Live Poker: Oaks Card Club, Emeryville, CA

I’m here. In California. Playing poker. And blogging. Lemme fill you in.

After a bunch of hours in airports, planes, and a speedy taxi, Vera Valmore and I made it to our hotel late afternoon yesterday. She’s here for a conference, meaning I’ve got some daytime hours on my own. Got a tip sent to me via Waldo’s Wild Kingdom about some of the cardrooms around San Fran and I decided today to check out the Oaks Card Club over in Emeryville (across the bay).

The Oaks Card Club is probably the oldest cardroom in northern California, if not the entire state. Has been around since way before poker was legal here. The Oaks website says the club itself has been around since the 1890s. The Poker Shrink’s review of the room dates the card club’s origins during the 1930s. Whatever the case, the room -- open 24 hrs. a day & 7 days a week -- certainly has a lot of history.

Had read some of the other reviews and talked to a couple of other folks who suggested the Oaks to be worth checking out, even if it isn’t necessarily located in the best of neighborhoods. I was wary during the trip over, but didn’t run into any problems. Being without wheels, I took the BART over to the MacArthur stop, made a three-quarter mile trek west on 40th Street, then turned right on San Pablo Ave. and found myself at the club around 10 this morning. The entrance opens onto a single large room with around three dozen tables, about half of which were occupied when I arrived. I circled around the front desk and asked about low limit HE. They had one short-handed 3/6 game going, nothing for 2/4, and a full table of 1/2. That’s right -- 1/2. I only had a couple of hours, and since I was new to the place I went ahead and asked to be added to the 1/2 list. Within a couple of minutes a spot opened up, and pretty soon I was in my seat staring down at Big Slick.

I’d gone ahead agreed to post from late position. When the dealer asked me how many chips I wanted I took a peek around the table and saw no one seemed to have more than $20-30 or so in front of him, so I just bought $30 worth myself. Was a bit discombobulated and so didn’t even realize the action had passed by me without my getting a chance to raise my AK. Just as well, as the flop came Jack-high and some action before me encouraged me to fold the hand.

Ended up folding that first orbit or so as I tried to get a feel for my surroundings and the other players. We were 10-handed. There were a couple of senior citizens down at other end of the table who chatted a lot with the dealers and were clearly regulars. There were four players of Asian descent, two at each end, who spoke relatively little. There was an older black fellow in a toboggan named Frank who also seemed to be a regular. Then there were a couple of white guys -- an amiable, tattooed dude to my left sucking down Coronas & another younger guy across from me who spent most of the session nursing a teensy-weensy stack (under $10) and a Budweiser. And me.

The play was remarkably tight for a 1/2 game. Or so I assume -- can’t claim I’ve ever played a 1/2 live game before. Most hands only had three or four players see the flop, and there were quite a few hands played heads-up. Aside from Mr. Corona (who rapidly bled away over $50 -- maybe more -- playing just about every hand to the river), most of the table were rocks. After a while I picked up AQ and raised it, and it was just Budweiser and me to see the flop come A-3-5. He called my flop bet, but folded the turn. Then came a hand where I had in the big blind. This one saw a few limpers, then the button raise it. The SB called, as did I and the other limpers. There were five of us, I believe, to see the flop: .

Decent flop for me. We all checked it around to the button who bet, then we all called. Turn was the and again we all checked it. The button bet again, and this time just me and one other player called. The river brought my desired spade, the . I checked, the MP player bet out, and the button just called. Perfect. I check-raised, both called, and my king-high flush took the pot. I was up about $15 or so.

When the hand was over, Frank told me he knew I had something ’cause he saw my hands shaking when I went for the chips to check-raise. I joked that it was because I didn’t have the nut flush. He was right, though . . . I know I had given something away there, but it didn’t really matter much.

Frank ended up telling a couple of other players about their tells as well before I left. He played solidly himself, and in fact I saw him make a pretty incredible laydown in one hand (for a 1/2 LHE game, anyhow). A little later on he changed seats and was sitting on my left. (Dunno if the seat change was motivated by his having seen my shaky hands or not.) In a hand where I had folded, one of the senior citizens had raised preflop and Frank had called. I can’t remember the exact action, but by the turn there was an ace on the board and the senior citizen had bet. Frank hemmed and hawed, then folded, showing me his AQ as he did. The hand ended up going to showdown, and sure enough the old guy had AK.

Little while later I picked up KK -- the only big pair I’d get the whole session. The player to my right limped in UTG, I raised, everyone folded back to him and he called. I’d seen him raise preflop once with something like K4-suited; I’d also seen him showdown some crap hands like J4-off, so I didn’t really put him on anything in particular. The flop came J-9-4 rainbow, and he check-called my bet. The turn was a 5. He checked, I bet, and he check-raised. I called. Could just see him having fallen into two pair here.

