Robyn Hitchcock at the Grey Eagle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Staying Put for the Super Bowl

I remember some twenty-plus years ago living in Chapel Hill and going to graduate school. After getting an undergraduate degree there I continued on for the M.A., then would make a change for the doctorate afterwards (going to Indiana). Several years later I would return to my home state of North Carolina to live and teach.

In other words I’d been a lifelong Tarheel fan by the time the ’93-’94 season came around. The team’s run to a championship that year remains vivid in my memory, something I wrote a little about over on Ocelot Sports a couple of years ago and also chatted with Dr. Pauly about on a podcast we did for the 20th anniversary of the final game between UNC and Michigan.

One part of that memory that stands out was the way my friends not only found it necessary to watch all of the tournament games at the same place (one friend’s apartment), but for all of us to sit in the same seats as well as the Heels kept winning each game.

I recall more and more people joining us as they proceeded through the tournament, with about 20 crammed in the small living room for the final. But the core group all kept our same seats so as not to disturb the spell of Carolina’s streak. As my buddy the host explained, “You can’t prove it doesn’t have an effect.”

At the time I vaguely thought about the logic class I’d taken as an undergrad and phrases like “proving a negative” and “proof of impossibility” and “correlation does not imply causation.” I played cards occasionally then, but this was before I’d get heavily into poker and the study of the game, and so I don’t think I knew about the “gambler’s fallacy” then, or I’d have probably thought of that, too.

My buddy Bob (a.k.a. the “Poker Grump”) who regularly writes strategy articles for PokerNews has written smartly about the latter. In “What is the ‘Gambler’s Fallacy’ and How Does It Apply to Poker?” he explains how it works, starting with the example of a roulette player allowing the phenomenon of a ball landing on red nine straight times influence him to think that has something to do with what will happen on spin number ten.

Superstitions among sports fans aren’t quite the same thing, although they share a common lack of rationality. A poll conducted by Associated Press-Ipsos several years ago found that a little more than 20% of sports fans “say they do things in an attempt to bring good luck to their favorite team or avoid jinxing them.”

The Super Bowl is Sunday, and Vera and I have already been invited to a couple of viewing parties. As readers of the blog surely have picked up on by now, I have a rooting interest in the game, one that matches where I was with the Heels back in the spring of 1994. In this case my fandom has also been building for decades and through a long, exciting season’s worth of games, most of which have gone my team’s way.

I’ve watched all of those games this year from the couch here -- from the same side, actually, where I’m sitting and typing this post.

I’m thinking it might be nice just to stay at home on the farm on Sunday.

Go Feed on These Good Reads

Today I wanted to sign off for the week by pointing you to a few interesting articles that recently turned up in the strategy section over at PokerNews. All three are genuinely interesting and present evidence of some impressive brain work by the authors, I think.

The first is from Monday, another one by our friend Robert Woolley, a.k.a. the “Poker Grump.” It is titled “‘Gut Feelings’ in Poker -- What Do They Mean?” and explains how there is actually a meaningful link between that tightness you sometimes get in your stomach at the poker tables and what’s happening in your head as you try to make a decision. It’s kind of a fascinating observation Robert is sharing.

A second article I very much liked came from Gareth Chantler, one called “Obsessed With Your ‘All-in EV’? It’s a Negative Freeroll.” Gareth talks about that stat available in tracking programs showing your “all-in expected value” that allows players to see whether they’ve been “running good” or “running bad” in all-in situations. It’s is an irresistible stat for many, but as Gareth points out it’s hardly helpful and in fact can be potentially harmful.

Finally, today Nikolai Yakovenko shared the first of what will be a three-part discussion of artificial intelligence systems and “bots” in poker titled “Artificial Intelligence and Hold’em, Part 1: Counter-Factual Regret Minimization.” He brings us up-to-date on how far researchers have gotten with their efforts to “solve” limit hold’em and start working on the much more difficult case of NLHE. It’s lengthy, but very readable and gives a great overview of where things stand at present. (Looking forward to the rest next week.)

If your stomach for interesting poker content is rumbling and you’re hungry for some food for thought, go feast on those links.

The Angle Shooters of the NFL

Am I ready for some football? Yessir.

Will be right there with everyone else tonight to see the New England Patriots host the Pittsburgh Steelers. I have picked the Pats tonight, the first of 256 picks I’ll be making in the Pigskin Pick’em pool.

Why the Pats? Two reasons. One, I saw the Steelers look only so-so in their last preseason game versus the Panthers. And secondly, I always pick the Pats.

Was today reading ESPN’s big investigative feature from a earlier this week, “Spygate to Deflategate: Inside what split the NFL and Patriots apart,” which does a fairly substantial number on New England’s frequent skirting the edges of what’s allowed when it comes to competitive fairness over the last decade-plus.

I’ve mentioned my current American Studies course, “Tricky Dick: Richard Nixon, Poker, and Politics.” Just this week we were starting to get into Nixon’s image and reputation, and how everything is necessarily colored by the lens of Watergate and the resignation. All of the many episodes from Nixon’s life and presidency -- including his poker playing -- is practically impossible to think about without thinking about his terrible judgment, abuse of power, and the disgrace caused by his spectacular fall from power.

In making that point, we of course had to observe how the “-gate” suffix is now readily employed to create abbreviated terms standing for any scandal. It’s a way of communicating something complicated and difficult to explain in a single, made-up word -- handy, but usually obfustactory and often full of prejudice, making it seem as though guilt or innocence is as easily applied to the figures involved.

That ESPN’s headline contains not one but two examples of such usage is impressive. I’m referring not to the headline writer (who didn’t coin either term) but that the Patriots have managed to be at the center of two such scandals. Heck, there’s a lot else in the story that recalls Watergate, in particular the systemic nature of the Pats’ shenanigans which reminds me a little of the various “operations” in effect (with varying degrees of commitment and/or effectiveness) during the Nixon administration.

