Back When Everything Needed Explaining

There’s a new thread on 2+2 decrying the level of play at the conclusion of the 1987 WSOP Main Event as evidenced by 43-minute video of the final table you can watch on YouTube.

It’s an interesting final table, with Bob Ciaffone, Howard Lederer, Dan Harrington, and eventual winner Johnny Chan among the final six. If you click on the link to watch, you’ll see the first few minutes taken up with introductions of the scene and players, then a quick primer on how to play no-limit Texas hold’em.

Those little instructional segments continued to appear as part of the ESPN broadcasts of the WSOP up through the start of the “boom,” although looking back I think by 2005 they’d already dropped them. At least I don’t see it at the start of the first episode from that year’s Main Event.

By the way, I was just distracted by that opening show from the 2005 ME, highlighted by Jennifer Harman losing with queens full to Cory Zeidman’s straight flush (a river one-outer), some laugh-out-loud hilarity from Brad Garrett, Greg Raymer’s red-hot start where he picked up hand after hand and was consistently paid off, and 90-year-old Victor Goulding making quads in one hand then a little later being given a 10-minute penalty for cursing (no shinola).

(Also interesting, both John Duthie and Vicky Coren are shown playing hands in the episode, yet neither are identified. In fact, Coren is sitting next to Goulding and was involved in his quads hand -- was Victor v. Victoria.)

The instructional segments went away, of course, as more and more started playing poker -- many playing no-limit hold’em exclusively -- and it became apparent such explanations were mostly superfluous. Watching those segments today sparks a bit of nostalgia, while also calling to mind the effect they had back when we first saw them.

For those of us who already knew what a flop, turn, and river were, the segments were perhaps a bit tedious to sit through, but I’m realizing today how they might have served as confidence-builders to some (or many?).

Hearing someone explain something that you already know all about produces at least a couple of by-products, I think. One is a kind of self-affirmation, especially when the explanation checks out in all particulars with your own understanding. A second is the suggestion that someone actually needs the explanation -- i.e., that there are those whose level of understanding doesn’t match your own.

In other words, while the how-to segments might have been designed primarily to help non-players understand the game they are watching, and secondarily as a way of encouraging some of them to give the game a try, they also certainly provided a measure of encouragement to those already familiar with the game.

And as far as the level of play (by some) in those old shows is concerned, that, too, was certainly encouraging to many as well.

Jesse May Interview, April 2011 (Part 1 of 2)

The passing of Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott earlier this week brought to mind his significant role on the first series of Late Night Poker. That in turn reminded me of a lengthy interview I was able to do a while back with Jesse May, another person who was there at the start of the groundbreaking poker TV show in the late 1990s.

This was another of those Betfair Poker interviews that are no longer available online, and I realized now might be as good a time as any for me to repost the interview over here. Took me a while to find the sucker, actually, but thankfully I did.

I’ll repost it here in two parts, just as it originally appeared on Betfair Poker in early April 2011 -- right before Black Friday, actually, which is kind of interesting to consider when reading some of the discussion of the state of poker at that time. The first part primarily focuses on May’s 1998 novel, Shut Up and Deal, while the second (which I’ll post tomorrow) delves into the Late Night Poker story.

Thanks again, Jesse, for the interview!

* * * * * “The Betfair Poker Interview: Jesse May, Part 1”
[Originally published at Betfair Poker, 1 April 2011]

When it comes to poker-themed novels, Jesse May’s Shut Up and Deal (1998) stands out as an especially accomplished entry, a book that brings alive the unique and fascinating world of the cash-game grinder of the mid-1990s.

May’s narrator, a young poker pro named Mickey, relates in episodic fashion the story of his ongoing struggles both at the tables and elsewhere, exploring in detail the many challenges faced by himself and others as they all separately strive to “stay in action.” Full of memorable characters and set pieces, I highly recommend May’s novel as both an entertaining read and an insightful exploration of poker’s many highs and lows.

In addition to his poker writing, May is well known for his contributions as a commentator on numerous poker shows, a role that has earned him the nickname “the Voice of Poker.” For May that career began shortly after the publication of his novel with the first season of Late Night Poker (in 1999), a show that would come to have great influence on televised poker a few years later with the launching of the World Poker Tour and expansion of coverage of the World Series of Poker on ESPN.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with May about both Shut Up and Deal and the early years of Late Night Poker. This week I’ll share the first part of our conversation in which we focused on May’s novel, and next week will present the story of May’s involvement with Late Night Poker.

Short-Stacked Shamus: I know Shut Up and Deal is based somewhat on your own experiences playing poker in the late ’80s-early ’90s. To what extent is Mickey’s story comparable to your own?

Jesse May: First of all, the story is true in the sense that I think truth is stranger than fiction. When I was writing it, I wasn’t worried about it being true, but I think that when it comes to a lot of gambling stories, you find that you could never make this stuff up. That’s been the case, I think, for every moment I’ve been in the gambling world.

Like Mickey, I did start playing when I was in high school. With a couple of other guys we all got obsessed with poker at the same time, then went out to Las Vegas -- four of us, all underage, like 17 or 18 -- and there discovered Texas hold’em (limit). Soon after that it became kind of a more serious thing for me. I used to go to Las Vegas quite a bit back before I turned 21, spending summers there trying to play poker. I dropped out of college twice, and after I turned 21 I ended up in Vegas and really tried to make a go of it.

Obviously it was during that poker explosion, and so as far as the places in the book go, they did kind of coincide with where I was. I spent a lot of time in Las Vegas. I was in Foxwoods within a month after they opened up [in 1992] and stayed there the better part of a year. I was in Atlantic City the very day they opened poker [in 1993], and stayed there about a year-and-a-half. Those were really interesting times as far as poker goes, because it was so new. There was no internet, obviously, back then, and all the action was there. I think the world had never seen anything like those two major openings -- Atlantic City and Foxwoods.

SSS: In a way the novel kind of chronicles this interesting and important moment for poker. For a lot of people who only came into poker post-Moneymaker, they might not realize how significant that earlier “explosion” really was for poker.

JM: That’s true. Also, it was interesting... at the time there were some poker texts, but most people really didn’t have access to them. So it was a combination of there being so few people who played poker -- not even well but just marginally -- and there being so much money around.

It was incredible, because it required such a different skill set to become a poker player then -- a professional -- than it does today. The skill sets then were really about money management and surviving in that hustling type of world rather than sitting around talking about hands. People didn’t sit around and talk strategy then. You talked about who was cheating and who owed you money and that kind of stuff (laughs). And I loved that world, and so for me it was a great time.

SSS: It’s funny, the world your describing was really much more similar to what came before -- even stretching back to the 19th century -- than what the poker world has become over the decade.

JM: It’s true. I look at a guy like Amarillo Slim [Preston]. You know -- throw out all the personal controversies that he’s had -- people have been very critical of his game, saying that he’s essentially not a poker player. And to some extent that’s true, but the fact is that in his time, and even when I would play with him a little bit back in Foxwoods, he was representative of a guy who was a great professional as far as poker went. Because he knew everything else. He knew how to get a game together, how to get an edge... he knew all that stuff. And I always had a lot of respect for him.

It was people like that -- like the Bart Stone character [in Shut Up and Deal] -- who really were able to thrive back then, and who wouldn’t be thriving now. And it really was, as you’re saying, the tail end of that era where that sort of “road gambler” was able to succeed.

SSS: So what led to your decision to write the novel?

JM: The book itself was written as a catharsis, really. Back when I was playing, you got such a strong response from people when they found out you were playing poker. You kind of continually felt yourself defending your lifestyle to others and to yourself and trying to make order of it.

I used to take a lot of breaks when I played poker, and this particular time when I had the first crack at writing the novel, I had been playing in Atlantic City and took off nine months to travel in Asia. It was during that period I wrote the bones of the novel, writing every day.

