The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 21: Lucille Ball

Years later, my podcast has returned! Episode 21 of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show has now been posted. If you click over to the show’s blog you can see the entry with my “show notes.” You can download the show there (or just listen to it online), or you can just click here. It ought to be turning up in iTunes as well before too long, I imagine. (All of the previous 20 episodes are still there.)

This episode features the great Lucille Ball and includes some stories about her and Desi Arnaz, a full episode of an old time radio show in which she starred, as well as a couple of funny poker-related excerpts from I Love Lucy. There’s also a pretty humorous (and catchy) song from the Andrews Sisters in there, too, called “Strip Polka.”

I started the podcast with great enthusiasm long ago, pumping out episodes every two weeks or so there at the beginning, then slowing down the pace but still getting all of the way to Episode 20 fairly quickly. Then a few months passed, I claimed the show was on “hiatus,” and before long it became clear I was drawing thin to ever revive the sucker.

Not really sure what exactly inspired me finally to pull together a new episode this week, other than having a little bit of free time in between tourney trips and other obligations.

I actually had ideas for new episodes on multiple occasions over that long period of procrastination, even recording segments and pursuing themes on a couple of occasions. Once my buddy the Poker Grump and I even recorded a conversation about A Streetcar Named Desire that I’d intended to use in an episode, but I never got around to bringing that idea to fruition.

We’d both written posts about the movie, which in fact incorporates poker in fairly significant ways. Incidentally, here’s his post about the film, titled “Poker, ‘this party of apes,’” and here’s mine, “Men, Women, and Poker in A Streetcar Named Desire.” We both discuss how the film uses poker as a context for exploring the movie’s broader themes regarding men and women and cultural expectations or “gender roles” for each.

That same topic actually comes up in the old time radio show I highlight in Episode 21, an episode of My Favorite Husband. As I explain on the podcast, the radio show which ran from 1948 to 1951 featured the same sort of situation that would later get picked up and used for the I Love Lucy show that premiered in 1951 -- that is, a domestic setting with Ball starring as a housewife and getting into funny situations with her working husband. In fact, the TV show even borrowed some of the plots from the radio show, including the one I play on the podcast.

As you might have guessed, the episode finds Lucy -- on the radio show playing a character named Liz Cooper -- jumping into her husband’s poker game, a men-only sphere in which her presence creates some conflict. However, unlike in A Streetcar Named Desire, the result of the conflict are lots of laughs and no tense-filled drama.

Anyhow, check out the show if you’re curious. Despite all the time passing, I basically made the episode without any significant change to the format and without even making too much of a deal of having let so much time go by between shows. The idea for the podcast all along has been to create shows that weren’t time-bound in any way, meaning you could listen to them at any time and they’d still make sense and be as interesting or entertaining as when they were first created.

If you do happen to listen, I’d love feedback either here on this post, over on the post on the HBPRS blog, or via reviews in iTunes. Would also like suggestions, too, for future shows, if anyone’s got ’em.

Radio Show Revival

This week’s posts -- about Richard Nixon, then the one noting the 2,000th post milestone -- have had me spending time looking back into history, generally speaking, as well as the history of the blog.

When perusing some of the old posts from years ago I was reminded yet again of my excursion into poker podcasting which ultimately saw me producing 20 episodes of something called The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show. It’s been a good while since the last one. Indeed, over on the HBPRS website I’ve had a post promising a “Season Two” up for a long time now and still haven’t delivered.

But for various reasons I’m starting to think it might be fun to revive the podcast, and even have a plan for Episode 21 which I might try to pull together in the next few days.

Those who heard the show before will remember how it was primarily based around presenting programs from the so-called “Golden Age of Radio” that began way back in the 1920s and lasted into the 1950s until television came along. Each episode of the HBPRS would feature at least one of those old shows, picked because it featured poker and/or gambling in some fashion.

There’s a pretty good variety represented in those 20 episodes with lots of mysteries, some comedies, a few westerns, and other types of old shows. In fact, if I’m remembering correctly I don’t think I even repeated any specific radio show along the way. Thus if you went through and listened to all of the HBPRS episodes you’d get a wide exposure to old time radio and its stars, generally speaking.

The podcast also often featured poker-themed songs and some other examples of cultural productions in which poker figured in some fashion. I had guests occasionally contributing to the show as well, especially early on, although for the most part it was just me introducing and discussing the various segments.

Like I say, I have an idea for a new episode and some enthusiasm to get the show up and running once again, perhaps to aim for producing at least a few more episodes of it and see where it goes. So as a further means to motivate myself I thought I’d post about this idea to revive the show here today, and ask for suggestions, too.

I think I’d like to keep old time radio as part of the format going forward, although I’m open to incorporating other things, too, in order to keep the show interesting and also not be limited to a certain kind of show -- one of the reasons, really, why I “pod-faded” (as they say) and let the show fall into this extended hiatus.

It would be fun, for instance, to feature segments that present and perhaps build on some of the topics I’ve written about in the past and for various outlets under the heading of “poker and pop culture.”

For example, long ago I wrote a lengthy piece for PokerNews about poker’s prominence on Star Trek: The Next Generation, going through pretty much all of the episodes in which poker came up (and there were a lot of them). I’ve had a number of ST:TNG fans who play poker mention that piece to me over the years, and it could be fun to do an episode talking about the show and perhaps including some clips along the way.

I can also definitely imagine venturing into other kinds of segments, such as one sharing some of this material about Nixon and his poker playing that I have been gathering of late.