But my takeaway is hardly to say the Patriots are cheaters, even with all of the unsavory evidence compiled to suggest as much. I was writing earlier in the week about poker terminology turning up in non-poker contexts. Here’s a place where I think a poker analogy would be especially appropriate to employ -- that is, to refer to New England as “angle shooters” rather than cheaters.

Like Nixon, they’ve employed “dirty tricks” that some would readily describe as unethical, others unsportsmanlike, and still others outright illegal and thus deserving of punishment. But to me all of it falls under the heading of the angle shot, which in poker sometimes can be regarded as unethical, sometimes unsportsmanlike, and sometimes against the rules (if the floor is called over and decides in that direction).

I like our friend Robert Woolley’s pair of articles over in the PokerNews strategy section outlining various examples of sort of angle shooting, “Seven Dirty Poker Tricks (and How to Fight Back)” and “Still More Angle Shooters, and How to Defeat Them.”

The actions described in those articles are the analogues to what the Patriots have done over the years. And what others could have tried to do, too, if they wished to play the game that way.

Field Report; or, I Shinola You Not

Here on the farm we have a decent amount of land, including what are essentially three separate pastures in which our horses can roam and graze.

Two of the three already have adequate fencing, but the one in back -- the “back forty,” we jokingly call it -- needs some work on a couple of the sides. We’re going to do that over the next couple of weeks, getting some help putting wooden posts in to make that happen.

Meanwhile, we’ve been sectioning off part of the “back forty” with some temporary fencing and letting Sammy and Maggie hang out in part of that pasture. That’s me above wielding a couple of the plastic posts used to put up the temporary fence.

I tweeted that picture a few weeks ago, adding “I AM THE LORD OF TEMPORARY FENCING,” then following to say “WITH MY STEP-IN POSTS AND BRAIDED POLY-ROPE I SHAPE WORLDS.”

One response shared a warning about putting an eye out should I fail to temper my excitement adquately, to which I responded “GOOD POINT. PUN INTENDED.”

Speaking of puns, I was back out in the “back forty” today collecting some of the many prizes Sammy and Maggie had been leaving up there over the last week or so. If they were in a larger space it wouldn’t be so big of a deal, but in that makeshift paddock it’s good to clear things out now and then so as to ensure they don’t cover the whole sucker over with their land mines.

After filling a couple of carts’ worth, I found it hard not to think my task of collecting in poker terms. “Spending afternoon gathering lots of small piles into one big one,” I tweeted. “It’s basically a poker tournament.”

“I’m seeing lots of flops,” I continued. “Mostly having to muck. Actually glad to have a big rake.”

A little later I reported I “just scooped several more in this horse event. I have heaps! Gonna keep watching my step, though.”

Eventually the task was done, as was my punning. Afterwards the PokerGrump chimed in to remind me of a relevant piece of wisdom from one of our favorite poker writers:

“Remember Tommy Angelo’s advice,” he wrote. “Don’t play POOP (passively out of position).”

Good point. (And pun intended.)

Exploring Obsessions in Alan Zweig’s Vinyl

Took a break yesterday afternoon to watch this 2000 documentary about record collectors I’d been hearing about lately called Vinyl.

Made by Toronto filmmaker Alan Zweig, the movie delves deeply into the obsessive and/or compulsive tendencies of the several collectors interviewed by Zweig in an effort to reveal something about their motives and behaviors. Intertwined throughout are numerous short monologues delivered by Zweig into a mirror in which he tries to address similar questions about himself, ultimately performing a kind of lengthy self-diagnosis regarding his own record collecting and its possible connection to an inability to form meaningful social connections or find a romantic partner.

After hearing about it, I dialed up the film primarily because of my interest in music and records. I grew up on LPs and still have the three or four hundred or so I mostly accumulated as a teen and young adult, all stacked neatly in plastic sleeves and sitting in alphabetical order on some shelves in a medium-sized closet also dedicated to housing cassettes, CDs, videocassettes, and some DVDs.

Have a record player, too, right on my desk next to the computer, although in truth I probably only pop a disc on there once or twice a month at most.

The set up was originally designed to accommodate my making digital copies of what I had on vinyl, although like I say I’ve only been pulling out records to play on an infrequent basis, and even though I have everything hooked up to do so I haven’t even bothered much with capturing the LPs and converting them to .mp3s.

Music is so easy to come by these days, also making it hard for me to be moved to go back and bother with the LPs. And while I do have a kind of nostalgic fondness for the 12-by-12 cardboard sleeves, cover art, and groovy grooves, I don’t come close to sharing the extreme fetishism toward the objects themselves of those featured in Vinyl. For me the tunes are really all that matter. I could easily imagine jettisoning the whole lot without much anxiety at all, as long as I had copies to which to listen if I so desired.

That said, I will admit to sharing some of the same obsessive tendencies on display in the film. I would imagine most others probably do as well, which might even work as a way to recommend Vinyl to those who aren’t particularly interested in records or the stories of a bunch of lonely dudes who collect them.

In fact, if I were to sit down and think about it earnestly, I’d probably have to conclude that one of the attractions of poker (for me) is the fact that the game probably satisfies some of those same tendencies, most of which amount to a desire for order. Or ordering.

I suppose I’m partly talking about the constant counting and keeping track that can go on during a session (we’re constantly stacking and restacking our chips) and for some of us continues afterwards (with record-keeping). And the highly ritualistic component to game play certainly provides all sorts of opportunities for one’s obsessions to manifest themselves as certain behaviors, too.

My buddy the Poker Grump recently passed along the news that he’s soon moving from Las Vegas and thus will likely slow down or stop posting on his excellent, inspiring blog. While I’m sorry not to have the posts to read, I’m also quite glad about the fact that his move will land him closer to Cardgrrl and to me, too (just a couple of hours up the road, actually).

When I think about Poker Grump’s blog, I realize that some of my favorite posts from him over the years have been about poker chips, including (but not limited to) posts about stacking them, counting them, collecting them, manufacturing them, and now selling them.

