Burning It Up

Had a memorable session of PLO at the end of last week, made especially intriguing by one particular player whom I’m going to name “Fireball.” The lesson that day seemed to be that while there are many different ways to win at poker, successfully reading your opponents’ patterns underlies most winning strategies.

I had been at Table Funhouse -- a six-handed $50 max. buy-in table (blinds $0.25/$0.50) -- for about 100 hands before Fireball took his seat. I had bought in for $30 and was up to $48.65. The other players had between $20 and $55 when Fireball bought in for $50. I don’t have Poker Tracker installed for Omaha, so I ended up printing out and studying the hand histories for the 69 hands I played with Fireball.

The guy made an impression on me immediately. It was Hand No. 5 and I was dealt in middle position. I limped in, and Fireball (sitting to my left) made a minimum raise to one dollar. It was the second time he’d made the min. preflop raise already. Several of us called, and the flop came , giving me the nut straight. I bet $3.50 (almost pot), Fireball instantly called, and everyone else folded. The turn was a harmless , so I bet pot -- $10.95 -- and again Fireball called without a moment’s hesitation. The pot was up to $32 or so, and when I saw the on the river my own heart sank. I checked and he surprised me by checking behind, turning over . Even a third-pot bet and I’m likely letting go there. I gladly scooped the pot and sat back to watch the ensuing fun.

It became evident quite soon that Fireball was playing every single hand. In fact, by the end of our time together he’d see 69 out of 69 flops. He also put in a preflop raise about two-thirds of the time -- 48 of 69 times -- with about half of those preflop raises being minimum raises to $1.00. The rest of the table (myself included) weren’t nearly as aggressive, so Fireball’s style definitely made him the star of the table.

The preflop raise often got him heads-up or three-handed. On the flop, he’d usually play relatively conservatively, either making half-pot-sized bets or calling others’ bets. Then on the turn he’d either become bold -- betting pot -- or simply give up on the hand. Occasionally, as happened with me in Hand No. 5, he’d call down bets if he held something decent but beatable. The big turn bets were causing folks to fold, and thus he managed to take down 13 of the first 20 hands without having to show his cards more than a couple of times. After 20 hands he was up $23.05.

In some ways, Fireball reminded me of a player type I once wrote about and dubbed “Moose Malloy” (in a post called “A Tarantula on a Slice of Angel Food”). There I described a “Moose” as a reckless, unthinking player whose extreme aggression causes players to become unhinged from their regular games. The difference here, though, is that a “Moose” doesn’t really have a strategy other than to raise blindly and cause havoc at the table. He might win some, but he usually doesn’t. This Fireball, by contrast, though certainly not overly crafty, seemed to be following a certain methodology. And his preflop raising and selective aggression postflop was clearly starting to bug some of the other players.

On hand No. 25, one player, Mulehead, decided he’d seen enough. Having been dealt , he called Fireball’s preflop min. raise, then got aggressive on the flop. He pushed again when the turn card was the . The river brought the (giving Mulehead trips), but Fireball led out with an $8 bet into the $40 pot. Mulehead just called, and to his dismay saw that Fireball had -- he’d rivered a straight.

A sketchy play, to be sure. Fireball had flopped an open-ended straight draw (and held an overpair), and pot-sized bets couldn’t make him let it go. The river value bet was smartly done, though, proving (to me) that Fireball was no Moose Malloy.

Hand No. 26 saw Mulehead implode completely, throwing away the rest of his stack to Fireball with T49J-single suited. Mulehead reloaded for $50 more, then on Hand no. 32 lost it all to Fireball again when his nemesis sucked out a full house versus Mulehead’s turned nut flush. “Lol again,” typed Mulehead.

Seeing Fireball showdown some questionable hands caused some at the table to start playing back at him, reraising his preflop raises and pushing him whenever they connected with the flop. After rivering another gutshot on Hand no. 37, Fireball’s stack had increased to $202 -- up $152 already! His success didn’t stop one player who’d taken a couple of pots off of Fireball to begin trash-talking, saying things like “ship it donk” and calling Fireball a “stupid f--king monkey.” Fireball never responded.

I should mention that I became very tight during this stretch, folding about 75% of hands preflop. During Fireball’s run, I was up about $10 for those same hands. And I do think Fireball noticed. In Hand No. 43 everyone folded around to me in the small blind where I completed with . Fireball just checked, ending a streak of 22 straight hands where he’d raised preflop. The flop came , giving me an open-ender, and I bet $0.85. Fireball made a min. raise to $1.70 and I just called. We ended up checking down the hand (my straight never came), and I won the pot when he showed nothing but a pair of eights.

I started to notice that despite Fireball’s aggressive image, he generally would only call or perhaps min. raise in spots where he knew he was probably behind. In other words, once we got postflop, he only appeared willing to bet aggressively when he was reasonably sure either (1) he was well ahead, or (2) his opponent was weak or drawing and would likely fold.

I watched as Mulehead got stacked off yet another time. Around Hand No. 60 another player typed “this guy is the luckiest worst player ever.” Players started to leave the table, having decided they were tired of giving Fireball chips. It got down to three-handed, and while I knew I should probably leave, too, a combination of inertia and blood simple fascination with Fireball kept me at the table. Finally, at Hand No. 67, we were down to heads-up.