The river was a blank. He bet, I called, and he showed AA. Ha! He’d limp-called preflop with the rockets. I went ahead and showed my kings and shrugged. “Bad timing,” I said. I’d lost $9 on the hand.

Not too much exciting happened after that. After nearly two hours I looked down to see I was up exactly $4. I gathered my chips, told everybody “good game,” cashed out, and made my way back to the MacArthur station. I’d earned enough for my ticket back.

I know a lot of folks consider a 1/2 LHE live game as something that belongs in the fourth circle of Dante’s Inferno. But for us short-stacked types who don’t get to play live that often, it’s a nice way to get a game in without inducing much bankroll anxiety. The dealers at the Oaks were friendly and competent, and the players at my table all fun to be around as well. Definitely worth the trip.

Got off the subway at the Civic Center stop and walked back to the hotel, grabbing a Falafel sandwich along the way. Lots of people milling about the farmer’s market & other stands today. I did see one small, pink-colored “Five Years -- How Many More?” poster, but I think the larger protests are happening downtown. Also, now that I think of it, there was a dude wearing an orange jumpsuit on the subway ride back -- something like what those detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base wear. If he wasn’t a prison escapee, he was probably part of a protest today, too.

A lot else going on that’s more important than folks pushing 50-cent chips back and forth across the baize. But I doubt any of that’ll be bothering the regulars too much this afternoon at the Oaks.

Going to California

Am headed to San Fran this morning for a week’s worth of R & R. Might well find my way to a cardroom while I’m there -- am not sure at this point. If so, I’ll surely report back what happens to transpire. I have never played a hand of poker in California before (not in a casino, anyway). So am definitely curious to get out there and see what’s what.

Have had a not-so-hot little stretch of online play here for the last few days, mostly at the PLO tables. And while I can’t say for certain, it seems like things should be going better.

Jeff Hwang makes a smart observation at the very beginning of his Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy. “Pot-Limit Omaha is not a 50-50 game,” writes Hwang. He explains that while those “coin flip” situations do come up fairly often (e.g., a flopped set vs. a big wrap+flush draw), “it is a pure fallacy that you have to be in a gambling situation when the money goes in.”

He’s absolutely correct. There are numerous scenarios whereby one can get one’s opponents all-in drawing dead or nearly dead, if one is savvy enough to recognize those spots and take advantage of them.

Even so, been feeling as though I have endured more than my fair share of suckouts here lately where I have my opponent at a severe disadvantage and he or she gets there by the end. Seems like everyone gunning for that flush draw (and nothing else) keeps hitting after I get ‘em all in on the turn with my big set. Those are usually 85-to-15 type situations. Then, of course, there are the cases where I have a smaller edge, or it really is a coin flip, and I don’t seem be winning enough of those to make up for the other losses.

Then there are the hands I just simply screw up – mistimed bluffs, stubborn big calls with no redraws, etc. Ended up scampering back over to limit Hold ‘em just to clear my head a bit.

Probably a good time to get away, frankly. The online poker world is such a headachy mess, and I ain’t even referrin’ to them crummy beats. For more on that, go check out Frank Frisina’s latest over at Life’s a Bluff. Frank is discussing Ultimate Bet’s admission to a cheating “scheme” occurring on its site and how little coverage it has received.

In his post Frank invites readers to Google “Ultimate Bet cheating” and see what they find. Let me invite you to do the same. On that first page, sort through the old stuff -- and a couple of links pointing you back here to Hard-Boiled -- and you’ll find an interesting post from last week that appeared on Richard Marcus’ site suggesting the UB scandal might be a lot bigger than even the site has let on. (Marcus is the author of Dirty Poker.) Take a gander at that list of problems going on over at UB . . . just horrific.

Meanwhile, do stay tuned over at Life’s a Bluff for the interview with John Pappas, Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance coming forth later this week, which I think should prove interesting as well.

Not sure at the moment what sort of access to the intertubes I’ll be enjoying while I am in San Fran, so my streak of posting at least once per weekday may well be in danger. So I’ll talk to you next either from California or after I return . . . .

Full Tilt Poker Apparently Plans To Violate One of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission’s “Regulations Concerning Interactive Gaming”

Disclaimer: The following has been written under the assumption that when an online poker site advertises itself as having been “regulated” by a third-party organization that claim is intended to signify a meaningful declaration to its customers that the site can be trusted. (A hopelessly naive premise from which to proceed? Perhaps. But let’s just pretend for a little while, shall we . . . ?)

