A Spirit Dampening Time

Didn’t mention yesterday how Vera and I spent New Year’s Eve out with a group of friends enjoying a nice dinner at a nearby steak house. Was a fun evening of socializing and good eats, although the most memorable moment wasn’t exactly the most enjoyable for your humble scribbler.

Most were enjoying either wine or beer, and in fact I was the only one having just water. This particular restaurant makes it a practice to fill a glass of wine nearly full -- essentially two glasses’ worth, really -- which no one complained about. We’d made it through most of the main course, and I was already starting to slow down with my filet as others were finishing theirs.

That’s when a busboy collecting the plate of my friend sitting across from me clumsily knocked his still full glass of wine in my direction. Before I could blink my remaining food was in a puddle with the rest having squarely landed on my shirt and pants. I was soaked through, and more than a little dismayed as the pants I happened to be wearing (and liked) had been a Christmas gift from Vera.

I was more or less Carrie at the prom. And if it were possible for me to steam any harder I’m sure I might’ve set the restaurant on fire with my mind.

“Really?” said Vera to the busboy. His weirdly defensive reaction didn’t help matters much. “It’s not like I meant to!” he replied, instead of “I’m sorry” or some variation of that to me. Felt jarring, like someone delivering a supremely bad beat then ignoring the opponent’s plight to describe his own troubles.

Meanwhile the owner was nearly in tears as he gave us a discount on the meal, a generous gift certificate, and an offer to pay for dry cleaning. He even wanted to make me another steak, but I declined as I was already at the point where I couldn’t eat anymore. Appreciated it all, but to be honest I disliked even more being the center of everyone’s consternation.

I remembered working as a busboy myself for a couple of years during college, and while I couldn’t recall ever coming close to anything as mortifying as dumping a glass of wine on a customer, I’m sure I spilled some water and/or tea here and there and probably dropped a plate or three.

I think I kept relatively cool throughout, although I know I was simply unable to hide my frustration. The busboy did finally apologize, although that didn’t stop me from wincing every time he came around to fill water glasses thereafter.

Everyone was back to laughing by the end of the meal, including me, although I was eager to get home and out of my clothes. Turned out a few times through the washing machine was enough to save the pants and shirt, too.

All in all, then, I cashed out ahead.

HBP Greatest Hits of 2014

Is it really 2015? Was talking yesterday to Vera about how our five-and-a-half-year old nephew, should he live as long as our nonagenarian grandmothers, actually could make it to the 22nd century. What kinda science fiction izzat?

Last week I wrote a little about those “end-of-year” lists ranking top stories, then yesterday I promised something today looking back at the past year of posts here on Hard-Boiled Poker. For many years I’ve written lengthy, three-part posts summarizing and highlighting everything covered here, but today I’m just going to post a list of the 20 most-viewed HBP posts from 2014.

Here they are, in chronological order:

“Borgata Brouhaha” (Jan. 17)

“Niagara Falls! Slowly I Turned, Step by Step, Inch by Inch...” (Feb. 21)

“On the Bubble Boy” (Mar. 13)

“Delving into Dealer’s Choice” (Apr. 7)

“Ivey on the Edge” (Apr. 11)

“2014 World Series of Poker Schedule (Day-by-Day)” (May 26)

“Rounders and Roundball” (June 2)

“Couldn’t Have Played It Any Better, Mike” (June 25)

“Dispensing With the Drama: Watching the ‘One Drop’” (July 29)

“Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon Play a Hand of Draw Poker” (July 31)

“A 2006 WSOP Time Capsule” (Aug. 6)

“Here Comes the Flood: Newsweek on Online Poker” (Aug. 14)

“Colman, Chomsky, and Irrational Attitudes of Submission to Authority” (Aug. 18)

“Rambling, Gambling Willie’s Card Trick” (Aug. 21)

“His Side on the Edge Sorting: Ivey To Appear on 60 Minutes Sports“ (Sept. 30)

