Positively Pauly

When I read Dr. Pauly’s post on Monday announcing he was stepping away from Tao of Poker -- not necessarily for good, mind you, but likely for a good while -- I knew I’d want to say something here about it. Thought at first I’d take a day or two to think on it. Then I looked at the calendar and figured I’d wait until Friday. Don’t ask me why, but 4/20 just seemed like the right day for such a post.

The good doctor had been quiet over at Tao for the last three-and-a-half months or so, taking a much deserved break from the poker blogging grind. His last post of 2011 began with an admission he was “burned out beyond belief,” something we regular readers kept in mind as his early 2012 hiatus stretched all of the way into the spring.

In Monday’s post, Pauly writes “A Letter to Ndugu” in which he explains his recent silence while also ending with a suggestion that “this will probably be my last letter.” Textual evidence suggests Ndugu to be the overseer of a foster program in Tanzania which Pauly had supported with monetary donations in the past. However, knowing Pauly’s literary leanings, we know better than to take such statements literally.

“Ndugu” means “brother” or “comrade” or “friend.” Pauly goes on to say it has been 111 days since his last letter -- i.e., the span since his last new post on Tao. Doesn’t take a shamus to figure out who Pauly is really addressing. Us.

The themes emerging from what follows include self-loathing (“deep down we all know what we’re doing is complete bullshit anyway”), a lack of inspiration (“my schtick is nothing more than a derivative of something I already said much better years before”), and uncertainty about the worth of “promoting the genius of degenerate gambling” or “preaching salvation via online poker” or having “distracted the masses from the maelstrom of evil that has engulfed the world by churning out misogynist rhetoric about the glamorous rockstar lifestyle of a professional poker player.”

Pauly also discusses sin, and humans’ predilection toward such. In particular, greed. “Poker is a game of skill,” he writes, “but greed is a deadly drug.” From there, the hard-to-resist influences of capitalist thinking are explored, including the relentless nature of the quest to accumulate more, its lack of conclusion leading to thoughts of that other, inevitable conclusion -- death.

“What difference did I really make in this world? What have I contributed to this society?” Pauly asks Ndugu. He asks us. “Nothing,” he answers, not waiting for a reply. “I failed.”

Before signing off, though, Pauly admits to having enjoyed “the long strange trip,” noting that while it is hard -- maybe impossible -- to find meaning in what we do, that shouldn’t prevent us from enjoying ourselves while failing. He offers himself up as an object lesson to others not to be a “selfish tosser” like him but to “live a life of integrity” and “try to make a positive impact in this world.”

“Be good,” advises Pauly. “Do good. But most importantly... be yourself, Ndugu.”

If it is a goodbye, it is undoubtedly one in which Pauly has done precisely what he’s advising his reader. Been himself. Like most everything we’ve read on Tao of Poker since way back in early 2003, it’s unique. It’s inimitable. It’s Pauly.

I feel almost self-conscious using a word like “inimitable” here. After all, reading Tao of Poker essentially inspired me to start my own poker blog. As I’m sure it did others. To see if writing about poker might be as fun and interesting and maybe even enlightening as playing it. Or more so.

I think most of us reading “A Letter to Ndugu” also know better than to diminish Pauly’s poker writings as “bullshit” or “schtick” or a mere distraction from more important things. Good, solid, intelligent, reflective writing and storytelling about any aspect of human experience -- even the silly card games we play with each other -- is of value. And Dr. Pauly has generously supported us all with a plentiful supply.

I share many of the doubts Pauly expresses in his letter. Some of the cynicism, too. But I know there’s something worthwhile happening here. Something that matters.

I mentioned earlier this week how I’d found myself going back through Vladimir Nabokov’s books. I got distracted and wrote about something else, but the passage I was really searching for came from the opening to his 1966 memoir Speak, Memory, the first sentence of which goes “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”

From there Nabokov lyrically describes how we all fear death, but we often fail to consider with equal terror the time before our birth when the world existed without us. “Nature expects a full-grown man to accept two black voids, fore and aft, as stolidly as he accepts the extraordinary visions in between” he writes. “Imagination, the supreme delight of the immortal and the immature, should be limited. In order to enjoy life, we should not enjoy it too much.”

That is to say, it’s easy to think this business in between the beginning and the end -- this “brief crack of light” -- is not to be taken too seriously. But we do. We must. As does Nabokov. “I rebel against this state of affairs,” he says.

Sure, we’re all trapped in this “prison of time” (as Nabokov calls it). But we do what we can to endure. We enjoy ourselves and each other. We can’t help but marvel at all of these “extraordinary visions in between” the two voids, and some of us are inspired from time to time to share what we’ve seen.