A month or so ago I wrote to Full Tilt Poker to ask them about how the site was regulated. I was told they were licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, and that “At this time, that is the only regulatory body under which Full Tilt is currently licensed.”

Well, it appears that Full Tilt Poker has decided to violate one of the “Regulations Concerning Interactive Gaming” put forth by its only regulatory body. Namely, this one:



Let me explain.

Early last week, it was announced that an agreement had been reached between CardRunners and Full Tilt for the online poker site to begin sponsoring all of the CardRunners pros -- Taylor Caby, Andrew Wiggins, Brian Townsend, Brian Hastings, Mike Schneider, Cole South, and Eric Liu -- in one bundle. As the breathless press release noted, all of these “hottest young players and instructors in online poker now play exclusively at Full Tilt Poker.”

A thread soon began on Two Plus Two. “Great move by FTP to save face after firing that disgrace known as FieryJustice,” said one early poster. (You recall how Full Tilt Poker dealt with Jonathan Little’s indiscretion not two weeks ago.)

Didn’t take long, though, for some to wonder what effect the agreement might have on the quality of CardRunners’ instructional vids. “This could be pretty bad for the CR videos,” speculated one poster. “It will create a lot of unrealistic settings, where people go after them/stay away from them because their name is in red.”

After a couple of days and a few hundred more posts, Taylor Caby came onto the thread to announce that CardRunners had negotiated some new terms for its deal with Full Tilt. According to Caby,

Full Tilt will be making an exception to their “one account per player” policy for Cardrunners pros with the following stipulations:

The “alternate” account will only be used for the creation of educational video content.

At the end of every recorded session (on an alternate account), every player that played with the CR pro will be notified via email to explain what happened. In addition, they will be given a small token of appreciation (most likely FTP points) for their participation.

Anyone who loses money directly to the CardRunners pro will be given additional compensation for their loss.

I should also note that this arrangement applies to all videos created AFTER the FTP/CR partnership, as we have some unreleased videos to be released shortly.

As you might imagine, subsequent posters immediately began listing numerous potential problems with Full Tilt’s decision not to restrict CardRunners pros to its “one account per player” policy. I’ve also seen a couple of other responses to the news on PartTime Poker and PokerKing’s blog in which they, too, list a few of the many possible problems that could result from Full Tilt’s decision.

Lots of issues involved here. (That Two Plus Two thread I mentioned will probably go over 1,000 posts today.) Frankly, the whole idea of signing an exclusivity deals with instructional sites seems pretty half-baked. The fuzzy temporary bending of the site’s rules and then making nice afterwards only makes it worse. Giving money back to the losers? What the hell . . . ? (Online poker becomes less and less like “real” poker every day.)

Getting back, though, to the Kahnawake Gaming Commission’s reguations. (Which we’re continuing to pretend actually mean something . . . .)

Caby’s reference to the “one player per account” rule comes from Full Tilt Poker’s “Site Rules.” It is Rule No. 2 that states “Players are not allowed to create, use, or deposit to more than one account. Players who are found to have multiple accounts or to have allowed multiple users to access their account may face account suspensions or revocations, and forfeiture of their accumulated Full Tilt Points and real money balances.”

Of course, if one looks further down the list, one encounters Rule No. 12, which states “Full Tilt Poker reserves the right to modify or revise the Rules at any time, without notice to Players. Such amendments will become effective immediately upon being listed on the Full Tilt Poker website. It is the Players' sole responsibility to review the Rules and Policies, and remain abreast of any changes.”

I suppose one could argue, then, Full Tilt has already made it plain to us that if they want to make exceptions to the “one account per player” rule then they can do so. However, allowing the CardRunners pros to create these temporary “alternate” accounts clearly violates the Kahnawake Gaming Commission’s own “one account per website” rule.

Conclusion: If Full Tilt Poker does not rescind its agreement with CardRunners to allow the CR pros to use multiple accounts, it will violate one of the rules set forth in the Kahnawake Gaming Commission’s “Regulations Concerning Online Gaming” and thus subject itself to whatever sanctions the KGC deems appropriate.

I’ve written Full Tilt to ask them why they believe it is okay to ignore their only regulatory body’s regulations. Will share their response here.

(Okay, you can stop pretending now.)

(EDIT [added 3/21/08]: It took five days, but Full Tilt support did finally answer my question. Sort of. I asked them specifically about the Kahnawake Gaming Commission’s regulation No. 180 and how FTP could violate it this way and still remain a permit holder. Here is what they told me:

“We fully understand your concerns regarding CardRunners’ accounts on our site. Rest assured, we value our players’ opinions and are considering all options before a decision is made.