“Spinning and Going” (Oct. 1)

“With No Warning, Fifth Third Bank Closed My Account After Nearly 11 Years (And They Won’t Tell Me Why)” (Oct. 8)

“Ivey Loses, Spin & Go Spins, and Johnny Carson’s Poker Game” (Oct. 10)

“Not Watching Poker” (Oct. 28)

“Railbirding RAWA” (Dec. 10)

As I say, those were the 20 posts (out 275 total) that were viewed the most this year, a criteria that technically favors earlier posts than later ones, although I think works well enough to highlight a decent variety of topics.

Older posts continue to get a lot of views, too. In fact, a post I wrote about Bret Harte’s 1869 short story “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” was the most viewed page of any on the site this year. Not what I’d have predicted (were there a lot of junior high students writing papers on Harte’s story this year?).

Anyhow, click above if you missed any of these “greatest hits” and the titles are at all curious to you.

Last Post of the Year

A quick one to round out 2014. I might do some sort of “year in review”-type post tomorrow when I have a little more time, but for now I just wanted to check in with a final thanks to all who continue to stop by here day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year.

One reason why my time is short today is that Vera and I spent much of it putting the finishing touches on the fence we’ve been building on the “back forty” (something I’ve alluded to a couple of times already). We had wooden posts put in all around -- that above is a pic of the fellows hammering them home with the Bobcat -- then I pounded in the metal t-posts in between, added clips, and then strung up our braided poly-rope.

Was one of those jobs that initially looks very daunting, then becomes less impossible-seeming once you get started, then turns arduous when finally getting close to putting in those last posts. My arms felt like they were about to fall off by the end, making putting in that last post especially satisfying.

Has been another long year of posts here as well. Walking back through today, it looks as though this one makes 275 in all for 2014. Lot of miles traversed as well, with trips to Deauville, Niagara Falls, Viña del Mar, Montreal, Panama City, Lima, Jacksonville, and St. Kitts. (But no Las Vegas!)

Enjoy ringing out the old and ringing in the new, everybody!

Let’s Get Ridiculous

Last night Vera Valmore and I went to see the Charlotte Hornets play the Milwaukee Bucks.

Was our first game since the team dropped the Bobcats name to reclaim the old Hornets nick. Of course, we couldn’t help but be reminded of the Bobcats early on when Charlotte missed 16 straight shots in the first quarter (including several open, close-range ones) to fall behind by more than 20. They were down 17 at the half, then finally hit a few and made some stops to cut the lead to seven after three.

They then completed the comeback in the fourth to take the lead by two during the final minute, but the Bucks tied it to send the game to OT. Sadly the Hornets appeared to have expended all of their energy making the comeback, and never competed in the extra period to lose by 10.

Our lower level seats were fantastic, though, and we enjoyed every minute of the game despite the frustrating performance of the home team. Time Warner Cable Arena was packed, too, and the fans were enjoying all of the noise and craziness during every timeout, including the constant firing of t-shirt cannons, parachutes dropping Xbox games (pictured below), the “Bongo Cam,” the dancing of the Honeybees (the Charlotte cheerleaders), the blaring of “Rock and Roll (Part 2),” the Rocky theme, and other anthems, and so on.

There was one sequence in which the soundtrack pounding through the timeout was Redfoo’s dance hit from last year “Let’s Get Ridiculous,” which prompted a lot of fun silliness on the big screen. Heck, whenever bald-headed Bucks coach Jason Kidd would walk out on the floor amid the Honeybees and pulsating beats, I thought for a moment I was watching a Pitbull video.

It’s almost odd, if you think about it, how the loudest cheers and greatest excitement for many at such events are not responses to the actual game, but to the extracurricular activities. Some talk about “sportifying” poker, but meanwhile sports are being turned into something other than what they once were (although I can’t come up with a clever gerund to describe it). Still fun, though, and there’s something undeniably cool about seeing lots of kids dancing and laughing their way through an evening out with the family.

