going back. You know, like dedicated drinkers suddenly swearing off the stuff for good.

I also saw that the revelation yesterday over on the HH Smithy blog that the new Bodog tables aren’t in fact as anonymous as they seem. A site that sells hand histories, the hackersmiths over at HH Smithy have managed to show how it is still possible to identify individual players and in fact find out their Bodog account numbers, too.

Here’s the video, if you haven’t seen it:



Thus while Bodog advertises their new tables as completely anonymous, that’s apparently not exactly the case. Of course, even if they were anonymous, fears about cheating and especially collusion should remain high for anyone playing on the site.

Not only are there no usernames or avatars with which to identify opponents, player notes have been disabled, too. There is no way to see mucked cards anymore. And hand histories -- never simple to deal with on the site -- cannot be easily saved, either, which to me would be the biggest reason to steer clear.

When playing online poker -- or making any sort of real money transaction online -- one simply has to be able to have some sort of record of the transaction. There are many reasons why this is so, including being able to consult such records should any dispute arise. For example here, should one have suspicions of collusion, it would be difficult if not impossible to build a case without any concrete evidence from hands played.

In its press release last week announcing the move to “anonymous tables,” Bodog described the change as part of the effort to implement a “Recreational Poker Model” on Bodog -- i.e., a place to play poker for fun where one needn’t worry about opponents gathering data on your play, incorporating that data in Hold’em Manager or PokerTracker, and using HUDs against you.

As the press release says, the new model “offers all players of all abilities the fairest place to play.”

(Remember when Bodog used to be the site where players were invited to “play hard” -- that hypermasculine ad campaign that made playing poker on the site sound just a wee bit like dropping Viagra? What is the slogan now -- “play nice”?)

Obviously if some have the ability to identify players (as the HH Smithy guys can), the whole idea of leveling the playing field this way is no longer valid. But even if this weren’t the case, it seems like making the games anonymous would tend to diminish the skill element even further, making the games more like the “in-Client Blackjack” the site is also proud to list among the innovations introduced into the newly-refurbished tables.

Such is the position of Kid Dynamite who in a blog post recently argued why he believes anonymous poker is in fact a “skill mitigator.”

As KD points out, not allowing players to keep track of opponents’ play means the information one gathers from playing against an opponent in one session is no longer of use the next time you sit down with that player. Responding to the suggestion that Bodog is the “fairest” site on which to play, Kid Dynamite says “‘Fair’ is one way to put it. ‘Taking the skill out of the game’ is another.”

There’s also, of course, the utter erasure of whatever social element existed for online poker that occurs when usernames, avatars, and the ability to search for certain players are removed. This sort of thing is important to many, in particular the “recreational player” who isn’t necessarily playing the game primarily to grind out a profit.

Thinking back to Mr. Goat’s suggestion that if given a year he couldn’t come up with a worse idea for online poker, I can’t help but think he’s being damned provoking. Truth be told, I’m finding myself responding to that pronouncement in much the same way the HH Smithy guys did when Bodog claimed in their press release that “Anonymous tables make... player data impossible to collect.”

I mean, there has to be a worse idea for online poker out there, yes? Put on your thinking caps, people, and let me hear your ideas. We can’t sit back and let a goat get our... you know, get us upset and all.

All comments welcome. Even anonymous ones.

2011 WSOP, Day 30: Coincidences

Well, I did end up back at the Rio on my day off yesterday. Even stopped by both the Amazon and Pavilion rooms, though not for long.

I spent much of the morning and early afternoon writing in my room. Then later in the day came a nice visit with Jen Newell who is in town for a few days and who just so happens to be staying in the same home-away-from-home as I am. The two of us made our way to the Rio, took seats at the so-called “hooker bar,” and were soon joined by Lori a.k.a. PokerVixen, Marie Lizette, and AlCantHang.

Among the topics of conversation was the sudden shutdown of Full Tilt Poker yesterday, an event that unfortunately affects Al in particular given his association with the Full Tilt Poker blog (which may or may not be down). I would say Al arriving to join us on the day FTP went down was another coincidence, but then again, the bar seemed like an appropriate destination for him.

A little over ten weeks have passed since Black Friday, the day the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed that indictment and civil complaint versus the “Big Three” online sites and associated individuals. PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, the two largest sites in the world, immediately stopped allowing Americans to play. Meanwhile, the Cereus sites (Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker) allowed U.S. players to continue playing for several weeks -- despite there being no prospect for their withdrawing funds -- before finally shutting their doors to American players.