Please stay tuned for updates via email or our software on how CardRunners’ educational videos will be handled.”

Dunno if others pointed out the KGC regulation to them or not, but it sounds as though Full Tilt is still thinking about how to handle their new agreement. I guess we'll all just have to “stay tuned.”)

The Good, the Bad, and the UIGEA

There were a couple of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act-related items in the news during the past week or so. This stuff hums along in background like your refrigerator, and only every now and then do you hear that clunk of the ice machine reminding you it’s there.

Although neither item to which I’m referring seemed to garner that much attention this week, both seemed to be taken (by some) as victories in the struggle to keep the UIGEA from getting any closer to being enforced. That’s how this background stuff usually goes -- you hear that clunk, remember fleetingly there’s a machine making ice over there, and take it for granted everything is working as it should.

But take a closer look. Neither of these developments sound all that great to me.

The Dismissal of the iMEGA Case

Remember that lawsuit brought by the Interactive Gaming Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) against the U.S. government? Last July, iMEGA brought an action against (then) U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in which the group challenged the enforceability of the UIGEA. Among its charges, iMEGA argued that the UIGEA was unconstitutional, and therefore they requested an injunction against its implementation so that matter could be sorted out in a court of law.

After a number of delays, the case was eventually heard and last week dismissed by U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper. That means all of the points raised by iMEGA -- about the law’s selective prohibitions, about constitutionality, about inconsistencies with regard to individual state’s laws -- were considered and rejected. The silver lining here was that Judge Cooper did say that iMEGA had “legal standing” to represent the interests of online gambling going forward, meaning the group can continue to fight the UIGEA, although it looks as though they’ll have to come up with a different plan of attack.

On their website, iMEGA expressed excitement about the fact that they’re being allowed to continue the fight. However, I think they get a little carried away when they claim that by recognizing iMEGA’s right to fight, “Judge Cooper found that banks, credit card companies and other payment system instruments are exempt from criminal sanctions under UIGEA.” A tip of the fedora to cheer_dad for pointing this out earlier in the week. As cheer_dad says, there’s not much in the opinion that actually indicates what iMEGA is saying here. My impression is that iMEGA is taking the mere fact of being recognized as having “legal standing” as perhaps suggesting their case against the UIGEA indeed has merit.

PokerNews did the best job reporting this one, although some other folks took iMEGA at their word and passed along (inaccurately) that the UIGEA had somehow been officially, legally made impotent as the banks, credit card companies, and other “financial transaction providers” no longer had to worry about penalties for non-compliance. Not so.

American Banking Association Comments on UIGEA Regulations

Back in October, the feds issued the proposed regulations for the UIGEA and invited comment. That comment period ended in mid-December, and this week the American Banking Association’s 11-page response was made public over on PokerNews. (See also the Kick Ass Poker blog for the full text of the ABA’s comments.)

Now this is good news insofar as it confirms what a lot of folks had been suspecting all along, namely, that the banks have no interest in sorting through all of our transactions to decide which are with online gambling sites and which are not. The ABA’s statement includes several, hard-to-refute arguments for why doing so would not only be impractical, but detrimental to the U.S. banking industry. As the ABA puts it, “the UIGEA will in the end catch more banks in a compliance trap and do greater damage to the competitiveness of the American payments system, than it will stop gambling enterprises from profiting on illegal wagering.”

The publication of the ABA’s complaints echoes similar objections made in late February by U.S. senators John Sununu (R-NH) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) in their letter to the Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System regarding the impracticality of enforcing the UIGEA (discussed here). The ABA is politically powerful, and thus one would think its objections should carry even more weight than would the objections of the senators.

As I say, all good. But there’s something else to worry about here.

The ABA offers nine different points in its comments, one of which concerns the old “overblocking” problem we’ve discussed here before. Since the proposed regulations don’t define what unlawful Internet gambling transactions exactly are, banks may choose to “overblock” any suspect-seeming transaction. That notion had been bandied about before. Indeed, in her testimony before the senate last November, Annie Duke pointed out that the banks would likely pursue such a course of action if the UIGEA regs were finalized without any added clarification regarding prohibited transactions.

The discussion of “overblocking” in the ABA’s comments on the regs confirm that strategy. It’s the third point they make, labeled “Preservation of the ‘over-blocking’ provisions of the Prohibition is essential to workability for financial institutions.” At the end of that section, the “ABA requests that the text [of the pertinent section of the UIGEA] be amended to include an explicit statement affirming the ability of payments systems and their participants to refuse to process any gambling transactions for their own business reasons or discretion.”

Not good. Not good at all. I’m not saying I know what we (online poker players) do want in terms of regulation or whatever, but I know for certain we do not want that particular amendment made to the law before it is finalized.