Those posts perhaps partly help illustrate what I’m getting at here regarding poker being a game that provides lots of opportunities for humans to turn their minds upon material stuff, exploring it in numerous ways including how we can arrange and manipulate our stuff into arrangements that please us.

(Incidentally, with regarding to collecting, my sense is that Poker Grump’s relationship to chips is also a far cry from the obvious extremism on display in Vinyl. He’s mentioned many times his casual approach to collecting, including a self-imposed regulation not to go too far out of his way -- generally speaking -- when it comes to obtaining new, different chips.)

Like I say, I liked those posts by the Grump, probably because I found myself identifying a lot with his desire for order. And with his wanting to chronicle that desire, too. Hell, we might step back and look at these lengthy, dedicated poker blogs the two of us have been creating all of these years and talk about another example of obsessive behavior the two of us obviously share.

Getting back to Vinyl, even though those featured in the documentary might strike most of us as being more than a little off-the-deep-end with their collecting -- e.g., one guy sincerely lists as a goal to collect every record ever made (no shinola) -- I think it’s still possible to recognize a lot of their impulses and behaviors in ourselves.

The film that Vinyl reminded me of most frequently was Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 doc Crumb that intensely delved into the life and personality of the cartoonist Robert Crumb (who also happens to be a pretty serious collector of records). Both adopt a similarly invasive approach to their subjects, at times almost uncomfortably so. Both feature some bleak moments, too, although on the whole Vinyl is much less grim than Crumb.

There’s another connection of sorts, too, in that Harvey Pekar pops up (with zero fanfare) as an interview subject in Vinyl. Pekar, of course, authored the autobiographical comic book series American Splendor illustrated by Crumb.

Anyhow, like I say, I recommend the movie to those for whom any of this sounds interesting. (It is available in its entirety over on YouTube.) I see there are also a couple of sequels and some sort of “alternate take” version of Vinyl out there which I might seek out at some point. But I’m in no hurry to do so.

I mean, I enjoyed the movie, sure. But it’s not like I’m obsessed about it.

Palmetto Poker: The South Carolina Ruling (Recommended Reads)

Once upon a time I used to post fairly regularly here about various federal bills and state-level cases and/or debates about poker’s legality, especially the online variety.

In fact, whenever I’m asked about how I started the blog and the early days (in the spring of 2006), I usually mention how it began as a simple outlet to discuss my own low-limit adventures online, then when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was signed into law a few months later (in October), I found myself writing about all sorts of other things happening in the poker world.

In some ways, that development probably helped ensure the blog would become less inward-looking and more interesting than if I had simply stuck with talking about hands and uncertainly mimicking other, more able writers of strategy and theory. The whole UIGEA mess and other, subsequent legal machinations would continue for years thereafter, and I was sufficiently energized by the whole situation to keep writing about every new bill or development.

But as I’ve mentioned here before more than once, I never felt all that equipped to analyze what was happening. I’m a decent reader, I think, even of sometimes opaque legal documents. And so I thought it was somewhat useful at least to summarize what I thought was happening, if only to help with my own understanding. But even there I was never wholly confident.

Thus one day when I was asked by a site to be the “legal correspondent” who’d report on such things, I had to decline. I knew I could fake it to some extent, but I also knew I wasn’t really the best person to do such reporting. And on top of that, by then (a couple of years ago) I’d gotten a little fatigued by the whole situation, which seemed to involve a lot of variation on a tired theme -- namely, nothing was getting passed, arguments were never conclusive, and those debating legislation or ruling on cases themselves often seemed only partially to understand the first thing about what they were discussing.

Not to mention it was the same friggin’ story over and over and over again. It was like reporting on the same exact hands repeatedly, only with different players. Except there was never any final all-in or resolution to come.

So I mostly stopped writing about that stuff. Sometimes I’m tempted, though, such as last week when the South Carolina Supreme Court came down with an interesting, conflicted ruling regarding the legality of home games. But now I’m more apt just to read others’ summaries and analyses than to attempt my own, and I’ve just read some good ones I thought I’d recommend.

One comes from our lawyer friend Grange95 on his crAAKKer blog, who provides an excellent explanation of the unusual split ruling delivered by the five judges. In fact, the first part of the title of his post -- “Same Song, Different Verse” -- kind of evokes that idea I’m referring to that we’ve heard all of this before many times over. Although as his explanation shows, there were a couple of new twists involved here.

In this case, two of the judges ruled that a regular SC poker game with a low buy-in (just $20) but which saw the host take a rake to cover expenses and which advertised online in order to attract players was indeed illegal gambling according to a century-old statute. Meanwhile, two other judges dissented, while the fifth agreed with points made by both sides before ultimately concurring with the “plurality opinion” (i.e., the judges who found the games illegal).

After providing a nice, clear explanation of the ruling, Grange95 adds some analysis that also looks ahead to how this particular ruling may affect future developments. The fact that the whole “skill-vs.-luck” issue was mostly set aside in this case as irrelevant (by both sides) is intriguing, as is the way the ruling kind of throws things back to the SC legislature to try to craft a better, more up-to-date law regarding illegal gambling. I also find interesting the way all of the judges seem to have voiced a kind of “common sense” or pragmatic view of how the kind of game being spread in their case (with a rake, and soliciting players online) differed from “casual games” played between friends in a private residence (with no rake, and not advertising to attract players).

Grange95 thinks new legislation is a likely next move in South Carolina, and isn’t too optimistic about what may result from a modernized illegal gambling law (i.e., “Things Could Get Worse For Poker Players”). He also has some interesting things to say about the Poker Players Alliance and its relative impotence both in this case and generally speaking. So check out Grange95’s post for a full rundown of what happened in SC last week and what it may possibly mean going forward.

Rakewell, a.k.a. the Poker Grump, added some thoughts regarding the case as well that serve as a good follow-up after reading Grange95’s post. He sides with the dissenting view in the case, and offers some thoughtful criticisms of the majority’s argument and of the strange I-agree-with-the-dissenters-but-concur-with-the-plurality position of the judge who cast the swing vote.