Next came the business of cashing out. PokerStars handled that quickly and efficiently, initiating the process less than two weeks after April 15 and sending wire transfers or checks to all players who’d requested cashouts by early-to-mid May. But UB/AP remained mum on the matter, still offering no means for U.S. players to cash out. Full Tilt Poker didn’t exactly remain mum, but didn’t say much, either, leaving its U.S. customers in the dark regarding the prospect of seeing their money.

While many wrote off UB/AP long ago as a mostly rogue outfit plagued by cheaters, schemers, and aided along the way by a few naïve apologists, Full Tilt Poker has always enjoyed a good reputation in the online poker community. While some (including myself) for various reasons preferred to play on PokerStars -- not the least of which being a difference in support, with Stars always being vastly more responsive -- FTP nonetheless was always one of the two most recommended sites for American players.

In the minds of many, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker were basically Pepsi and Coke. For a lot of us, we ordered one or the other first, and that became the one we generally ordered thereafter. But either would do.

That way of thinking about the two sites changed drastically after Black Friday, of course. When that much anticipated May 15 “announcement” provided no further indication of how FTP was going to pay back players, many began to lose hope. The Phil Ivey announcement and lawsuit that came a couple of weeks later further indicated trouble ahead for those of us with funds on the site. About three weeks ago, F-Train provided a catalogue of failures by Full Tilt both before and after April 15.

It was getting more and more obvious. Full Tilt Poker was no PokerStars. Not by a long shot.

And now the Alderney Gambling Control Commission, a group that regulates eGambling from the teeny, tiny island of Alderney (just three miles long and 1.5 miles wide) located amid the Channel Islands between England and France, has told Pocket Kings, Ltd. to stop providing software and other support to Full Tilt Poker. The demand follows an investigation by the AGCC of Full Tilt launched in the wake of Black Friday

In other words, the game is over. When you click on that Full Tilt Poker icon on your desktop today, the client won’t even load. Only if you wrote down somewhere how much you had on FTP do you know what that amount is. And, it seems, what you’ve lost.

From the Wall Street Journal report, it doesn’t necessarily sound like the failure to provide a means for U.S. players to cash out directly prompted the AGCC’s action. Rather it was the allegations in the DOJ’s indictment -- including accusations of bank fraud and money laundering -- that forced the AGCC’s hand. “The nature of the findings [in the indictment] necessitated the taking of immediate action in the public interest,” said the AGCC.

However, the non-payment of U.S. players may have accelerated the process somewhat, as the Alderney folks had already expressed concern to Full Tilt execs over the delay. From the outside, it looks almost analogous to Ivey’s decision to break ties with FTP, although Ivey’s relationship to the site is obviously much different from that of the AGCC.

The failure to allow Americans to cash out caused both Ivey and the AGCC to withdraw their support for the site. In Ivey’s case, his support came from his image and its power to attract players. But the AGCC’s support was such that its removal could shut down Full Tilt Poker completely, and that is precisely what has happened. If this were a poker tournament, Ivey’s move crippled the site, and the AGCC took the remaining chips. But really, Full Tilt played the endgame so badly, it was probably destined to go out sooner or later anyway.

When I return to the Rio today to help cover Event No. 51 ($1,500 PLO/8), I will be curious to see whether those FTP pros who have been wearing their patches thus far will still continue to do so. Also will be interesting just to hear the chatter at the tables and elsewhere regarding the shutdown.

To get back to yesterday, I eventually met up with PokerGrump and the one and only Julius Goat for dinner. As a long time fan of Goat’s often hilarious blog (and tweets), I was pleased when I found out his short trip to the WSOP was coinciding with the time I would be here. Like many, JuliusGoat used some of the funds he’d cashed out from PokerStars to take a shot in a WSOP preliminary event, which he did on Tuesday.

He made it through much of Day 1 before being eliminated, and he shared details of that experience with us over dinner amid talk of each other’s blogs and the uniqueness of “meeting” people after having read thousands of words written by them first. Among the many things we three have in common, we all started our blogs at roughly the same time (five-ish years ago) by creating these “characters” (a grump, a shamus, and a wise-cracking goat) through which we initially spoke. Then, gradually, all three of us opened things up in ways that made those characters more like our true selves.

We also talked some about PokerGrump’s getting the golden ticket in that Dan Cates promotion whereby he is actually going to get to play in the WSOP Main Event! (Read all about that here.) I do hope the Grump was paying attention last night to the wise words of the author of Stupid/System, a book that will surely give him an edge over many in the ME. We were joined as well by cmitch, then still alive in Event No. 48 (he would eventually go out in 125th), and it was nice to meet him as well. The coincidences continued to pile up as somewhere along the way we discovered cmitch and I have the same birthday.