SSS: So the places and chronology of the novel roughly correspond to your own experiences. The characters -- Bart Stone, John Smiley, Uptown Raoul -- I assume they, too, are somewhat based on people you knew and with whom you played?

JM: Yes. Actually there were some liability issues with the publisher that made it very important for me to go through and change certain things -- ethnicities, physical qualities, names, things like that. But a lot of times [with a given character] there was some person I had in mind, and sometimes characters were compilations of different people.

The Bart Stone character, for example, was probably as close to real as you could get [i.e., the person on whom he was based]. He was such a strong personality, you couldn’t exaggerate him. His life was so amazing... he really was one of the true road gamblers. He was a guy who had a church-going wife and completely lived this sort of “picket fence” existence for three weeks out of every month, then for one week he’d get into his car to some town -- just start driving -- and find a town, find a game, and find a way to get the money.

He had this saying. He said he’d go into a town and first he’d try and beat people on the square. If that didn’t work, he’d try and cheat them. And if that didn’t work, he’d just pull out a gun and rob the motherf*ckers. That was his philosophy of life!

SSS: You actually start the novel with Bart Stone -- with a sketch of his character and telling the story of him cheating others. It’s interesting, because I think by starting the book that way you kind of indirectly introduce Mickey as a contrasting figure -- a “good” guy, that is, who looks at Bart and expresses a kind of awe because he could never live that way. But then he weirdly admires Bart, too. And Mickey, as we come to find out, isn’t without flaws himself.

JM: I guess it’s kind of flattering to hear you say that. You know, I recently just read Vicky Coren’s book. I don’t know if you’ve read that.

SSS: Oh, yes -- For Richer, For Poorer. It’s terrific.

JM: Yes, I quite like it, too. And I think the reason I like it so much is that unlike a lot of these “tell-all” poker books or whatever they are, Vicky never tries to make herself into sort of an elite. She throws herself in with the poker players -- they are her peers, and she’s not trying to pretend that she’s not as bad or as good or as sick or as addicted or anything as any of them. And I always thought that was kind of important in the poker world as far as keeping your own order together was concerned -- that if you do think you’re different or better than everyone else, at least recognize that you’re a hypocrite (laughs)!

One of the things about poker, especially back then, is that you are faced with so many moral choices. I think that’s what excited me about the story more than anything else. Just because of poker’s nature, the decisions that you have to make every day... you are constantly testing out your own morality. And other people’s, too. You find out a lot about what lengths they’ll go to, what depths they’ll sink to, really who they are as a person. Poker reveals so much about people’s personalities because the ethical dilemmas -- the gray areas -- they come so fast and furious.

SSS: There are several themes present in the novel. One seems to be the way people tend to view poker either realistically or they romanticize it -- that there’s a “reality” of poker that some get, and there’s a “romance” about the game that others prefer to see.

JM: I’ll buy that.

SSS: A related theme in the book -- and this is interesting because you’ve already used this phrase a couple of times with regard to the writing of the novel -- is this idea of “making order” of your life. Mickey is constantly trying to do that himself in the book, and struggling, at times, between being “realistic” and being “romantic” about his life as a full-time poker player.

JM: I think that for people who play poker professionally today, that “order” is so much more readily available. And it’s an order that is very similar for all of them. They’ve identified profitable ways to play, mistakes their opponents make, and all of the numbers involved that they can see with the tracking software and things like that -- the order is there. I think it was much harder before, but believe me, they still have a lot of chaos in their lives, because the nature of poker and gambling is obviously based on the streaks of winning and losing. That stuff throws off your sense of balance.

Then there’s the “moral” order of setting up rules for yourself, which obviously is a whole other thing. The order of believing that what you’re doing is the right thing to be doing. To me that’s always been the major theme of gambling -- not just poker -- that you’re always making up new rules for yourself. Maybe it’s like that in life, too, you know, something works for a while and then something throws it off and you have to go back to the drawing board. But it’s very important for people to have a sense of order, and I agree that’s something that Mickey struggles with in the book. As everybody in the poker world does.

I think everyone takes this little, sort of vicarious pleasure in seeing someone who’s completely on top of the poker world run bad. You know, when somebody like Brian Townsend is writing that he’s questioning everything and going back to the drawing board. You recognize that the poker world can be as chaotic for them as it is for the rest of us.

SSS: I think you’re right about it being a different situation today than for players in the ’90s, not just in terms of being able to track results and see “order” that way, but when it comes to the moral questions, too. Poker still isn’t completely accepted today, but -- to go back to what you were saying earlier -- poker pros aren’t necessarily having to defend what they do as much today as before.

Okay, one last question about the novel. What writers -- poker and otherwise -- would you list as ones you admire and might consider as having influenced you when writing Shut Up and Deal?

JM: As far as poker writers are concerned, I love Al Alvarez (The Biggest Game in Town), of course. And Jon Bradshaw, I love the way he profiles people in Fast Company. Also, Damon Runyon, to me, is one of the great writers of all time when it comes to creating the characters of gambling. I feel like he is so underappreciated, although now that I think about it I probably never read any Runyon before I wrote the book. And Mario Puzo’s Fools Die...

SSS: You allude to that one in Shut Up and Deal.

JM: Oh, that’s right. You know Puzo was a big gambler. To me, Fools Die was the greatest book on Vegas that had ever been written. There are a couple of scenes in there in which he describes Vegas that I think heavily influenced me.

For other [non-gambling] stories, I used to read Somerset Maugham quite a bit. I love storytellers who are happy to tell the details they want to tell, you know? Writers like Hemingway or Djuna Barnes... who show that it doesn’t have to be a [linear] sort of narrative where you say “he said” and then “she said” but that you can just relate what strikes you about people. I always felt like that at the poker table, but essentially there you are just watching people, which I love to do.

Come back tomorrow for Part 2, covering the early years of Late Night Poker.

Queen Victoria!

Was simply a terrific day here on the farm yesterday where Vera and I hosted family for an Easter meal and a very relaxing time amid perfect spring weather.

Would eventually turn on NBA playoff basketball to watch my Bobcats play their first playoff game in several years, hanging tough for two-and-a-half quarters before fading versus the Miami Heat. Charlotte’s a huge underdog, obviously, even to take a game off the defending champs. And speaking of pulling for underdogs, like a lot of you I followed closely the delayed online stream of the final table at EPT Sanremo, enjoying watching Victoria Coren Mitchell’s come-from-behind win to grab the title (photo by Danny Maxwell for PokerNews).

Coren Mitchell had begun the penultimate day of play 16th of 16 in chips on Saturday, then managed to squeak into yesterday’s final table still on the short side and in fact eighth of the remaining eight to start play. Thus did it seem reasonable to think she probably wouldn’t be getting too much further. Even she consistently downplayed her prospects pretty much the whole way this weekend, demonstrating what Rick Dacey on the PokerStars blog styled “the power of positive pessimism.”

She didn’t really begin to build a stack, either, until after there had been a few eliminations, then took the lead with three left after a hand in which both she and start-of-day chip leader Jordan Westmorland flopped trip tens, but she had him outkicked.

That hand saw Coren Mitchell having to call a Westmorland river shove after having led out, a call that had to be made but was nonetheless still difficult. And while she’d been dealt some good cards in that hand as well as in the final one in which she flopped two pair with Q-J to crack runner-up Giacomo Fundaro’s pocket aces, she also made some good decisions and savvy plays throughout the final table.

Today on Learn.PokerNews Nate Meyvis talks about one small hand from early on that showed Coren Mitchell playing smartly postflop. There were other good hands for her, too -- including an inspired four-bet from the hijack seat at seven-handed when she was holding after Fundaro had defended his small blind with a reraise (and happened only to have had ).