I let Fireball push me out of the first two hands with his min. raises. Then came that momentous, session-defining Hand No. 69. Here’s the hand history, plus commentary:

Omaha Pot Limit ($0.25/$0.50)
Table ‘Funhouse’ 6-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Fireball ($193.35 in chips)
Seat 6: Short-Stacked Shamus ($54.55 in chips)
Short-Stacked Shamus: posts small blind $0.25
Fireball: posts big blind $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Short-Stacked Shamus []
Short-Stacked Shamus: calls $0.25
Fireball: raises $1 to $1.50 <-- a pot-sized raise, though means very little
Short-Stacked Shamus: calls $1 <-- looking for a decent flop and to use position here
*** FLOP *** [] <-- gives me top two, no obvious draws out there
Fireball: bets $2.85 <-- a pot-sized bet; means he has at least a queen, perhaps more
Short-Stacked Shamus: raises $4.65 to $7.50 <-- let’s see if top two are good
Fireball: calls $4.65 <-- essentially tells me, yes, your top two are good

I am convinced here that Fireball hasn’t flopped a set. In 68 previous hands, I’d yet to see him slowplay the current nuts on the flop a single time. At this point, I have him on (1) nothing at all; (2) a queen only, or perhaps a worse two pair; or (3) a gutshot draw (most likely).

*** TURN *** [] [] <-- could well have given him his gutshot
Fireball: checks <-- he did not make a straight; I am 98% sure of it
Short-Stacked Shamus: bets $15 <-- a pot-sized bet
Fireball: calls $15 <-- now I’m 100% sure he doesn’t have a straight; also inclined not to give him credit for a set, either, although it is possible . . .

*** RIVER *** [] []
Fireball: bets $47 <-- HOLY CRAP!

Wow. Now what? What would you do here?

I have $30.55 left, almost exactly my original buy-in at this table. So in reality Fireball is putting thirty bucks into a $50-ish pot. Now there’s $85 out there, so I’m looking at a little under 3-to-1 to call. I debated for ten seconds or so. I’d already ruled out him having the straight (and the didn’t change that). The only holding I could imagine him having that would now have me beat would be a pair of threes in the hole. What to do . . . ?

I went for it.

Short-Stacked Shamus: calls $30.55 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Fireball: shows [] (a pair of Queens)
Short-Stacked Shamus: shows [] (two pair, Queens and Eights)
Short-Stacked Shamus collected $108.10 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $109.10 | Rake $1
Board []
Seat 1: Fireball (big blind) showed [] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 6: Short-Stacked Shamus (button) (small blind) showed [] and won ($108.10) with two pair, Queens and Eights

He did flop top pair. And the gutshot -- but it was the higher one. Fireball’s river bet was inspired, really. He’d read me (correctly) as risk-averse, so knew the only way he could win what had become a decent-sized pot would be to push me off the hand. Like I said, I’d never seen him slowplay, but I had seen him bluff -- and when he did it was usually with similarly large, put-his-opponent-to-the-test bets. Fireball certainly enjoyed some good fortune during our session, but I credit him with being more than the “luckiest worst player ever.” He paid attention, and was often rewarded handsomely for doing so.

I think I also benefitted from having taken note of Fireball’s conspicuous betting patterns. Not saying my call was especially brilliant here, but it did “feel” right. Looking back, I probably should have waited for a better opportunity -- one where I was more clearly ahead -- where I could have taken a big chunk of his chips without as much fretting. Nonetheless, the reason why it felt right to call there was I had been watching him very closely for a good while.

That happened to be my biggest online pot ever. Might’ve been worthwhile to have stayed for further shenanigans, but I decided after Hand No. 69 it was time to stop playing with fire.

Crawling Toward the WSOP

Vera and I went to one of our favorite places for dinner last night, a joint just a few miles up the road that specializes in Louisiana-styled cuisine. I had a big steaming heap of boiled crawfish, with some corn and potatoes thrown in as well. (Why do I feel a little like Roy West starting a column here?) Good stuff. Chatted with the proprietor -- a native of the Louisiana bayou -- about his crawfish boil formula, which besides the usual salt, cayenne pepper, lemon, garlic, and bay leaves also includes a “secret” ingredient he wasn’t at liberty to divulge.

We also talked about how crawfish is making a comeback this year after a meager, Katrina-affected 2006 season. Crawfish season generally runs from Christmas to the fourth of July, with the freshwater crustaceans gradually increasing in size as the season wears on. If you’ve never had crawfish, now’s the time (they tend to toughen up as they get larger). So named because they’re “crawling” fish, ya know. Like miniature lobsters, they are. Tasty little suckers.

We end up there every couple of weeks anyway, but I think we went last night because I’d spent part of the afternoon perusing the final results of the 2007 WSOP Circuit Championship Event in New Orleans, a.k.a. the Bayou Poker Challenge. Then I listened to Phil Gordon -- who placed fourth in the event -- interview the winner, part-time player Lou Esposito, on Gordon’s poker podcast, The Poker Edge. Gordon had been the chip leader for much of the tournament -- including all of day 2 (of the three-day event) -- and had a huge chip lead going into the final table (three times what second-place had). But a few cold decks landed him in fourth.

A bit of a disappointment for Gordon, although making fourth didn’t seem very possible when he was down to just 525 chips on day 1. On the show, Gordon tells about how he’d made a bad play about four hours in that put him on the super-short stack. With the blinds at 100/200 (level 3), Gordon was forced to put in his remaining chips from the big blind with K2-offsuit and found himself heads-up against AQ. The flop came KJT, giving his opponent the nut straight. Gordon was down to something like 2% to win. And even if he won, as Gordon explains, he’d only win 1,700 in chips in a tournament where there was nearly 3.5 million in play. After briefly noting his what his “tournament equity” was, Gordon calculates that “at that point . . . my chances of winning the tournament were 1 in 200,000.”

Well, the turn was a jack. And the river another jack, giving him the improbable full house. A couple of double-ups later he was back to 8,000 and on his way to an impressive, Louisiana-crawfish-like comeback.

That was the last WSOP Circuit event before the crown jewel of the poker year, the 2007 World Series of Poker, gets started next Friday at the Rio in Vegas. The schedule is packed, with 55 events in just 47 days. And all but one of those events will be completed by July 5th, so we’re looking at about two bracelets being awarded per day for all of June and the first days of July.

