Nine Players In Search of a Final Table

You must’ve heard by now. ESPN and Harrah’s has confirmed that the final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event will be delayed 117 days in order to have sufficient time to package the sucker into a big ol’ crazy Spectacle of Unprecented Magnitude in the History of Mankind or At Least That Part of History That Involves Mankind Playing Cards.

Some, like Daniel Negreanu, believe this move represents a “huge step forward for poker.” Others are decidedly less enthused.

Was reading poker pro Terrence Chan discussing the change over on his blog earlier today. More than anything, he expresses amazement that such a huge decision could have been made for such a big event without any sort of prior attempt to test out the logistics of it all.

“Consider this,” writes Chan, “they’re running an experiment on the biggest prize in the game with something like a combined $20-25 million in player money at stake! It’s ludicrous. You don’t just dramatically change the format of the biggest tournament in the world with absolutely no precedent or trial run. To my knowledge, not once in the entire history of poker has a final table run four months after they break for it. And they decide the best time to try it for the first time is the main event of the World Series?”

That frankly astounds me, also. That officials not only would wait until the beginning of May to make the decision, but that they are willing to experiment with the idea at such high stakes.

I realize that on some level there’s no way to “test” out anything with a trial run when it comes to the World Series of Poker Main Event. Nothing else compares to it, so there’s no way (not really) to take a tournament of similar scale and see what sort of consequences might arise after delaying a final table several months and then airing it (sort of) live.

Then again, the idea could have been attempted with, say, a WSOP Circuit event. The creation of a “live”-ish, televised final table for one of those would’ve certainly reignited flagging interest in that tour again, as doing so would likely have attracted big name pros to play who otherwise wouldn’t have.

Too late for all that now, though.

The whole idea of having these nine players sit around waiting four months to find out how their stories are going to end reminds me a bit of another experiment -- a literary one -- Luigi Pirandello’s 1921 play Six Characters in Search of an Author.

As you might imagine from the title, Pirandello’s play is one of those headachy, self-reflexive, “idea”-type works of literature that probably appeal much more to academics than actual audiences. Indeed, when it was first performed at the Valle di Roma in 1921, the play apparently enraged enough patrons that the search for an author became somewhat literal (and aggressive), with Pirandello ultimately being chased from the theater.

The play nevertheless stands as an important example of existentialist storytelling, thoughtfully addressing the idea that (as one of the characters says) “each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us has his own special world.”

Six Characters begins with a group of actors and the Manager rehearsing another of Pirandello’s plays. They are interrupted when the “characters” enter and explain that Pirandello had sketched them for some other fictional work, but never completed it. Thus they are searching for an “author” or someone to help them act out their “drama,” thus (one supposes) making them more fully realized as characters.

The rest of the play shows the “characters” and the actors and Manager unsuccessfully try to negotiate the staging of their story, with lots of discursive digressions along the way regarding the nature of art and literature, ideas about identity, and other existentialist themes.

World Poker Tour final tables sort of work this way, one could argue. Before the final table is filmed, the last six players are all taken aside for interviews, then the proceedings are shot, edited, and repackaged -- in other words, “authored” -- so as to create a “drama” of sorts that otherwise might not have been as readily apparent to those outside the ropes.

Of course, in the case of WPT final tables, the delay prior to the staging of that final table is negligible. While the producers of the television show do get to shape the “characters” somewhat, the players all still remain pretty much themselves, relatively speaking.

With the four-month-long delay prior to the WSOP ME final table, that can’t happen. As I quoted Greg Raymer saying in the previous post, “this long gap allows the players to become completely different people between the time they make the final table.” I think that is probably what bothers me the most about the idea -- the fact that the nine players will necessarily be “different people” by the time we get to November.

They’ll resemble what they were back in July, but they’ll be different, for sure, each representing a host of different interests, backers, coaches, theories, and others’ conceptions of who they were before. As Negreanu points out, we are going to see a “different dynamic” at the final table than we would have otherwise.

He likes it, of course. “You’re going to see some really kind of more sophisticated play,” says Negreanu. Breathlessly. He might be right. He might be wrong. Whatever happens, though, it will be different than what it would have been.