So because of the chip situation for much of the last couple of days, her winning was unexpected. Also the fact that the EPT had gone 97 tournaments and nearly 10 full seasons without having a two-time Main Event winner (!) made the prospect of it actually happening this weekend with Coren Mitchell seem all the more unlikely to occur.

It had become a running gag of sorts with the PokerStars bloggers who have been more or less obligated to trot out each EPT over the last several years the fact that no one had won the sucker twice. As every Main Event wound down to the last couple of days, if there were a former champ around in the field notice had to be given regarding the “streak” and the prospects for it finally ending.

I’ve written here before on several occasions about Coren Mitchell. She’s been a prominent presence on the poker scene for more than a decade now.

She was a participant during Season Two of Late Night Poker back in 2000, the popular U.K. show about which we recently ran a three-part history by one of the show’s creators, Nick Szeremeta, over on Learn.PokerNews. She then took a turn as a commentator on the show with Jesse May during the show’s third season.

It was at EPT London during Season 3 that she won her first Main Event title back in 2006, becoming the first woman to win an EPT. She’d join Team PokerStars soon after, then in early 2010 her excellent “poker memoir” appeared, For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker, a book I continue to recommend to anyone looking for interesting (and sometimes laugh-out-loud-funny) nonfiction poker writing.

I reviewed For Richer, For Poorer for Betfair Poker when it first appeared (here, too), then interviewed the author as well. Among my questions for her was one about the book’s title, an obvious allusion to marriage and the wedding vows.

“Well, poker is not a job for me (I enjoy it too much) and it’s not a hobby (I devote too much time to it),” she answered. “It's a way of life; I have embraced a life. In that sense, it’s like a marriage -- or like a marriage should be. For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, poker and I are together for the long haul. I might kick against it sometimes, it might annoy me, I might hate it, but deep down I will love it for ever and I never plan to say goodbye. If I ever get married, I hope I’ll feel the same way about my unlucky groom.”

Of course, she would get married in November 2012 to the actor and comedian David Mitchell who is probably best known for his role on the British show Peep Show where he stars with his comedy partner Robert Webb (one of several hilarious productions with which Mitchell has been involved). Meanwhile Coren Mitchell has an especially large following of non-poker people in the U.K. thanks to her weekly columns in The Observer and The Guardian and her co-hosting of the popular quiz show Only Connect.

The mainstream press across the pond have already been trumpeting Coren Mitchell’s win loudly, encouraging some to whisper about another “boom” of sorts for British poker perhaps being a consequence of her win yesterday. And as often happens when women win big tourneys -- no longer as great a rarity as back in 2006, although still noteworthy especially given the disproportionate number of women who play big buy-in events versus men -- that, too, won’t hurt going forward when it comes to promoting the game and getting women interested in poker.

Of course, as even just that quote above suggests (I think), Coren Mitchell is a tremendous ambassador for poker, not just because of her mainstream connections and celebrity but also because she’s great at explaining why the game is both fun and worthwhile, especially to newcomers. “Queen Victoria!” tweeted a few following her win yesterday, a title she’s earned not just for having beaten the other 97 EPT Main Event champs to two-time-champ status but for her already-established position as an influential promoter of the game.

Lots of reasons, then, why her win yesterday should rightly be considered “good for poker” (in the general sense). Inspiring, too, for those of us who like to write about poker, and who like her have a great enough love for poker and the endless stories and characters it can produce that it has become more than just a hobby but a “a way of life.”

There are a lot of us who thanks to that love of the game are in poker “for the long haul.” It’s fun, then, to see someone else who is as dedicated to our favorite game and who does well describing what’s so good about it do well.

2013 WSOP, Day 32: Heaps of Headlines

A lot happening at the Rio right now, with the WSOP Main Event now less than a week away. Last night I was busy with the last day of Event No. 50, the $2,500 10-Game Mix, and while I was locked in there I was still aware of lots else going on as well.

Event No. 50 rapidly whittled down from 20 returners to a final table of six -- faster than we’d anticipated, in fact. Once we reached that stage, my blogging partner Josh and I had a decision to make.

PokerNews has been doing hand-for-hand coverage at most hold’em and Omaha final tables this summer, though have not done so for non-flop games (e.g., stud and draw variants). For the 10-game mix we had a choice, then, how to approach the reporting, and we decided to do what might be called “round-for-round” coverage of the action.

We knew reporting hand-for-hand was neither feasible nor really desirable, with the stud games in particular being too involved to accommodate that sort of reporting. But we also wanted to try to give a somewhat comprehensive report on how the final table was evolving through the various games. So we each took turns reporting on the six-hand rounds of a given game, providing successive “round reports” that highlighted the biggest hands of each six-hand sequence while updating chip counts frequently.

I liked how it all turned out, and if you read through it all you can see how Brandon Wong eventually moved from the middle to the front, then maintained his advantage to the end including through heads-up play with Sebastian Saffari.

Was kind of funny at first as I had initially drawn PLO, NLHE, and other “easier” games to cover while Josh kept getting stud/8, Badugi, and the like. But after one cycle through the 10 games we found a way to switch off after a bustout so we each ended up reporting on all 10 of the games more than once during the nearly seven-hour final table (including a one-hour break for dinner).

A couple of U.K. players finished in the top three (Saffari and Philip Sternheimer), with the American Wong ultimately prevailing. Had a boisterous rail of supporters at the secondary feature table, too, most of whom were there for Saffari. However, the real “British rail” was next door whooping it up in the mothership over Barny Boatman’s win in Event No. 49, a $1,500 NLHE event.

Boatman, of course, is one of the original “Hendon Mob” along with his younger brother, Ross, Ram Vaswani, and Joe Beevers, a group of Londoners who became early pioneers when it came to getting sponsorships for poker players while also founding the famous forum and what has become a vital database of tourney results. The Mob’s story gets covered somewhat in Victoria Coren’s For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker (reviewed here).

Lots of joy being expressed in and around the mothership last night at Boatman’s triumph, as well as over Twitter where I’ve already seen dozens of congratulatory tweets aimed toward Boatman. The 58-year-old topped a field of 2,247 to win his first bracelet and a $546,080 first prize.

Indeed, when it came to Day 32 of the 2013 World Series of Poker, the 10-game mix finishing up probably ended up below the fold (so to speak) as there were at least three other more attention-grabbing stories unfolding. Boatman’s win was one. The completion of Event No. 47, the $111,111 buy-in One Drop High Rollers NLHE event was another. And the continued playing out of Event No. 51, the $10,000 Ladies NLHE Championship (with a $9,000 discount for women) was a third.

To be honest, the One Drop High Rollers event barely registered with me these last few days, as I wasn’t assigned to it and thus couldn’t really follow it that much.

I know the turnout of 166 players well exceeded expectations and made it necessary for the event to spill over into a fourth day of play. Antonio Esfandiari appeared primed at one point to follow his Big One for One Drop win from a year ago with another in this one, but fell in fourth. It was interesting to see businessman Bill Perkins break through to take third and notch a big cash in one of these, too.

In the end Anthony Gregg outlasted Chris Klodnicki to take the title and more than $4.8 million first prize, thus again disproportionately throwing out of whack all comparisons when it comes to the bracelet events, their prizes, and their significance. Klodnicki, by the way, has racked up close to $4 million the last two summers at the WSOP without even winning a bracelet. He won $2,985,495 last night after winning nearly $900K for finishing second in the $50K Poker Players Championship to Michael Mizrachi a year ago.

I suppose from the outside it just felt like another “high roller” event on the schedule, kind of a specialty tourney reserved only for a certain percentage of players at a given festival that have grown increasingly common over the last three years.