One other reason why I found it hard to keep doing the show was the fact that I was flying solo, and thus there wasn’t anyone else to motivate me to keep making the shows. I’m thinking if I do revive it I’d like to have more involvement from others, if possible, perhaps as guests coming on to talk about various topics or to contribute in other ways.

For example, with this ST:TNG idea, I could have a devotee of that show come on to comment further on those poker-themed episodes while also maybe giving more context for them that I can as someone who didn’t necessarily follow the entire series as closely as some. Same for other topics in which others have a particular interest.

Anyhow, like I say I am posting this as both a way to motivate myself to get going again and to ask for suggestions as well. And if you have an idea and perhaps want to contribute in some fashion to the HBPRS revival, too, by all means let me know either with a comment or by dropping me a note at shortstackedshamus at gmail dot com.

Incidentally, if anyone who never heard the show before is curious, all 20 of the episodes are still there and downloadable. You can get to them through the HBPRS website and they are on iTunes, too. (The sound quality on some of the early ones is a little sketchy, so you might start with one of the later ones where the audio is definitely improved.)

Appearing on Keep Flopping Aces Tonight (2/19, 6:00 PT)

Busy days. Seems like I have a half-dozen things I’m supposed to be doing right now, one of which includes readying to go help cover the North American Poker Tour Venetian event starting this weekend.

Saw the exciting news a couple of days ago that ESPN2 will indeed be airing a number of hours’ worth of NAPT events starting April 19. (Read all about it here.) I also saw the less thrilling news yesterday that apparently Full Tilt Poker doesn’t want its pros playing in the NAPT Venetian. Gary Wise reported on that development over at ESPN, and Dan Michalski adds a few thoughts as well over at Pokerati.

Besides readying for the trip, I’m busily trying to finish some articles and take care of other matters, too. Feeling pulled in a number of directions, but not too stressed, really. (Maybe I’m being inspired by those Olympians to rise to the challenge.)

In any event, all of this stuff has most definitely gotten in the way of my creating a new episode of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, which I now have to admit is on a hiatus of sorts. But I do have more shows planned!

Speaking of the HBPRS, the show is now being aired -- syndicated, if you will -- over on the fledgling Poker Radio Network. They streamed the first episode over there (Dead Man’s Deal) last week and I had some nice feedback on that. Should get the show a few new listeners, and perhaps some new readers over here, too.

I think the HBPRS gets played over on the Poker Radio Network on Mondays at 5 p.m., Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m., and Fridays at noon (all Pacific times). I believe there’s also a time on Saturday when the show comes on, too. There are some other shows over on PRN as well, covering a variety of poker-related topics.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be turning up over on Rounders Radio tonight when I appear on Lou Krieger’s Keep Flopping Aces podcast. The plan is for him to interview me a bit initially about the blog and other items, then I’m going to be asking him some questions to pick his brain a bit regarding the current status of poker books and print publications. (My plan is to write something up from my interview afterwards for Betfair.)

Krieger, as most of you know, has published numerous poker books -- 11 altogether, I believe -- and so has a particularly informed perspective on the subject. His first poker book was published back in the mid-1990s (Hold’em Excellence: From Beginner to Winner), and his most recent one in 2007 (52 Great Poker Tips). That means he was already on the shelves when the “boom” happened in 2003 (and, I assume, benefited somewhat from that). Here’s a page on his website where you can see all of his books and follow links for ordering.

Krieger also edits Poker Player Newspaper, familiar to anyone frequenting the cardrooms in Vegas and elsewhere, so he has some insight into that side of poker publishing as well.

Should be fun to go on KFA, which is one of the poker podcasts I’ve been following for a long time. I think I first found it three years ago (or so), when Krieger was co-hosting the show with Amy Calistri, and have always enjoyed the variety of guests and discussions. The show airs at 6 p.m. Pacific time tonight, or 9 p.m. for those of us here in the east, and then will be subsequently available for download as a podcast.

Finally, you can also hear me crashing the party again over on the latest episode (No. 8) of the Gambling Tales Podcast with Special K and Falstaff, where we have a segment discussing James McManus’s Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker. As I’ve said before, those of you who have listened to and enjoyed my podcast should check out GTP, as it also features some great stories about gambling, delivered via interviews and discussions of such tales from history. Fun stuff.

So there are a few audio snacks to fill the gap between servings of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show. By the way, if you have any questions about poker books & publications you’d like me to bring up on tonight’s Keep Flopping Aces, leave ’em in the comments and I’ll see if I can work them into the conversation.

Be talkin’ to you.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 20: Mel Blanc

Generally speaking, when life gets busy, the podcast tends to slip further and further down the list of priorities, I’m afraid. But I do enjoy creating new episodes of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show whenever I can find the time. Managed to pull together the 20th one over the weekend, and have now posted it on the show’s website.

For this episode, I decided to focus on a few different items featuring Mel Blanc, the great actor and comedian who provided the voices for something like 300 different cartoon characters over his long, illustrious career. On the show I begin with a funny song by Blanc called “Money,” then talk about a couple of old Bugs Bunny cartoons in which Bugs plays cards. Finally, I play an entire episode of the old time radio show, The Mel Blanc Show.

There is a bit of gambling in the episode. Took me a good while to search through episodes of Blanc’s show to find any references whatsoever to card playing or gambling. But at last I found one. Unfortunately, the episode I found was one that did not feature my favorite element of Blanc’s show, namely, Jim Backus’s hilarious portrayal of Blanc'’s exceedingly vain acquaintance Hartley Benson. So I play a little bit of Backus from another episode right before the full show, just so to give a sample of this side-splitting character.