Grange95 also recommends a PokerFuse article reporting on the case written by Haley Hintze which provides a good, short digest of the case and its implications.

There are other articles in the usual places regarding the SC case, but most just echo each other and none seem to offer anything close to the thoughtful summary/analysis provided in the above-mentioned posts. So if you’ve been hearing about this SC business and were looking to learn more, check out those posts.

A funny side note... when searching around for other reports and/or analyses on last week’s SC ruling, I quickly came upon an article from early 2009 on the same case reporting on the ruling that subsequently was appealed to the SC Supreme Court. It sounds like the defense then made a lot of the whole “skill-vs.-luck” issue and that the judge there even went so far as to acknowledge hold’em to be a game of skill while nonetheless issuing his guilty verdict.

Seems like a competent enough article, I guess. I wonder, though, if the author really knew what he was talking about.

Icing the Kicker and Running It Twice

Forgive me another football-related post today. I realize there are other things going on in the world that certainly rate as slightly more significant, all things considered -- including within our little poker world where the WSOP Europe Main Event is today playing down to an eight-handed final table (with none other than Phil Hellmuth enjoying the chip lead with nine players left as I hit publish). But yesterday I was listening to some commentary about last weekend’s NFL games and heard something sorta interesting (and poker-related) I thought I’d share today.

I’m locked in on these NFL games once more thanks to being in this “pick’em” pool in which we’re trying to predict winners of all games. Trying to defend my title, in fact, after lucking out last year to finish first in the sucker.

Had a decent Week 4 in which I managed to be correct with my picks for 12 of the 15 games. Much better than the previous week when I only got 6 of 16. (I blame the replacement refs, of course.)

One of the games I missed this past weekend was the New York Giants-Philadelphia Eagles game from Sunday night. I had the Giants, but the Eagles prevailed 19-17. Like many NFL games, this one came down to the wire with New York missing a potential game-winning field goal at the end.

With 10 seconds left, the Giants’ kicker Lawrence Tynes -- who had hit all 10 of his FG attempts this year, in fact -- lined up for a 54-yard field goal try. Employing a much-used strategy that many NFL watchers have complained about over the last few years, Philadelphia called a timeout a split-second before the ball was snapped. The play continued, with Tynes missing the attempt wide left. But since the timeout negated the play, the Giants were able to try the kick again.

The second time Tynes kicked the ball straight down the middle but just a yard or two shy of the crossbar and it fell short, ensuring the victory for Philadelphia.

What I wanted to write about concerned that strategy to call a timeout in order to disrupt a team attempting an important field goal at the end of a game -- the so-called “icing the kicker” strategy that often results in a kicker ultimately attempting the field goal two times with only the second attempt actually counting.

The number-crunchers have looked deeply into the strategy, ultimately coming up with statistics showing that calling a timeout might have some small effect on kickers, although not a big one statistically. Over on ESPN’s “stats blog” they reported this week that since 2001 kickers are hitting 81% of those late-game field goals when no timeout is called and 76% when the timeout is called. Sounds like the difference is a little wider when it comes to overtime field goals.

Anyhow, I was listening to sports radio yesterday, ESPN’s “Mike and Mike in the Morning” program that serves as suitable background noise when doing other tasks. To be honest, a lot of the commentary and so-called “analysis” by the show’s hosts, Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, can be superficial and rarely enlightening. Like a lot of sports radio, they talk about sports like fans, not really bringing much insight beyond what any of us could pick up by watching the games ourselves. But they’re entertaining and likable, and occasionally hit upon some decent topics of discussion. Besides, it’s fun sometimes to hear fans jawing about a game we’ve also watched. (Here’s a post from last spring in which I complain a little about the lack of depth one encounters in most sports commentary.)

Yesterday I was listening to Monday’s podcast of the “Mike and Mike” show, a kind of digest version of the lengthy show they do each morning, and as they talked about Sunday night’s Giants-Eagles game the topic of icing the kicker predictably arose.

Golic mentioned how Michael Vick, the Philadelphia quarterback, said after the game that he hated the strategy of calling a timeout to try to psyche out the kicker -- this despite the fact that his own coach, Andy Reid, had employed it. “I don’t believe in icing the kicker,” Vick was quoted saying in USA Today. “You let him kick it, and if it’s in, it’s in.”

Neither of the Mikes are fans of icing the kicker, either, and they went on to talk about how calling that timeout at the last moment does give a kicker a kind of “warm-up” attempt which might in fact be useful when it comes to long field goals such as the one Tynes faced on Sunday.

Greenberg went so far as to say “the one thing I would never do is what Andy Reid did last night... [and] give a guy a second chance to try a long kick.” In other words, since longer kicks are (for most kickers) more difficult, he would rather avoid giving a kicker a first attempt that didn’t count as it might improve his chances of making the second one. “It’s like letting a guy with a 12-foot putt with a big break in it try it twice,” said Greenberg.

That was the comment that made me think about poker and the somewhat popular strategy of “running it twice” in cash games -- you know, those spots where players are all in and agree to have the remaining community cards dealt two times with each result determining where half of the pot goes. Our friend the Poker Grump wrote about the topic and facing the decision himself not too long ago. Here’s an example of players running it twice from an old episode of High Stakes Poker:

In the hand, Todd Brunson and Sam Farha get all of Farha’s stack in the middle on a flop with Farha leading with bottom two pair versus Brunson’s top pair of queens. Farha is a 70% favorite to win the hand, but they agree to run it twice. As it happens, Brunson wins the first time by making trips, but Farha’s hand holds up the second time and the pair split the pot 50-50.

Going back to icing the kicker, Greenberg was suggesting that by calling a timeout Andy Reid improved Lawrence Tynes’s chances of hitting the second field goal because the kicker benefitted from getting a practice attempt. Tynes and the Giants were taking a “long shot” -- literally -- and Greenberg didn’t like the idea of doing anything to make it easier on New York in such a situation.