Meanwhile, I did get to witness a bit of Day 2 of the Ladies event as it was playing out nearby mine. In fact, on my break I even helped out those reporting on it a little, catching a couple of hands during the rapid sequence of bustouts that found that event reach a final table even before the scheduled end of play for the day.

The $10K buy-in for men did its job, apparently, as after three straight years of a handful of men playing in the event there were none among the 954 who registered this time around. That result helped support what seems like a commonly-held view now that the “ladies discount” idea was probably a good one.

I chatted briefly with WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla yesterday, and at one point in our conversation I noted how no men had played in the Ladies tourney this year. “You won’t have any stories to write,” said Dalla to me, and I nodded. Afterwards I thought how I was kind of tired of writing that story, anyway, and was glad I didn’t have to this time.

Barbara Enright was among those cashing in the Ladies event yesterday, finishing 25th. The Poker Hall of Famer won the Ladies event in both 1986 and 1994 (when it was a seven-card stud tournament), won a bracelet in an open event in 1996 (pot-limit hold’em), and is, of course, the only woman ever to make a WSOP Main Event final table, having finished fifth in 1995.

Also cashing yesterday was Danielle “dmoongirl” Andersen who finished 44th. Andersen is one of the three principal figures featured in the documentary BET RAISE FOLD: The Story of Online Poker, which happens to be having its official release today.

I had a chance to view the film earlier this month, and wrote a review of it for Flushdraw a week ago. I enjoyed it very much, and appreciate the way director Ryan Firpo and his cohorts presented the world of online poker and in particular the experiences of those who have managed to make careers out of playing online.

I actually spoke at length with Firpo at one point over a year ago about the project, in particular about poker’s significant place in American culture. That point that is made early in the film with people like Dr. Pauly, Dalla, David Schwartz, and Jesse May among those helping with the explanation. So even though I’m not really directly involved in the film, I’m still kind of excited for Firpo and the others who are.

As my review points out, the film ultimately becomes more of an extended profile of Andersen and the two other players featured, Tony Dunst and Martin Bradstreet, than a full-blown history of online poker. I say that because there are certain elements of that story that are left to the side, most conspicuously the insider cheating scandals at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet that had wide-ranging effects on the industry as a whole (neither mentioned in the film).

I think the film is successful in many ways, though, and spell out a few of them in the review. Andersen’s story is the most interesting, of course, getting the most attention during the film’s running time.

Incidentally, last Sunday morning I finished the last edits on my review and after it was posted I went to the Rio to get ready for a day of work. I was climbing the steps in back when I looked up to see Andersen sitting there with her smart phone as she waited to play an event that day.

I introduced myself and told her how I’d just reviewed BET RAISE FOLD and she already knew about it as someone had messaged her. Was kind of uncanny to run into her at that moment after having been watching and thinking about the movie for the previous several hours and days. She was very nice and told me a little about the whirlwind she’s experienced as the center of attention of a film of such particular interest to everyone at the WSOP.

Like I say, the film is being officially “released” today insofar as it will become available online some time this morning, so check out the BET RAISE FOLD site for information about ordering.

I’m back at the Rio later this afternoon for more mixed-game fun as I’m helping with Day 1 of Event No. 55, the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. Just eight games to deal with in that one, with Badugi and 2-7 NL Draw omitted from the mix.

The $50K event was first introduced as a H.O.R.S.E. event in 2006, subsequently being dubbed the “Poker Players Championship” and awarding a trophy in memory of the first winner, David “Chip” Reese, who died in 2007. Here are the winners, first prizes, and entrants for the first seven of them:

With everything else going on – including the final days of both the Ladies event and the $25K NLHE 6-max. -- the $50K getting started probably won’t make it “above the fold” either for the day. Should feature all the big names, though, and again I’ll be curious to see what the turnout ends up being, especially coming right on the heels of that One Drop High Roller.

Click on over to PokerNews’ live reporting today to follow it all.

2012 WSOP, Day 34: That’s a Bummer, Man (Men in the Ladies Event)

Yesterday I reported on the first day of Event No. 51, the $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship for PokerNews. For the most part I was going at it alone, save a few hours in the middle when Brett came over to help with some posts. So I say “I reported on it” rather than “I covered it,” because circumstances demanded a lot necessarily had to be left uncovered.

I’ve written here in the past about the huge challenge of trying to report on a large field tournament with few resources, and so am not going to go over all that again today. Was a little disheartening, I’ll admit, to pretend to do justice to the sucker with no one else around to help fill the huge gaps.

One aspect of this particular event I had hoped to give attention to were some of the stories players brought to it. The ladies event brings out interesting people, people who come to the tournament via many different paths. And their stories are often less common and thus more interesting than what one normally encounters at most poker tournaments.

But there just wasn’t enough me to do much of that. I was really only able to share a couple of those kinds of stories, the best being the one about the 94-year-old retired NYPD deputy inspector coming back to play the ladies event after having played at the WSOP a lot in the past, including making a final table in the ladies event at what had to have been around age 80.

Another aspect of the event I didn’t really care much about focusing on at all yesterday was the participation of men in the tournament. That story was big in 2010, the first time it happened. It was kind of big again last year, when a man made it all of the way to the final table before busting in ninth.

Not this time, though. Is already part of the deal. Doesn’t take long in poker or at the WSOP for the creating of “traditions.” And I suppose we can say a few men playing in the women’s event has by now become one.

Sure, when I first passed through the field searching for familiar faces and perking my ears up to catch table talk and perhaps find items of interest to share, I noticed the dudes. Couldn’t help it.

Each time I saw one, I was seized with a small pang of disappointment. And I guess a kind of pity, too -- for the guys for having somehow convinced themselves that playing in the ladies event was a sensible thing to do, and for the women, too, if any were at all bothered by the men playing.

I mean it was just a bummer, and that was it. And I didn’t want to write about it, because doing that would have been a bummer, too.

I found the topic so uninspiring I couldn’t even bring myself to mention the men in the live blog at all yesterday. The fact was, there were hundreds and hundreds of women playing in the event about whom I also was unable to write. So it didn’t make much sense to me to give any of the very limited time and energy I had to writing about the men.

In some cases the men were friendly and chatty, and I didn’t see women appearing especially bothered about their presence at the tables. Even by the couple who were wearing dresses hardy har.

It wasn’t all hunky dory, though. It may be a tradition, now, that a handful of men play in the ladies event. But not everyone is ready to accept that without asking some questions about how this new tradition came to be. And continues.

It was late in the day when Victoria Coren decided to ask the man sitting at her table why he had decided to enter the event. I’d passed by Coren’s table a time or two before, even reporting on a hand. By then the field had shrunk down to 25 tables or so, and thus I was able to make another circuit back when I heard her asking the man her question.

I lingered and listened. I was curious. Being a fan of Coren’s writing I wanted to be an audience to how she might choose to interrogate the man. I suppose in the back of my mind I thought I might share something of what I heard here, too.

Rather than retell it all, I can point you to Coren’s own account which she’s already published on her blog. There she describes the entire episode in detail, explaining what she and the young man said to each other, and then delivering a judgment upon him.

In asking her questions of the man she was not rude. Despite what some on Twitter who were not there might be inferring from Coren’s post or elsewhere, it wasn’t even close to verbal harassment. She was asking questions. As another player characterized Coren's questions when the floor came over, “It’s banter. It's part of the game.” She used wit which he didn’t seem to follow. And when he became uncomfortable he called the floor to request they make her stop saying things to him that made him feel uncomfortable.

Having heard most of it, I can say Coren’s account is accurate. I only recall hearing one thing that was said that she doesn’t mention. It was something the man said early on during her questioning, when she was still trying to get at the reason why he had decided to play.

