This Is Your Brain on Poker

Still hanging’ out primarily at the PLO tables. Which is one reason why I’ve resisted posting a lot of hands and “On the Street” stuff here lately. Figure most folks aren’t as intrigued as I am by the fascinating Omaha hands with which I’ve been involved. For example . . .

I was sitting UTG with about $20 in chips where I was dealt . I called and it folded around to the button who raised pot to $1.10. One of the blinds called, and I called as well, making the total pot $3.65.

The flop comes . That’s right. Twenty friggin’ outs for your humble servant -- any of the four jacks, the three tens, the three nines, the three sixes, the three fives, or the four fours. I should point out a 9 or 10 wouldn’t give me the absolute nuts, but even so, throw in a couple of back-door flush draws, and I’m actually a favorite over any other possible hand -- even trip 8s.

Quite the challenge -- psychologically speaking -- to be sitting there with ten-high and be the favorite. Ended up all-in against the fellow with the 8s . . . and none of my outs came, so he took down what ended up a $45 pot.

I continue to do fairly well overall. Was riding very high at one point not too long ago -- after 9,000 hands or so, I was actually dragging around 35 BB/100 hands, if you can believe that. A miracudiculously-high number. Am up to 12,000-plus hands now, and thanks to a pretty rocky stretch have fallen back down to just over 20 BB/100 hands. Am starting to realize what folks mean by the big swings in Omaha. (As that 20-out hand aptly demonstrates.)

Like I said, I’ve been collecting and saving these wild hands. Dunno if I’ll bring ’em up here or perhaps use them for some other purpose -- like a second Omaha blog or something. Gonna wait and see if I’m still playing PLO here at the end of the summer.

Meanwhile, I did play some NL hold ’em, jumping into one of those huge freerolls on UltimateBet yesterday. I have no funds at UB, and was thinking even a single-dollar cash might give me the seed money to follow Chris “Jesus” Ferguson’s path of making a ton of cabbage out of nothing at all. For this freeroll there were 3,003 entrants, with only 18 spots cashing. Pretty crummy odds, but all it cost me was time.

I hung around for the first couple of hours, mostly playing tight while watching a couple thousand players hit the rail. Once the antes had kicked in, I got slightly more aggressive and accumulated a few chips. Had one particularly fortunate hand where I picked off a bluff (more out of inertia than reading-ability) and found myself up above 30,000 in chips with about 120 players left. That put me below average, but fairly comfortable as far as the blinds were concerned (300/600 with a 75-chip ante).

Then came the hand I wanted to tell you about. Not as psychologically fraught as that PLO hand, but interesting nonetheless. Perhaps you hold ’em MTT-ers might have an opinion on this one.

I was in late position -- the cutoff, I think -- where I was dealt . (Can’t be utterly precise with details, as I don’t have the hand history.) There were a couple of limpers, and I limped as well. Then the small blind raises to 2,200 -- about 3.5 the BB. Everybody calls and I call, too. I’m in last position now, as the button folded. There’s around 12,000 in the pot when the flop comes .

I’ve flopped the nut-flush draw. The SB checks, and the UTG player bets around 4,000 -- about a third of the pot. I should mention that the UTG player has been making a number of minimum raises preflop as well as some half-hearted steal attempts at what appear to be orphaned pots. So it’s hard to know exactly what his bet represents. Two other players call.

The pot is at around 24,000, so I’m getting something like 6-to-1 to call here. Of course, I still have the SB -- the preflop raiser -- to consider. So what should I do?

As you might’ve guessed, I called. And as you also might’ve guessed, the SB suddenly awakes with an all-in. He started the hand with 70,000 or so, so he’s got me and the rest of the table covered. The UTG player instantly calls, putting in the rest of his stack. Now the pot is up around 100,000 chips. I’ve got about 24,000 left, so again I’m looking at decent odds here -- 5-to-1 or so. Again, I ask . . . what should I do?

I knew I wasn’t going to be able to cruise into the money with what I had. I also knew that winning this pot would propel me into the top ten chipwise. So I made the call.

What do you think they had?

Good guess. (Damn, you’re smart.) Although you had it reversed -- the small blind had the eights, and the UTG player actually had the kings. This is in fact good for me. If my flush comes in, that’s a couple fewer outs for my boat-seeking opponents.

The turn brought the . Hot dog! Now, just hold . . . just HOLD . . . !!!

Damn.

The river is the case friggin’ eight. C’est la vie . . . .

I know calling off the rest of one’s chips -- on a draw, no less -- ain’t exactly recommended play. But what do you do there? Teach me. See, my poker brain has been warped into that weird Omaha shape, so I can’t rightly see for myself.

Night of the Living Bots

In the wee hours last Wednesday morning, a frequent poster to the Two Plus Two forums started a new thread called “NL Bots on Full Tilt.” The post is a terrific read. It begins with a bold claim -- “I discovered NL bots on Full Tilt earlier this year” -- then proceeds to provide what at first blush appears to be convincing evidence that, indeed, he’d encountered four different players at the NL200 tables whose play looks as though it has been thoroughly determined by a computer program of some sort.

For the most part, the narrative trajectory of the post reads like one of those Invasion of the Body Snatchers/The Thing from Another World paranoia-fueled sci-fi thrillers. It is a normal winter’s day. Our hero decides to play some no limit HE and to prepare does some extensive datamining on Full Tilt. He notices bizarrely-similar stats for several different players, ultimately whittling his list of suspected “bots” down to three. (Later on, a fourth player will emerge as another “bot” suspect.) Having gathered 100,000+ hands for two of the players, 80,000+ for a third, and 40,000+ for a fourth, he notes how all four sport nearly identical numbers for voluntarily putting money into the pot, preflop raising, calling preflop raises, continuation betting (on all streets), folding blinds to steal attempts, folding to bets (on all streets), and so forth.

