Denver’s Hand Holds Up

Well, obviously I did something wrong yesterday.

With just under 11 minutes left in the third quarter of Super Bowl 50, the Carolina Panthers’ opening drive of the second half stalled on the 26-yard-line of the Denver Broncos. Facing fourth-and-11, the Panthers attempted a field goal which would cut the Denver lead to three.

It had been an ugly first half for the Panthers, with a couple of fumbles including one converted into a touchdown by the Broncos. But they were only down six, thanks in large part to the Carolina defense having mostly stifled Denver throughout the first two quarters. And a made FG here would mark a good start to what Panthers’ fans hoped would be a better second half.

Alas, Graham Gano’s 44-yard attempt stayed right, then at the last moment struck the upright and bounced away for a miss. It turned out to be an especially appropriate symbol for the entire game for Carolina. A bit of bad luck, though if skill had prevailed luck didn’t necessarily have to matter as much.

The missed FG that hits an upright always seems like a lucky (or unlucky) play. Sometimes the ball still caroms through after hitting the upright, if the end-over-end turning ball happens to catch it in a favorable way. Other times it doesn’t. Then again, if the ball had been kicked even just a little closer to the center of the uprights, the ball’s spin or that fateful breath of wind wouldn’t have made any difference.

On Denver’s subsequent drive, they converted a field goal to make it 16-7. Then the Panthers drove 52 yards in four plays, and on the fifth Cam Newton overthrew a receiver and Denver safety T.J. Ward intercepted the ball. Ward ran a couple of steps then fumbled, and ball bounced crazily toward the Panthers’ end zone before being covered by Ward’s teammate, Danny Trevathan (his second fumble recovery of the game).

Again, it seemed like an unlucky bounce that prevented Carolina from scooping up the loose ball around the Denver 5. But of course, the fumble doesn’t happen without the interception preceding it. Then we went to another interminable-seeming commercial break. (Let me tell you, when your team is losing in the Super Bowl, the commercials aren’t nearly as fun.)

Luck mattered in the game, and we can put under the same heading some of the penalties handed out and calls made as representing judgments by others outside of the players’ control. It felt like Carolina was picking up big hands over and again but somehow failing to scoop any decent-sized pots with them. But as second half wound down it didn’t feel like Denver had gotten lucky to win. They’d earned it, just as much as Carolina earned the loss.

Then again, it could have been my fault. I mean, I did what I could, including holding my lucky Panther, Sweetie, for much of the second half (against her wishes, mind you). I guess some Denver fan must’ve done me one better, holding on a little tighter, much like the Denver players did a better job holding on to the ball.

And as a result, the Broncos’ (better) hand held up.

Wrap Your Head Around This

For pretty much all of my life I have lived on relatively small plots of land.

My childhood home had modest-sized front and back yards. In college I lived in a dorm for a couple of years, then shared apartments for a while. Had one interesting year in grad school living in the “groom’s quarters” with Vera, actually just another apartment attached to a barn. We lived in what was basically an oversized closet when spending a year abroad in France. Got to house sit after that in what seemed a palace at the time owned by a long-time prof, a fairly big two-story house with a decent sized yard and garden. But even that place wasn’t too big to wrap one’s head around.

From there we were in another apartment, then a house in one of those “cookie cutter” neighborhoods where you could just about reach your neighbor through an open window. And now finally we’re on the farm. With 15 acres. Some trees around the edges, but most of it is cleared.

It’s a big space. Challenges comprehension, almost.

The house we’re in isn’t especially big -- in fact it is about the same as the one we left, square-feet-wise. But it has been interesting to watch our now 12-year-old cat Sweetie tentatively explore the new space.

Sweetie’s an indoor cat, her somewhat skittish ways providing a fairly stark contrast to the three rambunctious and social “barn cats” we’ve inherited. She remained under the bed almost exclusively for the first couple of days, then ventured out little by little to get to know the kitchen, living room, and (thankfully) the litter box.

She tiptoes cautiously, keeping very low to the floor as she moves in a manner that recalls the origin of the phrase “cat burglar.” I suppose she’s slowly performing a kind of “cognitive mapping” of the space, gradually taking it in and rebuilding it piece by piece in her mind’s eye.

By the way, that picture up above is a cartoon I clipped and kept near my desk for many years some time back. I only just came across it again during the packing and unpacking. That’s how I imagine Sweetie working out all the new angles she’s been encountering this week.