There’s already been a lot of talk about this year’s schedule, particularly the inclusion of a number of non-hold ’em and/or mixed game events. The very first event is the $5,000 buy-in World Championship Mixed Hold ’em Limit/No-Limit, with each of the one-hour long levels combining 30 minutes of NL play and 30 minutes of limit. Never tried before at the WSOP, so that should prove curious at least. Then on Sunday, June 3rd comes another new event, the $2,500 buy-in Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low-8 or Better (Event No. 5). As with Event No. 1, the games will change every 30 minutes. A total of 19 of the 55 events are designated by the WSOP as “new” this year, although some of those are not really new but simply feature different buy-in amounts than we’ve previously seen.

With the exception of the Main Event -- which is scheduled to feature eight “days” of play stretched out over nearly two weeks -- all of the events are being designated as either “two-day” or “three-day” events. Two different events will be starting most days, and thus there will be quite a bit of overlap with at least two and sometimes four or even five events happening at any given moment.

All of which means those pros planning to play as many events as they can better pace themselves. Otherwise, by the time the Main Event begins they’ll risk looking like this guy:

Learn, Cheat, and Play Poker with the Pros

Been thinking about that odd, awkward moment from last week’s Poker After Dark when Clonie Gowen openly admitted to having once dragged a pot even though she knew the deck had been fouled. I’m not going to go into the ethical question here. A lot of us could never imagine cheating in the way Gowen gleefully described herself doing. Others among us wouldn’t have a problem with it, and, in fact, might consider such behavior entirely warranted. The more curious question -- to me, anyway -- is why would a pro openly admit to something so underhanded? What could Gowen possibly think might be gained by such a confession?

It was “Ladies’ Week” on Poker After Dark, so there were five other women present at the table to hear Gowen’s anecdote: Jennifer Harman, Dee Luong, Evelyn Ng, Vanessa Rousso, and Cyndy Violette. It was near the beginning of Tuesday’s show when Gowen related how she had once been involved in a hand where she had been dealt , then saw another on board. Having managed to win the pot without a showdown, Gowen dragged the chips without informing the table the deck had been fouled. It was suggested to Gowen that she should have pointed out the problem as soon as she noticed it. Rousso then asked what the ruling would be in such a case, to which Harman quickly responded “it’s split -- everyone gets their money back.” Gowen concluded the story by suggesting such a rule means one should therefore drag the pot before pointing out any discrepancy.

Brian Mulholland wrote an interesting CardPlayer article some time ago in which he described facing a similar situation. There he tells about playing a game of Omaha high-low in which he was dealt AK99, double-suited, all red cards. By the turn there were two diamonds and two hearts on board, at which point Mulholland rechecked his hand to remind himself the suit of his ace. When he looked again, Mulholland discovered that in fact both of the nines he’d been dealt were the . He immediately asked the dealer to call the floor manager, then turned his cards over to show everyone his corrupt hand.

As it happens, the ruling that Harman described -- that everyone gets his or her chips back as if the hand had never taken place -- only applies if the player with the fouled hand does not actually place a bet. Unfortunately for him, Mulholland had unwittingly bet his fouled hand, and thus his cards were declared dead (with the others continuing as before). In other words, he was the only one at the table to be penalized by his own honesty. In the article, Mulholland takes issue with that particular rule, and while he makes a good argument for why it might not be fair, I can understand the need for it. One cannot be allowed to bet a fouled hand, then get one’s chips back if the hand doesn’t go as desired.

In the hand Gowen was describing, I’m not certain when exactly she discovered the deck was fouled, but I assume she had already placed at least one bet on her hand when that second turned up as one of the community cards. If that were the case, then it is true the only way she could avoid losing chips on the hand would be to keep her knowledge to herself.

Gowen’s story provoked a decent debate over on 2+2. The discussion isn’t half-bad, actually. The majority of the more serious-minded posts are critical of Gowen, with some suggesting her attitude to be emblematic of a “general breakdown in etiquette” currently taking place in poker. Others defend her. Says one poster, “lol she is a hustler like everyone else[;] at least she has the honesty to admit it.”

Not surprisingly, among the more salient comments are mixed the usual catalogue of slanders one comes to expect whenever female poker players are discussed. I’m certain that here -- as we’ve seen elsewhere -- the level of criticism is somewhat increased due to the fact that the player in question is a woman. Such prejudices exist in the world at large, to be sure, but are almost always magnified in the still male-dominated world of poker.

Of course, it may also be the case that Gowen is a somewhat more vulnerable target thanks to that April 2006 incident when one of her Full Tilt Poker “Tips from the Pros” contained material plagiarized from a Pocket Fives post. In her tip about playing rebuy tourneys, Gowen’s article contained an entire paragraph taken almost verbatim from a post by jsup over on P5s. Gowen subsequently penned an “Open Letter to the Pocket Fives Community” in which she apologized about the plagiarism, characterizing it as “the most foolish thing I have ever done” and “the type of action that you might expect from a teenager, but certainly not from a Full Tilt Poker Pro.” The letter goes on to explain how her “editor/collaborator” introduced the plagiarized material into her article -- raising yet another ethical question, by the way -- although she ultimately takes full responsibility for the mistake. (If you’re curious, here’s a full rundown of that incident over on O-Poker.)

Not sure if we’ll see a similar apology (or even acknowledgement of the controversy) from Gowen this time around. Something tells me we won’t. Still, the question remains: Why would a professional -- a “Full Tilt Poker Pro” -- boast so openly about having cheated her way to winning a hand?

I can’t help but wonder if it might be relevant here to consider the particular challenges and pressures faced by women players to which I just alluded. In my view, there appears to have been an explicit, deliberately-evoked subtext to Gowen’s boastful story of cheating and getting away with it, something along the lines of this: “It doesn’t matter that I am a woman -- I am as ruthless and cutthroat as anyone else at the poker table.”

Let me try to explain.

