The Not-So-Loose Cannon Folds Aces

Haven’t had the chance to watch as much of PokerStars.net The Big Game as I would’ve liked over the last few weeks.

When I do watch, however, I’m almost always entertained. Definitely one of the better poker shows out there at the moment.

The website for the show is excellent, by the way. All of the episodes are neatly organized with descriptions and ready to watch. There are extensive statistics on there regarding the play of both the pros and the amateurs -- the “Loose Cannons,” as they are called. Plus, you can replay hands in a hand replayer and call up the video for each and every hand. It’s the kind of extensive coverage you’d think the WSOP might want to start pulling together for its Main Event final table (or other events’ final tables, too), enabling all sorts of post-game analysis for us poker junkies.

I did get a chance recently to watch Week 10 of the show’s current season. Was encouraged to check it out after hearing all of the buzz about an unusual scenario that developed during that week’s episodes.

An amateur named David Fishman was the Loose Cannon that week. As the show’s format dictates, he was staked with $100,000 and given an opportunity to play 150 hands of no-limit hold’em against a table full of pros. The blinds ($200/$400) and antes ($100) are significant, forcing a lot of action. Any profit Fishman made was his to keep, and if he happened to make more profit than any of the other Loose Cannons, he’d additionally win a handsome $50K PokerStars NAPT prize package.

Through 96 hands -- that is, through the beginning of episode 4 (of 5) -- Fishman had managed to chip up nearly $20,000 from his starting stack. Then came a huge hand between the amateur and Phil Hellmuth in which Fishman rivered a Broadway straight and somehow got the Poker Brat to pay him off with his two pair. Here’s that hand:



See Fishman shaking there as he waited to see if Hellmuth would make the call? And then Hellmuth does! Awesome stuff.

When the hand was over, Fishman was suddenly up to $240,200 -- a $140,200 profit -- which meant a couple of things. One, with 53 hands left to be played, he already had life-changing money sitting in front of him. Secondly, he had pushed into the lead in the race for the NAPT package, and if he could end the session without losing too many chips, he’d probably win that, too. (Only a couple of weeks remained in the season for other Loose Cannons to beat his total winnings.)

“Can the Loose Cannon Decide when to leave the cash game if they’re doing well?” So asks a question on the FAQ page of the Big Game’s site. The answer is no. The amateur “must remain in the game,” continuing to commit blinds and antes as the 150 hands play out.

So, what would you do if you were in Fishman’s spot? Would you tighten up here? A little? A lot?

For the next 16 hands, Fishman folded mostly raggedy hands. Then came Hand No. 114. Phil Laak opened with a raise from middle position with pocket sixes. Jason Mercier, new to the table, called the raise from the button with pocket fours.

Then Fishman, in the small blind, looked down to see his hand -- .

He looked again. Then he folded. No shinola!

As it happened, the flop gave Laak quad sixes, so looking at it from a results-oriented point of view, Fishman saved at least whatever chips he might’ve put in preflop on the hand, perhaps even more. Still, folding pocket aces... in a cash game... wild stuff to watch.

I love the conversation after the hand. (As I say, you can dial it up on the Big Game site easily enough.) Fishman tells the table what he folded. “No,” says David Williams with a grin. “Was it really?” he then adds, starting to believe. “No way,” says a completely stone-faced Mercier, not completely aware of the dynamic that had evolved after Fishman’s big double-up. You can tell, though, that the pros were starting to believe -- and understand -- the play by the time the next hand is dealt.

Hand No. 121 brings Fishman yet another dilemma when he’s dealt pocket kings on the button. It folds to him, and he limps for $400, saying he’ll see one flop if the blinds will allow him to do so. The small blind -- a businessman named William Perkins -- raises with . Then Williams reraises from the BB with A-Q, and Fishman gets out. A queen flops, and Williams ends up taking the hand right there.

“I would have had you there, David,” says Fishman, then revealing that he had been dealt K-K. “Come on,” says Mercier. “I don’t know you yet... these guys know you,” he says, pleading for some further explanation. “Are you legit?”

“Yes,” says Williams. “He’s telling the truth,” he confirms as he stacks the chips. “He’s legit.”

Fishman would fold his way through the rest of the session, ending with $229,600 (i.e., a $129,600 profit).

Was interesting to hear some of the talk on the podcasts about the show and Fishman’s decision to fold rather than risk what he’d won.

Over on the Ante Up! podcast (the 12/9/10 episode), the hosts marveled at Fishman’s having folded aces preflop, but ultimately endorsed the play. They were a little less supportive of the decision on the Two Plus Two Pokercast (episode 151, 12/7/10), with co-host Adam Schwartz in particular decrying the play as way, way too nitty for his taste.