Damn, we need to call a repairman or somethin’.

(EDIT [added 9:30 p.m.]: For a summary of other comments to the UIGEA regs, see Jason Kirk's PokerListings article [dated tomorrow] titled “Stakeholders sound off on UIGEA regulations”)

“People Call With Anything”

I typed that into chat last night after losing a modest amount in a silly PLO hand. I try my best not to gripe -- we all know little good can come from doing so. But in this particular instance my fingers somehow were able to operate independently of instructions from the ol’ cerebral cortex. It happens.

It was one of those “orphaned pot”-type hands. There had been a preflop raise from a player who’d been chucking out 3x bets preflop every other hand. This time I’d called his raise from late position with two middle pairs and we were heads-up. By the time we’d reached the river, I hadn’t improved, and there were four Broadway cards out there. So following my opponent’s check, I decided to take a crack at it, pushing an oversized bet (not quite pot) out into the middle.

I’m a conservative player, by nature, although I will gamble it up sometimes in PLO. Oftentimes I’ll build up a fairly tight image, then let loose a bluff like this which’ll often enough get respected & elicit the desired folds.

Didn’t work this time, tho’. Dude called me with nothing but a bare ace. That’s right -- a pair of aces. With four friggin’ Broadway cards on board.

He typed back a “LOL” after my whiny missive and we had a friendly chat afterwards. Tho’ I have to admit I felt like I was talking to someone who might very well be missing a chromosome.

The fact is, there are certain times when one finds a preponderance of untutored play going on at the PLO tables. I probably play the majority of my hours during the late afternoon or early evening, meaning there are many times when I find myself up against decent players, most of whom tend to have a clue about what’s what. However, at other times -- especially later in the evening (when I played last night) -- with the drunks and other assorted crazies, you see all kinds of nutty behavior.

For example, spent a good stretch last night sitting to the right of a guy who raised pot preflop every single hand for about fifty or sixty consecutive hands. Certainly affected the table dynamic. Problem was, he didn’t seem to have much idea what to do after the flop, so while he’d hit hands every once in a while, he was bleeding chips fairly quickly. I managed to pick him off a couple of times, although he was able to remain afloat a surprisingly long while by turning quads a couple of times.

You see many other obvious faux pas in this "party" atmosphere. A lot of overplayed aces, of course. Insta-all-ins with flush draws (even non-nut) is pretty common. And there’s a lot of overvaluing of non-wrapped straight draws (where one might not even have eight nut outs). Just have to be patient and wait for something, ’cos you will be paid.

Of course, while one is waiting there’s usually plenty enough going on to remain entertained. Aside from the crazy plays, this is the time when one is more likely to encounter funny chat, too. Like last night, when the dude with the word “blunt” in his nick saw someone win a $4.20 pot and typed “nice 420 lol.” (Cue Beavis and Butthead uncontrollable giggle clip.)

Or that other guy with his whiny “people call with anything” complaint. LOL.

Rewards (Others & One’s Own)

Had a nice moment at work this morning. Ain’t gonna get too specific here about particulars of the workplace, but the gist of the story is I just happened to be there when a colleague was told the higher-ups had approved his working another year. He’s a good guy, and the sincerity of his reaction -- a big ol’ happy handshake to the person who delivered the news -- was weirdly infectious. Not only did I feel good for the guy, but in a hard-to-explain way realized I felt happier for him than I tend to feel when good fortune comes my way.

I’m not pretending to claim I’m a wholly selfless person who only cares for others. I’m as self-interested as the next guy. Hell, writing 400 posts, the majority of which tend to involve communicating my own personal pleasures and pains, should stand as conclusive evidence of at least a latent strand of narcissicism that probably chararacterizes most poker players. Rather, there’s something about seeing others’ get rewarded for doing well -- for a modest example of justice being served, I suppose -- that is utterly reassuring to those of us who happen to witness such an occurrence.

Maybe I was more susceptible to the subject of others’ welfare because when I drove into work this morning I listened to the latest Two Plus Two Pokercast (with Brad Booth and Nolan Dalla). In particular I am referring to the brief interview with Steve Cooke, a.k.a. “bigbamboom,” one of the two fellows selected for that “Supernova Highway” challenge, that comes up at the end of the show.

I’m not up on all of the particulars of the challenge, but my understanding is the candidates both play on PokerStars and when the challenge began both were sitting at one of the lower rungs of the VIP Club (i.e., “BronzeStar” or “SilverStar”). The idea is for the two of them to put in enough time at the tables to make it all of the way to SuperNova status by the end of the calendar year. Neither of the players -- Cooke and Simon Noel (a.k.a. “GrinningBuddha”) -- are being bankrolled, but they will receive some instruction from the TwoPlusTwo Pokercast hosts as well as other online pros along the way. I believe they might be getting a few other perks thrown their way as well (e.g., free subscriptions to online training sites).