That the story came up during “Ladies’ Week” -- and not, say, during Gowen’s earlier PAD appearance when she competed against five men -- is not without significance here, I’d say. All week viewers were constantly being reminded that we were watching something different. Amid all the table talk, Shana Hiatt’s interviews with the players, Phil Hellmuth’s gauche drop-in visit, some of the commentary, and the prerecorded segments, viewers were consistently being invited to draw comparisons between male poker players and female poker players.

Such an emphasis continued right up to Hiatt’s postgame interview with Gowen (who won the tournament) about what it was like to play an all-female table. Referring to Dee Luong, Gowen said “after about three hands I was like [censored] this girl can play poker!” Gowen also claimed (sincerely or otherwise) it had been the “toughest” table she had ever faced. Gowen’s comments seem to play up the “tough,” uncompromising persona she demonstrated during the game itself -- she was the most aggressive player during the week, by far -- deliberately positioning herself against stereotypes associated with femininity.

And so does the “I cheated and got away with it” story, I’m suggesting. That is to say, one way to answer the question “Why did she admit it?” would be to say she was interested in communicating her “toughness” to the rest of the table and/or the television audience. I’m reminded of Annie Duke’s response to James McManus’s question in Positively Fifth Street about why she wasn’t interested in playing the women’s event in the 2000 WSOP. “When I asked her why she skipped the women’s event,” writes McManus, “I’m treated to a wince of disdain . . . . ‘Not very interesting money,’ she says. ‘And I can’t stand the smell of perfume,’ she adds, pregnantly macho.” Later she tells him there’s “Nothing worse than a table full of women.”

Duke is obviously having fun here with McManus, delighting in the irony of “slamming” women while being one the most conspicuously-successful women playing at the 2000 WSOP Main Event. I think perhaps there’s something similar going on with Gowen, a kind of deliberate attempt at being “macho” that appears to have misfired. More than a little.

That’s the only conclusion I can draw. Otherwise, it just comes off as just another ill-conceived goof “you might expect from a teenager,” not a professional poker player.

The Idea of the IGREA

Just listened to Barney Frank’s recent Hold ’em Radio interview, conducted May 9th. The Hold ’em Radio website is currently being renovated, I believe, so you can’t hunt around there for the interview at present. Meanwhile, I've posted it here if you’re interested. (The interview is about 20 minutes long.) I’ve listened to Frank speak several times regarding the UIGEA in the past, but this was the first interview I’d heard since he’d introduced the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2046) on the House floor at the end of April.

Have to say, Frank is a likable, smart guy. Good one to have on one’s side, I’d venture. Can think of at least three reasons why I much prefer hearing Rep. Frank discussing issues related to online poker than the Poker Players' Alliance chief lobbyist Alphonse D’Amato.

For one, Frank is always articulate and often succinct, thus making him an excellent communicator. You’re never wondering what exactly his “point” is, as is sometimes the case with D’Amato. Secondly, while D’Amato’s political influence is somewhat difficult to gauge at the moment -- it has been eight years, after all, since he was a senator -- Frank is not only a current member of Congress, but he’s also the chair of the House Financial Services Committee. (There are about 70 representatives on that committee, nearly one-sixth of the entire House.) That is to say, unlike D’Amato, who can only encourage others to act, Frank is someone who can actually do something. Like introduce new legislation, for example.

And thirdly, my personal impression is that Frank knows a hell of a lot more about his subject here than does D’Amato. Always a help when trying to convince others. I’ve yet to hear Frank mischaracterize the current situation with regards to online gambling, or even be less than realistic about the future possibility of doing anything about the UIGEA.

If you’re curious about what I mean, go listen to Frank’s interview. Meanwhile, I’m going to take the opportunity here to discuss the legislation he’s introduced -- the IGREA -- and to share my initial impressions of the bill. (Apologies in advance for the monstrous length of this here post, but I wanted to go ahead and publish all of these thoughts here in one shot.)

The Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007

Technically speaking, the bill doesn’t really “repeal” the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, although if it were passed it would render the UIGEA even more legally impotent than it already is. Frank’s bill is essentially a regulatory mechanism, allowing for individual businesses on a case-by-case basis to be licensed by the Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (working under the aegis of the Secretary of the Treasury) to operate an online gambling site. Anyone trying to operate a site without going through the process of getting licensed would thus still be subject to the penalties described in the UIGEA.

After outlining the need for and some of the purposes of the bill, the IGREA then describes this new licensing program and how it would work. Say you live in the U.S. and you want to start up your own online poker site. First you would apply to the Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network who would then oversee an extensive background check and study of your fitness to operate such a site. Before obtaining the license, you’d have to prove you had safeguards in place to prevent minors from playing on your site. You’d have to demonstrate that you could keep out individuals who live in states that prohibit online gambling. Additionally, you’d have to show you had procedures in place to pay taxes on whatever revenue you earn (and to have your clients pay their taxes, too). You would also have to show you could prevent your site from being used for the purposes of fraud or money-laundering, that you could ensure the privacy and security of its clients, and that you were doing something to combat compulsive gambling.

Having satisfied all of those provisions (and a few more), you’d be granted a one-year license take your site online. By the way, you probably want to have some capital handy before you begin here, since you’re going to be responsible for paying for any expenses accrued during the evaluation process. There’s a “user fee” you’re going to have to pay up front, too.

Still here? Well, congratulations! You are a fully-licensed operator of an online gambling site! Remember, the Director can look at the books whenever he wants, so you need to keep your house in order or the license can be revoked at any time. Any “contumacy” (i.e., failure to obey the government’s authority) is gonna get you sent to the Attorney General’s office. So keep in line . . . or else!

The bill goes on to explain how banks, credit card companies, and the like can now do business with the licensed online gambling sites with no worries. That is to say, those “financial transaction providers” targeted by the UIGEA would be free to work with these new, licensed and regulated sites without fearing any of those penalties described by that law. The bill also importantly adds a couple of sections explaining how individual states and Indian reservations can individually “opt out” should they wish to prohibit online gambling within their jurisdictions.