This Pauly has done. With integrity, and in a way that has made a positive impact. He’s done good.

The Test of Time

It’s a new month. Already. Another chance to think about what has been accomplished, and what goals remain as we move forward.

Such a busy month was January. Tourneys being played all over the world, every day it seemed. Plus lots of other poker-related distractions to occupy us all.

One item from last month I missed mentioning here was that votes for this year’s Bluff Magazine Reader’s Choice Awards were finally tallied and the winners announced. In the “Favorite Poker Blog” category, our buds over at Wicked Chops claimed their second straight award. Big congrats to the Entities!

I managed to land some votes in the sucker as well, and wanted here to thank everyone who voted for me. Also, thanks a ton to those who’ve sent along nice comments to me regarding getting nominated.

Hard, really, to compare blogs. All are so different. Even just the four that were included in the category are mostly unlike one another in method and approach, really.

As much as I like Pokerati and Wicked Chops, I tend to think of Tao of Poker as providing kind of the “template” for what I imagine a poker blog to be -- a mix of personal anecdote and more general reportage, delivered in a particular style that well communicates the blogger’s personality.

But there are many, many other ways of going about it, obviously, and so “ranking” blogs is about as difficult a task as comparing the relative abilities of poker players (a topic that has been getting a lot of attention here lately). And maybe as futile, too, although I suppose such an exercise affords a certain amount of fun and even usefulness insofar as it gets us thinking about what qualities make a blog (or player) especially good.

Have been pondering a bit lately about the relative value of some of the writing -- both poker-related and otherwise -- I’ve been doing (e.g., blog posts, articles, tourney reporting, and the new novel I keep adding to when I get a chance). Some of it I certainly value and am reasonably proud of. Other stuff tends to vanish more quickly, not necessarily leaving much of an impression on yr humble scribbler.

Some of the latter was written more for money than for other reasons, although financial gain usually does not dictate exactly how I’m personally going to value something I’ve written. As is the case with playing poker (for many), there are a lot of reasons to write -- and benefits to be had from writing -- that don’t have anything to do with making money.

Had an exchange not long ago with someone who had read my post about Jon Bradshaw’s excellent 1975 collection of essays, Fast Company, and then went and picked up the book for himself. He thanked me for drawing his attention to Bradshaw’s book, which contains some of the best poker writing you’re going to find.

I told him I was glad he enjoyed the book, adding that I hoped one day I’d be able to write something as meaningful and lasting about poker.

Or about anything, really (now that I think about it). A goal worth pursuing, I believe.

Nominated! Bluff Reader’s Choice Awards (Favorite Poker Blog)

Traveling can be great fun, no doubt. Of course, one of the greatest things about traveling is coming home.

Got a good night’s sleep, although I did wake up a few times with fleeting thoughts of posting hands, searching for wi-fi connectivity, and racing to make flight connections. One time when I woke, I actually thought I was slumped in an airplane seat, and when I realized where I was -- in my own bed -- I was overjoyed to realize I’d been mistaken.

Will be spending the day finishing unpacking and getting further reoriented. A lot of catching up to do, and so haven’t too much time today to write.

I did, however, want to share some nifty news -- Hard-Boiled Poker has been nominated as a “favorite poker blog” as part of Bluff Magazine’s recently announced, sixth annual “Reader’s Choice Awards.” No shinola! (Unless, of course, this is yet another dream, which is possible.)

Am reasonably certain that anyone reading this blog probably also keeps up with and digs (like me) the other nominees -- Wicked Chops Poker, Pokerati, and Tao of Poker. Am pretty sure those guys have all been nominated before, and I know WCP won the sucker last year. (Can’t recall if Pauly or Dan’s blogs have won before.)

Here’s the article from today listing the nominees. It looks like voting opens on December 6th, at which time I’ll probably put a link up somewhere on here.

Big thanks to Bluff for the nod. And I promise, regular posting to resume tomorrow.

I mean, I gotta kick-start the campaign, right?

2010 WSOP, Day 39: From Where I’m Sitting

I spent most of Day 39 of the 2010 World Series of Poker not in the Amazon Room -- where just about all of Day 1a of the Main Event took place -- but in the Pavilion Room, huddled near the final table of Event No. 54, the last of the open-field, $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em events that I was helping cover.

Our set up was a little awkward, but actually worked out well despite a huge, sometimes boisterous rail for both our final table and the Event No. 56 final table which happened right beside ours. That there is a picture taken from our reporting location. The Event No. 56 FT is in the foreground, and ours is behind it. You can see the big crowd there on the right-hand side. It looks a little tight, but my partner Bruno and I were able to get back and forth from the table to our laptops relatively easily, and the day was not difficult at all from a reporting standpoint.