During the recording and mixing of this episode, I realized that despite my earnest efforts the previous episode (No. 19) had some sketchy audio here and there, although I think it is at least listenable. I wanted to say that this new Episode 20 sounds quite good in terms of audio-quality -- indeed, it might be the best-sounding episode I’ve done. I used a new microphone and did a lot of post-production noise removal and what not to make it sound good. Still not up to professional standards, but a decent job of faking it.

Also, as it happens, the recordings of The Mel Blanc Show are of excellent quality, which isn’t always the case with these old time radio shows from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. So if you happen to give this episode of the HBPRS a spin, you can expect decent sound throughout. And a few grins along the way, too, I think.

As always, any feedback or suggestions are welcome. Comment here or over on the show’s blog. You can also subscribe to the show in iTunes (click here to get to the page in the iTunes store), where you can review it as well. Or just shoot me an email at shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com.

Work is calling, so I’m gonna go ahead and cut it short today and say...

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 19: Ace of Spades

Finally managed to pull together another episode of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, which I uploaded yesterday. That’s 19 in all. Was thinking of doing one more following the same format, then possibly changing things up just a bit after that to include other things like book reviews, podcast reviews, and the like.

I’d also very much like to have more guest segments wherein others tell their poker and/or gambling stories. If that’s something that interests you, drop me a line at shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com.

For this episode, I included three segments, all of which have something to do with the ace of spades. First comes an excerpt from James McManus’s new history of poker, titled Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, in which McManus talks a bit about the significance of the card during the Vietnam Conflict. The excerpt originally appeared in Card Player back in the summer of 2008, and reappears here in one of the later chapters of the book.

I have finished Cowboys Full and enjoyed it quite a bit. Will probably dedicate a post to the book here in the near future. Nearly all of what appears in the book first showed up in those Card Player columns that began in late 2006 and ran up until earlier this year.

Next I play the great Motörhead song, from the 1980 album of the same name. I mean, really, how could I not?

I also mention on the show how that album -- the band’s fourth -- actually concludes with a song called “The Hammer.” (The original LP did, anyway; the CD adds some bonus tracks, I believe.) And “The Hammer” has some great lines that are easily transferred over to a pokery context, e.g., “the hammer’s gonna smash your dream,” “the hammer’s gonna bring you down,” etc. Awesome disc, Ace of Spades, as is the band’s earlier Overkill, if yr into it.

Finally I play a short (15-minute) old time radio show called Nick Harris Detective, an episode titled “Fatal Ace of Spades.” The show is from 1938, and so the sound quality is understandably sketchy. Speaking of which, as I mentioned last post I have a new computer and set-up here, and am currently fussing a bit with improving the overall quality of the shows’ sound. Will probably get me a fancy pants microphone here soon in the effort to further the illusion that this ain’t amateur hour (which, as we all know, it most certainly is).

As far as Nick Harris Detective goes, you get used to the scratchiness, I think, and in the end it’s an okay little drama. Including it here did allow me to continue the streak of not repeating any radio shows. Since I started the podcast in the spring of 2008, I have shared entire episodes or excerpts from over 20 different old time radio shows.

Like I said, after doing one more show (to make an even 20) I think I might alter the format a bit. I’ll still include old time radio stuff, but might not keep that as the focus for every single episode. We’ll see.

Also, there’s a new internet streaming radio station starting up called the Poker Radio Network which is going to be syndicating the podcast. Probably will start out just playing the old shows, one per week, while I continue to create new ones. Eventually we’ll catch up and new shows will appear there as well as on iTunes as usual.

Measuring Up

Spent a good part of Saturday morning recording and mixing a new episode of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show. Then yesterday I put in another hour or two on it and uploaded the sucker. That’s when I found I’d skipped a step which resulted in an extra layer of fuzz, making the show not so listenable. So I’m gonna remix today and hopefully get Episode 19 out there tonight.

Part of the reason for the hiccup stemmed from the fact that I recorded the show using a new desktop computer, and so the usual routine for creating shows had been disrupted slightly. (That’s also my excuse for the long gap since the last show.)

A few weeks ago Vera and I decided to convert the mostly-unused guest bedroom into a second office. We took a trip to the Ikea to pick up a desk, chair, and bookshelves, then got myself a new computer as well. In the end, it didn’t really take much cabbage at all to furnish the new writing space. Well worth it, I’d say, making it much easier to be more productive.

Have also loaded PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Bodog on this here new computer, though as I was saying last week I’m almost exclusively playing on Stars these days. Likewise reinstalled PokerTracker Omaha on this one and have started the process of moving all of my hand histories over. At the moment, I have only put in the last few months’ worth to go along with the new hands I’ve played.

In the past, I mainly have used PokerTracker just to help keep track of my own play -- e.g., to review my overall stats, or occasionally to look back over a session. Every once in a while I’ll look up a particular, frequently-encountered opponent to try to get a better picture of his or her playing style and/or results. But really I haven’t utilized the program as much as I could.

One stat I have become a little intrigued by here lately is the “True Hourly Win Rate” which takes into account multitabling and produces an actual amount per hour of sitting there with mouse in hand. The program tells me that (over the last few months, at least) I generally average right at 1.5 tables at a time, which sounds right as sometimes I just play one table and sometimes two (and only now and then three). As you might imagine, my true hourly win rate while playing one or two tables of PLO25 is quite modest, although I’m happy enough with the figure being reported there.

Looking at a statistic like that, though -- an unambiguous dollar amount representing to the penny how one has spent one’s time -- has an interesting effect. One starts to think about one’s “true hourly win rate” in other areas of one’s life. What was my true hourly win rate when writing that article last week? What about my “real” job -- how much am I making per hour there? And what about the hours I put in creating that episode of the podcast? What was my true hourly win rate there?