There’s also a section specifically stating that “sporting leagues” can also “opt out” (so to speak) by refusing to allow online gambling sites to offer the chance to bet on their contests. On the surface, this section seems unnecessary given that the 1961 Wire Act has already been widely interpreted as prohibiting sports betting via the internet. I can see the benefit, however, of being more specific about online sports gambling here. If the IGREA were to pass, it would be much easier to crack down on such activity should the government wish to do so.

Near the end, there is a section explicitly stating how the IGREA has “no effect on other law” -- that is, it doesn’t repeal existing laws regarding gambling in the U.S., just clarifies and allows for the possibility of online gambling within these here carefully-monitored guidelines.

What Would Happen If the IGREA Became Law?

A huge “if,” by the way. Early in the interview, Frank mentions having some bipartisan support for the bill, particularly among certain members of the House Financial Services Committee. Later he admits “at this point, because there are a lot of prejudices against gambling, I don’t have the votes to pass it.” As the chair of the Financial Services Committee, Frank has the authority to push for a vote, though has already stated his intention not to do so unless he were confident the bill would pass.

My first impression, then, of the IGREA is that it probably will never pass out of the House, never mind be considered by the Senate (or ultimately signed by the President). So we’re on a bit of a quixotic journey here. Still, I understand Frank’s point that there are benefits to be had from having debates about online gambling even if the bill never becomes law.

Let’s pretend, though, that the IGREA has a chance. If somehow it did pass, I see at least three consequences worth our consideration.

REGULATION

Have been seeing a lot of fretting about long-delayed payouts and other customer service woes on the forums lately. Some sites are doing better than others, but generally speaking the online poker player has been jerked around a lot over the last year. I heard Paul Wasicka interviewed on Ante Up! a few weeks ago (episode 98) about his controversial “joint sessions” article in Bluff from a while back. I’ve written before about that issue, suggesting that while I didn’t necessarily like people playing joint sessions, I wasn’t sure it was correct to call the joint session “unethical.” As Wasicka argues,

There are risks . . . associated [with playing online] . . . . I accept the risk that there might be collusion at the table. There might be two friends sitting at the same table talking to each other and typing each other’s hands [via instant messages] at the table. I accept that risk, just because I know that there [are] people out there that . . . are very unethical and will do anything -- even trying to cheat -- to win . . . . It would be too naïve to think that there aren’t bots or there isn’t cheating going on. Of course there is. But you accept that risk as an online professional . . . and if you can still beat the game, [then] do it.

All of which makes sense, I think. Or is at least understandable. But then Wasicka goes on to say the online player faces the “same thing with Neteller.” Huh? “You know,” he explains, “if they shut down, that’s a risk you took to trust your money with them. It’s just a game of what you’re comfortable with and what you’re not comfortable with. You know? And I . . . think that if somebody is uncomfortable with all of those uncertainties, then they should [just] play live.”

Okay, so my opponent might be getting advice from his friend. Fine. And he’s using Poker Tracker and a half-dozen other programs that help him monitor what’s happening at the table. Again, no problem. And he might even be colluding with someone else at the table. Uh . . . I don’t like that, but I understand it can happen.

But why the hell should my choice of a third-party vendor also be part of the “game,” another risk among the many I must take in order to win? The fact that Wasicka thinks sites like Neteller or even the poker sites themselves are able at any moment to run away with your money indicates how a lot of online players have internalized the uncertainty and lack of fairness surrounding online gambling these days. The IGREA would certainly help change that situation for the better, if it were to pass.

TAXES

Since gambling is a “voluntary activity,” Frank thinks it is appropriate to tax it. Says Frank, “I think a small fee -- essentially let the government be the ‘house’ and get a small cut of the pot -- I think that could be very useful.” If the IGREA were to pass, we’d certainly see both the online sites and the players paying taxes on whatever profits they earn to a much greater degree than is currently the case.

Poker players would complain loudly about such a circumstance, but honestly they shouldn’t. Only those who do not presently pay taxes on their winnings would moan; those who do would in fact benefit, since they would be able to spread out their tax obligation over the course of the year, rather than having to pay out that lump sum every spring. Of course, if the percentage of taxation was more burdensome than it presently is -- not unlikely -- then there would be reason to grieve.

Sites also would face extra costs, including a heavier tax burden, should the IGREA pass. If the U.K. example is any indicator here, that would prove problematic for these U.S. sites. A similar bill to regulate online gambling was passed in Britain in April 2005, and when it was finally implemented earlier this year the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced a hefty 15% “Remote Gambling Duty” would be taken from sites’ profits. That caused some outfits like SportingBet to relocate offshore, and likely has discouraged others from opening up shop in the U.K. Licensed online gambling sites in the U.S. should also anticipate extra taxes, assigned at the discretion of the Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Not so hot for the players, either, as such taxes would necessarily translate into larger rakes, fewer bonuses, and other cuts into their potential profits.

STATE OPT-OUTS

A Democrat with Libertarian leanings, Frank is a proponent of states’ rights, and so has included in his bill instructions to governors to inform the Director if his or her state “prohibits such business within such State.” If so, licensed sites would not be allowed to permit any betting or wagering by individuals who reside in that state.

What would happen, then? Well, the state of Washington already has made it a felony to engage in most forms of online gambling. (Horse-wagering is a-okay.) So there it would be a relatively simple matter for the governor of Washington to inform the Director of her state’s prohibition. In my opinion, other states -- even those without clear-cut legislation regarding online gambling -- would probably follow a similar path. I may be wrong here, but the bill appears to say the governor or any “other chief executive officer” of a given state simply has to inform “the Director of such prohibition or limitation [within his or her state], in a manner which clearly identifies the nature and extent of such prohibition or limitation” within 90 days of the IGREA becoming law. In other words, it doesn’t appear to me that a congressional vote or any other measure would be required beforehand.