One factor that helped make the day relatively stress-free was that our final table went very quickly. The short stacks were knocked out right away -- in fact, there was one hand in which the eventual winner Marcel Vonk knocked out two at once -- and including a one-hour dinner break, the sucker was decided in less than seven hours.

Vonk is a Dutch player who (as we discovered during the course of the day) has a Ph.D. in physics and has produced a number of important studies in string theory, including a book on the subject. (Here’s his website -- in Dutch -- that includes his extensive curriculum vitae.) He beat out David “dpeters17” Peters of Toledo, Ohio, a successful online player who led for much of the day and had a 9-to-2 advantage during the heads-up portion. But it basically just took three hands -- a couple of double-ups for Vonk and the finisher -- for it all to turn around.

Once all was done I ambled over to the Amazon to see who was around. They had one more hour of play to go, the first half of the two-hour Level 5. (It was decided early yesterday they would play four-and-a-half levels, rather than just four.) They were on break when I got over there, so I didn’t see people like Otis, Mean Gene, and others whom I know have arrived.

I did chat with Dr. Pauly a bit about his long-ass day of travel as well as his coverage to that point of Day 1a. Pauly spent the day live blogging the Main Event, compiling stories and other out-of-the-way items as he has done in the past. Indeed, if you want to read about hands played, get an idea about how chip stacks went up and down, and other play-by-play from Day 1a, you can check PokerNews’ live reporting. But if you want additional color and a broader perspective on what the day was like, go read Tao of Poker, too.

When I talked to Pauly he was a bit hot because apparently someone had complained that he was posting too frequently yesterday and he had been asked not to do so. For those who don’t know, credentialed media are given a set of guidelines to follow, including one rule about “Tournament Access” that says “media organizations can only post Top 10 chip counts once per hour.” That guideline applies to everyone except PokerNews, to whom Harrah’s/WSOP has granted unrestricted access and thus allows to post chip counts continuously. There is some clarification of the “once per hour” rule in the guidelines that says updates cannot be posted until an hour after an event begins, and then subsequent posts can’t come until an hour has passed since the last one.

The rule as written specifically refers to the reporting of chip counts, but has been applied to other kinds of updating, too. I have seen it happen this year that some non-PokerNews sites have been warned about posting too frequently -- not just about chip counts, but any kind of reporting -- and apparently Dr. Pauly received a similar warning yesterday.

Go read Pauly’s Day 1a blog for more about what happened. I ain’t gonna comment too much further on it here, although I’d be interested to hear what others think about the subject of so-called “exclusive” rights with regard to reporting on the WSOP. I will repeat what I say above, though, and say that in my opinion those hungry for information and stories from the WSOP are especially well served by visiting Tao of Poker (as well as a number of other sites) in addition to PokerNews.

After six straight days of reporting, I’m off the next two. I will be at the Rio some today, however, where I’ll be trying again to catch up with some of those other writerly types who have finally arrived.

Let me end with a thank you to Pete from Canada who came by to say hello to me at the end of my day yesterday. Pete shared some kind words about Hard-Boiled Poker which I really appreciated, and his visit was a nice way to end the day of work. Thanks, Pete!

And thanks everyone else, too, for spending time here now and then. I know that as far as the WSOP is concerned, you can certainly go elsewhere for the big picture, whereas here you’re mostly just gonna get the relatively narrow view of yr humble gumshoe. So thanks for occasionally finding some value in hearing about what one guy on the ground happens to see from where he is sitting.

2009 WSOP, Day 45: Theme (In Search Of)

During the dinner break yesterday I spent some time chatting with our friend Dr. Pauly up in the press box. The good doctor was thinking out loud about what sort of “theme” or central idea would be guiding his daily report for Day 3 of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event.

He’d eventually focus on the two fellows at the top of the leaderboard at day’s end -- Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Ludovic Lacay -- both of whom are French, and both of whom are aggressive, strong players who are capable of shredding weaker, timid opponents into confetti faster than you can say “Mon Dieu.”

I realized while talking to Dr. P. that what I was doing -- helping live blog the sucker for PokerNews by choosing hands here and there and reporting on a relative handful of players while my colleagues were all doing the same -- meant that I was really not capable of seeing any “theme” or “big picture.” Not yet, anyway. I was too much in it to be able to see it from the outside. Thus I knew I couldn’t really hope to end the day with anything other than a subjective impression of what my localized experience of the day was like.