Among his initial responses, I remember him saying “I want to buy a condo.” That was why he was playing, he explained. To try to make enough money from it to buy a condo.

Suddenly that feeling of disappointment I mentioned before multiplied tenfold. He either didn’t understand the purpose of the question, or didn’t care. What I was hearing was too dumb for words. Which again, was the real reason why I didn’t choose to put it into words last night.

If one of the two dudes who made it to Day 2 makes it further -- if he ends up becoming part of the tourney’s narrative in a way that demands his being included in the “coverage” -- I’ll write about him. If he emerges as a chip leader, or makes it to the last few tables, I’ll write about him. If he wins, I’ll write about him.

But let me tell you, if any of that happens, that would be a bummer. As would writing about it.

Being Human

Victoria Coren wrote a neat, short Guardian piece yesterday titled “How do you find the best player in the world?”

There she reflects briefly on the recent International Federation of Poker event in which teams from 11 nations (plus a team from the “virtual” nation of Zynga) completed against one another using the duplicate poker format. I wrote a little about the IFP event, though not so much about duplicate poker, in my Community Cards column for Epic Poker this week, “Poker as a Sport.”

Coren’s succinctly-made point yesterday was to point out how difficult -- really, impossible -- it is to rank poker players according to any utterly unambiguous scale. “I rather like the impossibility of naming anyone ‘best,’” writes Coren, adding that “the ensuing, unceasing argument is so human.”

I rather like Coren’s choice of adjective to conclude that thought. It is “human” to attempt such futile tasks. And it’s our being “human” that helps contribute to the impossibility of objectively ranking poker players.

She ends her column with a quote from the last page of Richard Jessup’s novel The Cincinnati Kid, a book I wrote about here some years ago. The quote is in fact presented in the novel as an idea Christian (Eric’s girlfriend) tries to impart to the Kid. “For every number one man there is a number two man,” goes the idea, “and because of this a man cannot retreat from life.”

Then comes a pronouncement about the seemingly unbeatable Lancey Howard: “The difference is that the number one man is a machine and the Cincinnati Kid is not, and was not, and never will be a machine.”

The implication that Lancey is “a machine” sounds an ironic note when we recall his nickname -- “The Man.” Another implication, of course, is that being human means being capable of losing. That no “number one” can ever continue as such without being challenged. Not if he’s human, that is.

All of that talk resonated strongly with me today as we just happen to be reading and discussing “poker bots” and online poker in my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class. Our readings consider recent efforts in artificial intelligence to create poker-playing computer programs -- i.e., to make machines more human-like -- as well as how online poker might have the effect of making humans more machine-like.

All of these items -- artificial intelligence, poker bots, online poker, the fictional character Lancey Howard -- encourage us to consider the significance of the human element in poker. And how it is our flaws and our efforts to exploit those of others and suppress our own that make the game interesting and meaningful -- not a “retreat from life,” but an expression of it.

Managing the Mob

Noticed yesterday that the excellent Hendon Mob website had finally taken down all of those Full Tilt Poker banners and ads, effectively ending its long-standing association with the embattled website. The four players who made up the actual Hendon Mob -- Joe Beevers, Barny Boatman, Ross Boatman, and Ram Vaswani -- have announced they are no longer FTP “Red pros” as well.

Some may have viewed the Hendon Mob site as having been a bit slow with their decision to make the break with Full Tilt. After all, it has been over five months since Black Friday, and nearly three months since the online poker site went offline altogether following the Alderney Gambling Control Commission’s suspension of Full Tilt Poker’s license to operate in late June.

One reason why some might have found the Hendon Mob’s response to have been a little sluggish here was the fact that in most respects the Mob has been way ahead of curve for a long time.

In For Richer, For Poorer, Vicky Coren tells the story of the early days of the Hendon Mob -- how the group formed, its connection with the early days of Late Night Poker, the launching of the website (back in 2001), and how the four Mobsters managed to be among the earliest poker players around to secure any sort of sponsorship.

Coren notes how the group from very early on had “small bankrolls and big dreams” -- that unlike others they had “ambitions beyond the card-playing itself.” Then she tells how it wasn’t long after Chris Moneymaker’s victory in the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event that they were able to realize those ambitions, soon inking “the first million-dollar contract in poker” to wear logos for Prima Poker. That relationship lasted a couple of years, I believe, after which point the Mob became absorbed by the ever-expanding throng over at Full Tilt.

Back in the spring I had a lot of fun interviewing Jesse May for Betfair Poker. Among our many topics we talked about the debut of Late Night Poker (in 1999) and those early, pre-Moneymaker days. The interview appears in two parts (Part 1 & Part 2) -- it is in the second that we focused more on the show and May’s involvement.

If you click over there you’ll see May allude to the Hendon Mob guys as also an important part of the scene there in the late 1990s/early 2000s. I’m remembering May making further observations -- ones which ended up on the cutting room floor as far as the published interview went -- regarding how clever and forward-thinking the Hendon Mob guys were when it came to formulating their identity and landing those early sponsorships.

That said, I can understand how difficult it was for them finally to take down the ads -- to accept at last that whatever the future holds for the Hendon Mob, a continued association with Full Tilt Poker probably isn’t going to be part of it.

In their statement from yesterday, they lament what has become of FTP. “We are saddened by the problems that continue to beset Full Tilt Poker” they say, adding almost wistfully that they “would be delighted to see positive developments in the weeks and months ahead” for the site. Perhaps news from today’s hearing with the AGCC will further such hope, but one gets the sense from the Mob’s tone that it’s hard to be overly optimistic at this point.

Over the last decade-plus, the Hendon Mob site has grown considerably, with that database of tourney results now its unquestioned highlight -- the part of the site most of us visit on a regular basis.

Kind of funny how early on the “Hendon Mob” consisted of just the four players, only a couple of whom were from Hendon, apparently. (By the way, Coren explains how the name is kind of an in-joke, Hendon being a decidedly non-frightening north London suburb where she used to watch Disney films at the cinema.) But soon the “Mob” grew to refer additionally to the many forum participants and others who wrote for the site. And today the phrase “the Hendon Mob” is synonymous with the database, that massive collection of names and statistics that, well, includes just about everybody.

As you might imagine, they do have a lot of folks working for them over there. In the statement they point out how the site “employs a sizable staff of full and part time people” who maintain the database, and that they are “currently running at a substantial loss and this is not sustainable in the long term.”

By ending what had been an exclusive relationship with FTP, they explain, the site is now free to explore “new opportunities” -- e.g., another sponsorship that would enable them to continue with their considerable contribution to the poker world.

As someone who writes about poker regularly, I’d hate to see the tremendous resource that the Hendon Mob provides go away. Thus do I hope some entity might find it worthwhile enough to step and sponsor the Mob. ’Cos, in a way, we’re the Mob, too!

Travel Report: LAPT Lima, Day 1

Having started to cover tourneys in a variety of places, I can say that we are especially well provided for in terms of our working conditions in the Atlantic City Casino, where I am this week helping cover LAPT Lima. And I’m not just talking about those helpful signs above our work stations.

First off, the LAPT, PokerStars, and Atlantic City Casino folks are all extremely supportive and looking out for us at every step. The wireless network by which we access the internet is very fast and reliable, too. And we enjoyed what I thought was a fairly incredible meal at the casino buffet during one of our breaks. Another one of those sample-dozens-of-things-without-necessarily-noting-what-they-were type affairs, with just about everything being equally tasty.

The running of the tournament has gone well thus far, too. There were 40 tables set up for play yesterday -- 20 filling the main poker room, and 20 more taking up most of the outer area there on the second floor of the casino. They were ready for 400 players, maximum, and ended up seating 384, which came close to breaking the record (398) for entries in an LAPT event.