Later he’ll collect other evidence -- e.g., timing tells, the absence of chat -- that further fuels his suspicion that not only are the decisions being determined by a computer, but that the players’ actions (bet-sizing, mouse-clicks) have been accomplished by a script. In other words, just as he set up his datamining software to run while he was away, so, too, has someone set up some sort of program to run on its own -- only this one is actually playing poker.

Rather than alert Full Tilt immediately, our hero decides to play against the so-called bots, “trying to exploit their tendencies” for his own benefit. He enjoys some success, until one of the “bots” begins to alter its play. When the “bot” chats back at him, he knows definitively that its “owner” has taken over. He begins to recognize the difference between “supervised” and “unsupervised” play among the players. Then in early February he notices that every time he logs on, all of the “bots” instantly log off (apparently avoiding him). That’s when he decides to email Full Tilt to complain.

A few weeks after his email, our hero notices the “bots” are no longer appearing on the site. Finally, nearly three months after his initial complaint, Full Tilt responds to say the case has been closed. FTP won’t provide any further information about the matter, other than to say over 40 accounts had been thoroughly investigated. “It’s finally over,” writes our hero.

This is the point where the story changes into more of a Halloween/Friday the 13th-styled horrorshow. Last weekend, our hero sits down for a little NL on Full Tilt and what does he see? The “bots” are back! “Just seeing the usernames at the tables again made me physically angry,” he writes. He then concludes with a petition to 2+2ers to flood Full Tilt support with emails in the hopes the “bots” will be killed off once and for all.

Provocative stuff. Enough to ignite just over 1,000 replies within the next twenty-four hours. (At the moment, the thread appears to be losing steam at around 1,800 total replies.) Reading through the thread -- especially that first wave of crazed response -- put me in mind of another variety of horror film, George A. Romero’s zombie series (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead), films that neatly combine both the us-vs.-them theme of 50s paranoid SF and the coming-back-from-the-dead motif of the “boogeyman” horror flicks of the 70s/80s.

Early in the thread, some Encyclopedia Brownesque detective work leads discussants to determine the “bots” to have originated from the Pittsburgh area. A couple of usernames allude to Pittsburgh sports franchises, and another turned up over on Pocket Fives as belonging to a player living in Johnstown, PA (about an hour-and-a-half drive from Pittsburgh).

Of course, the zombies came from Pittsburgh, too -- that’s where each of Romero’s Dead films is set.

There are other ways the issue and the thread evoke the zombie series. The whole discussion is tinged with apocalyptic dread -- as the original post suggests, “The threat everyone assumed was a few years away is already here.” While such “end of the world” fears are certainly warranted when dead people are coming back to life to munch on the living, it isn’t clear how such rhetoric contributes to the debate over poker bots.

Another similarity concerns the almost comprehensive failure to recognize the irony surrounding the original poster using a computer program to play poker, then discovering -- horrors! -- another player is using a computer program to play poker. (See Kick Ass Poker’s smart explanation of this facet of the story.) The Dead films also frequently provide examples of how the living resemble the dead -- and how the living fail to recognize the similarities.

Finally, all of the Dead films feature survivors failing to work together to confront the threat they are facing. Such a failure to communicate effectively leads to the living often killing each other before the dead can get to them. This theme flares up occasionally in the “NL Bots on Full Tilt” thread as well, with posters frequently turning on one another in non-productive ways. Anyone who doubts the original theory regarding the bots is immediately suspected as being in league with the programmers. (Anyone with a low post count is also to be distrusted.) Even betraying some link to Pittsburgh gets a poster some grief.

What’s the moral? Well, it ain’t the end of the world. (In fact, none of Romero’s films end that way, either.) It ain’t even purely “bots” here, either. Still, the case does illuminate how online poker can never really be the sort of authentic interaction between real live humans that happens in the casino. On Thursday evening a representative of Full Tilt started a new thread -- “Official Full Tilt Poker Response to Bot Thread” -- that says “We take bots very seriously” and that given the “inconclusive” evidence of the case “We stand by our decision” to unfreeze the accounts. Some responded to say they would no longer play on Full Tilt Poker. Perhaps they are justified. But if they move on to play on other online poker sites, they’ll necessarily encounter the same mixture of man-and-machine across the table there as well.

You frequently hear attempts to gauge what percentage of poker is skill and what percentage is luck. When it comes to online poker, it is probably more apt to ask what percentage is human and what percentage is not. ’Cause 100% “living” it ain’t. Not ever.

Tagging Along

Amy tagged me. Felt a sharp jolt when it happened, like an electric shock. Frightening at first, then quite pleasant. How nice.

What? I have to do something . . . ?

Okay, seven things about me that people don’t know . . . .

1. I have a ruinously poor sense of direction. Whether driving or walking, if I turn two corners it is no longer possible for me to remain certain how the hell I am going to get back to my starting point. (A small miracle I ever found my way out of the casinos in Vegas last month.) The immediate vicinity of my neighborhood is currently undergoing a lot of growth, including the installation of not one but two roundabouts within a mile of my house. Am currently living in abject dread of ever having to enter either of those mystifying vortices. (If weeks go by with no post, instruct authorities to begin their search near the roundabouts, please.)

2. I once attended a Black Flag concert. The In My Head tour. Took place in a National Guard Armory. Just a gym, basically. No seats. Opening acts were Painted Willie and Gone, Greg Ginn’s instrumental outfit. For most of the show I stood cautiously at the perimeter of the wide circle of agitated slam dancers who occupied the area nearest the stage. At one point Kira, the bassist, broke a string, and during the longish break that followed Henry Rollins waxed profanely about the meaning of it all.