Similarly does Farha let the underdog Brunson have a better chance of making his hand by running it twice. As Greenberg made his point I found myself thinking about whether or not it might be more or less prudent to run it twice in poker according to how big of a favorite or underdog one was. After all, as Greenberg was suggesting, it did seem that to let a kicker try a long field goal more than once was perhaps a less recommended strategy than might be the case for shorter kicks.

However, there’s a key difference that causes the analogy to break down. Only the second try actually meant anything for Tynes and the Giants, whereas both results counted for Farha and Brunson.

Still, there remains a kind of parallel between the two situations. In fact, when Vick argues to “let him kick it, and if it’s in, it’s in,” it sounds a lot like what Phil Laak is saying -- as PokerGrump quotes in his post -- regarding his decision to stop running it twice and to “embrace the variance.”

Like Vick and the two Mikes, I’m not a big fan of icing the kicker, either, and if I were to guess I’d bet they’ll probably institute a rule in the near future designed to prevent the practice. But my objection doesn’t really concern the effectiveness of the strategy (or lack thereof).

Rather, as I was alluding to last week, there are already too many examples of “do-overs and didn't-counts” in the NFL thanks to all of the replay challenges after every score, turnover, and other instances when coaches are able to throw the red flag and dispute calls. I’d like to be able to watch plays happen and know they were meaningful and counted, and not always be wondering if what I just saw was going to be rethought and revised. Then again, I’m a spectator, not a participant. I understand those actually playing the game aren’t going to be as ready to “embrace the variance” of human error in officiating.

But as far as icing the kicker goes, I think we might safely get rid of that particular variety of “running it twice” in football.

2012 WSOP, Day 45: H.O.R.S.E. Play

Was another day off yesterday for your humble scribbler, the last I’ll have this summer.

I did follow what was happening at the WSOP yesterday during that Day “2a/2b” from which Gaelle Baumann of France emerged as the chip leader. Baumann did well in the Ladies event this summer, leading after Day 2 before ultimately finishing 14th. Seeing her as a front-runner in that event made me less surprised to see her at the top of the counts yesterday, but there’s a long way to go.

By the early evening, though, my attention had mostly turned to the $120 H.O.R.S.E. tourney over at the MGM. I’d thought about trying this one when I first arrived in Vegas three-plus weeks ago, but ended up skipping out on it. But this time I’d talked to my buds Mickey and Kevmath who both wanted to play, and PokerGrump said he’d probably come over to join in as well. We had also heard Norman Chad and Lon McEachern would be playing, too, all of which meant I couldn’t pass up the chance this time around.

Mickey, Kevmath, and I arrived early, spotting Chad and McEachern already there and chatting with a small circle of people near the front of the poker room. I’ve spoken with each before, although had never really introduced myself to either, and so took the opportunity to do so.

I spoke to McEachern first, and we talked about how the WSOP has gone thus far, including discussing the turnout for the Main Event and how each year the WSOP seems to find a way more or less to keep pace with the previous year. We also talked about Chad’s final table in Event No. 42, the $2,500 Omaha/8-Stud/8 tourney where he finished sixth. McEachern clearly got a kick out of following that one online as he’d yet to come to Vegas.

I then approached Chad. “You look familiar,” he said with a sidelong squint, and I explained to him how I’d been one of those hovering around the tables during Event No. 42 helping report on it all for PokerNews.

I told him how fun it was covering that event, and he agreed that playing with folks like Tom Schneider, Bryan Devonshire, and others helped make it so, kind of reiterating an idea he brought up in a Washington Post column a few weeks back titled “World Series of Poker: It’s time for civil behavior from the pokerati.” (My buddy Rich Ryan elaborated further on Chad’s argument in a PokerNews op-ed, “Norman Chad Whamboozled the Anti-Socialness of Poker.”)

Soon I was being recruited to take a picture of Chad, McEachern, and the group with whom they’d been talking, and Chad mentioned something about how I was playing the role of media again as I took the camera and snapped some shots. It wasn’t much longer after that we were all seated and the tourney began.

I drew a seat just to the left of PokerGrump and across the table from Kevmath. We began short-handed, then the seats filled to eight-handed, and we ultimately played nine-handed for much of the night.

I started fairly well, picking up pots in the hold’em and O/8 rounds including one Omaha hand in which I flopped quad kings and actually made a couple of bets. That put me above average early on, then Kevmath scooped an O/8 pot against me to put me back to the starting stack of 10,000. Made it to the first break (after five 20-minute levels) with 8,850.

During the break I chatted with Brian Ali, also playing in the tourney. Ali had won the WSOP Circuit event in Atlantic City that I’d help cover back in the spring of 2011, and so like Chad he, too, had a “you look familiar” moment with me once I’d introduced myself.

Ali had kind of run over that final table, knocking out nearly all of the opponents including a fellow named Jeff Frazier, and I told him how we reporters were all excited about the invitation to employ boxing metaphors. He said he loved all the reporting and of course the whole tourney was a great experience for him. Cool, friendly guy, and it was neat to take a few minutes to remember that week from a year-and-a-half ago with him.

Soon we were back at the tables. Ultimately they drew 64 players, which meant the top eight places paid and there was a cool $1,920 up top. The limits started to climb rapidly, and over the next few levels I let my stack dwindle until about 25 had busted. Finally a stud/8 hand arose in which I was all in by fourth street against four opponents, two of whom would be all in themselves by sixth.

I’d started [][] / , then picked up three low cards (including one club), meaning by the time seventh street was dealt I needed any club for a flush and was drawing to a 7-4-2-A low. But my last card was another deuce (not a club), and I think I was the only one of the five of us not to claim some share of the chips scattered all about the table in separate piles.

I played okay, I thought, although probably should’ve taken my chances a few times and played more hands, especially in the early rounds. Was definitely fun and different, and despite the fast-moving structure I still got to play three hours’ worth of poker without even coming close to the cash.

Bob had busted shortly before I did, and Mickey would shortly after, so we went over to the Stage Deli to grab sandwiches and visit for a while. I liked getting the chance to talk to Bob as he’s been out of town and we hadn’t been able to previously. As we ate, Kevmath DM’d me that he was down to three big bets and figured his exit to be imminent, and soon we were stepping back over to the poker room to see how he was doing.