Driving home Vera and I chose not to play the radio, enjoying the quiet after what had been two-and-a-half hours of nonstop sensory overload.

Games weren’t always that way. I thought a little about how the filling of every moment with music and distractions was like other aspects of our lives today where the constant checking of phones for Facebook or Twitter updates, channel-flipping, web-surfing, and so on leaves zero “down time” regardless of one’s activity.

Made me think as well about playing poker and the often pleasurable, unhurried rhythm of that game -- I’m referring primarily to live poker, although even online one doesn’t have to play 16 tables or “fast-fold” games or turbos all the time.

It’s fun to get ridiculous sometimes. Fun, too, to slow down once in a while.

End-of-Year Lists

With the end of the calendar year come a lot of those “top ten stories”-type lists to help us realize just how poor our short term memories really are. Have seen several poker-related ones, including the countdown of story recaps currently appearing one per day over on PokerNews.

I cast a vote for that PN list, and in past years actually compiled similar lists on my own (e.g., for Betfair Poker). Not as easy as it looks.

Like “best of” rankings, Hall of Fame votes, and other such exercises, lists of a given year’s top stories are always subjective and thus open to criticism and debate. That’s because they not only reflect the various predilections of those making the selections, but the criteria being followed when designating what a “top story” is can be pretty amorphous, too.

Poker, for instance, is a game around which several different subcultures exist, groups that overlap in some ways but are distinct, too, and thus can have very different interests or concerns. For example, the divide between online poker and live poker was once larger than it is today, but there still exist many issues which only affect one or the other, thus making stories exclusively about one either highly important or nearly irrelevant depending on the audience.

Stories about online poker legislation, then, might rate high on some lists or fail to chart on others, depending on who’s doing the listing. Same goes for poker tournament results -- they directly affect many who play poker and are of special interest to fans and those who follow it, but they can be largely meaningless to many others.

Industry news including items about casinos and online sites can often be more significant than many players and/or fans realize, but those stories don’t always capture the public’s attention. Meanwhile cheating scandals and other untoward activities always draw lots of rubberneckers, but sometimes aren’t as important as they seem. And while there may not be as many “poker celebrities” diverting us today as there were a decade ago, the words and actions of certain players and others still fascinate some, thus getting those “Did you hear what he/she said/did?!” stories a lot of play.

Looking back a few years, in 2009 Phil Ivey making the WSOP Main Event final table while winning two other bracelets was a consensus pick for top story that year. In 2010, Michael Mizrachi’s $50K PPC win and final-table run topped a few lists, although Harry Reid’s late-year failed online poker bill got a lot of play in the rankings, too (even topping some lists).

In 2011, Black Friday was the unchallenged choice for top poker story by practically everyone. In 2012, the PokerStars-DOJ-FTP deal provided a significant sequel that many rated that year’s most important poker story. Last year Daniel Negreanu’s big year topped some lists, while the reintroduction of online poker in the U.S. headed others.

So what poker story tops your list for 2014?

WSOP Guarantees Debate

The announcement of next year’s World Series of Poker dates came on December 23, just in time for this next week-and-a-half or so when the tournament poker circuit goes relatively quiet until the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure cranks up. Thus those who tend to give a lot of attention to the WSOP have plenty of down time right now to discuss and debate what was included in the presser.

I guess it didn’t matter much what the WSOP announced in its annual teaser -- that there would be criticism and debate was pretty much a guarantee, anyway.

The WSOP will run from May 27, 2015 through July 14, 2015, with the “November Nine” format for the Main Event again in place for an eighth straight year. There are a couple of new events listed, the most notable being a $565 buy-in tournament with a $5 million guarantee dubbed “The Colossus.” That one will have multiple starting flights and re-entries available (one per flight), and will come at the very beginning of the summer (starting May 29).