3. This afternoon I am reading Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel for which I have a review due next week. Called The Gravedigger’s Daughter. So far so good. Creepy, unsettling, dark -- as Oates usually is. About a third of the way in there’s a game of gin rummy in which a character is described dealing cards “like glittering blades.”

4. During one golden, the-hoop-is-as-big-as-the-Grand-Canyon afternoon at a large midwestern university some years ago, I scored 33 points in an intramural basketball game. Most of those came in the form of three-pointers raining down from all possible angles. Particularly upsetting to our opponents, who couldn’t quite fathom the skinny kid with glasses actually having a game. It was a close contest (we won), and I recall both legs cramping up as the last seconds wound down. The unchallenged pinnacle of my modest athletic career.

5. I think Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers is the funniest damn record ever made.

6. Lived in France for a year, during which time I wrote a lot of fiction, including an entire novel. Hard-boiled, in fact. Kind of a Chandler rip-off, set in New York City, 1976. My detective is six-foot-eight. (I’m not short, but I think there might be a bit of wish-fulfillment in there somewhere.) Despite favorable reviews from the select few who read it, I was unable to get any publishers interested at the time. Am presently considering sending that sucker out this summer via something like Lulu, just for grins.

7. Despite the literary leanings, I am a committed numbers freak. Not saying I’m particularly great at figgerin’. I just like ’em. There exists in the familial chronicles a story of a young Shamus looking out the back car window and tallying the precise number of dotted lines on the road to grandma’s house. I have no memory of such applesauce, but doubt seriously my parents capable of making something like that up.

* * * * *
Hmmm . . . (Shamus rubs hands) . . . to whom shall I now forward this here little torture device . . . ?

Cadmunkey
Cell 1919
Eblonk
Gadzooks64
Microlimit Donkey
Yorkshire Pudding
And any of the Pokerati gang with the guts . . . .

No Third Party Rule for WSOP Not All Bad

Wanted to weigh in here on the issue of WSOP online qualifiers. After some knee-jerky reactions, followed by a few months of semi-informed speculation, it is starting to appear increasingly likely that the UIGEA will negatively affect numbers at this year’s WSOP. The Main Event, in particular, should feel some impact -- not only in terms of the number of entrants, but also in terms of the tourney’s dynamic. In some ways, I think the WSOP -- particularly the Main Event -- will benefit from this change. Before I explain what I mean by that, let’s see where we are at present . . . .

Harrah’s Says No To Third-Party Registrations

In late February, Harrah’s announced it had begun allowing players to preregister online for the 55 scheduled events of the 2007 World Series of Poker. Players may continue to do so until two weeks prior to the start of the event in which they wish to participate (after which time they must register in person at the Rio). According to the “Tournament Rules” (also made public at the end of February), “third-party registrations for players are not permitted unless submitted by Official WSOP sponsors.” In other words, unless Harrah’s has “officially licensed” the third party to hold satellite tournaments or arrange other ways of giving away seats, that entity will not be permitted to register a player for an event.

By way of clarification, Harrah’s added the following statement to the rule: “No third-party registrations will be accepted from online gaming sites conducting business with U.S. residents.” That is, none of the online poker sites serving us Yanks -- e.g., PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, Bodog, Ultimate Bet -- will be allowed to register participants. For those who still don’t follow, the “Frequently Asked Questions” sheds further light: “Can someone else Pre-Register for me? No, unless they are Official WSOP Satellite Licensees or have official Prize Agreements with the WSOP.”

For Harrah’s to take this position makes perfect sense given how the UIGEA is written. Taking third-party registrations from online poker sites still serving Americans may or may not put Harrah’s/WSOP in violation of the law, actually. But it’s a risk they obviously need not take. Doing so would essentially make them a “financial transaction provider” (like a bank or credit card company) who knowingly faciliated a monetary transaction with an entity in violation of section 5363 (e.g., online poker sites who serve Americans). Depending on how such an action is interpreted, it is possible that Harrah’s could be made subject to whatever penalties the feds decide are appropriate for financial transaction providers who fail to comply with those yet-to-be-delivered regulations.

The More Things Change . . .

One would think the rule is clear. However, scanning through the forums and other media reveals there are many who remain uncertain about the “no third party” rule.

One reason for continued confusion is probably due to the fact that back in October 2006 -- a few days after the UIGEA was made law -- WSOP Communications Director Garry Thompson was quoted saying that the new law would not cause the WSOP to do anything differently. “There has been no change in our registration policy,” Thompson told PokerListings. “We do not accept third-party registrations from online pay-to-play poker sites that do business with U.S. residents. We didn’t do that in 2005 or 2006 either.”

That latter statement caused a few months of head-scratching among those who’d won their seats via online satellites before. Even though someone else most certainly preregistered those players, the WSOP appears to have interpreted those transactions somewhat creatively so as not to consider them third-party registrations. Not sure why they saw fit to do that, really -- the UIGEA doesn’t apply to anything occurring prior to October 13, 2006, of course. Still, the WSOP Communications Director saying that what happens in 2007 will not be different from what happened previously necessarily caused some misunderstanding.

Another reason why players are confused is the fact that many of the sites are still describing their tourneys as “WSOP Satellites.” PokerStars continues to have a “WSOP” tab there under “Events” where they run what appear to be World Series satellites. One also sees a host of tourneys under the “World Series of Poker” tab on Bodog. Likewise does Absolute Poker has several “WSOP Qualifier” tourneys peppering their schedule. All of these sites are essentially ignoring Harrah’s “Trademark Usage Guidelines,” particularly the one stating that “the WSOP acronym and the WORLD SERIES OF POKER non-stylized word mark may not be used in the official names or headlines of any contests or promotions.” (Interestingly, Full Tilt Poker appears currently to be complying with these guidelines, referring generically to its satellites as affording winners entry into the “Main Event.”)