What was my experience? Well, it felt like being in the middle of something very big and unwieldy -- not quite chaotic or out of control, but something well beyond what one mere mortal could reasonably grasp and comprehend. Luckily I wasn’t alone, but had the full force alongside me -- all of the other bloggers, field reporters, photographers, video producers, and other important people helping manage it all -- and together we continued our collective work on that novel we’re writing over on the PokerNews’ live reporting page about the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event.

It’s a long, winding tale full of digressions, surprise plot twists, unique characters, and without resolution. There are themes present, though all have thus far only been tentatively introduced and have yet to be developed fully.

Oh, and the hero of the story has yet to be determined, too.

Day 3 started with 2,044 players. About 850 of them were filling every available seat in the Brasilia Room, while a little less than 1,200 were packing the Amazon. It took three hours of play to lose about 500 players. By the dinner break, after another three hours of play, almost 1,000 had been knocked out. With an hour-and-a-half to go, less than 1,000 players remained, at which point Grospellier had moved into the chip lead.

By day’s end just 789 survived. The Brasilia Room was shut down once all of the players who had survived and were still playing there had been moved into empty chairs in the Amazon, and as the night concluded we watched as first the Red section’s tables of tournament players had all emptied (to be replaced once more by cash games), then some of the Orange section’s tables started to go as well.

When tables in the Amazon started to empty, I started to recall that weird, uncanny feeling from the end of last summer when the Main Event field shrunk down to less than the capacity of the Amazon Room, then further and further until only nine remained. When players are eliminated and seats open up, tables are “broken” in order to keep the tournament playing nine-handed as much as possible. That means players at the next table assigned to be broken are given seat cards matching empty seats elsewhere in the tourney, to which they promptly travel.

At this point of the WSOP Main Event, once a table is “broken” it is then literally broken down, too; that is, the tables are actually disassembled and then moved off the main floor to create more room for fans and media. (That picture is from last summer’s coverage on PokerNews.) The removal of tables and the reduction of the number of people in the room helps create this strange vibe -- it’s a much different environment in which to play (and report). And since the stakes get higher and higher once the money is reached and players continue to be eliminated, the mood becomes all the more stark and exposed. There’s less going on. Relatively speaking, every action is of greater and greater importance.

Last year only 474 made it through Day 3, and there were 189 still around at the end of Day 4. The starting field was smaller this year, but the starting stacks were deeper, which helps explain the comparatively lower rate of attrition. Today what will happen -- I imagine -- is that tables in the Orange section will gradually be broken down, meaning eventually we’ll have everyone playing in the Blue and Green sections (and the feature tables) in the back half of the Amazon. We’ll reach the cash early on (before Orange is done), then probably end up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 players left at day’s end. That’s where I’ll go ahead and set the over/under line, anyway. And if I were betting, I’d take the under.

Last summer I worked the first part of the day the bubble burst, but left early as I happened to have drawn a section where the tables all broke prior to the tournament reaching the cash. So I wasn’t there in the Amazon room when the moment occurred. When suddenly, for hundreds of players, their Main Event experience had taken on an utterly new and wonderful significance.

Not sure where I’ll be today, but I’m thinking whatever my draw ends up being, I’m going to be there in the Amazon when the bubble bursting moment occurs.

Because it seems like that might be what this is all about, what gives it meaning and purpose. Maybe then I’ll start to see it all more clearly and some theme will emerge.

Weapons of Choice

I’ve been perusing Arnold Snyder’s first book about hold’em tournaments, titled The Poker Tournament Formula (2006). The book concentrates largely on “fast” tournaments, i.e., tourneys with rapidly rising blind/ante structures that require players to master strategies that Snyder collectively refers to as “speed play.” A sequel, The Poker Tournament Formula 2, came out this summer, and it focuses more on “slow” tournaments with large starting stacks and longer levels with more gradual increases of blinds/antes.

Incidentally, “Arnold Snyder” is actually a pseudonym for a successful tourney player who has also written some well-regarded books on blackjack. He writes quite clearly and has many interesting ideas that build upon and, in some cases, refute well-known concepts appearing in other books such as Dan Harrington’s Harrington on Hold’em series. For example, in the second book Snyder offers a particular criticism and clarification of Harrington’s much-lauded “M” concept that I would think most hold’em tourney players would find persuasive (or at least intriguing).

In this first book Snyder starts out with an explanation of how to analyze the structure of a given tournament and thus determine whether or not it is “fast,” “medium,” or “slow.” Snyder provides some formulas to help figure out the “patience factor” of a given tournament based on its starting chips and schedule of play, as well as the relative “skill level” one might therefore associate with the tournament.

I’m not going to get into the specifics of Snyder’s formulas (which do seem quite helpful), but wanted instead just to share one observation he makes early on in the first book regarding the relative importance of cards, chips, and position.