Of the two, I am marginally more aware of Cooke since he contributes to the PokerSift blog (as “bigbamboom”) and has been reporting some over there about his Supernova Highway adventure. Enjoyed hearing him on the show discuss his poker-playing situation and goals. Like a lot of us, he’s a part-timer who has played only micro or low limits for a few years. As he says in the interview, he sees himself as “represent[ing] the low-level guy who’s really trying to learn and improve [his] game.” I was already predisposed in Cooke’s favor from reading his PokerSift posts, but I like him even more after hearing him on the show. He also mentions there how, in fact, his wife had just given birth to baby daughter. Definitely easy to identify with a guy like “bigbamboom” who has a full life outside of online poker.

All of this inspired me to check out whether I have any hopes of climbing up into the “SilverStar” range on Stars. I only play 10-15 hours a week, and so hadn’t ever really bothered to look into the VIP Club and its benefits. I realized, though, that I’m actually about a third of the way there in terms of VIP points to reaching SilverStar by month’s end, so I may give myself a little challenge here to pursue as well.

In any event, I’ll be following Cooke’s progress, too, and definitely wish him well -- both with the family stuff and with the challenge. As I say, there’s something rewarding about watching others who are deserving succeed.

Except when I’m heads-up against ’em, of course.

Tick, Tick, Tick: 60 Minutes Looking at Absolute Poker

Well, whaddya know. Apparently that there Absolute Poker insider cheating scandal isn’t going to vanish away after all.

Yesterday Nat Arem reported he had been contacted by 60 Minutes and the Washington Post for quotes regarding the AP scandal, and that 60 Minutes co-anchor Steve Croft was interested in interviewing him and Serge “Adanthar” Ravitch on camera. No word on when (or if, even) the piece may ultimately reach air, although something tells me a certain, celebrated poker event scheduled for early summer might provide a nifty segue for the person introducing the segment that Sunday night on CBS.

I think this is terrific news. The scandal and Absolute Poker’s handling of it were not just disgraceful, but criminal. Any negative repercussions a 60 Minutes exposé might bring to the site are entirely deserved. That seems plain enough.

Of course, there are some who are currently fretting about what angle 60 Minutes might choose to take with the story. Will they focus primarily on the wrongdoings down in Costa Rica, exposing (finally) the guilty as they deserve? Will they play up the admittedly fascinating super-sleuthing of Arem, Ravitch, and others who helped crack the case? Will they touch at all on how all this fits into the current legal imbroglio fostered by the UIGEA and those soon-to-be-finalized regulations . . . ?

Or will the story present the Absolute Poker scandal as evidence supporting some sort of comprehensive thesis damning the entire online poker industry? In other words, while the story is surely a positive insofar as it will shed light on Absolute Poker’s sorry behavior and treatment of its customer base, will there be collateral damage here? Will the online poker industry somehow suffer as a result of such negative press about AP?

Nolan Dalla fears as much. In a PokerListings article yesterday, Dalla says he worries that “the target” of the story will not be “the creep” (i.e., A.J. Green) “or Absolute Poker (which deserves scrutiny) -- but rather the entire online poker industry.”

Dalla goes on to point out that while, in his opinion, there is “no chance” the UIGEA will be revoked nor will any of the other proposed bills (e.g., Barney Frank’s IGREA) be passed by the current Congress, it bothers him that “public perceptions will be shaped for a long time by what is shown and seen by 20 million viewers on 60 Minutes.”

“I fear the portrait will be ugly -- a slimy, unregulated, corrupt band of outlaws operating way outside the boundaries of the law or justice,” writes Dalla. “Never mind that many online sites are publicly traded companies with top-flight managers and personnel, and are strictly regulated within their host countries. Perception and reality are two completely different things.”

Is Dalla right? Should those of us who play online poker be worried? Will a 60 Minutes segment showing the world what happened at Absolute Poker last summer and fall bring undue harm to the industry in general, and a lot of extra headaches for those of us who like to play?

A couple of thoughts come to mind here.

For one, I don’t quite understand these fears about what might happen should the “entire online poker industry” start receiving “scrutiny.” Indeed, it is the lack of scrutiny that helps create an environment where scandals such as the one that happened at Absolute Poker are more likely to occur. Dalla himself points out that many online sites are, in fact, well-managed and regulated. If so, it would seem to follow that most of the industry could, in fact, withstand whatever close inspection Steve Kroft and his merry crew might bring.