As someone with a terrible sense of direction, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of cognitive mapping. As I’ve told colleagues many times before, it’s kind of an irony that I found a profession that lands me in casinos so often, places the design of which can challenge even the most able-minded cognitive mappers.

I am notoriously lacking when it comes to processing directions for getting from one place to another. Having been to a place before -- even multiple times -- doesn’t ensure I’ll be able to get back. In fact, I’ll admit that in this new house I’ve found myself walking to the bedroom and missing the entrance about a half-dozen times as my brain stubbornly keeps providing me incorrect information about its location.

I remember a chapter in a book by Fredric Jameson called Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, one of many “theory” books I read in grad school, in which he spoke of cognitive mapping. If I remember it correctly, he used the concept as a kind of emblem for postmodernism and individuals living in confusing worlds in which it was difficult to orient oneself. (I could have that wrong -- the memory is dim.) I recall there also being a section in there somewhere about Las Vegas and its disorienting architecture, too.

Anyhow, those who build houses and buildings or plan towns and cities don’t really need to work that hard to confuse your humble scribbler. Who becomes ever more humbled whenever he’s forced to remember his way back somewhere following any journey requiring more than two turns.

I feel like Sweetie’s doing an okay job working out her new space, but I still feel more than a little disoriented in mine. Part of me wants to walk the entire 15 acres every day, just to reinforce the idea that I am actually “living” on it all.

But another part of me knows I might get lost!

Two Thousand Posts Later

The other day I was in what has become a very typical position for me these days, sitting on the couch in the living room writing on my laptop. I have an office and do work there some, but more often than not I’ll be in the other room, preferring not to be squirreled away and alone but out where I can interact with Vera more readily.

Spotting me typing furiously, Vera jokingly began to deliver a kind of play-by-play commentary on what she saw, hyping up her description in a way that made it sound a little like a movie trailer.

“He’s typing so fast,” she began. “He wants to stop... but... he can’t!”

I started to grin. I did not, however, stop typing. She continued.

“His eyes are tired. His hands are starting to cramp. But if he stops... he.. will... die!”

At that I did stop. And no, I didn’t expire, but instead burst into laughter along with Vera.

Today marks the 2,000th post on Hard-Boiled Poker. When I first started the blog in April 2006, I obviously had little thought about even reaching a hundred posts. When in early November of that year I did look up to see I was writing Post No. 100, I proudly marked the occasion in a post titled “Milestones.”

By then I’d built up enough momentum to know for sure I’d be continuing for some time afterwards, although the prospect of reaching other milestones wasn’t really something I consciously considered. But I did recognize a kind of achievement in having stuck with something that long, something of which I’d already begun to realize had started to become important to me.

Taking the occasion to reflect on the blog -- an indulgence I’d already allowed myself more than once within those first 100 posts -- I wrote about how observing such milestones in a way helped define the whole activity:

Like record-keeping, the blog helps document certain stages in the life of a poker player. At times the blog even helps foster the sense that he might actually be getting somewhere and not simply “running in a circle.” Or endlessly pushing that stone up the mountain like Sisyphus, only to have it roll back down again. Albert Camus describes Sisyphus as one who has, despite evidence to the contrary, somehow managed to create meaning from his plight. Rather than believe the godless world is “sterile or futile,” he knows that “each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world.”

Camus goes so far as to conclude we “must imagine Sisyphus as happy.” I think he’s right. As grave as such milestones might make us feel, they also go a long way toward helping us with the old problem of “meaning-making.” And that makes us happy for a while. And encourages us to keep going.

And so I will.

I’d continue to observe such milestones going forward such as in “Two Hundred Posts Later” (from May 2007) although with the next few milestones I was hit-or-miss with even catching them going by.

The 500th post happened while I was at the 2008 World Series of Poker (my first), and I only barely mentioned it. I did mark other milestones more thoroughly, including the moment when I’d arrived at “Post No. 1,000” (in February 2010).

Then I talked about how hard it was to sum up what the experience of writing the blog had meant to me at that point. “When you’ve written a thousand friggin’ posts, you’ve said and done a lot of things before,” I said, stating the obvious. I went on to mention how great it was to have become part of a larger community of writers and readers joined by a common interest in poker, then concluded by thanking all of those who’ve taken the time to stop by here over the years.