A bit like in Six Characters, actually, when the actors try to act out the characters’ lives for them. As one of the characters points out, “It will be difficult to act me as I really am.” And so the actors fail. Miserably.

I don’t like the fact that the players will have changed -- will have become “authored” so heavily into someone else’s story.

I mean damn, it’s poker. One player to hand, already.

2008 WSOP ME Final Table Rescheduled to November

Less than a month before the 2008 World Series of Poker kicks off, ESPN and Harrah’s has announced that the final table of this year’s Main Event will be delayed until November 9th and 10th, with an edited version of the FT being shown on November 11th -- a delay of nearly four months from when they’ll have reached the final nine.

Former WSOP Main Event champions Greg Raymer (2004) and Tom McEvoy (1983), both members of Team PokerStars, are expressing mixed feelings about the decision. “I am very torn over this proposal,” says Raymer. “It might be huge for the continued growth of poker, however, the down side is this long gap allows the players to become completely different people between the time they make the final table, and when they play it.”

Raymer voices a concern that several raised when rumors began swirling last month that the change was being considered. “You know all nine will get coaching,” says Raymer, “and especially they will get coaching tailored to each of their eight opponents.”

McEvoy’s comments primarily concern how the change will affect the staging of the event itself. “If players have to leave for several weeks and then come back for the Main Event, I think it would reduce attendance,” says McEvoy. Still, he ultimately is more positive about the change than is Raymer, saying he thinks it is “a very interesting and exciting thing to do” and that he favors it.

Kind of interesting to see how the two champs -- one of whom won well before the Moneymaker “boom” and one who won immediately afterward -- seem to be responding differently (in tone, at least) to the change.

What do I think? While some of the arguments in favor of the change are intriguing, I have to admit my feelings on the matter haven't altered all that much from what I posted in a comment over on Pokerati a month ago:

“If we’re talking old-fashioned stuff like integrity, competition, and, well, poker, my first, second, and third impressions are this is a truly horrific idea.

If we’re talking new-world stuff like celebrity, hype, and crass commercialism, why this is the bee’s knees!”

In any event, the decision has been made. Let the arguments begin.

April Is the Coolest Month

Spent a little time today looking over the April stats. Turned out to be a terrific month -- my third-best ever. My previous all-time best month was last April, actually. Something about the springtime, I suppose.

Ended up playing a lot of different games over the last thirty days. I could go back and check, but I probably played fewer hands of Hold ’em (a little under 400) during April than in any previous month since I started playing online poker.

Altogether I played about 8,200 hands of poker, not counting tournaments (of which I only played a couple, the only significant cash being last Saturday). Most of the hands were pot limit Omaha (61.1%), followed by Stud/8 (20.1%), H.O.R.S.E. (12.3%), and limit Hold ’em (4.6%). I played one short session of Stud Hi and PLO/8 (both times having accidentally sat down at those tables). Also played a few hands of five card stud on Bodog.

Essentially broke even in those Hold ’em hands. Won a little at H.O.R.S.E. and a little more at Stud/8. But by far most of my winnings for the month -- nearly 90% -- came at the PLO tables.

Why did April go so well? I ran well, I know. The biggest difference, though, had to be the fact that I rarely bought in short all month. I had been in the habit of buying in for $10 at the PLO25 tables, employing the short-stacker’s strategy of looking for spots to gamble and double up. Was mostly working, I suppose, but I had come to realize that once I did get a bigger stack I tended to make better decisions.

Finally I just started buying in for the max. every time, and while I did get stacked every once in a while, my overall swings were actually less dramatic than they were when I was primarily buying in short.

Of course, it helped to have hands like this one (from last night):



What a massacre! Bodies all over the stage. Doesn’t hurt to have a big stack, I suppose, when the cards come out so agreeably.

Let’s keep it goin’ in May, why don’t we?

The Razz Singer

Sorry for that post title. Yes, I did watch American Idol last night. And yes, I am a sucker for puns.

A semi-interesting thread popped up this week on 2+2. Kind of reinforces something I mentioned a few weeks ago in a post titled “In the Fishbowl.” If yr a pro and/or high stakes player online, people are watching you. You can count on it.