The Las Vegas Sun has reported that “organizers expect more than 13,000 entries” in the Colossus. I assume they’ll need at least 10,000 to meet that guarantee -- that will be more than sufficient to set a record as the largest field in a WSOP event ever.

Searching back through WSOP history, I think the last time there was an “open” bracelet event with less than a $1,000 buy-in -- i.e., not the Casino Employees event, the Ladies event, or the “Mixed Doubles” event they had for a few years -- was 1980 when there was a $500 seven-card stud event on the schedule. Even the Seniors event has always had a $1,000 buy-in.

Speaking of the Seniors event, the announcement mentions it will be returning again (along with the Ladies Championship), with another $1K buy-in “Super Seniors” event for players 65 and older also to be added this time around.

Other events returning include the “Millionaire Maker,” the “Monster Stack,” the “ONE DROP High Roller” (for $111,111), and the “Little One for ONE DROP,” all following previously employed formats. Also back is that first-place prize guarantee of $10 million for the Main Event winner, a decision which appears to have elicited the most fervent discussion among those chattering about the announcement in my Twitter feed.

As I recall, that idea to guarantee $10 million for the Main Event winner last year was tied to the WSOP celebrating its 10th year at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. It was in 2005 that the move from Binion’s to the Rio was made, although they did finish out the last couple of days of the Main Event back at Binion’s that year (when Joe Hachem won).

The connection to the 10th year anniversary made it seem as though the change to the payouts might only be a one-shot deal -- kind of like that $40K no-limit hold’em tournament added to the schedule back in 2009 that corresponded to the 40th year of the WSOP and wasn’t brought back again thereafter.

But the $10 milly first prize is back again. And now there is a lot of back-and-forthing going on about whether or not that’s a good or bad thing.

With that first-place prize guarantee in place a year ago, the overall turnout for the WSOP Main Event increased from 6,352 to 6,683, the first increase since 2010. While it’s hard to say how much the $10 milly up top mattered to those who entered without surveying them, it isn’t too much of a reach to think the WSOP saw some correlation and thus were encouraged to bring back the first-place prize guarantee.

According to the payout schedules the WSOP has been using over the last few years, the first-place prizes have typically been hovering around the $8.5 million range. In 2013, Ryan Riess won $8,359,232 for topping a field of 6,352; in 2012, Greg Merson won $8,531,853 for coming out on top of 6,598; in 2011, Pius Heinz earned $8,715,638 for winning a Main Event in which 6,895 played. Estimating a similar turnout in 2014 meant adding around $1.5 million then to eventual winner Martin Jacobson’s take-away.

That $1.5 million or so obviously was shaved off of what the other 692 players who made the money earned for their cashes. Second-place finisher Felix Stephensen won $5,147,911, approximately $150,000 less than he would have made according to the payout schedule used the year before. Meanwhile those who min-cashed the Main Event in 2014 earned $18,406, which I believe was a little under $1K less than they would have made via the old model (e.g., in 2011 when 693 also made the money the min-cashers made $19,359).

Those objecting to the $10-million-up-top idea are expressing doubts about the extent of it being a real selling point to would-be players, especially the non-pros. They are also criticizing the lessening of payouts for spots No. 2 through No. 693 (or whatever the total number of players cashing turns out to be in 2015). Some are petitioning for a payout schedule in which everyone making the final table would earn at least $1 million (something only possible according to the current structure if around 8,000 play the Main Event, I believe) and/or one in which the top 1,000 finishers get paid (which would obviously make it difficult also to have guarantees up top).

I can’t really pretend to feel all that passionately one way or the other on this one. I don’t play the Main Event, and while I have been reporting on it for many years now, the difference in payouts caused by the $10 million first-place guarantee doesn’t have much effect on the tourney’s narrative or the many reasons why it’s such a compelling event.