Finally . . . Word from the Sites

So it’s understandable that players are still a bit mystified. Many wrote emails to their favorite sites after apparently winning “seats” into the Main Event, asking for some explanation regarding what they had actually won. Finally -- within the last couple of weeks -- we’re starting to see some responses from the sites regarding the true significance of those satellite wins. As PokerStars explains on its “World Series 2007 FAQ” page, they “were unable to come up with an arrangement with Harrah’s that would allow us to register players directly into the Main Event. Therefore, we are depositing the money directly into your PokerStars account. This means that you will have to register yourself directly into the Main Event.” Those who do win satellites are additionally being emailed instructions how to register themselves. Full Tilt is also emailing its satellite winners a message stating that they “have determined that the only expedient method of awarding our online qualifiers their WSOP Main Event seats is to credit their account the buy in. As Full Tilt Poker cannot register you for your seat, we have deposited funds sufficient to cover your tournament entry into your Full Tilt Poker player account.”

So now, less than a month before the WSOP is set to begin, players are getting word that, in fact, they are going to have to cash out from their accounts and either register online or in person at the Rio. Good luck to them. Thanks to some Omaha success, I was able to cash out some cabbage from both Bodog and Absolute recently. This was my first try at cashing out since losing access to Neteller. In both cases, I simply requested a check be mailed to me. Absolute took about 10 days to get my check to me. Bodog took almost exactly a month. I imagine anyone who has qualified online for a WSOP Main Event seat and who has not already cashed out those funds is going to be cutting it close as far as having that money available to purchase their seat.

Implications

When the UIGEA first passed, many acknowledged the comprehensive failure of online poker sites as far as lobbying efforts and other measures to prevent the Act’s passage were concerned. Again, I think here we are witnessing a failure to anticipate on the part of many sites, all but ensuring their much-muted representation at this year’s WSOP.

I do think the overall number of participants will be down (although perhaps not as dramatically as some have suggested). More significant, though, will be the overall “feel” or dynamic of the tourneys, especially the Main Event. With fewer online qualifiers participating, I would anticipate not only that the style of play will differ, but so will the manner in which players conduct themselves at the tables. I’ve seen several sources suggesting that up to 75% of those who entered the Main Event last year did so via online qualifiers. Let’s just say half of those players were relatively inexperienced when it came to live tournaments or the WSOP. To run a tournament of that size -- 8,773 total entrants -- wherein nearly half of the players aren’t necessarily well-versed in tournament rules and/or table etiquette, you are very likely going to encounter a high quantity of amateurish antics (as infamously represented by figures like Eric Molina and Jamie Gold last year).

To sum up, while much will be made of how the number of players in the Main Event fails to exceed that of last year, the more significant difference between 2007 and 2006 will be the play itself. More pros should advance deeper this year. The overall quality of play -- difficult, if not impossible, to gauge accurately -- should be higher. And we shouldn’t see as much taunting, card-flashing, or “top-top” applesauce either.

All of which might well help Jeffrey Pollack realize that oft-stated goal for this year’s WSOP to “top” last year’s -- quality-wise, that is.

Two Hundred Posts Later

Amid those “Shamus in Vegas” posts, I mentioned getting to visit a bit with Tom Schneider, poker pro and co-host of Beyond the Table, as he satellited his way into the WPT Championship at the Bellagio. During our conversation, Tom asked me why I started writing the blog. Kind of how I first got acquainted with the Beyond the Table guys -- they talked about poker blogs on their show once, I wrote something about it, and we have been in dialogue ever since.

Responding to Tom’s question, I recall starting off with an “I don’t know,” then murmuring some applesauce about participating in the “community” or the like. I remember thinking afterwards I had a much more articulate, interesting answer to that question to share, but something had gotten in between me and that part of my brain. Could have been the sight of Shannon Elizabeth at the next table.

During those Vegas posts, the first birthday of Hard-Boiled Poker happened past. And this here is the two hundredth post. Ran a quick count at the end of April and found I’d written something like 180,000 words altogether. A couple of hefty novels’ worth of prose, that. Or four of five of those penny dreadfuls I like. Having devoted so much time and energy to this here enterprise, you can imagine how the “I don’t know” response would tend to dissatisfy yr humble servant.

I’ve written the “what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here” post before, of course. More than once, actually. In fact, during the first few months of the blog I often consciously had to resist that self-reflexive, lookee-what-I-found-here-in-my-navel urge.

Had a few decent efforts along those lines, though. In “An Existential Pause” (marking the three-month anniversary), I wrote about a conversation between Cincinnati Sean (of Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio) and Iggy, the “Blogfather,” about poker blogs and their purpose. (Speaking of anniversaries . . . happy birthday, Ignatius!) In “Milestones” (the 100th post), I tried again, relating the whole blogging thing to a kind of existential record-keeping. And that post about the Beyond the Table discussion -- “Who Wants to Write About Poker?” -- also tried to tackle the question in a different way. (Some terrific, insightful comments from other bloggers on that latter post, by the way -- check ’em out.)

So I won’t reiterate those thoughts here. But I will try again to answer the question Tom asked me. And against form, I’m gonna be succinct.

First started the blog with an idea that doing so might help me improve as a player. Soon realized that was only a small part of what the blog was about. A few months in, I saw the posts naturally segregate themselves into those sections that run along the right-column, with the “On the Street” posts (about hands) and those “Shots in the Dark” (about theory) being the only ones specifically related to the original purpose. Nearly a third of the 200 posts have been responses to “The Rumble” or how poker is discussed and debated in sundry locales (e.g., mainstream news, websites, blogs, podcasts, senate floors, what have you).

Haven’t had too much occasion lately to discuss poker pros and celebs (or “High Society”), although that will probably change once the WSOP cranks up again next month. And I’d like to try to write more about what I’m reading (“By the Book”) -- both poker-wise and hard-boiled-wise -- but that often takes special effort.