The thread starts with a long cut-and-paste of some chat that recently took place at a $1,000/$2,000 H.O.R.S.E. table on Full Tilt Poker. The chat involves two Full Tilt pros -- Mike Matusow and David Singer -- and a couple of other non-pros, one of whom is named “Sassi.”

Near the beginning of the chat, Singer asks Matusow who Sassi is. Matusow knows, but won’t reveal his identity to the table. When Singer asks why, Matusow replies “ijust catn,” then adds “hes a idiot thouigh.” Shortly after that, Matusow reveals that apparently two different players use the Sassi account: “ther is sassai a and sassi b,” he explains. Then the Mouth says it “would not be fair tohim” (or them, I suppose) for Matusow to say anything more.

The reference to fairness inspires Singer to make a couple of observations. First of all, says Singer, “its a big disadvantage and sort of not fair to me, if everyone knows [who “Sassi” is] except me.” “Not really,” Matusow replies. “Hes an idiot.” Then Singer points out “its really supposed to be one player to an account.”

Looking at it from the outside, it would seem Singer’s second objection (about multiple players playing on a single account) should be the more meaningful one. However, Singer’s subsequent chat reveals he’s much more concerned with the former complaint that in playing Sassi he must play against an unknown:

David Singer: I am tired of all this mystery. Its hard enough to
try to win on a lever playing field. I guess I should just stop
playing these high limit games
David Singer: Seems unfair that everyone know who i am, and
then I am playing against mystery players sharing accounts
Sassi: my name is arthur
Sassi: fonzarrelli
David Singer: How can you win like that, Mike. It seems
impossible to beat a game given that kind of disadvantage
Mike Matusow: figured idiot alwasy got a bad on e in whole
Mike Matusow: blame howard
David Singer: y?
Sassi: sound like david is being a poor sport
Mike Matusow: ive told the idot 10000 times anyone playing
high stakes on her eshoudl play under ther own name
Mike Matusow: he told me if i dont lik it dont play
David Singer: How Am I being a poor sport?
David Singer: I am just being realistic
Sassi: you just are you think phil ivey would ever say those
things
Mike Matusow: well its even better whenther are like 50 of the
monallacccounts
Sassi: if you want to be a champ
Sassi: act like a champ
Mike Matusow: lol
Sassi: not a chump

A little bit later, Matusow tells Singer, essentially, that such a situation comes with the territory for Full Tilt pros.

Mike Matusow: dont blame anyone but yoru boss
Mike Matusow: know one
David Singer: what boss?
Mike Matusow: the one that sends u apay check
David Singer: i don't have a boss
David Singer: u mean howard
David Singer: ?
Mike Matusow: hmm i do
Sassi: im you boss
Mike Matusow: and he tells me if i dont like it dont play
David Singer: i am not blaming anyone
David Singer: i am just saying i think i am at a disadvantage
in this situation

Those responding in thread mostly criticize Singer for complaining about the disadvantage of having to play under his real name as a Full Tilt pro. They also almost unanimously congratulate Sassi for his inspired . . . well . . . sass.

While the account-sharing issue is a valid concern of Singer’s, it certainly appears odd for a Full Tilt pro to complain this way about the “playing field” not being level between himself and an anonymous competitor. As Sassi puts it later on (echoing Matusow), “if you want annonymity, dont get paid by full tilt.”

Matusow’s comment about the need for all high stakes players to play under their own accounts is an interesting one, I think, though practically speaking it doesn’t really seem like that would be a realistic idea.

What do you think about Singer’s complaints and/or Matusow’s idea?

The Name Game

Last week, Gary Wise posted a two-part article about online poker “tells” over on the ESPN Poker Club. In the first part, Wise talks to Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, Isaac “philivey2694” Haxton, and Todd “DanDruff” Witteles about bet-sizing, timing tells (or “click tells”), and screen names. In the second part, Matt “DaProfessor” Hawrilenko and Mike “Schneids” Schneider also join in to say a bit more about bet-sizing and timing, and even speculate about the significance of a player’s city.