I mean, really, there’s no way I get this far along without help. You can’t play poker by yourself. Not really. And while you can write for yourself, the meaning of what you write grows with every reader.

A thousand thanks, everybody, for helping give all these words more meaning.

The journey through these last thousand posts has seemed much shorter than the one through the first thousand. It took a few months less, I suppose, but the time has seemed to have raced by much, more more quickly. As we all recognize as we get older, time has a way of appearing to speed up, and when we stop to look around and happen to notice how much has passed, there’s always a little bit of misgiving as we’re made to acknowledge we’re closer to the end than we were before.

While Vera was joking, there was certainly a small bit of truth tucked away inside of her play-by-play. I think knowing that made us laugh even longer. You know, that idea that as long as one continues to press forward, one continues to live.

Looking back through the older posts a couple of thoughts occur to me. One is to marvel at the energy on display early on, and really through most of the first few years of the blog. Posts are longer, and even paragraphs go on and on sometimes, the writer keyed up to tackle whatever it is he has chosen to write about in comprehensive fashion, with extra context and research coming in frequently to flesh out the point being made or topic being explored.

That energy still comes now and then, though I’ll admit after 2,000 posts it isn’t as frequent or consistent. I’m affected these days both by having written so much before -- thus leaving myself fewer and fewer untouched subjects -- and by other writing obligations having crowded the schedule as well as the jingle-brain of this scribbling sap.

When I look back I also realize how not every post reflects my current thinking about poker (or other aspects of our existence), and there are plenty of instances where I see myself as having been a little too raw or naive about whatever it is I’ve decided to address. But I don’t mind that so much, as seeing such provides me evidence that I’ve indeed changed. Or maybe... possibly... that I’ve even learned something.

There’s little about poker or the crazy, confused world surrounding the game that is without ambiguity. The detective-writer metaphor has always been especially apt, as mysteries abound. I think I’ve stumbled on some important clues here and there and even drawn some decent conclusions, but a lot of the investigations remain open, even if I might sound at times as though I’ve closed them.

In other words, the old problem of meaning-making remains.

Up top is a picture of my cat, Sweetie, that I took a couple of weeks ago, who can be more than a little mysterious, too, sometimes. And who can make me feel like Sisyphus every now and then, such as in that photo. Look closely, she’s there. (Click the pic to enlarge, if needed.)

Here’s another one of Sweetie which Vera took shortly after I returned from Las Vegas after that long summer. I’m there, too, in my usual spot, having finally stopped typing for a while. (You can click and make this one bigger as well.)

Do I have to keep writing? Do I want to? Yes and yes.

Meanwhile, I know you don’t have to read, and so thanks once again for wanting to do so.

Angry Poker

The 2011 World Series of Poker is in full swing now, with the first nine events having begun, seven bracelets won, and two more tourneys starting up today, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event (Event No. 10) and the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship (Event No. 11).

Was following coverage off and on over the weekend. That is, when I wasn’t distracted by my cat, Sweetie, screeching like I’ve never heard her do before. Sweetie is an indoor cat, and a neighbor cat that lives outdoors has been coming around to visit, disturbing her windowsill slumbers. These standoffs between the two -- just a thin piece of glass separating them from some wild, whiskery warfare -- have been riveting to watch, although I think Sweetie is starting to get a little stressed out by having to keep on her guard like that.

The poker has been fairly exciting, too. In between clicking back-and-forth between several sites to follow the action, I have also continued to dial up the live streaming of final tables that is happening over on the WSOP site.

As I mentioned last week, the picture and sound are both good, and with an announcer tableside and a view of the community cards, one can follow what’s happening well enough. Was most interested last night to watch Allen Bari win Event No. 4 ($5,000 No-Limit Hold’em), his heads-up battle with Maria Ho successfully pulling me away from the one going on between Sweetie and Intruder Cat.

I thought it was funny afterwards to see Lex “RaSZi” Veldhuis tweet that “The world just got a little angrier” as he congratulated Bari on his win. Veldhuis was alluding to Bari’s reputation as an against-the-grain type of guy (one way to put it) whose self-confidence occasionally rubs some the wrong way.

In an interview with Kristy Arnett of PokerNews after his win, Bari demonstrated that irascible personality a little when responding to her question about whether it would’ve been humbling for him to have lost after entering heads-up play with such an enormous (almost 6-to-1) chip lead.