Snyder believes that in tournaments with fast structures, “your cards are the least important of your three weapons.” Also, echoing Doyle Brunson’s point from Super/System, Snyder believes that “position is the most important weapon you have in... a fast no-limit hold’em tournament.” That said, “it’s usually best not to tangle with a big chip stack when you’re really just making a position play.”

Thus when assessing the relative value of cards, chips, and position in these fast tourneys, Snyder suggests thinking of of the three factors as a version of the “rock-paper-scissors” game. He even offers a helpful mnemonic device for remembering what beats what: “Cards are made of paper. Chips are something you could throw, like a rock. If you can remember those two, there’s nothing left for position except scissors.”

Thus, cards beat chips (paper beats rock). Chips beat position (rock beats scissors). And position beats cards (scissors beats paper).

An interesting analogy. Of course, as Snyder goes on to explain, there are a few reasons why it is incorrect to think of hold’em tourneys as simply an elaboration on the game of Rochambeau. For one, in rock-paper-scissors, all three weapons are always of equal value, no matter what. In hold’em tourneys, the relative strength of your three weapons is constantly changing -- as is the case for your opponents, too -- and so it is important to recognize where you stand with regard to each when determining how best to proceed.

I’m hardly doing Snyder’s idea justice here -- you’ll have to go check out his book yourself for more explanation. Interesting stuff, though.

Even so, I haven’t left my usual pot-limit Omaha and H.O.R.S.E. ring games and started jumping into any hold’em tourneys just yet. Although I am thinking of playing in a certain one tonight.

Most reading this blog probably know all about it already, but Dr. Pauly is hosting a $5.00+$0.50 no-limit hold’em tourney on PokerStars tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time as a way of celebrating the fifth anniversary of Tao of Poker. And in addition to the usual prize pool, the winner will receive an entry into a $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament during the Borgata Poker Open (September 12th) as well as two nights’ stay there Borgata Hotel & Spa in Atlantic City.

Pretty swell deal, there. Like I say, I’m probably going to be playing, although I might be distracted for the first hour as tonight ESPN is showing the final table of Event No. 4, the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em event which I covered for PokerNews. That airs from 8-10 p.m. Eastern time.

Whether I make it or not, let me encourage everyone reading to join in the fun. And don’t forget yr weapons.

2008 WSOP, Day 11: Escape!

As I was leaving the Rio last night, I was walking down the long hallway toward the exit when I spotted a tall, darkly-clad figure in a cap speaking in an animated fashion to three others. This was probably around 10:30 p.m. or so, and there wasn’t a lot of activity in the hall. So I could distinctly hear this guy’s voice shooting up an octave as he fervently outlined the lack of skill displayed by his opponents.

Got a little closer and saw the “HELLMUTH” stitched in yellow down the side of his pants leg. As I approached the group I noticed one of his listeners was Allen Cunningham. Truly looked as though the 11-bracelet winner in the race car get-up had trapped Cunningham and the others like so many helpless opponents, having somehow suckered them into listening to his diatribe.

“Fold, fold, fold, fold . . . then kings, baby!” he said as I walked by.

I made my way out the door and into the parking lot. Luckily for me, I couldn’t be trapped so easily. I was making my escape, having finished covering Event No. 11 and looking forward to having today off.

Indeed, today is the first day since the World Series of Poker started that I am not going to set foot inside the Rio. I think I can safely let those six events being played today proceed without my being there.

Two events are getting started today: Event No. 17, another No-Limit Hold’em Shootout event (this time with a $1,500 buy-in), and Event No. 18, the $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball with Rebuys event.

The Shootout cranked up at noon today, and it looks as though they capped it at 1,000 entrants, so the winner will have to win three ten-handed tables to take the bracelet in that one. The 2-7 Lowball event gets going about an hour from now. Last year this one had only 78 entrants, probably the smallest field of any of the events. That was the very last one before the Main Event last year, in which Erik Seidel outlasted Chad Brown to take his eighth WSOP bracelet. Don’t think Seidel will be defending his title today, as he is at the final table of the Seven Card Stud event (see below).

It’s Day 2 for two other events. Event No. 15, the $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em event, plays down to its final table today. Only 61 of the 1,190 who entered survived to play today. I didn’t have a lot of time yesterday to watch the Ladies event, although it was an interesting scene there in the Amazon to see that many tables full of women. I would estimate the typical male-to-female ratio among players in the other events has to be at least 9-to-1, with most tables either being all men or perhaps one woman and the rest men. When I got there, Jennifer Tilly was posing for a picture with a fan right in the middle of the Amazon (I believe she had already busted from the event that she’d won back in 2005).