Secondly, for those who truly worry about the effect the 60 Minutes story might have on “public perception,” tell me which you would prefer:

(1) The public to believe (wrongly) that the online poker industry is run by “a slimy, unregulated, corrupt band of outlaws operating way outside the boundaries of the law or justice”; or,

(2) That really to be the case.

‘Cause if you are against stories like the Absolute Poker scandal being told, well, you’re just making it easier for us all to get to the second option.

* * * * *
Damned if this doesn’t make 400 posts. Had thought I might engage in a bit of navel-gazing today, but as you can see, something else came up.

Just as well. I’m sure there are more than enough of them self-reflexive, whazzit-all-about type posts among the first 399, for those who want to go searching for such applesauce. (You can try out that fancy new search feature I added a couple of weeks ago.)

Big thanks again to everyone for reading & all them good vibes.

In the Fishbowl

Was kicking around the PLO tables on Stars yesterday afternoon and decided to watch a couple of the Sunday tourneys while I played. Spotted a short-stacked Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad bust out of the $200+$15 Sunday Warm Up. Moved over to the $100+$9 w/rebuys tourney and noticed a few familiar names up and down the leaderboard, including Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, Shane “Shaniac” Schleger, and Tim “Tmay420” West. Ended up spending a little bit of time railing a table featuring not one but two well-known online phenoms, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul. While there I witnessed a semi-interesting situation come up involving the two of them I thought I’d share.

This was not quite a couple of hours into the tourney – Level 8 (200/400 blinds with a 25-chip ante). Saul was actually the chip leader at the time with over 46,000 in chips. Meanwhile, Josephy had recently lost a chunk of his stack after missing a nut flush draw and found himself down to a lowly 4,145 in chips, putting him near the bottom of the 250 or so players remaining. Folded to Saul who from middle position put in a raise to 1,100. Another player folded, then Josephy raised all-in, pushing his remaining 4,120 into the middle.

It folded back around to Saul who took a few extra seconds deciding what to do. At the time, the pot was a little over 6,000, and it would take just about 3,000 for him to make the call -- about 2-to-1. As an untutored observer watching from afar, I couldn’t imagine Saul folding in this situation unless he had utter trash. And since he’d raised, it seemed as if he at least had something. But what do I know . . . .

Finally he made the call, and the cards were turned over. Josephy had a pair of kings, while Saul had . Both players sarcastically typed “RACE!” as the cards came out. A king flopped, and Josephy managed to survive. “NICE SUCKOUT BAD,” wryly typed Saul. (I think he meant either “Bax” or “bud.”) Josephy quickly responded with a “tyty.”

During the next hand, Saul typed “id love to fold there...” Then, “but everyone screams chipdump if i do.” He added a little frowny face.

He’s right, of course. That thought had crossed my mind as I watched. As Saul hesitated before making the call, I thought about how these guys all know one another, and might very well soft play in situations just like this one. (The fact that Saul and Josephy work together at PokerXFactor perhaps encourages such suspicions even further, for those who can’t help indulgin’ in them.) Completely unfair, of course, for me to think that way, although in today’s collusion-clouded climate, such thoughts are understandably hard to avoid.

While Saul certainly shouldn’t feel obligated to make an incorrect and/or marginal play in a spot like that just to stave off unfounded charges of complicity, I have to say I do appreciate seeing some of these guys showing an awareness of such matters. Would definitely be unfair should anything like that be happening, and I imagine a few of those who were sitting around the pair’s table probably appreciated Saul’s post-hand disclaimer.

Kind of makes missteps such as the one made by Jonathan Little last week even harder to comprehend. Once you experience some success -- online or live -- yr in the fishbowl, whether you like it or not. And people be watchin’.

Cheating “Scheme” Confirmed at UltimateBet

Rather than notify users or post anything on its website, Ultimate Bet -- following the same, questionable path of its partner, Absolute Poker -- has decided to publicize news regarding allegations of cheating on its site by sending messages to various poker people who then pass the stuff along to the poker community at large.

Around 9:00 p.m. (EST) on Friday, Mason Malmuth posted the following over on Two Plus Two:

Hi Everyone:

We just received this from Ultimate Bet and they asked us to post it. So here it is.

Best wishes,
Mason

ULTIMATEBET INTERIM STATEMENT

Contact: Press@ultimatebet.com

Montreal, Canada (March 6, 2008) – UltimateBet (UB), one of the ten largest online poker cardrooms, today issued the following interim statement with respect to allegations of unfair play on its site.