By the time we’d gotten there, he’d run his stack back up to have average chips with 19 left. Bob would soon depart, but Mickey and I hung out to root Kevmath on and chat about various aspects of covering the WSOP.

When it comes to the PokerNews folks, me, Mickey, and Donnie Peters are pretty much the only ones left from 2008, the first year all three of us came to Vegas to help cover the WSOP for PN. In fact, I don’t think there’s anyone at all left from 2007, the first year PN covered the Series (when I did some behind-the-scenes stuff for them from home).

Kevmath finally busted in 14th, a few spots shy of the money, and the three of us walked back to the car continuing the conversation about coverage Mickey and I had begun.

As we drove back I thought about how fun the night had been, made more so by getting to hang out with all sorts of folks with whom I’ve shared a lot of this weird, fascinating poker-related journey over the past several years.

The journey continues today, as I get up from my seat and resume my usual role pacing around and between the tables, watching others try to build stacks and position themselves to make the money and perhaps a deep run in the 2012 WSOP Main Event.

Yesterday those making it through Days 1a and 1b all played together but separately, with 860 or so of them surviving to return for tomorrow’s Day 3. Today the 2,300 who made it out of Day 1c will be playing Day 2c, and I imagine something like 900 of them will still have chips after today’s five two-hour levels.

And from there more characters will emerge. And stories to tell.

2011 WSOP, Day 41: The Lottery

Was another busy day yesterday at the World Series of Poker Main Event. A total of 2,809 came out on Sunday, making the overall total for this year’s ME a much-higher-than-anticipated 6,865. That’s the third-largest field in ME history, behind 2006 (8,773) and 2010 (7,319).

By the way, if you like numbers, check out Dr. Pauly’s post today, “2011 WSOP Day 41 - Main Event Day 1D: Spiderman, Big Records, Perma-Bans and 6,865,” which includes a bunch of nifty ones. See also Jess Welman’s latest “WSOP By the Numbers” for more interesting figures of note from yesterday.

Today begins the first of the Day Twos. I’m enjoying my last day off from the WSOP today (aside from Wednesday which is a day off for everyone). Gonna try to make it through the entire day without setting foot in the Rio, something I have not been able to avoid doing since I landed in Vegas some three weeks ago. A total of 4,521 players made it through to Day 2, with a little less than half of them playing today and the rest on Tuesday.

Yesterday I was stationed back in the Pavilion Room, packed from end to end. Just a couple of us were assigned to cover half the room (e.g., 100-plus tables). Was frustrating at times, as you might imagine. As I told WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla at the start of the day, there’s really no way to be comprehensive when trying to cover so many players with so few reporters. But on the good side there was no shortage of hands, anecdotes, and other items to write about.

My favorite story of the day involved the participation of an elderly farmer from North Carolina named Joe Moize. Moize is from Hurdle Mills, which just happens to be about half-hour drive from my birthplace and where I still have family.

Not too long ago -- starting around 2006, I believe -- NC finally decided to jump into the lottery game, although not without a great deal of hand-wringing and other not-so-pretty political machinations. They call it the “North Carolina Education Lottery” as the revenue produced is supposed to be earmarked to improve the state’s educational system, which has nonetheless continued to suffer cuts and other detrimental effects in recent years. And as many have observed over the years, the lottery tends to be played in higher numbers by the less educated, which has led some to view the official name of the NC lottery as containing a bit of obvious irony.

Goes without saying that poker ain’t being played in the state at all -- not legally, anyway -- aside from on a few electronic tables at Harrah’s Cherokee. Only low EV games like “Carolina Pick 4” and the like are permitted.

Other promotions come and go, such as the recent one involving submitting losing scratch-off tickets for a drawing to win an entry into the Main Event. The WSOP was involved with this one in some fashion, with other prizes -- chip sets, sunglasses, other gear -- also given away. Moize won the ME seat, and so found himself Sunday afternoon sitting at a table in the Pavilion room at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino with David “the Gunslinger” Bach.

Bach was the one who came over and told me the wild story of how he had busted Moize. He called it one of the strangest hands he’d ever played, one in which three aces were on board -- matching the one in Bach’s hand -- with no flush or straight possible. Moize called him down to the river before check-raising all in on the end. Bach showed the nuts, while Moize turned over .

“He said he’d never played poker before,” said Bach to me, his genuine amazement evident in his tone. I was sorry not to have gotten the chance to meet Moize, who sounded like a friendly person who probably got a lot out of the experience. Reading around a little online, I found that he brought his wife with him and they were getting to enjoy a stay of several nights. One story also pointed out that he had in fact played poker before in his life, but it had been long ago.

In my report on the hand over at PokerNews, I pointed out how the hand showed the WSOP Main Event isn’t really a “lottery” as the super-sized fields the ME attracts often encourage people to call it. Those making the final table and winning the sucker obviously must experience good fortune along the way, but no one can win by simply having a card with his or her name on it drawn from a barrel.

In fact, that Moize happened to be knocked out by Bach -- a guy who has won the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event (in 2009), a tournament generally regarded as one of the better tests of poker ability on offer at the Series -- made the point even more obvious. The contrast between the skillful player and complete novice couldn’t have been more starkly made.

My friend Bob Woolley, a.k.a. the Poker Grump, made a similar point in a different way in a post summarizing his Day 1a experience. Like Moize, Woolley won his way into the ME, and while he stood a much better chance of getting somewhere in the sucker than did Moize, the experience of sitting at a table with top pros like Greg Raymer, Tom Schneider, Olivier Busquet, and others offered him unambiguous proof of the importance of skill at the Main Event.

That WSOP Main Event seats are given away in state lotteries shows (I think) how little state governments appreciate that fact, namely, that poker or the Main Event isn’t really a game of pure luck like the lottery. Even so, it’s all the same thing -- to many people, really -- just people placing bets and hoping certain cards appear.