Event No. 16, the $2,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better event, continues as well today. They had 553 runners sign up for that one, and 169 remain heading into Day 2. This one only started up again about an hour ago, and if they are playing down to the final nine (as I assume is the plan), they may be in for a long night.

Finally, there will be two more bracelets awarded today, one for Event No. 13, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event, and one for Event No. 14, the $10,000 World Championship Seven Card Stud event. Between the two, I’m definitely more interested in the latter, where Minh Ly, David Oppenheim, Seidel, and five others’ll battle it out. Not seeing any big names at the NLHE final table. They played until 4 a.m. last night in that one, so the players (and reporters) will be feeling some fatigue, I’d imagine.

No, like I said I’m gonna assume the Series can proceed without me for one day. Might check in over at PokerNews now and then just to see what’s happening, though. Also will probably pay visits to Pokerati and Tao of Poker, as should you if yr interested in reading about what else is going on at the Rio.

I’ll be back over there tomorrow. Here, too.

Ready Or Not

Flight to Vegas takes off in just over twenty-four hours. Then we’re looking at a couple of months in the desert to witness and report on what remains the greatest poker show on earth, the World Series of Poker. Will be working with a terrific group of folks at PokerNews this summer, and I feel fortunate to be part of the team.

I expect to be fully connected while there, and so am hoping to keep blogging away over here throughout the summer. Dunno if I’ll have the energy or stamina of a Dr. Pauly (does anyone?), who for the past few summers has managed the live blogging thing as well as extensive daily reports over on Tao of Poker. But I do intend to check in here frequently in order to try to chronicle my excellent adventure.

Thanks again to everybody for all the good vibes. Talk to you soon.

“Made Hand Mentality” in PLO; or, He Who Hesitates Is Lost

Had been sitting on a post about Pot Limit Omaha for a couple of weeks now titled “Made Hand Mentality.” Not sure I’m really up to writing it today, but Dr. Pauly’s post from yesterday about PLO got me cogitatin’ about it again.

Then I read Luckbox talking PLO over on Up for Poker this morning and realized those thoughts have now moved right there to the front of the cerebral cortex. Kind of blocking my view of other things, so I guess I’ll have to try to sort it out . . . .

In Pauly’s post he lyrically details the intoxicating action PLO provides. “PLO has four cards,” writes Pauly. “Double the dosage. Double the rush.” A primary factor fueling the adrenaline surge of PLO is the fact that one is constantly playing draws. Or should be, anyway. Pauly says he “crave[s] the inundation of the gambler’s high that overcomes [his] senses when [he] shove[s] all in with a monster draw.” Likes it even more when he has to come from behind to take the hand. That’ll happen in PLO.

The point, of course, is that PLO requires one to recognize draws, especially “monster” ones, and play them correctly. Otherwise you’re lost. The post I had been thinking about writing had occurred to me during a not-so-hot stretch of PLO play where I realized I had momentarily slipped into a fairly detrimental, almost lethargic state at the tables. The problem, I finally decided, was that -- for whatever reason -- I had momentarily developed a case of “made hand mentality,” which can be deadly in PLO.

Nothing terribly profound here. It’s really a matter of timing. One cannot sit around and wait to put in bets after making hands in PLO. Rather, one has to be reasonably comfortable with the idea of betting without having already gotten there with your sets, straights, flushes, or boats. This goes for both pre- and postflop play.

Preflop, it is perfectly mindless to wait until you are dealt A-A-x-x and/or huge starters like J-T-9-8-double suited before putting in raises. Never mind the fact that you become predictable, announcing to the table every time you put in a preflop raise that yr holding something premo. Those hands don’t come that often. So you have to be willing now and then to raise with less than the best, understanding, of course, that the flop is going to determine whether or not yr gonna stay active with the hand.

In PLO, the most lucrative hands tend to be those you make on the turn, not those you make on the flop. I suppose this phenomenon is true as well in Hold ’em, although the big difference there that if you do flop the nuts in HE you’re are relatively less likely to fall behind later in the hand.

It’s vital in PLO to gauge when and in what situations you want to be putting the chips in the middle. You love it when you flop that “monster” or “nuclear” wrap draw plus a flush draw giving you 17, 20, or even more outs. You don’t wait to get there before betting, though. You go ahead put the money in, get the made hand to call you (often he can’t do otherwise), then really get excited when the turn brings one of your outs. The point is, you don’t wait to make the hand first, then hope to get action. In fact, in a lot of instances, you probably don’t want action with your flopped made hand (unless, say, you’ve flopped quads and yr opponent probably has flopped top boat).

Avoiding getting locked into “Made Hand Mentality” is probably also a good policy in other games as well, although it seems to me especially important in PLO -- or “Omadraw,” as some call it. Probably one of the more important ideas to keep in mind when playing this game.