If the bill were to become law, then, I think we’d likely see a large number of states “opting out” immediately, with relatively few states actually allowing online gambling. Bob Ciaffone partly anticipated this version of the future in his article “What the New U.S. Gambling Bill Means for You,” written a week after the UIGEA was made law. In fact, he sees those states that choose to license online gambling taking over the business entirely. He sees each state only allowing a single “site” within its borders to operate legally, “but license a number of marketing companies to recruit players and be ‘skins’ off the site.” He also predicts that given the legislative process, such state-regulated online gambling couldn’t come to be until 2009 at the very earliest.

All of which is to say, for a variety of reasons, if the IGREA were to become law, an immediate effect would probably be a hell of drop in the number of Americans (legally) playing online poker -- a much greater drop, in fact, than we saw back in October when the UIGEA became law. Eventually, over the course of several years, those players might be permitted to find their way back online. But the game they’d play -- while perhaps safer and better-regulated -- would never be as lucrative as it is today. (Nor would the market likely be as competitive.)

* * * * *
Frank plans a hearing in June regarding the IGREA. There’s also another bill, authored by Rep. Shelley Berkeley (D-NV), proposing the National Academy of Sciences conduct a year-long study of online gambling. Depending on the findings, such a study would certainly have some influence over any vote on Frank’s legislation.

In the Hold ’em Radio interview, Frank strongly urged every listener to contact his or her representative and two senators to let them know Congress should not be interfering with his or her right to gamble online. “If enough people call their congressmen and tell them that,” says Frank, “I can get this thing passed.”

The more I think about this IGREA, though, the more it seems to me that it ultimately invites more governmental interference between myself and the online poker sites where I want to play. I do think the bill would make online poker safer and more reliable, but I fear it may actually make it easier for those who oppose online gambling to keep a lot of us from playing.

That being said, I do respect Frank and appreciate what he’s doing. I sense that despite statements to the contrary, Frank himself doesn’t necessarily believe his bill has much of a future. As he states in the interview, “even if we can’t get this one [the UIGEA] repealed, if enough people hear that people are unhappy they may be less eager to go and do the next interference [of civil liberties]. You know, I’d like to get this undone, but it’s often easier in politics and in a lot of other places to prevent the next bad thing from happening than to undo the previous one . . . . It is very reasonable to make it clear to them [i.e., those who backed the UIGEA] that when they do this kind of thing they pay a price. Obviously I don’t want to settle for that, I’d like to go further and get it repealed.”

Already covered how passing the IGREA won’t really “repeal” the UIGEA. But the idea that discussions of the IGREA might have some influence down the road makes sense. And I also believe debating Frank’s bill and the issues it raises may well lessen the UIGEA’s impact here in the near term, since such debates will necessarily highlight that law’s several shortcomings.

Not enough to topple the UIGEA gorilla, of course. Enough to put some heat on where it is vulnerable, though.

Something for Nothing, the Return

Saw in a few places news about PokerStars’ 10 billionth hand which finally went off yesterday. Hadn’t really been angling for that one, myself, though I have to say I have enjoyed following some of the buzz surrounding it.

Noticed that one maybe-it’s-a-joke, either-way-it’s-hilarious thread on 2+2 titled “10 BILLION hand auto folding team.” Also read Michael’s funny post over on Counting My Outs where he talked about witnessing one of the lead-up milestone hands take place at a $1.00/$2.00 limit table -- and how one player decided to fold preflop from UTG. (This despite having already won $200 for just sitting there and having a chance at $500 if he or she had won the hand.)

Then this morning I read over on Plan3t Gong about the big one -- the 10 Billionth hand -- for which each player seated at the table won $10,000, and the winner of the hand claimed a cool $100,000. All of the players won a WCOOP Main Event ticket as well, worth 2,600 in tournament dollars.

Was late yesterday afternoon when lightning struck a micro limit NL hold ’em table -- $0.01/$0.02 stakes. The first player raised all-in, pushing his $4.83 to the middle. AND THE NEXT PLAYER FOLDED! There was a reraise all-in -- the table’s big stack with $6.43 pushed -- AND ANOTHER FOLD! So two of the six players seated at the magic table folded preflop, neither of whom had even three dollars to risk. (See Mark’s post for the entire hand history, including chat.)

The first player who folded -- thereby preserving his $1.73 -- turned down a chance to win 57,803 times his or her stack. The second player had $2.95, deciding to keep it rather than try to multiply it 33,898 times. During the pre-hand chat, that second player actually typed “i seriously have AKs, but don’t think it’s worth to risk it.”

Have to believe these guys didn’t quite understand the terms of the deal, thinking perhaps they would be risking the $10,000 they’d won just for being there if they had played and lost the hand. Then again, perhaps they were stubbornly adhering to their beliefs that poker is NOT (nor ever should be) gambling. We laugh at the guy who forgoes 50,000-to-1 odds, but most of us refuse even better odds every day that we don’t buy a lottery ticket. After all, this week’s U.S.A. Powerball jackpot, to be drawn on May 23rd, is currently up to $63 million -- and it’s only two bucks to play . . . !

Nah. I’ll pass, too. Not worth it.

Speaking of getting something for nothing, this here post is intended to be a follow-up to a couple of posts from about six months ago. Back in November, I wrote about having won one of those FPP turbo tourneys on Stars, netting me 215 worth of tourney dollars. After a bit of hand-wringing, I decided against playing in the Sunday million and instead thought I’d use the funds to play in smaller buy-in tourneys.

I did so -- very sporadically -- over these last six months, with not a lot to show for it. Ended up running through nearly 100 $T with less than $30 in winnings to show for my efforts. Something like a negative 76% ROI or some horrific figure, if I’m calculating correctly.

Donked off a bit in some ill-managed rebuys. The highest single buy-in I tried was $8.00+$0.80. I played a bunch of tourneys back in December, then only one or two a month since. To be honest, I was having a hard time thinking of the T$ as actual cash, which might have been causing a bit of a disconnect when playing the tourneys. Dunno if I’m explaining myself clearly or not, but what I’m trying to say is I tend to concentrate much better when I know if I don’t cash my buy-in gets subtracted from my overall roll. (Make sense?)