I imagine this is how a lawyer tends to think, or anyone with a “billable hours”-type job whereby at any given moment one either is charging for one’s time or is not. Not unlike a professional poker player. You know, someone for whom time really is, well, money.

Like I say, I’m happy with my true hourly win rate while playing online poker. And I suppose I’m okay with it in other areas of my life, too, although I’ve become increasingly convinced I could probably earn as much or more doing something other than the “real” job.

Of course, there are many other ways to measure one’s “true hourly win rate” than by dollars and cents. Which is why we do what seem to be unproductive things like record podcasts. Or write blog posts. Or read them.

By the way, thanks again for spending another few minutes of your time here. I hope having done so helps increase your overall true hourly win rate, however you measure it.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 18: Gun Shy Gambler

Hope everyone had a good weekend. I know I did. Needed it, too, after a fairly exhausting week of work and “real” life stuff. Week began with that marathon sequence of plane rides back home from Kyiv, so it took a few days for the body and mind to resume all the normal rhythms. Wasn’t ’til Friday that I was back in sync, to be honest.

What did I do? Played some poker. Missed out on that “WCOOP Bloggers Freeroll” thing that happened yesterday over on PokerStars -- a freeroll satellite that awarded 18 seats into a World Championship of Online Poker event. Got the email but somehow overlooked the details and so never registered.

I did, however, get an invite to another freeroll happening this week, something called the “PokerStars WCOOP Journalist Event” which is also going to be awarding some free tickets into WCOOP events. Will try to make that one. Would be very cool to sneak my way through and somehow land a free seat.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing pot-limit Omaha, mostly six-handed, and doing fairly well. In addition to collecting some cabbage, I managed yesterday to reestablish my Silver Star status on PokerStars for September. Have maintained that for the most part all year, and with it have been trading FPPs for cash whenever possible.

Also this weekend I pulled together and posted a new episode of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, this one called “Gun Shy Gambler.” Show starts with a reading from the John Fox book Play Poker, Quit Work, and Sleep Till Noon! (1977). You might recall I wrote something about that book about a month ago. The excerpt is a funny anecdote in which Fox tells about a scheme he came up with to gather statistical data at the poker tables. It is called “Counting Beans,” and yes, the title is meant literally.

The rest of the show is taken up with an episode of the old time radio show The Lone Ranger. A pretty good one, involving a gambler who becomes gun shy after having killed a man, then is forced to deal with his problem when the brother of the man he killed returns to confront him. There’s some card-playing, too, in there.

You can download the show by clicking here. Or just play it right here, if that’s how you roll:



By the way, I have been chatting with someone about the possibility of having the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show start airing on one of these internet radio networks. Would probably start out going back to the first episode and playing the old shows -- sort of like putting them into syndication -- then add new ones when the time comes. We’ll see where that goes. I’ll certainly let you know about it here if and when that happens.

One other bit of extracurricular activity this weekend was my first post over on FilmChaw, the movie blog established by our friend and esteemed author of Stupid/System, Julius Goat.

Ever since I saw the 1980 film Humanoids from the Deep, I knew I had a desire to respond. Thanks to Monsieur Goat for affording me the opportunity to do so. Lot of good writers and cool stuff over there at FilmChaw, so if you are into movies (both good and bad), check it out.

Let’s all have a good week. Fall is almost here. Our high temperature today is in the sixties, if you can believe that. Time for football. And the WCOOP! I’ll be doing some writing over on the PokerStars blog for that, recapping a few events and helping live blog the Main Event at the end. And if this freeroll thing works out, maybe I’ll be playing in the sucker, too. A massive schedule -- 45 events! -- this year, with satellites running ’round the clock, natch. For the complete sked and a ton of other info, go to PokerStars’ new WCOOP website for the skinny.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 17: Jack of Clubs

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show is back, y’all. New episode up this mornin’.

This one includes a few different items. Starts off with a song by Patsy Cline called “Turn the Cards Slowly.” Then I read some excerpts from a 1976 Sports Illustrated article about that year’s World Series of Poker, the first won by Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson. Finally comes the main feature, an episode of the old time radio show Pat Novak, For Hire called “Jack of Clubs.” Stars Jack Webb (of Dragnet fame) in the title role, and includes a lot of “hard-boiled”-type lingo and atmosphere.

I also finally figured out how to start including the little enclosure whereby you can listen to an mp3 right there in the post (see below). I went back and inserted those for all of the posts over on the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show website. As a result, I’m noticing the dates for episodes over in iTunes have all changed once again. In fact, those dates seem to change on their own quite frequently -- some issue with Feedburner, I believe (again), but I haven’t any idea at present how to correct. Not that big of a deal, although I’d like for the dates in iTunes to correspond to when the episodes were originally posted.

As always, any feedback on the show is welcome. So are suggestions for future shows -- I have a few things planned for the next couple of episodes, but am open to any ideers.

You can comment here, or on the show’s blog, or send an email to shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com. You can also review the show over in iTunes, if you’d like (where you can subscribe, too).

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 16: Burns and Allen

A new installment of The Hard-Boiled Radio Show has been posted over on the show’s blog. This one primarily features an old episode of The Burns and Allen Show, starring George Burns and Gracie Allen. This particular show, called “The Poker Game,” is from 1944 and guest stars Alan Ladd. You can trip over to the show’s blog to get it, or just get to it here.

I was having some trouble over in iTunes the last couple of weeks after having done as instructed and allowed the Google blob to devour my Feedburner account. Some of the more recent shows weren’t turning up over in iTunes once I’d done that, but all 16 HBPRS episodes are now back. So if yr an iTunes sort of person, you can subscribe to the show or download eps over there just fine.