Like I said, wasn’t completely ready to write on this one, but realized I had to before I could move on to anything else . . . . Then again, the timing seems to have been right, since tomorrow you have not one but two opportunities to put yr PLO knowledge into practice.

Tomorrow at noon (Eastern time) there is Event No. 4 of the Ante-Up Intercontinental Poker Series III in 3-D, a $5.00+$0.50 buy-in PLO tourney over on Full Tilt. Then at 4:20 p.m. (Eastern) there's Saturdays with Pauly, a $10+$1 PLO tourney on Stars.

So stop yr dilly-dallyin’ and jump in the PLO pool, why dontcha?

Going the Extra Mile

B.J. Nemeth, terrific tournament reporter for PokerNews and other outlets, has weighed in on the idea to postpone the final table of the WSOP Main Event in order to televise it live (or “plausibly live”) at some later date -- discussed a couple of days ago here. (Incidentally, the latest buzz appears to suggest we won’t necessarily see this change happen this summer, but will most certainly see something like it in 2009.)

Head over to Tao of Poker and read Nemeth’s thoughts in the post dated April 8th. There Nemeth provides some good arguments for why he thinks the idea to create a “must see” final table event is a good one for poker. And while I still have reservations -- the main one concerning the notion of waiting three whole months to complete the tournament -- I can appreciate where Nemeth is coming from.

Regardless of the position being argued, I especially like this kind of thoughtful, well-reasoned editorial. I appreciate writers who take the time to present their ideas clearly and thoughtfully, taking into consideration the audience’s needs (for clarity, for sound reasoning, etc.). Nice, also, to see a subject like this addressed with a sense of historical perspective (which Nemeth definitely has).

Fact is, there are a number folks out there -- if you’re willing to seek ’em out -- who are writing about poker who will take the time to think ideas through and communicate them as effectively as they can. Poker ain’t all that different from the rest of the world, in that respect . . . .

Speaking of, was reading this week about the recently-awarded Pulitzer prizes for journalism. Looks like The Washington Post was the big winner this time around, being recognized for their in-depth reports on subjects like the mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, the Virginia Tech shootings, the political influence of Dick Cheney, among others. A lot of times the stories that get singled out for praise in this way are investigative pieces that bring together all of the most-valued characteristics of excellent journalism -- characteristics that make them “distinguished” in the judges’ minds.

The criteria for judging are always somewhat subjective, of course, but to my way of thinking, the best journalism usually demonstrates a high degree of intellectual rigor, a faithfulness to “journalistic ethics” or responsible reporting, and evidence of supreme effort. Usually the winners are multi-part articles that (1) required a great deal from the author(s) in terms of investigative work, and (2) were written with an eye toward the “greater good” -- i.e., report on issues or concerns in a way that was both constructive and clearly of benefit to the community of readers.

All of which caused me to reflect a bit on poker journalism. Can we perhaps point to examples of that sort of excellence in our little corner of the news landscape? Thinking back over the last couple of years, three spring to mind:

Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli’s multi-part investigation of the two million extra chips that suddenly materialized near the end of the 2006 WSOP Main Event. The pair produced three exhaustive articles in September 2006, then a follow-up in early 2007 that shared industry reaction:

“Two Million Questions. Will Poker Answer?: Part One”
“Two Million Questions. Will Poker Answer?: Part Two”
“Two Million Questions. Will Poker Answer?: Part Three”
“Two Million Chips: Six Months After”

Haley Hintze’s “Anatomy of a Cybersquatter” series of reports from early 2007 documenting the curious twists and turns in the battle over the “wsop.com” domain. Hintze meticulously presented the story in seven installments:

“Introduction: Binion’s Horseshoe on the Ropes”
“Part 1: Bad Blood Runs Deep”
“Part 2: Cybersquatting 101”
“Part 3: From “World Series of Poker” to “WSOP””
“Part 4: The Lawyers Always Get Theirs”
“Part 5: One for All, and All for One”
“Part 6: Not Quite Coda”

Jennifer Newell’s recent Poker Player Newspaper series on the Absolute Poker scandal. Her articles appeared from November 2007 to January 2008:

“An Absolute Mess, Part 1”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 2”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 3”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 4”
“An Absolute Mess, Part 5”

Of course, Newell’s series brought together and presented a lot of information compiled by those other super sleuths who helped crack the AP scandal in the first place. (And, as I wrote about a few weeks ago, still more folks also reported on that one as well.) By the way, I recently noticed Serge “Adanthar” Ravitch mention on his blog that the 60 Minutes story on Absolute Poker is “probably happening (at least, my segment is definitely getting shot).” Gary Wise mentioned on his podcast last week that he’d been interviewed as well.