“Tournaments are nonsense,” says Bari. “They’re all variance. Anybody who plays with me and talks with me knows that I know my stuff, so it doesn’t matter. This bracelet means nothing except now these randoms who all hate me won’t talk sh!t about me.”

I was thinking about Veldhuis’ comment about the world getting “angrier” when reading a couple of other items later last night, too.

There was an article over on the Fox News site from Saturday titled “Families Face Dire Straits After Online Poker Shutdown” that gave a little sketch of Brian Mogelefsky, a player who has had a burgeoning career as an online grinder abruptly altered by the events of Black Friday.

The article cites John Pappas of the PPA saying that approximately 50,000 full-time players have been “deprived” of their income. While I obviously oppose any sort of prohibition against online poker, I have to admit I’m never all that moved by this “honest living” argument some want to make when petitioning for its regulation.

Obviously only a very small percentage of those who play poker -- online or otherwise -- can be said to earn a living from it. Always seems to me this line of reasoning ignores about 95% of the real consequences of having a licensed and regulated industry. Does help highlight the whole “freedom” thing, though, as Mogelefsky’s story demonstrates.

At the conclusion of the Fox piece, we read that not being able to stay at home and support his family by the income he’s been able to make playing online means Mogelefsky “plans to attend the World Series of Poker in Vegas to test his mettle in live games.” It is this very move -- of the online poker grinder using Black Friday as reason to take a WSOP shot -- that Change100 addressed in her guest post on Tao of Poker that appeared yesterday, titled “Apocalypse Now.”

Change picks up on the “pure, unadulterated desperation” in the air at the Rio and in other Vegas poker rooms these days, with lots of players -- both in the tourneys at the WSOP and at the cash tables -- seeming as though they are playing with a lot more on the line than has been the case in the past. (EDIT [added 9 p.m.]: For another take on the more-serious-than-fun vibe at the Rio during the first week of the WSOP, see Jon Katkin's “Off to a Slow Start” over on Pokerati. And Gary Wise offers a similar sentiment in “The Ugliest WSOP.”)

Veldhuis’ tweet about Bari and the “angrier world” was partly in jest, I suppose, but it weirdly fits with the more-antagonistic-than-usual atmosphere in which poker is being played these days. Will be interesting to see how things go at the WSOP these next couple of weeks, and what it will be like there when I finally arrive on June 21.

Perhaps by then the fights, lawsuits, accusations, and so forth won’t be on the front page and things will have calmed down a bit. I mean, we can only stay angry for so long, right?

Then again, Sweetie’s battle has been going on for a few days now. You tell me... does she look like she’s ready to give in?

2010 WSOP, Day 17: Ladies Event Final Table

Here’s a funny story.

I helped cover the final table of Event No. 22, the $1,000 buy-in Ladies Hold’em Championship yesterday for PokerNews. We were over on the main stage for this one, and our tournament director/announcer Robbie Thompson was managing the proceedings. All who’ve been around the WSOP know Robbie as one of the best at what he does. He’s also a very witty guy who keeps things fun for players, media, and the audience.

Those who’ve worked a lot of final tables there also know Robbie tends to down more Red Bulls than might seem humanly possible. I unthinkingly set a line at six early on yesterday, but he’d already passed that by the second hour.

Anyhow, we were near the end of a break yesterday and I was seated behind my laptop when Robbie cracked open another Red Bull. The can had been shaken apparently, and there was a huge slapsticky spray that instantly covered the table and me. As play was about to start, I had to endure a period of sticky, fragrant blogging for the next stretch. (In fact, just writing about it this morning I think I can still smell that sickly-sweet Red Bull just a little.)

Overall it was more funny than inconvenient, though. A few minutes later Robbie stopped over and commented that when he walked around the stage there was now a squishing noise.

There was a short break at the end of the next level -- just five minutes -- so I dashed to the restroom to wash my hands at least. I raced down the Rio hallway, and took a few steps inside the restroom when I looked up and saw someone washing her hands.

That’s right. Her hands. I’d run into the women’s. No shinola.

Never made that mistake at the Rio before, so thought it a little uncanny I’d somehow manage to do it on the day I was covering the final table of the Ladies event.

I quickly put it in reverse, found my designated restroom, and all was well.