On the one hand, I’m not enthused about making the Main Event even more unlike other tournaments via a skewed payout structure. However, looking back at the history of the Main Event the payouts were pretty much always skewed in a similar way up until 2007 with the rounding off of first-place prizes, including many years (1991-1999) of making it $1 million regardless of the number of entrants. So arguing for “tradition” doesn’t really work for those opposed to the first-place guarantee.

Here’s a chart the WSOP put out showing how the payouts would work with variously-sized fields, and it shows how they need at least around 6,400 to play for second-place prize money to be greater than $5 million or half what the winner gets. The chart also shows the big problems that a steep decline in the turnout would create with that guarantee in place, making for a very top-heavy payout schedule.

Perhaps more than any other poker tournament, the WSOP Main Event highlights the divide between pros and amateurs (or recreational players) thanks to how much of the field is usually comprised of the latter. It is interesting how having the first-place prize guarantee seems for some to highlight this divide even more, and how it has drawn extra attention to the importance of keeping poker interesting and attractive to non-professionals (a subtext much of the debate thus far).

We’ll see how the conversation continues over the next 10 days until the PCA comes along to distract everyone.

Getting Creative with Card Games, and Remembering Benny Binion

Happy Xmas, all. Has been a busy day here running around seeing family, including my five-year-old nephew -- or “five-and-a-half!” as he points out -- who appeared to have the best day of all.

He and I continue to play cards whenever we get together, having now evolved from our default game of War into a new one of his invention. It’s kind of a version of concentration whereby he takes four cards (or sometimes five), shows them to me face up, then turns them over and slides them around rapidly as though he were a three-card monte hustler.

After a couple of minutes of that I was charged with guessing which was the highest card. If I’d been paying closing attention, I’d be able to pick out the ace or king (which was usually the highest one), although it wasn’t always easy to keep closely trained on the cards.

Before that we’d played some War, and even there my nephew was introducing variations. Same goes for the game of golf we played in the front yard with the plastic set I’d given him, where instead of trying to hit the ball into the little colored ring that represents the hole, he’d race around holding the golf balls instructing me to say “Yay!” at which point he’d drop them for me to strike them one by one.

Speaking of constantly wanting to tinker and innovate, you no doubt saw that announcement from the WSOP this week of the dates for next year’s Series, including a couple of interesting additions to the schedule. They’re also keeping some ideas from last year, too, about which I’ve seen a lot of debate over the last couple of days on my Twitter feed.

Today’s actually the 25th anniversary of the death of Lester Ben “Benny” Binion, who passed on December 25, 1989 at the age of 85. Among the many things Binion is remembered for, of course, is having been there along with his son, Jack, to start the WSOP at the Horseshoe back in 1970.

Was reading a little today from the oral history Binion provided to Mary Ellen Glass back in 1973, available in two parts over on the UNLV Center for Gaming Research website here and here.

“The poker game here gets us a lot of advertisement,” Binion explained then while making the oft-quoted claim that “seven thousand newspapers” had reported on the previous year’s Main Event which had drawn just seven players. “This year we had thirteen,” he goes on to say. “I look to have better than twenty next year. It’s even liable to get up to be fifty. Might get up to be more than that; it will eventually.”

“We improve it every year,” he adds. Such has, of course, become a mantra of sorts for those who now run the WSOP. Might write a little tomorrow about a couple of the ideas they’ve already shared regarding the 2015 WSOP. None are as radical as my nephew’s innovations, but they’re intriguing nonetheless.

Going for another mug of egg nog now, though. Hope that like my nephew you all got what you wanted this year.

Making a List and Checking It Twice

A quick holiday post here as Vera and I have plans today involving family, gift-giving, and turkey. In other words, it’s the usual, although this being the first Christmas on the farm we’re not going to stray too far away from our little red barn and four-legged friends who live there.

Am looking at a whole week coming up here where I’m largely free from my usual work assignments. Almost unsure how to handle such freedom from deadlines and obligations, although something tells me I’ll find ways to fill the time here on the farm, including finishing putting up that fence I mentioned yesterday.