But we know it ain’t that at all. The Main Event isn’t just a lottery. And really, when it comes down to it, that’s the main reason why it is at all interesting.

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.

2011 WSOP, Day 23: Percentages, Points, and Kevmath

Yesterday was a relatively relaxing one as I mentally prepared myself for the run of workdays to come. Prepared myself physically, too, I suppose. I believe I’m on the schedule to work the next six days straight, and so the time for resting up is nearly over.

Had fun early on yesterday enjoying a visit with Kevmath who happened to have a rare day off. We spent an hour visiting over a late breakfast before he took off to join the daily deepstack madness going on over at the Rio. There are three of those tourneys going off each day, with the big one ($235 buy-in) starting to attract over 1,000 runners again and again. That means over $40K for the winner, one sweet ROI.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve felt like I’ve gotten to know Kevin pretty well already over the last few years. Thus is our finally getting together almost more like reuniting with a friend than getting to know someone new, given the large amount of common reference points we share.

We have some other things in common, too, which we chatted about some over our eggs, bacon, and toast. We both became part of this complicated and interesting world of poker players and writers through somewhat unusual means, and both also found ourselves having created these “characters” through which many know us (“Kevmath” and “Shamus”). Then again, we’ve both been playing those “roles” for such a while they have become a bit part of how others see us. And, I suppose, who we are, too.

As Kevin told me about his experience thus far this summer, I was reminded a lot of what it was like for me in 2008 when I covered my first WSOP. As those of you who were reading over here back then know, I was definitely possessed with a kind of “shot-taking” mentality then, not entirely sure how it would all work out but knowing I’d regret it if I didn’t take the chance and see how it did.

Obviously I’m glad I did take the chance back then, and I think Kevin is glad he has, too. I know a lot of the rest of us who are here are glad he did as well.

During the latter part of the afternoon I snuck back over to the Rio for a short stay. Mainly just wanted to reacquaint myself some with a few things in preparation for going into today to help cover Event No. 40, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em (Six-Handed) event. Met a few new folks and chatted with a couple of others whom I hadn’t seen on Tuesday, including WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla.

I repeated my joke to Nolan about being disappointed they started the sucker without me, and he played along, saying how they’d tried but people just kept coming and would’ve broken down the doors if they hadn’t let them play. That led to a brief conversation about the overall numbers being up this year and how that perhaps has made the staging of the Series even more of a challenge.

We also talked a bit about the latest stat the WSOP issued regarding women’s participation, a topic Jen Newell and I addressed in our “He Said / She Said” column over on Woman Poker Player this week. Through 29 events, just 946 of the 29,421 entrants have been women, about 3.2%. CK, a.k.a. the Black Widow of Poker, points out in a 2+2 thread on the subject that if you leave out Event No. 1, the Casino Employees Event, participation by women in all of the other events is just 2.98%. Nolan expressed a bit of dismay at the fact that the percentages of women playing at the WSOP really hasn’t gone up much since the Moneymaker boom.

I got back to the home-away-from-home and soon after the PokerGrump picked me up and we went for dinner at Bachi Burger, a reprise of a visit we’d made there last summer. From there we joined a group back at the Rio at McFadden’s for a weekly pub trivia contest, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Among those at our table -- and thus, on our team -- were Kate (a.k.a. @caitycaity), David, Cheryl, Bob Lauria, and a couple of others who came and went. It’s a weekly thing for the team, named “Quiz On Quiz Off,” who besides having won weekly prizes is in the running to win the current season.

With seven or eight teams competing, it was a hard-fought contest with three or four teams having a chance to win at by the final round. In fact, as they were announcing the winner at the end, I was almost convinced we hadn’t enough points even to make the top three, although our personal tally was incomplete and thus we weren’t entirely sure. Then came the word -- we'd won, and by a single point! Woot!

The “hand of the day” (as I jokingly called it afterwards) was a question we had missed about a film starring Mickey Rourke in which Bob and I had in improbable fashion collaborated to come up with right answer (Wild Orchid) yet couldn’t summon the collective will to commit to it and write it down. It was a classic example of reading the situation correctly yet being unable to pull the trigger. Thankfully it didn’t cost us, and we were able to do what so many in Vegas strive for but few accomplish -- to walk out as winners.

Got back to the room and did a little work before crashing hard around midnight. Still a bit stuck on Eastern time, as indicated further by my early rising again today. That’ll all change soon enough after a full workday or two walking the floor and live blogging at the Rio. The $5K short-handed event should be a good one, attracting a lot of top pros including the online guys in particular, many of whom are playing as many events as they can this summer with the rolls they’ve been able to cash out from PokerStars.

On that topic, one of my trivia teammates last night, David, works with the Total Rewards folks who issue cards to players entering all of the events, and he mentioned to me how a lot of the online guys are entering 20 or more events. Struck me as an attempt to emulate the sort of volume they would put in online, although obviously the cost (and, presumably, the risk of ruin) is so much higher for them in this context.

I covered this same event back in 2009. Turned out to be one of the more exciting tourneys I’ve ever reported on, in fact, won by Matt “Hoss TBF” Hawrilenko with Josh Brikis finishing second and Faraz Jaka third. Hawrilenko took over $1 million for first prize that year, as 928 entered. Jeffrey Papola won it in 2010 when 568 entered, taking just over $667K for his win.

The vacation is really over, it seems. But I’m rested. And ready.

Head over to PokerNews live reporting today -- and tonight -- to follow all of the action.

The Future... What Can We Bank On?

Wanted to add a quick addendum to yesterday’s post in which I meditated a bit over the “UIGEA Monster.” There I basically whimpered about the apparent failure to tame the beast by legislative means (thus far, anyway), then wondered aloud about whether the law would ultimately have to be challenged in the courts for it to be stopped.