At one point during the day I went through to see where everyone was from, and counted 33 different countries being represented. Probably two-thirds or more are from South America, but there are a number from the U.S., Europe, and even a couple from Asia.

As was the case at the start of the EPT event in Kyiv, it was a bit of a challenge early on identifying folks. There were a few familiar faces -- particularly the PokerStars pros who were there -- though there were many with whom I was previously unfamiliar.

Of course, we had a lot of fun with one particular PokerStars pro, Maria “Maridu” Mayrinck, who for a short while early in the afternoon was wearing a disguise. But being a shamus, I was able to see through it, and so got our photographer, Carlos, to snap some pics.

Eventually we learned several new names and had a lot to report. Working alongside Reinaldo (writing for the Stars Spanish language site) and Sergio (writing for the Portuguese site) helped, as did working together with the PokerNews guys, Marc and Rick.

Speaking of PokerNews, Lynn Gilmartin was there yesterday, having arrived Vegas with a story about being delayed in Houston. Like me, she’d had an extra six hours or so added to her trip and hadn’t gotten to Lima until five a.m. or so. It was the first of a few coincidences that marked the day.

The other two happened about the same time, about halfway through the day’s play. Just as the fifth (of eight levels) began, I got messages of support regarding a tournament I was apparently playing against Vicky Coren. She had tweeted that she was “Heads up! Just me and Seamus the blogger left” in a Stars tourney. Shortly after, she tweeted that Seamus had won.

Alas, it was a fellow named Seamus McCauley -- also a blogger -- and not me who took down the sucker.

It was right about then we heard the news that a Dutch man named Joran van der Sloot, once a suspect in that 2005 case in which the U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway had disappeared in Aruba, was now suspected of killing a woman in Lima.

Adding to the weirdness of it all, the woman had been killed on May 30 -- the five-year anniversary of Hollaway’s disappearance. Not only that, van der Sloot and the victim apparently met at the Atlantic City Casino, and some of these reports were saying he was in Lima for the LAPT event. Last I heard yesterday, he had fled to Chile and a manhunt was on.

We were knee deep in covering the tourney and so couldn’t really devote much attention to tracking down further details about van der Sloot or the murder. Kind of reminded me of a plane trip Vera and I had taken back in June 1994. We had changed planes in Chicago, then later learned we were there at the same time O.J. Simpson had been. (Recall Simpson had flown to Chicago the night of the murders.)

I imagine we’ll hear a bit more today about the van der Sloot situation, but again I anticipate being occupied with much else. Will certainly be a long day, as the plan is to play down to 24 before we stop. Check in over at the PokerStars blog to follow along.

That Was The Week That Was (Poker News Round Up)

Had all sorts of busy dreams last night, where I was constantly running around, having to be in two (or three or four) places at once. Probably because there's a damn lot going on these days, poker-wise.

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure -- the first leg on the new North American Poker Tour -- is finally winding down in Nassau, Bahamas. Harrison Gimbel (aged 19) took down the Main Event, earning a head-spinning $2.2 million. And last night another youngster, William Reynolds (aged 21), took down the High Rollers event, winning $526,240.

Meanwhile, the Aussie Millions has gotten underway down in Melbourne and will be running for the rest of the month, with the Main Event happening Jan. 24-30. Follow the action at the Aussie Millions over at PokerNews’ live reporting page.

Another bit of news came out yesterday, via Daniel Negreanu’s blog. The presence of 441 Productions at the PCA -- the crew ESPN uses for its WSOP coverage -- had suggested the possibility that ESPN would be carrying the NAPT, and according to Negreanu that indeed is going to be the case. Stephen A. Murphy gives us a good summary of that story over on the Card Player site.

The news that ESPN will be there at the Venetian for the next NAPT event -- the main event of the Deep Stack Extravaganza series (Feb. 20-24) -- certainly will attract a lot of folks to the Venetian who might not have been there otherwise. Will be interesting, too, to see whether this next NAPT event will affect the numbers at the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic, also going on in February, although if I am reading the schedule correctly the Main Event over there doesn’t begin until Feb. 26. Many will play both events, I imagine, although a large number of players may only have the bankroll to choose one. (Links to schedules: NAPT Venetian; WPT L.A. Poker Classic.)

So it’ll be the NAPT vs. the WPT. The Venetian vs. the Commerce. ESPN vs. Fox Sports. And PokerStars vs. PartyPoker (sort of, as Peerless Media, Ltd., a division of PartyGaming, acquired World Poker Tour Enterprises late last summer). And, er, Vanessa Rousso versus Kara Scott? (Scott signed this week as a PartyPoker pro.)

Speaking of conflicts, while we’re all distracted by these other stories, most of us have taken our eyes off of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 after the deadline for the implementation of the law’s final regulations was delayed for six months to June 1, 2010. In what appears a bit of petulant politicking, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), one of those involved in authoring versions of the bill that would eventually become the UIGEA, has discovered a way to respond to the delay. He’s currently blocking the appointment of nominees to fill various Treasury Department posts, apparently as a kind of payback for the decision to delay the UIGEA’s enforcement.

Maria Del Mar gives a good summary of the situation over at Poker News Daily, including some references to comments by various observers, such as Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who are marveling at how Kyl can find it worthwhile to delay the filling of key positions in the Treasury Department while the U.S. continues to try and find its way out of financial crisis. Specifically, Kyl is preventing the appointment of six key officials, all of whom would help manage tax policies and international finance, posts which, as Del Mar points out, “even for the most hardcore poker fans, it should be clear that they ought to have a much higher priority than the UIGEA’s implementation or repeal.”

Among other folks, Del Mar points us to the political blogger Matthew Yglesias for more commentary. Seems more than a little unreasonable for Kyl to hold up the functioning of the Treasury this way in order to make known his grievance over the UIGEA delay.

But then, every single step of the legislative history of the UIGEA has been characterized by such self-serving, dysfunctional applesauce by its authors and backers.

A bill punted around in various forms for nearly a decade gets attached to another and passed into law without debate. Regulations get drafted, failing to clarify even the most rudimentary aspects of the bill (e.g., what constitutes “unlawful internet gambling”). A lame-duck administration finalizes the regulations, scheduling the sucker to go into effect on its last full day of its government. Banks and financial institutions, charged with enforcing the law, continue to plead they don’t know how to do so other than by “overblocking” all suspect transactions, and so a further delay is granted to revisit the issue, and perhaps entertain other legislation related to online gambling in the U.S.

Of course, all of these stories are connected pretty closely, as the fate of the UIGEA will directly affect that of the NAPT, the WPT, the online sites connected with those tours, and more. So, as I say, it will be interesting to see what happens in February in L.V. and L.A. And after that in D.C.

All in all, a busy week. Some will have recognized my headline as taken from the old BBC show. And while we’re on the subject of the U.K., go check out my interview with Victoria Coren over on Betfair about her book For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker. Coren was nice enough to take a little time out from her PokerStars Caribbean Adventure to answer my questions.

Have a good weekend!

A Few Fragments

Happy Friday, peoples. I don’t usually post photos of myself on the blog, but since I was feeling a little scattered I thought I’d share this one taken of me last week during a visit to a modern art museum. Look toward the top there -- you can see my hat.

I am still following with interest that PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Day 3 of which begins just a few minutes from now. PokerNews’ live reporting and the PokerStars blog are the places to go to keep up with the happenings down in Nassau. Additionally, for some behind-the-scenes shenanigans I see notre ami Benjo is submitting trip reports from the Bahamas over at Tao of Poker, the first of which appears here.

Looks like somewhere around 280 of the original field of 1,529 are still alive. The top 224 spots pay, so the money bubble should be bursting sometime early this afternoon.