For those who haven’t heard the podcast before, it is a little different from most poker podcasts. No news of the day or interviews with current poker celebs. Rather, the show mainly focuses on storytelling, with the stories usually having something to do with poker or at least gambling.

Many of the shows feature excerpts being read (and sometimes even dramatized a little) from works of fiction or nonfiction. I’ll have guests on occasionally to tell their stories or make other contributions. Sometimes I’ll throw a poker-themed song in there. And every Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show contains a “feature presentation” -- namely, a full-length episode of an old time radio show. Most of these come from the 1940s and 1950s, and I’ll go back and forth between dramas, detective-type mysteries, horror, and comedy.

One other thing about the podcast -- since none of the shows feature current news topics, they aren’t particularly “time-bound,” meaning you can go back and listen to old ones (or listen to them out of order) and they’ll still make sense and (hopefully) be as entertaining as when they were first posted. Here are links to all 16 entries for episodes over on the show’s blog, each with show notes giving you an idea what you’ll find once you download a show:

1. Dead Man’s Deal
2. The Killer Cards
3. Duffy’s Tavern
4. Hitchhike Poker
5. Aces and Eights
6. The Ambassador of Poker
7. Fibber McGee and Molly
8. Aces and Eights
9. The Case of the Poker Murders
10. Come, Fill My Cup
11. Poker Chip Draw
12. Gunsmoke, The Gambler
13. The Life of Riley
14. The Hot Hundred Grand Caper
15. The Lacework Kid
16. Burns and Allen

All feedback is welcome. And suggestions, too, for future shows. Send that stuff to shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com. Probably won’t be doing another new one until after the World Series of Poker is done, but I might try to do a couple of short interviews or something like that while I’m here to include in future episodes.

* * * * *

Gonna come back on here in a little while with a regular WSOP post, but I wanted to announce the new podcast and also note how this here entry makes a total of 800 posts on Hard-Boiled Poker. As I’ve said before on these here centennial posts, that’s a damn lot of scribblin’! Thanks as always for comin’ back.

And I’ll be comin’ back here shortly to talk about yesterday a bit and look forward to today, when I finally get back to work helping cover the WSOP for PokerNews. Looks like they couldn’t quite finish that Event No. 4 (the “Stimulus Special”) after all, so if I'm not mistaken it appears there really will be seven different events going on during the course of the day-slash-night-slash-morning. Yikes.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 15: The Lacework Kid

At long last, a new episode of the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show has been posted. Full details can be found over on the show’s website, but I’ll give a little summary here.

For those who’ve never heard the HBPRS -- and yes, I’m fully aware that may very well include the vast majority of you internet peoples -- the main idea behind the podcast was to present stories about poker and/or gambling, with an emphasis on old-time radio shows. I’ve had guests on a few times who have contributed their own stories and observations, and I’ve also done some readings from various poker narratives, occasionally trying my own hand at some o’ that “radio theater” with sound effects, etc.

If you’ve never heard the show and are curious, you can safely go back and listen to any of the old episodes since one of the guidelines I’ve tried to follow throughout is to make the show not so “time-bound.” Unlike other poker podcasts that focus on news of the day, the HBPRS purposely avoids that sort of thing, so I’m hoping the old shows have a decent shelf life as a result.

The show’s blog has show notes for each of the 15 episodes thus far, so you can peruse that to find an episode that interests you. I can suggest a few.

A lot of the episodes of the HBPRS feature mysteries or dramas. However, Episode 3 has a terrific old comedy called Duffy’s Tavern, as well as some other funny bits (such as from the old Jack Benny Program). Episode 4 has a nifty thriller called “Hitchhike Poker” starring Gregory Peck. And Episode 13 includes a reading of a funny James Thurber short story called “Everything Is Wild” in which the lovely Vera Valmore makes a guest appearance.

This latest one includes a song by the Grateful Dead, a couple of short readings (from Anthony Holden’s Big Deal and Nolan Dalla/Peter Alson’s One of a Kind), and an episode of The Damon Runyon Theater.

Click here to listen to Episode 15. Or head over to iTunes where you can subscribe to the show. If you happen to listen to this one or any other of the shows, send along your feedback here, on the show’s blog, or shoot me an email at shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com.

Meanwhile, if for some strange reason yr lookin’ to hear more Shamus, the cool cats over at Poker Soup had me on their show for a while last night -- for their episode 15, coincidentally enough.

We chatted about the HBPRS, other podcasts (including good old Card Club with Lord Admiral Radio), the upcoming WSOP, among other topics. Fun stuff. Check it out.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 14: The Hot Hundred Grand Caper

Those of us who like to listen to poker podcasts have a lot to choose from these days. Wasn’t all that long ago when there were really only a couple producing regular shows. There was Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio. And Ante Up! and Card Player’s The Circuit. And that was pretty much it.

Now, of course, there are probably 30 or more shows out there regularly churning out new content for us to download onto our iPods or iPod-like devices. I’ve listed the ones with which I try to keep up over on the right-hand column, though have to admit there just ain’t enough time during the week to listen to every minute of every one.

So I know by producing my own podcast -- which I’ve been doing intermittently for nearly a year now -- I’m becoming less and less special as time goes by. Sort of like I’ve built and have been slowly furnishing a tiny little shack over on the far side of the busy poker podcast landscape. Still, I hope those of you who have given The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show a try have enjoyed it as something a little different from the rest of the many good podcasts we now have available to us.