The final table itself went especially quickly yesterday, done not even six hours after it had begun. Vanessa Hellebuyck of France came out on top, with Sidsel Boesen of Denmark finishing second and Timmi Derosa of California finishing third.

Kami Chisholm -- who had the best nickname at the final table, “Dr. Kamikaze” -- roared out to a huge lead early on, taking a lot of chips from start-of-day chip leader Boesen in the process. But there were no eliminations during that stretch. We finally lost a super short stack (Loren Watterworth) right at the end of Level 21, about 90 minutes after we’d begun yesterday. Then once they moved to Level 22 things picked up considerably.

By then the average stack was just under 400,000, so with the blinds at 10,000/20,000 in Level 22, we were looking at an average of 20 BBs per player. So it wasn’t surprising to see a lot of eliminations in rapid order from that point.

There were two big “hands of the day” that really decided this one. One was a blind-vs.-blind hand between Chisholm and Boesen in which Chisholm picked a bad time to make a move, check raising all-in before the flop when Boesen had pocket rockets. (Kind of a “Kamikaze”-seeming hand, actually.) The other was a very interesting hand between Derosa and Hellebuyck once they’d gotten to three-handed.

Timmi Derosa is Lee Watkinson’s fiancée, a friendly person who tended to stand out even on Day 2 when she frequently engaged me or the reporters as we passed by.

She stood out fashion-wise, too, at yesterday’s final table. I don’t want to get too carried away with analyzing the women’s appearance and dress, as our culture tends to do in just about every situation. It was clear, though, that Derosa, made up and dressed to the nines in an ensemble topped by a fur (or faux fur) boa, looked differently than her opponents, many of whom wore baseball caps and hoodies -- what one might call typical “poker fashion.”

I probably wouldn’t even bring it up, but during one break Derosa came over to talk to me about a hand she had played and then brought it up herself, saying something about the final table being special occasion. I mostly just nodded, not really wanting to offer my own uncertain opinions on the matter. It was interesting, though, to notice how when it had gotten to five-handed, it just so happened Derosa was sitting on one end of the table, and her four opponents were all in seats 1-4 at the other end, thereby making the contrast in fashion even more evident.

Anyhow, to get back to the hand, Derosa and Hellebuyck had gotten to the turn on a nine-high board, and Derosa acting first pushed all in. Hellebuyck went deep into the tank, made the big call with middle pair and both flush and straight draws, and Derosa tabled a couple of overcards with Q-J. (You can read the full write-up of the hand here.) It was a big move by Derosa, and Hellebuyck had matched it with a big call.

As was the case on Day 2, there were a lot of supporters for just about all of the players in the full bleachers, and I found myself, too, pulling for each of the players as the night wore on. That tends to happen to me at most final tables, though perhaps I felt that way a little more last night -- not so much because the players were women, but because almost all were amateur players (only Chisholm and La Sengphet, I believe, could be called pros). In their bios most had full-time jobs listed or references to family, unlike often happens with the final table full of young male players who play poker 24-7.

All in all a fun evening in which the tone was primarily celebratory, in contrast to the controversy-filled hours of Day 1. (That is a pic of Hellebuyck and some of her supports following her victory.)

Indeed, the only reference to the controversies of Day 1 -- when some men played in the event as a protest of having ladies-only tourney -- came just prior to the start of yesterday’s final table. WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla came to say a few words of support for the nine women at the final table, and indicated -- quite adamantly -- that the WSOP would always have a Ladies Championship event.

A day off for me today, then it is on to Event No. 28, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event, starting Tuesday. Won’t be that long, really, before we’re talking about the Main Event. Something to look forward to, then.

However, what I’m really looking forward to is Vera coming later in the week. As was the case the last couple of summers, it has been hard to be away from home like this -- even more so, after that extra journey to Peru last week. Easily the worst part of the gig. Am looking at this being the last time I do this WSOP thing full-time. Seven weeks away is really too long.

Indeed, as I was just saying about those women’s bios from the final table, while some can make poker a top priority -- or even the only priority -- most of us have other things that are much, much more important. Hellebuyck, the winner of the event, listed on her sheet that she is selective with her tourney playing because she prefers to spend time with her two daughters.

I think most of us can identify with that. I know I can, which is why this will be the last summer I try to keep up with the other marathoners out here. I miss Vera too much.

And Sweetie, our brilliant cat.

Gonna go take a shower now. Maybe then I won’t be smelling Red Bull anymore.