Among those still alive is Victoria Coren who returns to a below average stack today. Sought out Coren’s name in the list of remaining players because I just posted a review of Coren’s excellent memoir For Richer, For Poorer over at Betfair, if you’re interested. Also, am going to be posting an interview with Coren over there soon as well, to which I’ll alert you here once it is ready.

Praz Bansi -- like Coren a Brit -- sits atop the leaderboard at present, followed by the Canadian Marc Etienne McLaughlin. I remember McLaughlin from his deep run at the 2009 WSOP Main Event where he finished 30th.

Other notables near the top of the leaderboard include Nasr El Nasr, Eric Froehlich, Matt Graham, Dario Minieri, Amnon Filippi, and Joe Cassidy. Ton of other familiar names still with significant chips, too. Looks like this here inaugural North American Poker Tour event is getting off to a good start.

While we’re feeling all fragmenty and whatnot, today seems like as good a day as any to say I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 298411

Okay, I’m gonna sign off now to go follow the action. And to try to pull myself together.

If you’re wanting to read more you might check out the comments on my post about Poker Table Ratings from Wednesday, “Keeping Track of Those Keeping Track.” Definitely an interesting debate, I think, over what should be allowed in online poker as far as “data mining” or hand tracking is concerned and what should not.

Poker Book Review: Victoria Coren’s For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker

I have written about Victoria Coren here before on a couple of occasions, having heard her on podcasts, occasionally read her poker-related columns in The Guardian, and covered her in a few tournaments, both live and online. In one post, “Victoria’s Secrets,” I wrote about her very interesting interview with Gary Wise in which she offered some insights about the whole men-vs.-women-in-poker thing, as well as discussed writing and poker and the great poker narratives such as The Biggest Game in Town (1983) by Al Alvarez and Anthony Holden’s Big Deal (1990).

In that interview with Wise (from January 2009), Coren mentioned that she was at work on her own poker narrative. The book, titled For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker, arrived this fall. I recently had the chance to read and review it, and wanted to share a few comments here about the book as well. The book primarily functions as a “poker memoir” chronicling Coren’s poker career -- from her first learning the game as a teenager from her older brother in the late 1980s to her becoming a European Poker Tour champ and a PokerStars team pro. The book is much more than that, though. Let me explain.

The category of “poker books,” despite being a teeny, tiny niche (really), includes a wide variety of styles and subjects. Go to Borders or Barnes and Noble and on the “poker” shelves you’ll find jammed together strategy texts (covering a wide variety of games, both cash and tourney), simple “how-to” primers, rulebooks, biographies, autobiographies, histories, and more. People visit these shelves for a number of different reasons, and in a lot of instances, books are prejudged by the (potential) reader’s idea or opinion of the poker-playing ability of the author. Such preconceptions have relevance, certainly, when considering a strategy text, though aren’t necessarily as valuable when considering other, non-strategy works.

As a poker player, Coren has had some success, highlighted most prominently by her victory at the EPT London Main Event in 2006 (a sweet £500,000 score). Some -- especially poker players who tend to adhere to the “time equals money” formula -- will not be persuaded by her other, less obviously remarkable results to consider her memoir worthy of their “investment” (in time or in cabbage). Such folks will be missing out on a well-crafted, perceptive, and witty example of storytelling which I would think should appeal to all poker players. Probably would interest some non-poker players, too, I’d imagine.

Coren does tell the tale of her 2006 EPT success, cleverly winding her narrative of the most significant hands from that final table with the primary autobiographical thread. Each chapter is punctuated with a hand, and it is in those interludes one encounters the bulk of the “strategy” talk in the book. But even there the emphasis isn’t so much on strategy as on relating Coren’s ups and downs as that dramatic final table plays out.

Meanwhile, as mentioned, the autobiography begins with Coren first learning the game as a teen, then going to college after which she takes a turn as a standup comedian. Eventually Coren finds herself repeatedly returning to the Victoria Casino in London (the “Vic”), enamored with other gambling games (especially roulette) but eyeing the poker tables as well. Then comes an opportunity to go to Las Vegas to interview Huck Seed for a newspaper. Seed had just won the 1996 World Series of Poker Main Event, and for Coren the opportunity provides a kind of “seed” -- my groan-worthy pun, not Coren’s -- for a career in journalism as well as for her continued pursuit of poker.

The rest of the book carries her story forward to 2006 where the twin narratives finally join together -- in surprisingly dramatic, even moving fashion -- near the book’s conclusion. Along the way, we read about Coren’s becoming involved with “Late Night Poker,” the ground-breaking poker TV show that debuted in 1999 and on which she eventually appeared both as a player and a commentator; her early experiences at the Vic and in Vegas, including her first participation in events at the WSOP; her developing many friendships with poker players, with nifty character sketches of figures like Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, Neil Channing, John Duthie, Hamish Shah, Roland de Wolfe, and the Hendon Mob guys; her other, more significant relationships with men (all discreetly handled); and the illness and death of her father, the satirist Alan Coren.

A few themes emerge over the course of the book, besides the ongoing “education of a poker player” that is happening throughout. As one might expect, there is the whole “woman in a man’s world” motif, symbolically introduced in the book’s opening line: “My brother’s game is on the other side of that wall.”

As in that interview with Wise, Coren makes some keen points here when discussing the subject of women in poker. “Men and women are not sufficiently different, psychologically, for either gender to be ‘naturally’ better at poker than the other,” she maintains, though quickly adds that she is “not saying that gender differences don’t exist.” She goes on to speculate that “If the differences between men and women are relevant to the game at all, it should be true that women’s traditional qualities of craftiness, patience and guile should balance out the male instincts of aggression, bluff and bluster.”

When playing at the Ladies Event at the 2001 WSOP, Coren notes the strangeness of the scene -- that is, a poker room filled with hundreds of women at the tables and no men -- humorously describing it as “like science fiction.” “It’s a vision of how the world could have been,” she writes, “if somebody stepped on a butterfly and it all turned out different.” While not everyone is going to agree with her conclusions on this subject, I think her book does provide a valuable contribution to the ongoing conversation about women in poker.

Another, somewhat related theme that emerges in the book is suggested by the title, taken from traditional wedding vows. Coren frequently notes how her path in life has not included marriage or children (yet), and indeed poker -- with whom she’s had a lifelong “romance” -- kind of takes the place of that traditional sort of relationship. (As she notes in the preface, “poker is the most companionable thing I do.”) There is also a lot in there about the “the romance of poker” and its various thrills, all of which she relates accurately and effectively.

Those of you who have read Coren’s columns know she is both witty and “literary” in her writing -- that is to say, she definitely can make you laugh, but she can also deftly employ various poetic devices (symbol, metaphor, allusion) to help her communicate her intended meaning. I could make this post even longer by citing the many examples of both her wit and literary sensibility, but I’ll confine myself to sharing just one of each.

Among the book’s many laugh-out-loud moments is Coren’s account of her meeting Phil Hellmuth in 2001. He’d come over for a series of “Late Night Poker” in which Coren was also participating, and a group goes out for dinner. Ever the entrepreneur, Hellmuth begins describing his idea for an album -- The Phil Hellmuth Poker Album -- for which he’ll compile songs from other bands’ outtakes. Coren questions him about the project, not understanding what exactly makes it a “Phil Hellmuth” album or a “poker” album. “‘I will have collected the songs,’” he explains, excitedly (and enigmatically). “‘And I’m a poker player.’”

Coren’s response is to cite the lack of relevance. “‘You might as well gather up a bunch of animals,’’” she says, “‘put them in a field and call it The Phil Hellmuth Poker Farm.’”