Finally got that Episode 14 together and posted today. This one focuses a bit more directly on the “hard-boiled” side of things, with the two great novelists Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett being primarily featured. I start out with a short anecdote about Chandler and poker, then talk a bit about Hammett before playing an old episode of The Adventures of Sam Spade.

You can listen to the show by clicking here (or right-click and “Save As” if you wanna download the sucker). Head over to the show’s blog to read the show notes. You can also get the HBPRS through iTunes, which is how I like to get podcasts these days.

Leave feedback here, at the show’s blog, a review on iTunes, or via an email to shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com. All thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

In fact, one idea I have been considering is perhaps to invite folks to contribute audio segments to the show, if they’d like. The podcast is primarily devoted to storytelling, with the stories all focusing on poker and/or gambling. The only real restriction I’ve given myself on the show is to try to ensure all of the stories are somewhat “timeless” -- that is to say, a new listener can go back and download earlier shows and enjoy them as much today as when they were first posted.

So if you think you have an interesting story to tell that might fit with the show’s format and would like to share it, drop me a line. (Indeed, having others contribute now and then may well make it easier for me to produce shows more frequently.)

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 13: The Life of Riley

Finally! Have a new episode of the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show for yr listening pleasure. You can listen by clicking here. You can also head over to iTunes to grab the show, if that’s the way you normally handle these things.

Have a comedy-themed show this time around. First up is a reading of James Thurber’s terrific poker-themed short story titled “Everything is Wild” (first published in the New Yorker in 1932). Managed to coerce Vera Valmore into doing the voices for the female characters in this one. Am also trying again to do a little of that “audio theater” here, inspired, I suppose, by all of these old radio shows.

The main feature this time is an episode of the old comedy show The Life of Riley called “The Gambling Lesson.” A fairly humorous sitcom-type show that does manage to produce a few grins.

Send yr feedback either by commenting here, on the show’s blog, or by sending an email to shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 12: Gunsmoke, The Gambler

New show up today. In this one I spend some time with David Spanier’s 1977 collection Total Poker. Then, as is the case with all the shows, there comes a complete episode of an old time radio show. This time it’s Gunsmoke starring William Conrad as Matt Dillon. The episode is titled “The Gambler.”

As I mentioned before, I’m going to see if I can keep up with producing a new show every other week. Have some comedy stuff to pass along here in the near future, so that should be fun.

So far I’ve managed to include a different old time radio show in each of the 12 episodes of the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, all of which have had something to do with poker and/or gambling. Here’s a quick run down of all the different shows that have been featured thus far on the HBPRS (the links take you to each episode’s entry on the show’s website):

Episode 1: Inner Sanctum Mysteries (“Dead Man’s Deal”)
Episode 2: The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe (“The Killer Cards”)
Episode 3: Duffy’s Tavern (“Playing Poker with Charles Coburn”)
Episode 4: Suspense (“Hitchhike Poker”)
Episode 5: Mystery in the Air (“The Queen of Spades”)
Episode 6: Escape (“The Ambassador of Poker”)
Episode 7: Fibber McGee and Molly (“Poker Game”)
Episode 8: Frontier Gentleman (“Aces and Eights”)
Episode 9: Nick Carter, Master Detective (“The Case of the Poker Murders”)
Episode 10: CBS Radio Mystery Theater (“Come, Fill My Cup”)
Episode 11: The Cisco Kid (“Poker Chip Draw”)
Episode 12: Gunsmoke (“The Gambler”)

As you might imagine, there ain’t an infinite number of these suckers floating around, but I’ve still got quite a few for future shows.

You can subscribe to the podcast over in iTunes by clicking here. And as always, send yr feedback to shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 11: Poker Chip Draw

New year, and a new episode. Click here to listen and/or head on over to the show’s blog to read more about it.

This one begins with a very cool song by Lorne Greene (of Bonanza fame) called “Five Card Stud.” Seriously, the show is worth downloading just to hear this song.

The main feature this time is an episode of the old radio show The Cisco Kid called “Poker Chip Draw.” Also, over on the show’s blog I’ve embedded an old episode of the TV show, if yr curious about such things. One of the first (or perhaps the first) shows filmed in color, I’ve been led to understand.

Since it is the new year and all, I find myself making all sorts of plans like everyone else, and one of them involves the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show. I have an idea I might be able to get onto a regular schedule whereby I produce a new show once every two weeks. I know I’ll be able to do it here at the start of the year, anyway, and hope I can keep it up as the year progresses. We’ll see.

Thanks once again to everyone who has listened to the show thus far and special thanks to those who’ve sent along comments. As I’ve said before, all feedback is especially welcome, and if anyone has ideas or suggestions, send me those, too. You can comment here, on the show’s blog, leave a review over in iTunes, or send an email to shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 10: Come, Fill My Cup

Got a new show up today. Made it to double digits. This one is mostly taken up with an episode of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater from 1977 called “Come, Fill My Cup.”

The show begins on a train where a group get together to play some poker. That scene on the train made me think of my own experiences riding trains and, more particularly, learning various card games while traveling. I also learned a couple of card tricks on trains, and so at the beginning of this episode I try to perform one of them on the show. I am fairly confident that you, dear listener, will be able to figure out the trick without my having to explain it. Go check it out, though, for a modest test of your analytical skills.

As always, any feedback is appreciated, either here, on the show’s blog, or over in iTunes where you can subscribe to the podcast as well as leave reviews. I am also soliciting suggestions for future episodes, if you happen to have any ideas for segments.

An interesting day of poker ahead. Will be playing in the second event of Run Good Challenge 2: Electric Boogaloo this afternoon. Then tonight comes that 60 Minutes report on the Absolute Poker/UltimateBet cheating scandals. Here’s hoping both go well.