What I like most about keeping the blog -- I’ve mentioned this before, too -- is the way it helps me link up (literally and figuratively) with others similarly fascinated by poker and all it touches. Aside from the flurry of posts here over the last couple of weeks, I’ve basically followed an every-other-day routine whereby I’ll write one day, then read what others are saying the next.

As I said a couple of months ago in “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.”

Now that I think about it, I suppose my response to Tom was somewhat accurate after all. I don’t know exactly what the blog is for, but I do know it puts me in contact with a lot of folks whose company I very much enjoy. So thanks for reading . . . and keep writing yrselves.

And we’ll all make sense of it eventually.

"Is This Standard?" (3 of 3)

“I think you are using the word standard a little too liberally. In fact when you say ‘standard’ I think ‘almost never.’” -- dangerfish, posted 4/2/07 on Two Plus Two, Mid-High Stakes Short-handed

“That play is so standard it’s not anymore IMO” -- danzasmack, posted 4/18/07 on Two Plus Two, Small Stakes Short-handed

“I think you say standard more than this forum combined.” -- jkamowitz, posted 4/23/07 on Two Plus Two, Medium Stakes Limit

Began this here triptych of posts wanting to say something about pot limit Omaha and so-called “standard” or “by the book” play. I had noticed in the Omaha High forum over on Two Plus Two what appeared to be an inordinate number of references to “standard” strategy. I thought perhaps I might have stumbled onto something regarding PLO players and how (many of them) tend to approach the game. Instead, I conclude here with a less grandiose observation about the function of poker discussion forums.

The fact that certain posters on Two Plus Two frequently make reference to this or that play or scenario as “standard” shouldn’t be surprising. In fact, one might argue that establishing what exactly constitutes “standard” play is a primary purpose of Two Plus Two.

At this moment, Two Plus Two is reporting 84,145 registered users. On the 4/10/07 episode of Poker Psychology, Two Plus Two owner Mason Malmuth mentioned that the site receives over 30,000 unique visitors per day, and over 100,000 unique visitors per week. According to Sniper, there have been about 12,000-13,000 posts per month for 2007. A decent percentage of those posts concern poker strategy and theory. It is inevitable that with so many people participating as readers and/or writers, certain “guidelines” or “values” will emerge as more influential than others, if only because of the frequency with which those ideas are cited as authoritative.

To give a quick example from pot limit Omaha. Someone recently posted a hand for analysis in which he was playing four-handed PLO and open-limped from UTG with . Two of the other three players called, and the flop -- -- ended up giving him a big draw, which is the part of the hand where he appeared to have wanted feedback. However, in the subsequent discussion, someone pointed out that he shouldn’t have open-limped since they were playing four-handed. A little later in the thread, someone else counters that “open limping in PLO is pretty standard from early positions” (i.e., regardless how many players are at the table).

Now I’m not going to say whether limping from EP is “standard” or not in PLO. I know I tend not to raise very much from early position. I also know that in his PLO section in Super System 2, Lyle Berman says “Never raise before the flop from a front position. This is a cardinal rule of Omaha.” (I also know not everyone agrees with everything Lyle Berman has to say about PLO.) As discussions about the issue attract more and more readers and/or posters, eventually, over time, a “consensus” (of sorts) will inevitably emerge regarding how to enter hands from early position in PLO. That “consensus” may or may not be the best play, of course, but it will nevertheless exist as a “standard” within the context of subsequent discussions on the Omaha High forum.

As that interview on Poker Psychology demonstrates, Malmuth clearly sees Two Plus Two as the “standard-bearer” when it comes to poker strategy and theory. At the beginning of the third segment, Al Schoonmaker asks Malmuth to answer the following question: “Who’s been the most influential person in poker over the past five years?” Malmuth’s reply to Schoonmaker is, essentially, you’re talking to him:

“I don’t think it’s close . . . I think we have been. I head up the group, and we basically impacted . . . how poker is played and we impacted . . . basically all sorts of thinking on poker. And we brought a lot of forces together -- a lot of different authors, a lot of different opinions. The website . . . is basically the place for poker information. I don’t think it’s close. I don’t think anyone else in the business comes close to us. I know a lot of people disagree with that, but . . . I really think we are the dominant place now.”

As the quote shows, Malmuth doesn’t necessarily pay heed to social “standards” for humility. Nevertheless, it is hard to deny the influence of Two Plus Two, whether one wants to regard the advice and wisdom disseminated there as “standard” or not.

I guess my overall point here is to say that discussions on poker forums necessarily function as a way for players to “negotiate the norm.” In other words, those who participate in the discussions are together working toward building an idea of what constitutes “standard” strategies or theories and what constitutes deviations from such.

The discussions don’t always end harmoniously, of course. During one early April thread in the Medium Stakes Limit forum, a relatively new player asked for advice about how to improve his game. Another poster advised him to “post hands or situations you are uncomfortable with.” To which another poster -- rafiki -- cheekily added “So that half the people can say ‘standard,’ and the other half can fight with them.”

Which is how it should be.

"Is This Standard?" (2 of 3)

To recap: Reading through the Omaha High forum on Two Plus Two, I’d been struck with the frequency of references to “standard” play. My instinctive response was to hypothesize that Omaha High players more frequently consider certain plays “standard” than do players who play other forms of poker. Wanted to try to come up with some concrete evidence to support this here theory. So back to the forums.

What I’ve tried to do here is hardly bulletproof statistical analysis. I decided to focus on one month’s worth of posts -- April 2007 -- to see if it were true that the Omaha High posters were speaking of standard play and/or scenarios more frequently than did posters in other forums.