Plenty of other recent examples of excellence in poker journalism, too, of course. These were just a few that came to mind. Do go enjoy (and be inspired by) those series if you hadn’t already. And for more thoughtful discussion about poker, do check out Nemeth’s thoughts regarding that plan for a big ol’ ME final table extravaganza, as well.

A Lack of H.O.R.S.E. Sense

Poor England. Done in by penalty kicks (more accurately, a “penalty shootout”). Hell of an effort to hang in a man down for most of the second half and the two OTs. Still, had a bad feeling for England as soon as the PKs began. I suppose I understand why the penalty shootout was brought in as a way of deciding knockout stage World Cup matches, and I won’t deny they’re exciting to watch. Can’t help but feel there’s something anticlimactic, though, to have two teams battle for 120 minutes only to have the match decided in this fashion. Something like having a basketball game go several overtimes only to be settled in the end by a free throw shooting contest . . . .

Well, there’s always poker. The World Series of Poker is now well underway and like everyone else I’ve got one eye on my table and the other scanning for updated results and stories from the various tourneys on sites like CardPlayer, Poker Wire, Tao of Poker, the WSOP official site, and others. Indeed, as I write this post I’m following the final table of the $2,500 NLH 6-handed event where Joe Hachem, Dutch Boyd, and Jeff Knight are (at this moment) the last three standing.

Probably the most anticipated event at this year’s WSOP -- other than the Main Event, of course -- is Event 20, the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event that begins Wednesday, July 12. As most of you probably know, H.O.R.S.E. is a mixed game that combines Hold ’em, Omaha 8-or-better (also called Hi-Lo), Razz, Stud, and Stud 8-or-better (or Hi-Lo). The game changes each time the blinds go up, and all five of the games -- including Hold ’em -- are played as limit games. Usually, anyway.

Thanks in part to the H.O.R.S.E. event and the other non-Hold ’em events in the WSOP, I’ve found myself drifting over to the other games online over the last couple of days. I’ve even sat on the rail at the Razz tables on Full Tilt Poker a bit, contemplating whether or not to dip my toe in the shallow end. I have a plan of sorts for July to get back into Omaha and Stud (games which I used to play more regularly, but haven’t really played seriously for the last six months or so). Maybe by summer’s end I’ll even give one of those $5.00+$1.00 H.O.R.S.E. tourneys they run on Full Tilt a shot.

Regarding the H.O.R.S.E. event at this year’s WSOP, there have been two main bones of contention. One concerns the high buy-in, which delights some of the pros (like Daniel Negreanu, last spring’s most vocal proponent for adding the event) insofar as it virtually guarantees a field comprised primarily of serious, high-bankrolled professional players. I’ve no idea what the over-under currently is regarding the number of potential entrants. On his new weekly ESPN podcast The Poker Edge, Phil Gordon (citing Erik Seidel as an authority) suggested 85, which sounds about right. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if less than 100 lay down the 50,000 clams for this one. I think the high buy-in is a good idea, not so much because it weeds out the “riff-raff” (as some pros -- e.g., Mike Matusow -- routinely describe non-circuit players), but because it helps distinguish the event even further from the other forty-four. The high buy-in is definitely going to cause more people to pay attention, thereby creating more interest in games like Omaha, Razz, and Stud. And that’s a good thing for poker, I think.

The other controversy concerns the decision by WSOP officials to make the final table of the event No Limit Hold ’em only -- that is, essentially to end the “H.O.R.S.E.” part of the game and revert back to the familiar NLH we’ve seen endless versions of on ESPN, the Travel Channel, and elsewhere already. (Click here to see the WSOP’s official structure sheet that describes how the entire event will go down.) Concerning this issue, I’m strongly opposed to switching the format once they’ve whittled the field down to the last table. Doing so defeats the entire purpose of H.O.R.S.E., a game that allegedly tests players’ abilities to compete successfully in several limit games, none of which allow players to negate post-flop strategic advantages by going all-in. Never mind how switching to NLH for the final table -- the only part of the event that will be televised, of course -- completely counters the event’s ability to foster interest in non-Hold ’em games.

To me, giving up the H.O.R.S.E. format in favor of using NL Hold ’em to decide the winner is a lot like resorting to a penalty shootout to decide who advances in the World Cup. In both cases, you’re essentially taking the “play” out of the contest, adding a much higher degree of chance that ultimately negates (or at least compromises heavily) the test of skill the original game is supposed to represent.

It looks like its Hachem and Boyd heads-up. Ought to make for a story either way.

Hope to see some of you over at the Razz tables soon!