(EDIT [added 10:35 a.m.]: CRAP! Just found out the Run Good Challenge was yesterday, not today. ARGH! Read all about how it went here.)

Thanks, Everybody

Lots for which to be thankful, as usual. Thanks first to Gadzooks for the idea to create a South Park Shamus. Check it out, dude.

And thanks, readers, for coming back time and again. This here blogging thing continues to be a source of great fun.

Earlier in the week, Pokerati Dan sent me an interesting article appearing in the November 2008 issue of The Atlantic Monthly by Andrew Sullivan called “Why I Blog.” In the piece, Sullivan opines about his own blogging experiences, and theorizes a bit about the genre and its significance.

Some of Sullivan’s ideas about blogging differ from mine, although I think every blogger has his or her own distinct notion of what a blog is, and only some of our ideas tend to overlap with one another. He does sound a couple of notes that resonate strongly with me, though.

Sullivan writes about the “exhilarating literary liberation” he felt when he first began to write his blog, contrasting the immediacy of the blog with his previous experiences writing for print publications, experiences marked by “endless delays, revisions, office politics, editorial fights, and last-minute cuts for space that dead-tree publishing entails.”

I have mentioned here before that I had had some modest experience writing for other outlets (newspapers, journals) prior to starting the blog. I, too, much enjoyed that sense of “liberation” at being able to write and publish instantly, and (even more importantly) receive feedback and become part of a larger conversation right away. Sullivan points out that this openness to others’ input (in the form of comments, emails, and responses on others’ blogs) ultimately means the “blogger can get away with less [than, say, the author of an op-ed piece in a newspaper can] and afford fewer pretensions of authority.”

That is, while I suppose we bloggers could, like Cartman, try to insist others “Respect Mah Authoritay,” such respect ultimately must be earned. Really earned. Thus does the sense of “liberation” also lead to other satisfied feelings when one happens to hit the mark once in a while with a given observation or narrative.

Sullivan also points out how the blog and its “atmosphere” (i.e., the way the blog connects to others’ via comments, links, etc.) “will inevitably be formed by the writer’s personality.” He says “Even the most careful and self-aware blogger will reveal more about himself than he wants to in a few unguarded sentences and publish them before he has the sense to hit Delete.”

He’s right, of course. Even those of us operating under pseudonyms tend to reveal all, in a way, a phenomenon which gives me a couple of more reasons to be thankful. For one, thanks to you, reader, for enduring my own self-indulgences here. And secondly, thanks to all of the bloggers whom I read regularly for sharing their own selves so candidly. Inspiring, that. Not to mention entertaining and edifying.

Lots else to be thankful for, of course. It’s been a whirlwind year, highlighted by a summer in Vegas helping cover the World Series of Poker for PokerNews. As I’ve written about here before, that was one of those life detours I wouldn’t have seen happening even a year ago, so muchas gracias to PokerNews for the opportunity. Also thanks to the many, many terrific colleagues with whom I worked (and continue to work) at PokerNews. Truly a fantastic, talented bunch that helped create what was probably one of the most rewarding work experiences I’ve ever had.

Thanks also to everyone who has given The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show a try, as well as to Tim Peters and the Poker Grump for their contributions to the first nine episodes. Have gotten some terrific feedback from several folks on particular episodes, which I do appreciate very much. Actually had a nice message just this morning from the folks over at OTRCat.com, a site that collects old time radio shows. If yr interested in such things, go check ’em out.

And I’m thankful still to be playing online poker. Let’s hope that remains a source of fun and pleasure for all who want to play.

Finally, I’m thankful for the big crowd of family coming over here later today. Vera Valmore is in the kitchen this morning cooking up the last few dishes. I think we have nine eating, and there will be 15 or so here ultimately before the day is over. We actually had to rent an extra table. Vera has fashioned some nifty place settings.

Okay, need to go help out in the kitchen. Everybody have a good one.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 9: The Case of the Poker Murders

Finally have a new episode of the podcast up today. Sorry for the longish delay. I’d like to try to have a new show at least every 3-4 weeks or so, but various factors conspired to make it a little harder to get to it here recently. As I’ve said before, these suckers always take much longer to put together than I expect them to.

Episode 9 features two separate old time radio shows. both from the 1940s. The first is a short one (about 8 minutes) from a series titled Calling All Detectives. The episode is titled “Stud Poker.” I was reading around about this radio show and discovered that when it was first produced (in Chicago, I believe), they would actually stop the show just before the crime was solved, then call up people at random -- just picking names out of the phone book -- and ask if they could figure out whodunit. Since they’d often reach folks who hadn’t even been listening, they eventually scrapped that idea and instead had listeners send in postcards with their names and numbers. They’d draw one of the cards and ring ’em up. Hence the name of the show.

The whole thing was a big hit, it sounds like, but then the show became popular enough to get syndicated nationwide and so they had to forgo the live call-in segments. When I play the show in this episode of the HBPRS, I thought it would be fun to simulate the idea, so what I do is play the first 6-7 minutes of the show, then stop it and invite the listener to think about who the killer might be. Then I play the conclusion.

The “main feature” this time is an episode of the Nick Carter, Master Detective radio show called “The Case of the Poker Murders.” Like most of the regular old time radio shows, this one lasts about a half-hour.

Nick Carter was a pretty slick show, and so should be fun for those who like to listen to these old programs. The poker angle is kind of tangential here, with the villain going by the name of the “Ace of Spades” and all of his minions similarly styling themselves after playing cards. Some good fun, though, including some corny card-playing puns here and there.