The issue of screen names and their significance is one that’s been discussed before. John Vorhaus wrote about screen names in his Killer Poker Online: Crushing the Internet Game (2003). There Vorhaus encouraged readers to choose neutral monickers that “give no hint as to your age, gender, geographical location, level of expertise, or philosophy of play.” As it happens, I think I have done just that with all of my screen names, although as an experiment I did specifically choose a female username for one site. “Over time your choice of screen name probably won’t make a huge money difference,” writes Vorhaus, “but why give anything away?” Others have written on the subject as well, including Dr. Pauly whose “Guide to Online Poker Screen Names” appeared in Poker Player last summer (although I think he wrote about it some time before that).

Anyhow, Haxton says he varies his play “radically” against an unknown based on a player’s screen name. He then lists a number of assumptions he tends to make about names. Says Haxton, someone with a name like “shipmonieslol” or the like “is probably under 30 and probably reads poker forums” and is thus to be regarded as at least a “winning amateur.” Players who choose names of cars, cigars, or drinks (like “laphroaig,” a kind of scotch) are probably over 30. Of such a player, says Haxton (betraying a bit of age-based prejudice, perhaps), “there is a higher than normal chance that he is a fish.”

Certain off-color handles (e.g., those that include crotch jokes) and/or names featuring wacky capitalization (e.g., “AcEsFuLL4346385”) connote aggression for Haxton. He says names including words like “gamble” or “fish” or “rock” are more often than not accurately self-descriptive.

Finally, while not exactly referring to screen names, Haxton believes “anyone who has a picture of their baby as their avatar is terrible at poker.” I suppose Haxton must play a lot on PokerStars, then, the site Wicked Chops dubbed “Best Online Poker Site if You Like Pictures of Children and Dogs” earlier this month.

Following Haxton’s catalogue, Bonomo chimes in to disagree. “A screen name is not a tell,” Bonomo insists, but rather just an occasional encouragement to “stereotype” players (rightly or wrongly). Says Bonomo, screen names are better described as “personality/play style indicators” than as tells.

If I had to choose, I’d lean toward Bonomo’s line here, although frankly I would say most screen names aren’t “indicators” of much at all, with a few exceptions, perhaps. I suppose names containing “1989” or “pimp” or “420” may well tell us something about the player which may or may not relate to how he or she plays poker. But generally I’m not going to fashion a strategy -- or vary my play “radically” -- based solely on the nick.

I will admit, however, that certain names do occasionally suggest something to me about the player’s level of education and/or intelligence. Have played several sessions of H.O.R.S.E. over the last few weeks with a guy named after a Dostoevsky character. A decent player, as far as I can tell, although I’d already been inclined to think he had something going on upstairs just from his name.

A couple of months ago I played with someone named “rhizome.” If I remember correctly, he asked me something about my avatar, and after a bit he and I ended up in a brief chat about the late Gilles Deleuze. Again, even before our chat I’d already suspected the guy might’ve picked up a book once in a while.

Not saying, of course, that if someone’s screen name happens to be a character from a Russian novel or a term used by a French philosopher that automatically means that person knows how to play poker. But I tend to assume these folks are thinkers, at least. And thinkers usually have a better chance at figuring out how to play poker than most.

Then again, there are certain things about which one can probably think too much.

Celebrating Seconds

Played two MTTs on Saturday, both pot limit Omaha. Early in the afternoon I managed yet another mediocre showing in an AIPS event, this time finishing 28th (out of 72 runners). Was mostly too passive -- only partly due to an uninterrupted series of crummy starting hands -- and even though I lasted into the second hour I never could really wiggle myself out of the folding funk.

Later in the afternoon I bought my seat for Saturdays with Pauly, a $10-plus-$1 PLO tourney on PokerStars. Have played four or five of these suckers, I think, with my previous best showing being a tenth place. There were 29 entrants this time, meaning the top five spots paid.

After a little over two hours and about 180 hands, I somehow found myself one of two remaining players, sitting on the short stack with about 7,000 to my opponent’s 36,000.

“Gotcha right where I want ya,” I told him.

I’d been on the short stack the entire tournament, actually, having made a bad blunder early on that had knocked me all the way down under 500 chips (21st of 21 players at the time). Ultimately managed to chip my way back from the brink, though. Got extremely lucky in a hand just after the first break in which I was dealt . A player with over 7,000 raised from late position, I reraised all 1,185 of my chips, and he called showing . Uh oh. At least both my suits were live. The board came . . . . Whew. I was relatively healthy again with 2,520 (6th of 13 left).