So I decided today just to cut my losses and sell the rest for real, honest-to-goodness cabbage. And by cabbage I mean bread. You know, dinero, coinage . . . . CASH, dude! Good wherever anything is sold. I sold my T$ to CashmanBrian, getting the 90% back he pays for tourney dollars. A quick, painless procedure. (My first experience with CashmanBrian, and it was positive.) So, altogether, I ended up taking home about $140 for that 375 FPP I spent back in November. Decent return, that.

I’d like very much to get back into the tourney scene, although I fear my brain is essentially wired more properly in the direction of cash games. I’ll agree with most of the poker world, however, and admit tourneys are much more sexy. There people win thousands (and more) on a single hand all the time. Whereas the rest of us low- and micro-limit types have to wait around every ten billion hands or so for such drama to occur.

If we don’t fold preflop, of course.

AIPS II Event No. 5 -- Short-handed NL Hold 'em

Played the Ante Up! Intercontinental Poker Series II: Electric Boogaloo Event No. 5 on Thursday night -- short-handed NL hold ’em. $5.00+$0.50 buy-in. 112 players signed up. Not much to say about my performance, really. For the almost one hour I lasted, my cards were mostly lousy and my play about the same. Was much too tight (and weak) to be successful. Have to say I’m more than a little out-of-sync when it comes to tourney play at the moment. Ended up deciding to push my short-stack with and unfortunately got cracked by pocket queens.

Had Columbo (of those smart & funny “One-Minute Mysteries” regularly appearing on Ante Up!) on my right at my first table, with whom I had one semi-interesting encounter early on. We were in Level 2 (blinds 25/50). I had 1,490 in chips -- almost the starting stack. Columbo was down to 765 and from UTG raised it to 175. I had been dealt . Thought for a moment, and decided just to call. (Not gonna say I “smooth-called,” given how rough my play was Thursday night.) Everyone else got out and the two of us saw a flop of . We both checked. The turn was the , to which Columbo responded by pushing his remaining 590. I thought a moment. Didn’t put him on king, necessarily, but felt reasonably sure he had a pocket pair, so I let it go.

Right play? I suppose I could have pushed preflop and either taken his 175 chips or raced with him for over half my stack. Seemed too early for that, though. To be honest, the play had more to do with the generally-weak style I couldn’t seem to overcome Thursday night than anything else.

I haven’t been playing very much on Full Tilt Poker lately. Main reason is the smallish roll I currently sport over there, although I have to say there are a few other factors discouraging me from hanging out in the land of the geckos, cowboys, and clowns much more.

There was that nefarious SEO Black Hat applesauce back in late March wherein Full Tilt allowed a notorious spammer/scraper outfit to run a private freeroll tourney on its site. SEO even claimed Full Tilt had “sponsored” the freeroll, adding $5,000 to the prize pool -- a dubious assertion, though never specifically denied by Full Tilt. (See here if curious to learn more.)

Then there was that milquetoast response from FTP to the recent bots-on-the-loose terror. While I’m not personally too uptight at the moment about the bots coming to get me, Full Tilt’s “what-can-we-do?”-styled shrug at such an unmistakable example of edge-creating collusion doesn’t exactly inspire consumer confidence.

Finally, there was a royal screw-up with the AIPS event the other night wherein Full Tilt somehow mismanaged the payout structure for the tournament. As the number of registrants grew, it became apparent that the prizes being awarded weren’t being adjusted accordingly. By midday on Thursday, over 60 players had registered, yet only the top four finishers were scheduled to win any cash. Folks started to notice, and while emails were sent to Full Tilt over six hours before the tournament was scheduled to begin, FTP failed to respond prior to the tournament’s start.

So instead of paying out the top 12 spots (as the normal schedule would have done for a 6-handed tourney with 112 entrants), we ended up with an extremely-top heavy structure in which only the top four cashed. The prize for first place ended up being around 200 clams. Didn’t necessarily affect how I played the tournament, though I have to say it was a bit discouraging to lay down my moneys like that for a tourney in which less than 1 in 25 players cashed. And I do think the structure had to have influenced how a lot of folks played, particularly once they got down to 30-40 left.

Full Tilt eventually agreed to refund $5.50 into the accounts of those players who finished 5th through 12th. The right thing thing to do, all things considered. Nevertheless, I’m starting to see a trend here regarding the level and speed of Full Tilt’s response to their customers.

Ante Up! recently celebrated its 100th episode. If you haven’t heard it yet, check it out -- definitely one of the better poker podcasts going. I do like participating in the AIPS events and very much like taking part in the great Ante Up! community. Wouldn’t mind seeing the tourneys move over to PokerStars, though, where quick, effective customer support is much more obviously a concern than at FTP.

Das Ist Poker

One of the books I picked up at the Gambler’s Bookshop last month was David Spanier’s The Hand I Played, A Poker Memoir. The book is a collection of essays published posthumously in 2001, just after the author’s sudden death the year before. Spanier is one of those much-revered poker writers sometimes placed in the same category as Al Avarez (The Biggest Game in Town) and Tony Holden (Big Deal, Bigger Deal). Indeed, Spanier played with Alvarez and Holden in the famous “Tuesday night game,” one of the many topics he writes about in The Hand I Played.

The essays take various forms. Some are primarily autobiographical, such as the initial entry -- “Rambling ’n Gambling” -- documenting Spanier’s first forays into gambling and poker as a child and young adult. Others delve into the psychology of poker, such as “Gambling, Joy of,” which begins with Spanier discussing his own poker-related predilections, then moves outward to a more general assessment of why people take risks. There’s a chapter on internet poker (circa late 1990s) which is a bit dated but still hits on a lot of the still important issues, particularly the integrity of the online game. There’s a compilation of reviews of books about Las Vegas. And there’s a rundown of Spanier’s experience playing in the 1997 WSOP Main Event, an event he had covered as a writer pretty much since it began, but in which he had never played.