“I’m not saying you have to raise,” said Schwartz. “[But] he mucks the aces, and I want to puke.... My mouth is open and I’m like ‘What just happened?’”

I guess I would tend to agree more with the Ante Up! guys, understanding Fishman’s decision not to risk what for him was a huge windfall. In any event, I think that even though the last two episodes of the week were mostly taken up with relatively non-interesting hands between the pros, it still made for some riveting poker, especially thanks to the pros’ ongoing discussions regarding the Loose Cannon’s refusal to gamble.

Besides, I think we all can agree that seeing Hellmuth lose -- and cry afterwards -- always makes for good TV.

Robl, Negreanu, and Tony G Play Poker (and Other Games) on TV

Remember those first couple of years following the “boom” in 2003, when poker on television was still a novelty for most? Wasn’t that long ago.

A favorite saying back then was to observe how what one sees on television wasn’t a good representation of so-called “real poker.” Since the shows were often edited to highlight the biggest encounters -- the bustouts and double-ups -- we saw lots of all-in bets and not so much post-flop maneuvering. Thus could one get the impression from TV that playing poker meant being in a state of constant crisis, with little down time or even that much evidence of the way the game demands careful thought.

Sort of like most television, movies, video games, what have you. Always something happening. No time for thinkin’.

Of course, poker on TV has changed over the years, with shows like “High Stakes Poker” and “The PokerStars.net Big Game” now delivering us long sequences of cash-game hands, thereby introducing a much greater variety into the programming. Still, even in those settings, many continue to maintain that “TV poker” is fundamentally different from “real poker,” with the need to create action -- and thus keep viewers interested -- being a kind of unwritten rule players have to follow.

That latter idea was highlighted over the last couple of days following the most recent episode of “The PokerStars.net Big Game,” thanks largely to a couple of hands involving Andrew “Good2CU” Robl.

By taking a little longer than most to make decisions at the table, Robl drew the ire of Tony G who responded by calling the clock on the young player -- first in a hand between the pair, then again in another hand between Robl and Negreanu. Here’s a video compiling those moments as well as some follow-up comments by the players.



Commenting on the action, Joe Stapleton makes an observation during the first hand. “As entertaining as this is,” says Stapleton, “it’s actually breaking etiquette a little bit to call the clock on someone, especially in a cash game where the blinds don’t increase.”

The usually irascible Tony G acknowledged as much in a recent blog post about the episode and his behavior, provocatively titled “I Am the Third Most Hated Man in Poker.” There Tony G admits he “crossed the line,” but adds that he nevertheless had “a point about [Robl’s] nittish waiting at a bus stop behavior,” explaining that Robl’s deliberations “drove me to distraction.”

In his short post, Tony G doesn’t explicitly say that because they were playing on television, Robl should have been playing more quickly. However, the always-opinionated Negreanu did make that very point in his comment on the show, which one can find posted in a thread over on Two Plus Two.

You can read Negreanu’s statement yourself, which includes a number of comments about televised poker in general and multiple criticisms of Robl in particular. To sum up Kid Poker’s thesis, he says TV poker must be played quickly as production costs are significant, and also should be played “faster” in terms of players’ willingness to give action, partly because they are being paid to appear. Robl failed in both regards on “The Big Game,” says Negreanu, taking too long to act and also refusing to straddle when all of the others wished to do so.

In other words, it sounds like “Good2CU” is not the nickname Negreanu would choose for Robl. (EDIT [added 7:00 p.m. ET]: Negreanu has added a few more thoughts about the show in a blog post, where he also notes he and Robl have recently spoken and “we are cool and we squashed it.”)

Robl has also spoken up about the show, yesterday publishing a blog post about the episode and the issues that have been raised.

Again, I’ll let you read Robl’s post if you are curious about particulars, but in essence he’s defending playing a deliberate, analytical game (regardless of the context), he points out that straddling doesn’t necessarily lead to increased action (while also potentially reduces the skill component), and he additionally notes that while there are production costs his time is also valuable. (Robl also speaks in complimentary terms about both Tony G and Negreanu while at the same time rating himself a better player than both.)

While I find myself leaning in the direction of agreeing more with Robl than with his older opponents here, it might be that I am being more swayed by the thoughtfulness of his response than by the particulars of his position.

Because I can see, too, what Tony G is implying and what Negreanu makes explicit -- namely, that TV poker is still different from “real poker.” There are always going to be other games going on there, too, besides the one with the cards and the chips -- something anyone who goes on TV to play is probably going to have to acknowledge one way or another.