The calendar is making me think back to previous years when I’d spend these last days of December doing a lot of final tabulating of my previous 12 months’ performance playing poker online. The whole year I would spend making a long list of how each session had gone, then these final days would be taken up with checking back over it.

I know I would often put more meaning into that final total for the year than I really should have, dividing it by day, week, and month, examining all the different trends and patterns, and subsequently using it as something against which to measure the coming year. Pros know that December 31 is an arbitrary cutoff point, but it’s hard for most of us to resist the year-over-year measuring of one’s poker progress.

Heck, it’s hard not to do similar self-evaluation about other things, too, when that last week of the year arrives. I guess having some time off allows our minds to wander in that direction a little more freely.

Today, though, I’m not going to worry too much about how things added up this year. The only counting I’ll be doing will be to keep track of how many horse cookies are left.

Catching Up with Kevmath

Spent the afternoon in the cold and wet, driving posts around the perimeter of the “back forty” as part of the new fence we are building back there.

The conditions are actually ideal, as the ground is soft and thus easier to breach with the tall, green metal T-posts I’m hammering down into them. Got about halfway around the sucker before the skies opened up for real, chasing me from the pasture and under cover.

Progress was made, however slowly, one post at a time. Kind of like this blog, I suppose, where I have been planting post after post after post for a good while now.

Listened to tunes for much of the time I was working, although early on I finished listening to the latest installment of the Thinking Poker podcast hosted by Andrew Brokos and Nate Meyvis. They’re up over 100 eps now, and this week after talking strategy for a while (as usual) they had Kevin “Kevmath” Mathers on as a guest.

On the show Kevin tells the story of how he first got involved in poker in the early 2000s, as well as the interesting path that led him to become known as the “answer guy” on Two Plus Two where he posted frequently and eventually became a moderator. It was a post-after-post-after-post life for Kevin, too, for several years before he finally found his way into poker media, eventually becoming the Manager of Poker Information for BLUFF.

Along the way Kevin tells about being interviewed by Tatjana Pasalic back in the fall of 2010, the first time a lot of us finally got to see him after years of interacting with him online. He also describes the experience of covering the 2011 WSOP for BLUFF. I remember getting to meet Kevin in the person for the first time that summer, although I knew him well before that. In fact, when listening to him talk about that interview with Tattytats I remembered having interviewed Kevin some months before for Betfair Poker.

I went searching for that interview today, but discovered it doesn’t appear to be on the Betfair Poker site anymore. So as a supplement to this week’s Thinking Poker podcast (and as a quick trip down memory lane), I thought I’d repost that interview here.

Thanks again, Kevin, for the interview! And thanks as well for everything else you do to for the poker community.

* * * * * “Kevmath Adds It Up: A Chat with the Poker Forum Moderator”
[Originally published at Betfair Poker, 19 February 2010]

The internet provides endless opportunities for people with common interests -- like those of us who enjoy poker -- to find each other and swap stories, share information and strategy, and engage in other types of socializing. Just as the online game has affected how live poker is played, the internet as a whole has changed the way poker can function as an occasion for social interaction, too.

Online poker forums are one such example of a place where poker people can virtually mix and mingle, with those over at Two Plus Two being far and away the most popular choice for many.

I occasionally participate in the discussions over on 2+2, though when visiting I’m more likely to read than post. I tend to follow forums such as News, Views, and Gossip (or NVG), Beats, Brags, and Variance (BBV), Tournament Circuit, Internet Poker, Poker Legislation, Televised Poker, and Books and Publications. I’ll also occasionally stop in over in the Limit Hold’em section and Small Stakes PLO forum to eavesdrop on strategy talk, or goof around in the Other Topics section where one can easily waste a lot of time.