“On January 12, 2008, UltimateBet was alerted to allegations that a player with the online handle “NioNio” exhibited abnormally high winning statistics and was accused of having an unfair advantage during play. These allegations were made both directly to UltimateBet by concerned players and the KGC, and indirectly through several web forums. The allegations also included reports of suspicious activity concerning the deletion of the NioNio account and other accounts that may have been related to this scheme.

“We immediately launched an extensive inquiry involving an independent third-party expert to review hundreds of thousands of hand histories, all of which were promptly locked down and made available to this expert. The initial findings of our third-party expert confirm that the NioNio account’s winning statistics were indeed abnormal, and we have expanded the investigation to look into whether an unfair advantage existed, how such a scheme might have been perpetrated, and whether additional accounts beyond those of NioNio were involved.

“UltimateBet is in regular communications and contact with its regulatory authority, The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), and will continue to cooperate fully with that body.

“UltimateBet is determined to complete a full and thorough investigation. We pride ourselves on providing a safe, secure playing environment for our customers. The investigation has proven to be extremely complex and, therefore, has been more extensive and taken much longer than initially expected. We continue to aggressively pursue the matter and will communicate the findings of our full investigation to our regulatory authority and to our customer base as soon as practicable.”

Of course, when Ultimate Bet says they plan to communicate the findings to its customer base, I think we all know better. Only those among their customer base who happen to peruse forums like Two Plus Two, poker blogs, and/or a few of the poker news sites are ever going to hear the first word about cheating occurring on the site on which they play.

If you do happen to be one of those few who both play at Ultimate Bet and read the forums and/or Hard-Boiled Poker, tell me this: Does this vague report of a cheating “scheme” make you feel any safer about UB?

Avoiding Becoming “Ring Sour” (& Some Friday Funnies)

This week Vera Valmore asked me that question all poker players -- especially those of us marooned in non-pokery environs -- love love love to be asked:

“Do you think you might like to go to Vegas this summer?”

Didn’t take long to reply.

It could happen. This might be the summer I finally make it to a World Series of Poker. We’d probably shoot for a 4-5 day excursion, I’d imagine. Gotta look over the calendar and see what might work.

We’ve been to Vegas a few times before, more than once to see the Fédération Équestre Internationale World Cup which happens in Vegas every other year. As I’ve said here a few times, Vera rides dressage, which is one of the areas of competition featured in the FEI World Cup (along with jumping, eventing, and driving).

Speaking of dressage, Vera mentioned to me the other day something about a phenomenon occasionally affecting horses in which they become what is called “ring sour.” When I asked Vera what that exactly meant, she explained that such a horse has begun to express signs of being discontent with its routine -- specifically with regard to training for shows, being used for lessons, and other activities that take place inside the ring. The horse becomes increasingly less manageable and often simply needs a break from the customary pattern (e.g., getting turned out to roam freely for an extended period). That old bromide about how “you can lead a horse to water” comes to mind here . . . .

It is tempting to apply the term “ring sour” to poker, although to do so probably glosses over the precise meaning of the concept. I’m sure most players have experienced this feeling of boredom or restlessness, particularly if they find themselves playing the same game at the same stakes (and perhaps with the same opponents) day in and day out. I know I did during that long stretch of nothing but limit Hold ’em that characterized the first year or so of this blog. Then I moved over to PLO and more recently have been playing the mixed games, all of which has helped prevent me from becoming “ring sour.”

I suppose the idea could be applied even more broadly to the cash game-vs.-tourney distinction. I don’t play many tourneys, and so even though I’m playing a variety of games at the cash tables, I could see becoming weary of the non-conclusive nature of the perpetual ring game. Another good reason to go play Saturdays with Pauly tomorrow. (And I invite you along.)

Will definitely let you know if & when a WSOP trip falls into place. (Indeed, just the idea of it is enough to stave off any feelings of being “ring sour.”)

Meanwhile, if for some reason you’ve been feeling sour lately, let me point you to a few Two Plus Two threads that will help brighten your mood. (And no, there ain’t no Hawbakerian applesauce happenin’ in any of these whatsoever, as far as I know.)

This first is a thread that started last month called PA calls Jman "worlds biggest nit" jman220/Edit: Will The Cat Make The Jump? I think I remember the guys on the Two Plus Two Pokercast refer to this one. Lotsa funnies here, but for my money, post #45 gets the prize for truly inspired absurdist wit. (As is the case with all of these, do read from the beginning for the full effect.)

Then check out this seemingly sincere suggestion from a new poster to Eliminate Sunday Million that didn’t take very long to veer headlong into unchecked lunacy.

Finally, this one began yesterday afternoon and appears as though it may have some potential: FTP Avatar as a tell.

Have a good weekend, all.