The three of us then went to McFadden’s for the pub trivia (a return to the game about which I wrote last week), and were able to continue our conversations there while being challenged to remember the actor’s names, the decades in which historical events occurred, things Britney Spears said, and other items. After that, Julius Goat and I walked back across the Rio to the poker to check in on the tournament he had played as well as the rest of the scene there late last night, including a couple of final tables playing out for Events No. 46 (the $10,000 NLHE 6-max.) and No. 47 (the $2,500 Omaha/8-Stud/8).

Was great fun meeting the man behind the cigar, glasses, and painted on mustache. Of all the coincidences of yesterday, I was most glad of the one that put us both here in Vegas at the same time so we could meet.

Poker Blogs, ca. 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The More Cowbell System

I’ve mentioned here a couple of times how I’m participating in an NFL pool this year, Pauly’s Pub. The league name comes from its commissioner, the Rt. Hon. Dr. Pauly. It’s a straight-up “pick ’em” pool -- meaning everyone picks winners for all the games (i.e., not against the spread).

I started the year slowly with my entry -- “More Cowbell” -- then had a nice stretch of four weeks or so during which I got back into contention. However, with three weeks to go I am now a longshot to make the money (i.e., the top four spots out of 40). I’m currently tied for eighth, but am five games behind the two teams tied for third. Would be remarkable somehow for me to gain that much ground over the last 48 games, I think.

Overall this year I’ve picked 143 of 208 games correctly. That’s just 68.75% overall, although better than almost 96% of the tens of thousands participating in ESPN’s Pigskin Pick’em game. My worst week was Week 7, when I only picked a miserable 7 of 14 correctly. My best came the following Week 8, when I chose the right team in 11 of 13 games.

Kind of interesting to see that of all of entries on ESPN, the absolute best anyone has done is 158. That’s basically just getting one more correct per week than I have. The top entry in Pauly’s Pub, “Fear the Ginger,” a.k.a. Lance Bradley (Bluff Magazine Editor-in-Chief), has hit an impressive 155. He appears to have locked the sucker up, as our buddy Julius Goat (“Some Jive-Ass Slippers”) is in a distant second with 149.

We’re all searching for a system, I suppose. Except for those who have already discovered theirs. For example, if I understood a series of tweets Mr. Goat sent out last week correctly, he makes his picks following a complicated rubric based on the relative fear induced by team names.

Topping the list as the least threatening names (according to JG) are the Browns (“‘The Browns In the Superbowl’ sounds like a euphemism. Not a good sign”), the Cardinals (“only intimidating if you are a seed”), and the Chargers (“once was much stronger, but in the age of cell phones and laptops it has downgraded to wussy accessory”). Search his Twitter timeline for more. (And for even more grins, start following.)

I’m not much for gambling on sports, really. Not too long ago I wrote a post here called “Confessions of a Non-Gambler” in which I explained how poker actually tended to diminish rather than encourage whatever small urge I might have had to wander over to the sports book and place a bet. The utter lack of control -- which I know some enjoy immensely -- is what tends to make sports betting less fun for me.

That said, I’m digging having a rooting interest in every single game this year. I’m an NFL fan anyway, and can thus be engaged no matter who is playing or what the situation. But this year I’m finding myself living or dying with every friggin’ game. Whether I miraculously make the cash or not, the increased fun I’ve had following games was most certainly worth more than the modest entry fee.

Thus, relatively inconsequential games like that Detroit-Cleveland epic from Week 11 in which the Browns (whom I picked) lost on the last play 38-37 now stand out in my mind as the most memorable of the year. So do other, more significant games like that New England-Indianapolis debacle from Week 10 in which Belichick crazily went for that fourth down late. (Had the Pats there, I did.)

But I’ve won my share of games on last-second plays, too. Much like the percentages in poker, such things tend to even out, I guess.

Not surprisingly, I’ve done best when trying to predict games involving the league’s worst teams. Have only missed picking games involving the St. Louis Rams (1-12) and Detroit Lions (2-11) a single time all year. (And, as mentioned, could’ve been perfect with Detroit thus far if not for that game in which they beat the Euphemisms.) Also doing well with the two remaining undefeated teams, the Indianapolis Colts (13-0) and New Orleans Saints (13-0), having only picked against them twice each. Of course, I assume most everyone has done well with those teams.

Meanwhile, I’ve guessed incorrectly seven times when picking games involving the surprising Cincinnati Bengals (9-4), the uneven Jacksonville Jaguars (7-6), and the disappointing Pittsburgh Steelers (6-7). I also have missed seven games involving the hard-to-figure San Francisco 49ers (6-7), although one of those was a Thursday game I forgot to pick. (Did get the Niners right last night, though. Woot!)

So, fellow NFL prognosticators... how have you done? Let me know. Meanwhile, I have some injury reports to study.