Like just about everyone who visits the 2+2 forums, I often run across contributions by the poster “Kevmath,” a.k.a. Kevin Mathers, a frequent poster and moderator at 2+2. Mathers can also be found posting from time to time over at the especially-informative Pokerati blog, and has additionally written articles for PokerNews. Last summer I had the chance to work a few times with Kevmath during the WSOP when he did some behind-the-scenes stuff to help out those of us who were reporting on the Series.

It only takes reading a few posts from “Kevmath” to recognize him as a highly reliable “answer man” when it comes to all things poker. As such, I thought he’d be a good person to field a few questions, both about 2+2 and the poker world in general.

Short-Stacked Shamus: What forums do you moderate over at 2+2?

Kevin Mathers: I moderate the TV poker forum, the Tournament Circuit/WSOP forums, and with others moderate News, Views, and Gossip (NVG).

SSS: NVG is the most popular, yes?

Kevmath: Yes, News, Views, and Gossip is considered “the forums” by most people, as that’s where most of the discussion of events going on in the poker world takes place. It’s a mish-mash of information from the poker media, public opinions, and other hilarity all rolled up into one central location.

SSS: What exactly is a moderator’s responsibility at 2+2?

Kevmath: Posters who make valued contributions to a particular forum are often considered for elevation to moderator status if they are interested. My role as one of the moderators is to help enforce the rules in the forum, and attempt to keep things in control without being too overbearing. NVG in particular generates a lot of traffic, and sometimes two or more people come up with the same idea for a thread, or someone decides to spam or post something really inappropriate. So it’s the moderator’s job to merge threads, delete threads that are just really stupid or inappropriate, or move them to a more appropriate forum.

SSS: Kind of like herding cats at times, I’ll bet.

Kevmath: Yeah, it’s often difficult to moderate effectively, as you’re trying to keep things as civil as possible without being too overbearing to those who are likely to be negative about a certain topic.

SSS: Poker forums -- and 2+2 in particular -- obviously play an important role in poker today. How would you characterize 2+2 forums’ contribution to poker?

Kevmath: 2+2 is great for just about everyone who has an involvement in poker. If you’re looking for strategy, there are plenty of forums dedicated to all forms of poker, and broken down even further by the stakes you’re playing. There are forums dedicated to major tournaments, as well as finding information on tournaments that are focused more towards players at a casino near them. Another large part of 2+2 are the many forums about topics unrelated to poker (sports, politics, business and investing, health and fitness, travel, Vegas, etc.).

SSS: What sort of topics tend to get the most attention? That is, which threads end up attracting the most posts and views?

Kevmath: Probably the monthly High Stakes threads, especially if someone who is unknown makes an appearance (Martonas, Isildur1, etc.). The latest antics of FullFlush, Hellmuth, Negreanu or any major poker professional also usually get a lot of looks.

SSS: What is the most memorable or significant thread since you joined 2+2?

Kevmath: Definitely the ones detailing the scandals at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker (summarized in the UB sticky in NVG).

SSS: How about the funniest or most outrageous thread?

Kevmath: The funniest threads I’ve read have been the various photoshop threads that turn up in NVG, such as “If They Never Played Poker...“ or “French businessman in Bobby’s Room“ (a.k.a., the “Cyril” thread). Since I’m not as familiar with the strategy side of 2+2, I’d suggest readers to take a look at “The Best of Two Plus Two“ forum, which features several classic threads from across 2+2.

SSS: In what other ways do you follow the latest poker news?

Kevmath: I’m usually following the larger poker blogs, poker news sites, and stuff that turns up on my Twitter feed.

SSS: What are your thoughts about the current state of “poker media”?

Kevmath: Too often, the poker media appears to be more focused towards the sites that fund the magazine through their advertising, and avoid being too critical. Another part of poker media I’m not a fan of is the need to be the “exclusive” provider of live updates. While it helps draw traffic to the site, the updates often focus on a select group of players (e.g., people they know, etc.). When those players are gone, they’re struggling.