Grange95 -- keeper of the excellent crAAKKer blog -- correctly chastised me for throwing the “unconstitutional” adjective around (with reference to the UIGEA), and I realized afterwards that my use of the word betrayed my layman’s status when it comes to discussing both the legislative and judicial processes. I also thought a little further about how it’s wrong to abandon hope with regard to further attempts by lawmakers to help us fight the sucker. Even if the prospects for such are bleak, the legislative approach probably does remain the most likely path to doing something about the UIEGA.

It’s such a frustrating law. The way the “final rule” instructs banks and financial institutions to comply leaves them enough wiggle room to allow quite a bit of freedom with regard to making judgments about what constitutes a prohibited transaction. If you look at the “Frequently Asked Questions” about UIGEA compliance that the American Banking Association has provided the banks, it’s clear that the likelihood of one actually being found in violation of the law appears pretty darned slim.

Nonetheless, they are most certainly blocking transactions. Depositing is growing increasingly problematic. And even withdrawing has become a less simple matter for some, despite the fact that (as those final regulations stated) “[u]nder the final rule, the term ‘restricted transaction’ would not include funds going to a gambler, and would only include funds going to an Internet gambling business.” Check out Joe Tall’s problems getting funds from Full Tilt Poker, and PokerGrump’s recent adventure with Bodog for examples.

(Incidentally, I did manage a successful cashout from PokerStars not long ago -- not necessarily a seamless transaction, though much smoother than what Tall and the Grump experienced.)

Yesterday F-Train offered some cogent commentary about where all of this might be headed as we watch the UIGEA continue to gather momentum, discussing both the “continuing deterioration of payment processing” (very likely) and the possibility that U.S.-facing sites could eventually abandon the U.S. market as too difficult to deal with (less likely, though possible).

Whether or not sites abandon the U.S., I’d imagine a certain percentage of U.S. players probably will remove themselves from the online game -- in some cases out of necessity, and in others because the hassles simply become too great to endure.

If they haven’t already, that is.

Catching Up (Various & Sundries)

Spent some time yesterday updating my list of subscribed-to blogs over in Bloglines. There had been a few blogs in the blogroll (see lower right-hand column) that I had yet to add. Although there are a couple of folks listed down there who’ve gone a few months without posting, most all of those listed are active. And worth yr while!

I generally check in on Bloglines a few times a day, and that’s where I get most of my poker-related news. I’ll stop by a few additional sites, and will peruse a couple of the forums to see what else is going on, but the blogs are generally my primary source of pokery info.

There have been a few items in the news since the World Series of Poker Main Event finally wrapped up a week ago, dominated, of course, by that little bit of unpleasantness regarding the finalization of the regulations for the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. I continue to see the actual significance of that being debated in various places on the web. Another bit of news stemming from that was that the Poker Players Alliance is presently contemplating a lawsuit against the federal government over the UIGEA. PPA Chairman Alfonse D’Amato emailed members regarding the suit, and yesterday the organization began contacting those who had expressed interest in perhaps participating in such a suit.

You probably noticed that the much-anticipated 60 Minutes segment reporting the Absolute Poker-UltimateBet insider cheating scandals (and whatever else might come up in the context of that report) did not air on November 9th as it had been reported that it would. Nor did it air last Sunday.

The segment was originally set to air on October 26th, but got bumped in favor of a segment on the economic crisis. It was then rescheduled to Nov. 9th, but this time producers decided instead to show a post-election segment reporting on and analyzing the successful Obama campaign strategy. I don’t think it was on the schedule this past Sunday (Nov. 16), but the show ended up taking two segments to interview the president-elect. So no poker.

Within the online poker community, this story shifts in emphasis constantly as new details emerge and/or further reaction gets shared. For instance, UB apparently did manage to begin paying back cheated customers by the due date prescribed to them by Tokwiro Enterprises last month. And I guess Annie Duke and Paul Leggett have starred in a series of infomercials designed to bolster UB’s image once again, though I have to admit I haven’t bothered to look at those. Nor do I think I will.

I haven’t run across any inside dope saying when (or if) the segment will finally air. Seems like the segment should come sooner than later, but obviously the 60 Minutes producers (understandably) believe there are more important issues to cover these days. Here’s the page where the show lists what is “Up Next,” in case you’re curious.

Another item that popped up at the end of last week concerned that domain-seizure case in a Kentucky Circuit Court. You remember how that Franklin Circuit Court preposterously ruled back in October that those 141 domains hosting gambling websites had to block Kentucky residents from accessing those sites within 30 days (or by November 15th or thereabouts) or the domains would be permanently forfeited to the Commonwealth of Kentucky. That “forfeiture hearing” was delayed until December 3rd, and then the case ended up in appeals court, where a further stay was granted until December 12th. So we get to wait a few more weeks to find out if Kentucky in fact rules the intertubes.

There’s been some hubbub over Clonie Gowen’s lawsuit against Full Tilt Poker. Have only been mildly following that one. Seems like the most interesting part of that story concerns the possible negative side effects of the lawsuit making public all of the company’s machinations (and ownership structure). I’ll let you head over to Pokerati for the latest on that one.

You’ll also find over there on Pokerati they are running a poll to discover who is the “best true poker pro blogger,” a contest in which our buddy (and underdog) the PokerGrump is presently crushing the competition. We’re all wondering what exactly he’s gonna do once elected.

Finally, let me pass along the news of the return of PokerListings’ Run Good Challege, a.k.a. RCG 2 Electric Boogaloo. The same crew of bloggers from the first RGC are back again for this one -- including me, yr humble gumshoe -- with a few others having been added, including pros Liz Lieu, Christina Lindley, and WSOP bracelet holder Jason Young.

Here’s the full line-up: David G. Schwartz, Change100, Liz Lieu, Dr. Pauly, Christina Lindley, Amy Calistri, the Spaceman, the Poker Shrink, Craig Cunningham, Michele Lewis, LuckBox (from Up for Poker), California Jen, Kid Dynamite, Benjo, Pokerati Dan, the Wicked Chops entities, Jason Young, and Matt Showell and Dan Skolovy from PokerListings. And me.

Hope I got all them links right. At least I know I have them correct over in my Bloglines.