As far as “literary” moments go, I especially like one Proustian passage in which she shares a flashback to a trip to a flea market as a 12-year-old with her father, a memory which is in fact inspired by her account of a Vegas trip and a particularly successful run at the craps tables with a group of friends. It is “one of those moments you dream about in gambling,” she explains, where the group keeps winning and winning. Her description of the run dissolves into a giddy, lyrical expression of that hard-to-define pleasure that comes from winning (and, not incidentally, from experiencing meaningful companionship, too): “We cannot lose. We will never lose again. We will never be lonely, we will never get ill and we will never die. Our chip towers are rising and rising and rising and rising. Dice are beautiful. Everything is beautiful. Everybody’s beautiful.”

Like I say, there’s more here. But I think you get the idea. There’s some strategy talk, but that’s not why you pick this book up. Rather, For Richer, For Poorer is for those who love literature, who love to laugh, and who love poker.

Reading & Writing

Had a long, long day of “real” life applesauce yesterday. Yea, I’m talking about the “day” job, which as of late has been turning into the “night” job, too, I’m sorry to report. Don’t plan to go into detail here -- as I said to a friend recently when the subject came up, the only thing worse than a bad beat story is to hear someone whimpering about his or her job. Suffice to say yr humble gumshoe has a lot else he’d rather be doing these days.

Changes are a afoot, though. Like hard-boiled writers do, I’ll leave that as a cliffhanger for now. Let’s turn the page.

Speaking of, for those who like hard-boiled fiction, my non-poker-related detective novel, Same Difference, is available for purchase. Makes a great Christmas gift! Am still waiting for it to turn up over on Amazon and other sites. (Thought that would have happened by now, but am still in limbo on that front.) Meanwhile, you can get it directly from Lulu by clicking here.

Big thanks to those who have picked it up already, and especially those who’ve read the sucker and sent along nice feedback. It’s a first novel, and I’m much encouraged to take what I’ve learned on this one as I set to work on a second.

The fact is, I have been thinking a lot recently about books and authors and the publishing world these days, mainly thanks to the books I happened to be reading. I’ve had the opportunity to review James McManus’s new one in a couple of places, Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, including over at Betfair where I’ve begun a new weekly column. As I mentioned last week, I was able to interview McManus as well, and will be posting that interview as a follow-up piece over at Betfair tomorrow.

Other current poker reads at the moment are also in the non-strategy category. Am moving through Vicky Coren’s For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker, a smart, funny, literary memoir telling the story of Coren’s life and poker career. Coren does have an EPT title and other poker achievements to report, but she’s also a genuinely gifted writer, thus making her book especially enjoyable. Fans of McManus, Alvarez, Holden, et al. should really like this one, I’d think.

Also have just recently cracked open a copy of Doyle Brunson’s recently published autobiography, The Godfather of Poker, written with Mike Cochran. Have only glanced at the contents, but first appearances suggest a comprehensive telling of Texas Dolly’s story, which I imagine will include several familiar anecdotes -- especially for those who have read his Super/System or other books that include Brunson yarns -- as well as new material. By the way, the Entities over at Wicked Chops have interviewed Brunson about the book -- check it out.

The book is a handsomely bound hardback with what’s called “rough trim,” meaning that when the book is closed the pages have a jagged edge -- the kind of thing you see sometimes with older books, but not so much these days.

As I was reading about on the Gamblers Bookshop blog last month, some might think the use of this cut “looks like it’s defective but that’s the way the publisher wanted it.” I kind of like it (see pic), which along with the cover photo kind of lends the book a stately, dignified appearance that seems to suit Brunson’s status in the poker world.

As understood by just about everybody but Joan Rivers, that is.

Will be reviewing both Coren and Brunson’s autobiographies in the coming weeks elsewhere, though I’ll say something here about them as well, I imagine. Like I say, reading these books -- all of which can be regarded as the end results of long-term, carefully-nurtured meaningful projects for the respective writers, has gotten me thinking more and more about “the writer’s life.”

And how such a life seems to me like it might be worth living. (Stay tuned!)

Call and Response

The blog. It’s been around for a good while now. I keep it. It keeps me. Whatever.

The way it works? Generally speaking, I get up early. Earlier than I would otherwise. And I write. I take care of the blog. And I guess it takes care of me. It’s a little like running, which I am still doing (though not as earnestly as I was earlier in the year). A kind of mental exercise that has become... routine? Obsession? Whatever.

Indeed, I’ve now reached a point where I can’t quite imagine what it would be like to make it through an entire weekday without having posted something to the blog.

I have written before (at length) about some of the reasons why people keep blogs, and most particularly what I perceive to be the purpose(s) for my own. Tended to do that quite a bit during the early days of Hard-Boiled Poker, in posts such as “An Existential Pause,” “Milestones,” and “Who Wants to Write About Poker?”

Haven’t gone for the navel-gazing thing quite as often here lately. A recent example was a post titled “Pokerback Writer” in which I talked some about the stories poker produces, and what to me seems like an inevitable relationship between playing poker and writing about it. However, I have been inspired to think again along these lines during the last few days, really for a couple of reasons.

One is my reading of Vicky Coren’s new memoir For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker, which the further along I get into it the more I’m realizing is an especially good entry into that little subcategory of “poker literature.” Coren identifies herself early on as more of a writer than a player, although like pretty much all of us who do either with any degree of seriousness, she has sufficient awareness and humility to recognize that she’s still learning in both realms.

Because really, if we had either completely figured out -- writing or playing -- why would we continue doing either?

The other inspiration for thinking again about the blog and its purposes was F-Train and his post from late last week “All Atwitter.” As the title suggests, F-Train is reflecting on the effect Twitter has had on blogging over the last few months, namely, that not-so-gradual shift among many in the poker writing crowd from blogging to Twittering. They “all” haven’t given over their blogs for Twitter, but it does seem quite a few have. While I still subscribe to a ton of poker blogs, really only a small percentage of the authors still post consistently, with many having opted instead to send out multiple “tweets” per day.

In his post, F-Train talks about that 140-character limit in Twitter and how such an abbreviated form necessarily affects the content. But he also suggests that both blogging and Twittering lack the sort of collaboration he believes is fundamental to good, quality writing. If I understand him correctly, we’re all kind of “broadcasting” -- either in 140-character-or-less chunks on Twitter or in longer stretches in blog posts -- without necessarily receiving (or even seeking) the kind of feedback that can make writing better (and more meaningful).

F-Train is absolutely correct when he says “polished, high-quality writing -- the type that is collaborative and takes more time, voice and skill to produce -- is receding in prominence.” Such is true not just in our little world of poker blogs and poker-related Twitter accounts, but everywhere. The fact is, here on the web, people do write hastily, hit ”publish” without reservation, and do not expect (let alone seek) feedback.

I do, however, think that a kind of collaboration is possible with blogs -- and even Twitter -- but it depends on how one approaches each medium. Soon after I started Hard-Boiled Poker, I quickly became aware of the “community” I had not-entirely-wittingly joined. As I wrote in an earlier post (“Community Watch”), “This here is a complicated, overlapping set of communities where (one might argue) we all eventually get around to hearing from each other. Unlike the world of print media, we ain’t so bound by time and space -- or even other factors that make it hard or even impossible for us otherwise to communicate with others. Here the interaction seems more alive (if that makes sense), and usually more meaningful.”

That’s how I have tended to think of the blog, anyway. Thus have I always felt myself interacting with others, not simply issuing monologues one after another with no expectation of being read and/or responded to. Sometimes in poker we make a bet and don’t want to be called. But when it comes to writing -- public writing, anyway -- we should always be seeking response.

Indeed, to write publicly without an awareness of (or respect for) audience is at best silly or pointless, at worst dangerous. Like Coren, I know I’ve a lot to learn. About poker, obviously. And about writing, too.

So please, keep writing everyone. Blogs, Twitter... whatever.

’Cos I’m reading. I’m responding.