“Sniper” regularly posts something called the “Unofficial 2+2 Post Count Analysis” the first of every month. A fairly interesting compilation of data to peruse. Click here to see his report for April 2007. During April, there was an average of 68 posts about Omaha High every day. Meanwhile, there were 1,080 posts per day about PL/NL Texas Hold ’em: Small Stakes. The forum I used to watch most closely -- Small Stakes Short-handed -- got 157 posts per day in April.

Looking at Sniper’s table, I immediately decided it would be simply too damn unwieldy to search through the no limit or tourney forums, so I limited my scope to the six limit hold ’em forums (High Stakes, Medium Stakes, Small Stakes, Micro Stakes, Mid-High Short-handed, Small Stakes Short-handed) and the five “Other Poker” forums (Omaha/8, Omaha High, Stud, Heads Up Poker, Other Poker). Among those 11 forums, Sniper reports the following activity for April 2007:



Sniper just lists the averages, so I multiplied by 30 days to get the total number of posts. Notice that the Omaha High forum has a modest amount of activity, especially compared to the other limit HE forums. I like that, actually -- since only a few threads are begun each day, I can usually follow all of them.

I then used Two Plus Two’s search function to see how many posts in each forum contained the word “standard” in the subject line and/or the body of the post. I’m aware not everyone is a big fan of the search function on Two Plus Two, but it essentially suits my purposes here. I searched each of the 11 forums for uses of the word “standard,” narrowing my search to 4/1/07 to 4/30/07 inclusive. I then skimmed through all of the posts to sort out how many unique uses of the word actually appeared. For example, if someone started a post with a subject line of “3/6 PL this is standard right?” and received five responses, that would turn up six instances of the word “standard” -- when, in fact, there was only one unique use of the term.

There were also a few posts where the poster used the term more than once, in which case I counted each use separately. I also got rid of those instances where the term was used but didn’t really refer to standard play or scenarios (e.g., mentions of “standard deviation,” questions about “standard” bankrolls, etc.). There weren’t so many of those, actually -- interestingly, people posting in poker forums generally don’t use the word “standard” unless referring to “logical ‘default’ play” (to use Sklansky’s phrase from the article that started all of this).

After all of that sorting through, here’s what I found:



I had expected to discover the Omaha High section to boast the highest percentage of posts containing unique references to “standard” play/scenarios. Didn’t end up seeing such a dramatic difference, however, between the Omaha High forum and some of the limit HE forums. And in one case -- Small Stakes Limit -- references to “standard” play/scenarios came up more frequently than in the PLO forum.

There are a few possible explanations for why the numbers turned out the way they did. A lot depended on the individual posters and their tendencies -- indeed, over in the limit HE forums there were a number of high-count posters who appeared particularly fond of the term “standard.” In fact, there were a few threads where describing a play as “standard” itself became the topic of discussion, with one poster complaining about another’s overuse/misuse of the term.

It may well be true that Omaha High players -- successful ones, anyway -- place a premium on playing “by the book,” and likely value such “standard” play more highly than do hold ’em players. (Intuitively, I still believe this to be likely.) But I can’t really say these figures unambiguously prove my hypothesis. In fact, even if the numbers had turned out differently, this here test probably ain’t the best way to “prove” the idea.

I had anticipated that my third post would build on my hypothesis with some discussion of how situations one faces in PLO reoccur so often -- more so than in hold ’em -- that such repetition necessarily reinforces prejudices in favor of “standard” play. (Someone with more Omaha experience could probably have written that post more effectively than I could, anyway.)

Not gonna go in that direction, though. Instead, I think I’ll conclude with a few less ambitious thoughts about poker forums, generally speaking. I particular, I want to talk about how the idea of “standard” play tends to affect discussions about poker strategy (as demonstrated in forums like those on Two Plus Two).

"Is This Standard?" (1 of 3)

Okay, back to business. I’ve been reading Barney Frank’s “Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007” that he introduced last week and have some thoughts about it. Let me just say my first response ain’t terribly enthusiastic. Am going to continue to think about that for a bit, though, and instead offer here something different -- a bona fide “shot in the dark” concerning how we think about and discuss poker strategy. In particular, I want to talk about the extent to which we gravitate toward assertions about whether or not a given play is “standard” or correct (e.g., mathematically, in terms of game theory, relative to common practices, etc.).

The question of whether or not something is “standard” dominates our lives, really. When we try to give meaning to what we’ve experienced or observed, we instinctively gauge distance from the “norm” or “expectation,” then assess. A woman on a cell phone loudly relating details of her sex life so a busload of passengers can hear is not “standard.” A poker tournament being suddenly halted with the chip leaders awarded the prizes is not “standard.” These things happen and we respond first by noting their uniqueness, then thinking further about what it all means. In most cases, the bizarre deviation from the expected reinforces our sense of what is normal or what should occur -- that is, our “standards.”

A couple of factors motivated me to think about this idea in relation to poker strategy. One was hearing David Sklansky interviewed over on Alan Schoonmaker’s new Hold ’em Radio podcast, Poker Psychology. (He appears on the 4/17/07 episode.) Sklansky there discussed a brief, provocative article he’d written for the April issue of Two Plus Two Magazine titled “It Doesn’t Always Depend.” In the article, Sklansky presents a very specific example of a no limit HE hand where, in his estimation, there really is only one “logical ‘default’ play” to be followed. I’m not going to run through the hand in detail -- you can read the article yourself -- but for Sklansky it is a “basic” hand for which “there should be no dispute” about how it should be played.

Dispute did follow, however. (The article spawned more than one thread, including this one that presently includes over 220 replies.) Even though Sklansky expresses some surprise in the interview at all of the debate his article caused, his opening lines show that he was aware some -- in fact, many -- would probably object to his thesis: “The typical player doesn’t want to believe it. But usually there really is a best way to play a hand. Even in no limit hold ’em. Many hate that notion because it means that most hands can be reduced to a sort of logic problem, and average players don’t like to deal with that.”