For more on the show, you can check out the show’s blog where you’ll find show notes for all of the episodes. You can also subscribe over in iTunes, if yr into that sort of thing.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 8: Aces and Eights

New episode is up. Sucker is over there in iTunes for yr downloadable consumption. The other RSS feeds should have it, too, I’d think. Go to the show’s blog for all the links and info for subscribing. You can also hear the show just by clicking here, if you wanna.

This episode has a theme of sorts -- characters. The Poker Grump kicks it off with a few sketches of characters he’s encountered at the poker tables (both live and virtual). Then the focus shifts to one character in particular, Wild Bill Hickok, best known to the poker world as the U.S. Marshal that got himself killed in a poker game while holding what came to be known as the “dead man’s hand,” aces and eights.

I give a little background on Hickok’s story, then read a poem by the American poet Billy Collins. The poem comes from Collins’ first collection (published back in 1977), which in fact was titled Pokerface. Collins went on to become the U.S. poet laureate, in fact serving two year-long terms (2001-2003). I added some music to the reading that kind of heightens the drama a little bit, I think. (And the humor, too.) Then I play an installment of the old time radio show Frontier Gentleman which dramatizes the killing of Hickok.

I might have included Bob Dylan’s song “Rambling, Gambling Willie” in this episode, but I didn’t. The song isn’t exactly about Wild Bill Hickok, but does feature the protagonist getting killed while holding aces and eights. I left it out, though, as I’ve been trying to stick to songs and radio shows that are well clear of any copyright restrictions.

And while I do talk about some of the background of Hickok’s story, I don’t spend any time at all wonderin’ about what the fifth card in his hand was. Des Wilson explores that question at length in his Ghosts at the Table, if that sort of thing intrigues you.

As always, if you happen to listen to the show, please send along any feedback -- either here, on the show’s blog, or via email at shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 7: Fibber McGee and Molly

The latest installment of the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show podcast is up. It’s there in iTunes and I imagine should appear in other feeders as well if yr subscribed. You can also just click here to listen online, if you’d like.

Episode 7 begins with a an old Irish ballad by Frank Crumit about “Dolan’s Poker Party” which started out pleasantly but ended in chaos. Then comes Tim Peters with a very interesting overview of the history of poker books. Tim goes back to the late nineteenth century and discusses several of the highlights on up to the present, concluding with some thoughts about the future of poker book publishing.

There at the end Tim hits on an issue that came up last week as we contemplated Mason Malmuth’s worries over the forums affecting books sales over at 2+2. Tim invites listeners to email him at pokerbooks at mac dot com with their thoughts on the matter. You can also check out Tim’s website, The Literature of Poker, for his many reviews of poker books and other interesting poker-related items.

I follow Tim’s segment with an excerpt from Herbert O. Yardley’s The Education of a Poker Player (1957). Then, as always, the show ends with a “feature presentation,” an old time radio show presented in its entirety. This time it is a comedy, an episode of Fibber McGee and Molly called “Poker Game.” There are a lot of digressions, but the gist is Fibber wants to get away for a game of poker, but doesn’t want Molly to know about it.

As always, if you happen to listen in, don’t hesitate to let me know what you think either by commenting here, over on the show’s blog (where I list detailed “Show Notes” for each episode), or by sending an email to shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com. And if you haven’t heard any of the previous episodes, you can always go back and listen to them now. Since all of the shows feature stories about poker and/or gambling that aren’t necessarily time-bound, you should be able to pick ’em up anytime.

By the way, I received some very nice comments after the last episode and wanted to thank those who sent those. (Meant to say that on the show this time, but forgot.) Really appreciate those -- this is mostly just for fun, but it is definitely nice to hear it whenever someone else is getting a bit of fun out of it, too.

Enjoy!

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 6: The Ambassador of Poker

The latest installment of the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show went up yesterday. It is already in iTunes, so if you subscribe to the podcast over there you’re already seeing it show up. I assume it also is appearing in the other feeds, too. Or, if you just want to listen online, click here.

This episode starts and ends with some audio I recorded at this year’s World Series of Poker. Vera gave me this little microphone attachment thingy for my iPod which enables one to record voice memos. I had thought at one point I might try to do some interviews along the way, but never got around to it. But I did grab some noise on the first day of the Main Event, and so am sharing it here.

I’ve included a short story about poker by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. The story is called “Four Men and a Poker Game, or Too Much Luck is Bad Luck.” It was written in the 1920s, and definitely has a hard-boiled feel to it. As I have done at certain points on some of the other episodes, I added a bit of background ambiance to the storytelling to make it a more interesting listen. Still an amateur when it comes to audio theater, but am having fun learning.

That’s followed by an episode of Escape called “The Ambassador of Poker.” Kind of an adventure story, with a so-called “Virginia gentleman” using his poker playing prowess to swindle a Chinese warlord.

Neither of my usual partners in crime -- Tim Peters or the Poker Grump -- appear in this one, although both should be returning soon in later episodes. I had mentioned at the outset my goal was to produce a show at least once per month, so I am pleased to see six episodes have been cranked out here in the first four months.

If you haven’t heard the show yet, you might go back and check out Episode 1 to get an idea what it’s about. None of the episodes necessarily focus on contemporary happenings, so unlike some podcasts these don’t necessarily go out of date.

As I have said before, doing these shows definitely increases my respect for those who do them on a regular basis -- a lot harder than it looks to pull these together, believe me. If you do happen to listen to the show, I’d love any feedback -- either here, on the show’s blog, as a review in iTunes, or via an email at shamus AT hardboiledpoker DOT com.