SSS: Okay, one last question... speaking of the media, what poker stories and/or issues do you foresee being the most written about and discussed in 2010?

Kevmath: The regulating of online poker worldwide, especially the U.S., will be a big one. It will be interesting also to see how the World Series of Poker will do without Jeffrey Pollack as Commissioner. Other stories to watch should include watching how PartyPoker does with the World Poker Tour, seeing whether PokerStars can continue their world domination of tournament poker with the new North American Poker Tour, and Annette Obrestad’s WSOP debut this summer. And whatever major scandal (real or perceived) may come to light.

Much thanks to Kevin Mathers for taking the time.

Gould, Segal, and Walsh Look Back at California Split 40 Years Later

I continue to include Robert Altman’s 1974 film California Split as one of the features I assign in my “Poker in American Film and Culture” course. I’ve taught the course for several years now and have been including Split among the assignments since the beginning (along with The Cincinnati Kid, Rounders, and clips from about a dozen other films).

As anyone who has ever taught before well knows, whatever it is that comprises the subject matter of a class becomes a topic of intense study for the teacher, too. I’ve had the experience before of teaching certain texts dozens of times over, practically memorizing them as well as the various themes or ideas discussions about them tended to evoke.

The first few times teaching a given text typically require a lot of rereading (or rewatching in the case of a film), with the lecture notes going through a few drafts along the way as points get added and dropped. Usually, though, after teaching something several times the general shape of the conversation settles into a familiar groove, and while students might introduce new ideas or carry the conversation into unexpected places, as far as the text itself goes I’ll know the sucker backwards and forwards.

That is to say, if I’m going to stand before a group of people and lead a conversation about some assigned reading or viewing, I want to know the assignment better than anyone else in the room. (This would be true even if I didn’t have this more-than-slight tendency toward obsessiveness.) So yeah, I’ve seen California Split many, many, many times by now. And unlike some other texts with which I’ve studied in similarly comprehensive ways, Split continues to remain interesting to me even after having essentially committed it to memory.

Thus was I intrigued last week when Dr. Pauly drew my attention to a new three-part interview with California Split co-stars Elliott Gould and George Segal and the film’s writer and co-producer, Joseph Walsh. Kim Morgan conducted the interview for the Los Angeles Review of Books, and it can be read by following these links: Part I, Part II, and Part III.

The interview is long and full of digressions, and in a prefatory note Morgan suggests how “the conversation is flowing almost like an Altman film,” which is a fair assessment. The trio swap anecdotes and trivia about various Hollywood personalities throughout, and in fact don’t even really get into discussing Split until the latter section of the interview’s first part.

Having read Walsh’s memoir Gambler on the Loose which includes some discussion of the making of Split, I knew some of these stories. And in fact one story Walsh shares about Amarillo Slim Preston he had told me a few years ago. But there are several items in the interview I’d never known before, as well as some genuine insight about the characters of Charlie and Bill (based in large part on Walsh and Gould) that goes beyond what we’ve been able to come up with in our classes when discussing the film.

I like very much an idea that Morgan tosses out during the first part comparing casinos to movie sets with each being “an enclosed world of playing, making money, losing, performing,” an analogy strongly suggested by the tenuous, risky circumstances under which Split was made. And the group’s discussion of the enigmatic ending is especially enlightening, I think, with the stories about how it changed as they were filming it making it all the more intriguing. (That discussion comes in Part II of the interview.)

The ending of Split actually makes it an especially good film for the classroom, opening up all kinds of questions worth discussing and thinking about. I feel the same way about The Cincinnati Kid‘s ending, which also inspires a lot of interesting response from students who are invariably surprised by it. (Meanwhile, the ending of Rounders, though satisfying in some ways, doesn’t necessarily invite the same depth of existential rumination.)

If you’re a fan of California Split -- and whether you’ve seen the film once or dozens of times -- check out the interview with Gould, Segal, and Walsh and think further about an especially interesting text to study.