So that got me thinking a little bit about “standard” play. The other factor that spurred this here train of thought comes from my having played a lot of pot limit Omaha lately. It’s been almost two months now since I essentially switched over to PLO from the limit hold ’em ring games. Am creeping towards the 10,000-hand mark for that period -- will probably reach it tomorrow or the day after. Most of those hands have been at the $25 max tables (0.10/0.25 blinds). I continue to run very well, with my win rate far exceeding my best ever at limit HE. (Will give a report of sorts soon.)

Since I’ve been playing PLO, I’ve also been reading (and once in a while participating in) the Omaha threads over on Two Plus Two these last few weeks. I’ve noticed a common theme that seems to come up in almost every halfway serious conversation about Omaha hands. Whenever someone posts a hand for analysis, among the responses one frequently sees someone saying whether or not this or that play was “standard.” For example, in this thread the original poster asks about a PLO25 hand where he holds KKxx. The flop is , he bets pot, and one opponent calls. The turn is the and he again bets pot -- over $12 worth -- and again his opponent calls. The river is the and his opponent goes all-in. “Did I play this correctly?” the OP essentially asks, and the first respondent says yes, “you played the hand perfectly fine and standard.” Another one later down the page also says “Flop and turn are completely standard.”

I’m also seeing a lot of instances where the original poster asks whether or not a given play is standard. Just scanning the recent active threads in the Omaha High forum, one finds the following subject lines: “Are These Standard?”; “AA 3 handed - is this standard? awful?”; “Standard bluffcatcher?”; “Standard?”; “standard?”; “3/6 PL This is standard right?”; “plo 50 standard?”; “10-25 PLO Standard?”; and so forth.

Now when I was playing 6-max limit HE, I also frequently read the Limit Texas Hold ’em: Small Stakes Shorthanded forum on Two Plus Two. And I’m not remembering references to “standard” play coming up quite so frequently there (although they certainly did now and then). So from this anecdotal evidence I’m going to go ahead and float a hypothesis: Omaha High players more frequently consider certain plays “standard” than do players who play other forms of poker.

I’m going to consider this idea further in the next two posts. Since it is just a hypothesis -- that is, I haven’t proven anything yet -- I’m going to spend one post trying to marshal some evidence to support the theory. I’m looking at threads in various Two Plus Two forms and the frequency with which posters make reference to “standard” play. Will present those findings in the next post.

Then, in a third post, I’m going to try to articulate why I think Omaha high players are more apt to value “standard” play than are Texas hold ’em players. If Sklansky’s article had been about a PLO hand, not a NL hold ’em hand -- that is to say, if he had been arguing for a “standard” way to play a particular PLO hand -- I can’t believe he’d have met with as much objection.

Meanwhile, check out Sklansky’s article if you haven’t already, and if you have any thoughts about the idea of “standard” play (in HE or PLO), let me hear ’em.

Shamus in Vegas: Episode 10 -- Stargazing

I get off the Deuce at the Bellagio and wait a bit before meeting Vera. Eventually we get together with some others for dinner at Mon Ami Gabi over at the Paris. Had reservations, but still end up having to wait a good while. During the wait I wander over to the nearby poker room and rail a bit. Eight tables, if I remember correctly, with a couple of excitable 1/2 NL games and one very sober-looking, short-handed 3/6 limit game. Looked like a nice enough place to play. Signage indicates plans to expand the room in the near future. We finally get seated and I enjoy a tasty filet mignon with merlot butter and red wine reduction. Delish. After dinner we stroll around the faux cobblestone walkways of the Paris, occasionally looking up at the trompe-l’œil ceiling painted to resemble a blue, cloudy sky.

Saturday morning Vera and I awake without any specific plans for the day other than to head over that evening to the Thomas & Mack for the big dressage finale of the FEI World Cup. Earlier in the week Vera had expressed a desire to watch me play some poker, but after puttering around the hotel room a bit I tell her I’d rather just hang out with her. Plus -- as anyone who has read this blog before well knows -- I like the idea of taking my chips from the table. (Final tally: $90.50 in the black.) In fact, I ended up using my poker winnings to fund our activities for the day.

We decide to go back up to the Bellagio to check out the start of the WPT Championship (beginning at noon), then shop a while before heading over to the World Cup. Got there around 11:30 a.m. As we are walking through, Vera spots a fellow in a dark jacket whose hat is failing to tame his curly locks. “That’s the funny guy,” she says. I look and sure enough it is Gavin Smith, hastily making his way toward the poker room. Vera also picks out Gus Hansen, white button-up shirt untucked, moving in the same direction. We grab sandwiches at Café Palio, then go back over to the poker room.

I run into Rick again -- Paul’s friend -- and we chat a bit. Soon after I again see Gavin Smith at a near table and start watching some hands. We must have arrived not too long after the spat he ended up talking about on the April 22 episode of PokerWire Radio (w/Todd Brunson) in which another player calls him “ugly face.” Now everyone appears quiet and studious.

Here’s one hand I saw in particular. Gavin is in either the SB or BB. A player in middle position makes a medium-sized raise and all fold to Gavin who thinks a bit and then calls. The flop is Q43-rainbow. Gavin checks, the MP player makes a smallish-looking bet, and Gavin calls quickly. The turn is a deuce, and both players check. The river is a 6. Gavin checks, the MP makes another stab, and Gavin calls showing for two pair. MP mucks.

I keep scanning the room, trying to find familiar faces. Vera clues me in that I should watch the woman with the intimidating-looking camera as wherever she is the famous folks aren’t far away. I see Josh Arieh, decked out in full Bodog gear, looking a bit bored here in Level 1. A little afterward I see a green baseball cap about halfway back. Look closer and sure enough, it’s Dan Harrington.