I was playing pot limit Omaha again today when I was reminded of a passage from The Hand I Played in which Spanier talks about how poker players tend to relate to one another. The passage begins with an analogy between people sitting around the poker table and a group of musicians jamming together:

At the table it is how everyone plays that counts. The same kind of relationship applies to musicians, who do not even have to speak each other’s language. The only criterion in a jam session is how they play. A common language obviously helps: conversations take place at the poker table which players might never venture in ‘real life.’

He goes on to talk about how the “social dimension of poker gives it a warmth and value notably absent from other forms of gambling,” and characterizes the relationship between players -- particularly those who have played a lot with one another -- as “far more than a casual acquaintance . . . yet far less than true friendship.”

I was playing on Stars -- $0.10/$0.25 PLO ($25 max. buy-in). I started the table. Have been doing that more and more lately, finding it silly how folks line up four and five deep at tables when it only takes a few hands to build another full ring. Once all of the seats were filled, I sat and basically played a quiet, mostly conservative game -- not chatting, not getting involved in too many big pots. Meanwhile, several of the other players who’d come to the table were very active, doing a lot of wild raising & reraising preflop and also chatting constantly. And all of the chat was in German.

I took a moment to glance around the table to see where everyone was from. The three primary chatters were all from Germany -- Buxtehude, Meckelfeld, Barsbüttel. Another was from Neunkirchen, which could be Germany or Austria, I think. The others were from Pasching (Austria), Sydney (Australia), Helsinki (Finland), and Arlington (Texas). A regular U.N. meeting, it was. Well, sort of.

Like most sites, Stars has an “English only” policy as far as chat goes. An anti-collusion measure. I wasn’t too worried about these guys chatting in German, though -- they seemed to be playing pretty aggressively against one another. I was curious to know what they were saying, of course. Finally, when one called another a “Dummfick” I decided I simply had to know. Where along the spectrum between “casual acquaintaince” and “true friendship” did these guys belong?

I logged out, called up the hand history, and fiddled a bit with AltaVista Babel Fish & my German dictionary. Here is most of what the three Germans said. I’ve changed their screen names to their home cities. To give a little context: Meckelfeld was bleeding chips profusely the entire time I was there, rebuying for $25 at least three times; Buxtehude had a nice rush, building his stack up over $80, then losing it all in a mere six hands; Barsbüttel ended up the big winner of the three, taking a lot of the other two players’ chips and then some. So you can imagine several suckouts and other examples of questionable play going on as these exchanges took place.

The translations are fairly close, I think, if a bit clunky. (I’m likely missing the point of an idiom or two here.)

Meckelfeld: “lucker!” [in English]
Buxtehude: “you are as stupid”
Barsbüttel: “am blond :)”
Meckelfeld: “as stupid as you . . . I am blond”
Buxtehude: “Next to Barsbüttel you are cool”
Meckelfeld: “Oh, I see!”

Barsbüttel: “Buxtehude had a powerfully big hand :)”
Buxtehude: “That is poker.”
Barsbüttel: “correct :)”
Buxtehude: “plus, it was suited”
Meckelfeld: “Gluecksschwein :-)” [which I think means “lucky pig”]
Barsbüttel: “should I watch out for you?”
Barsbüttel: “y”
Buxtehude: “all right then”

Buxtehude: “mmmuuuuaaahhhhhaaaaa” [after raking a $75 pot]
Barsbüttel: “nh”
Buxtehude: “that was my first straight flush”
Meckelfeld: “nice” [in English]

Buxtehude: “how much have you already lost today?”
Barsbüttel: “30$”
Meckelfeld: “lol”
Buxtehude: “since which [time] I am $50 [up] here”

Barsbüttel: “I was just pulling your leg :)”
Buxtehude: “what do you want now”
Buxtehude: “go play”
Meckelfeld: “stop the nonsense rascal”
Buxtehude: “me?”
Buxtehude: “uncle?” [in English]
Meckelfeld: “yep”
Buxtehude: “lol”

Buxtehude: “that’s so bad"
Meckelfeld: “lol :-)”
Barsbüttel: “who is the father of your beautiful daughter, Buxtehude? :)”
Meckelfeld: “exactly and drunk”
Buxtehude: “correct”
Buxtehude: “my daughter is not, however, all the same”

Meckelfeld: “Dummfick” [not translated]
Buxtehude: “greetings to your mother”
Buxtehude: “and now stop your [nonsense]”
Meckelfeld: “lol”

Barsbüttel: “what did you have, Buxtehude?”
Buxtehude: “nerve”
Barsbüttel: “much nerve”

Meckelfeld: “yes!” [in English]
Meckelfeld: “nh”
Meckelfeld: “only 3 of a kind” [in English]
Barsbüttel: “are again in the black”
Buxtehude: “this is only small money for me . . . ”
Buxtehude: “got to go, time to work”

Buxtehude: “is 4 hearts not enough here???” [after losing a hand with a four-flusher]
Meckelfeld: “it works nevertheless LOL”
Barsbüttel: “today is Father’s day :)”
Buxtehude: “it looks like at times you are as stupid”
Meckelfeld: “exactly”

Barsbüttel: “my boss also always says I am dumb :)”
Buxtehude: “I believe you”
Meckelfeld: “you are as stupid sometimes!”

Meckelfeld: “send my greetings to Buxtehude” [after Buxtehude had busted and left the table]

Didn’t understand much at all at the time, but I’d picked up the gist. Guys crackin’ on each other, geben it as good as they took it. (Still not sure what the references to fathers and daughters were about.) A little more than casual, though perhaps less than friendly. In the end, Spanier was right. Didn’t matter so much to the rest of us what they were saying, but how they were playing.