We then move over to the Fontana Room for a short while. Vera spots David Williams, but as she points him out to me a man in a suit jacket standing near the table blocks our view. Eventually he turns around and strides out of the room -- it’s Marcel Luske. I quickly narrate to Vera the story of the 2004 WSOP where those two first became friends. As I’m whispering, a Joey Ramone-looking fellow stands up in the middle of the room -- Issac Haxton.

Kind of fun stargazing like that. Somewhere during the week I also saw Andrew Black in a red hooded sweatshirt, sporting a huge life-is-good smile, as well as John Shipley (whose name I didn’t recall until I saw a clip of the 2002 WSOP final table over on Just Poker Talk).

We leave soon afterwards and do a lot of walking through the Bellagio, Caesar’s, and back over to the Paris. By dinner time we’re at the Thomas & Mack to see Isabell Werth and her horse Warum Nicht FRH take the 2007 Rolex FEI World Cup Dressage crown. (Here's that story.) For Vera, who also rides dressage, the week was similarly a chance for her to see in person the best of the best compete in the sport she loves.

Had to get up at the god-awful hour of 3:30 a.m. to catch our early flight Sunday morning. We made it back fine, though. All around, a terrific trip. Am presently scheming (in a very non-specific way) to get back to Vegas sometime this summer, though at this point that’s probably unlikely.

Thanks for reading this here travelogue, all! Will be getting back to the usual “shots in the dark,” responses to “the rumble,” and other Hard-Boiled type activity here in short order. Might even have to share a pot limit Omaha hand or two with you, as well . . . .

Shamus in Vegas: Episode 9 -- What Happens in Vegas Gets Spread All Over the Internet

Howard had warned me that the late afternoon bus would be crowded, and he was right. Standing room only on the bottom level of the Deuce. And about 40 minutes’ worth of stop-and-go tedium until my destination. I grabbed a pole and held on. After a couple of stops, I noticed some folks departing from the top level, and so decided to head on up for a more comfortable ride. There were a couple of seats open in the very back. As I moved down the aisle, a young woman talking on her cell phone about midway back moved over to the window to free a seat.

Didn’t pay too much attention to the woman’s conversation at first, my head full of poker hands and the afternoon meet-ups. After about five minutes I begin to notice the animated tone of her voice. She is clearly excited about whatever she was saying, I think to myself. A minute or two more and I am following her conversation quite closely. As is the rest of the second level of the southbound bus.

“It was like three guys for every girl,” she’s saying, clearly talking to a girlfriend. Apparently the previous evening involved a trip with the gals to the Rio for some clubbing. Our new friend wasn’t too crazy about the $20 entrance fee. Nor did she care for being expected to tip the bathroom attendant. However, she did like the fact that the line for the ladies’ room was much shorter than for the mens’....

“First I was dancing with Preston... no, no, no... I didn’t go home with him. He was like fifty-four or something. It was this other guy who he was with....”

I notice the woman sitting ahead of us turning back from time to time, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. An English couple across the aisle to my left are also looking over, the husband covering his face.

“He gave me a ride back to my timeshare,” she explains. “He’s an online stock broker. He’s like independently wealthy, or something.... Because he wears Perry Ellis.... Because when I was leaning in I was like ‘What’s this?’”

The laughter behind us is getting louder.

“Six-foot-three,” she continues. “He said he had tattoos.... I forgot to ask him to take off his shirt.” More laughs. “I was getting a crick in my neck. I just had to tell him I had to take a break from time to time....”

“YEA, BOYEEE!” a dude hollers from several rows back. It’s clear everyone on the second level is listening intently. And responding outwardly. And my neighbor continues to seem oblivious.

“What?!” she says. “That I’ll leave to the rest of your imagination.” Howls. “I can’t say in mixed company!”

The whole scene is growing increasingly surreal. I’m convinced this woman knows what’s going on, but then again.... I look to the left and see the English guy is almost crying he’s laughing so hard. “You can’t tell anybody,” she says. I keep my poker face, nodding in mock agreement.

“The guy is like really smart. He’s a shy, quiet guy... he says. He doesn’t usually do the things that we did last night. Oh! And the good news is he only had three beers.”

Hysteria. “THIS CAN’T BE REAL!” a woman cries from the back of the bus, having reached a social-etiquette-breaking-point of some sort. “WE MUST BE ON CANDID CAMERA!” Everyone agrees this seems a very likely possibility. A woman a few rows up half-jokingly asks her husband if her hair looks okay.

Our performer continues unfazed. “The guy has this very clean-cut image. Never been married. No kids. And I did talk to him in the morning. He left about 5:30. I called him and left him a voicemail. Just said ‘Kind of like a dream last night, just wanted to make sure that it really....’ And in the afternoon I called him again....”

“Anyone notice how no one is getting off this bus?” someone shouts. “I was supposed to get off at the Stratosphere!” comes the response. More peals of laughter.

“Tonight? I’m gonna go back to the Rio. With all those guys... suddenly... guys were on me. Wow! It must’ve been a three-to-one ratio...!”

The conductor announces the stop for Caesar’s, and the woman stands up. As I turn to allow her to pass into the aisle, I hear several cry “No!” She continues to talk while covering her ear, still not appearing to notice. As she turns to descend the stairwell, the entire top level spontaneously erupts into applause. She looks up uncertainly, and for the first time a glimmer of realization crosses her face.

Several minutes of reaction follow. The woman who had earlier speculated about Candid Camera congratulates me for having kept my cool. “That guy with the hat... he didn’t even FLINCH!” I smile and turn to the English gentleman. “Not bad for two bucks,” I say.

“That’s what he said,” he replies, not missing a beat.