I then managed to survive to the money bubble, which ended up taking twenty-plus hands or so. Kind of an interesting dynamic there, as one of the remaining six players had well over half the chips in play. At one point I noticed he had over 28,000 while the rest of us all sat in the 2,000-4,000 range. Finally one short stack knocked out another and we were in the cash.

Thereafter the big stack would end up losing a series of all-in confrontations with several players before going out in fourth. While we were three-handed I was the beneficiary of several nice starting hands, allowing me to survive to heads-up.

From there I only lasted five more hands against my big-stacked opponent, finally deciding to take my chances with . I liked seeing my opponent’s hand -- . Was actually about a 55-45 favorite preflop (according to Two Dimes). But the board brought me no aces, queens, flushes, or straights, and I took the $69.60 prize for second.

Wouldn’t say I played stunningly well, but other than the one early faux pas I don’t think I made too many missteps. Frankly the only obvious “skill” I might have demonstrated all tourney was simply being able to remain patient. I guess I did open things up a bit once we were three-handed, making a couple of decent plays there. (Though as I say, I picked up some hands then, too.) Very nice to make a deep MTT run, though. Been awhile.

Seems appropriate, actually, to have landed a second place just in time for my second birthday. That’s right. Hard-Boiled Poker turns two today. Hard to imagine it has only been two years, especially when I think of the many, many great folks with whom this here blog served as our introduction.

Was looking back on a post from early on, called “An Existential Pause,” when I stopped and looked around a bit. I quoted Raymond Chandler describing the detective story as “a man’s adventure in search of hidden truth.” Said then that “all poker bloggers were shamuses, really. Investigating themselves.”

At the time I wrote that post, the blog was only three months old -- “a mere babe in the blog wilderness, its identity still uncertain.” I suppose by now we’ve been walking upright for a while. Still a ton to learn, though. So continues the investigation . . . .

Thanks again, everybody, for following along.

Fossilman Sighting

Was looking for a $1.00/$2.00 H.O.R.S.E. table yesterday afternoon on Stars and saw three full ones. Then noticed one had a waiting list of 26 players. First thought was there must be an ATM sitting there donating like mad for that many folks to want in.

Opened the table and watched a couple of hands. Nothing unusual. Then I noticed a lot of railbird chat. Finally I saw the reason for all of the hubbub. Greg “Fossilman” Raymer had taken a seat.

Raymer had around $185. I watched him mostly fold through the Hold ’em round, then play a couple of Omaha/8 hands. The players at the table weren’t chatting that much, but the observers were typing numerous observations about the play as well as the occasional question to Raymer. He wasn’t responding, though. Funny, one of the other players at the table actually had a pic of Raymer as his avatar as well.

Finally, after about ten minutes Raymer typed “OK, the videos are done, thank you all for your participation.” Apparently he had come on at some point and informed all of the players what was up. “You should be able to find these on proplaylive.com within a month or 3.” He then remained at the table for a while, responding to a few chatbox questions. He added that he was recording a number of videos for the soon-to-be-launched ProPlayLive site these days since he wouldn’t be playing online much during the WSOP.

Raymer thanked everyone again, saying “hope you all enjoy my $16.” My favorite response came from the player with Raymer as his avatar: “OH GOD...OH GOD...NO THANK U....U GOT A CIGARETTE GREG?” The 2004 WSOP Main Event Champ stuck around for a few more hands, lost a couple more bucks, added “I meant to say, enjoy my $21,” and finally left.

Would’ve been interesting had I logged on just a short while before. Perhaps we’ll see him again at the low limits before the end of May.

Gonna be a tourney-heavy day for me as I plan to try to play in both the AIPS event and Saturdays with Pauly (mentioned last post). Again, let me invite all you Omahalics to join the fun.

“Made Hand Mentality” in PLO; or, He Who Hesitates Is Lost

Had been sitting on a post about Pot Limit Omaha for a couple of weeks now titled “Made Hand Mentality.” Not sure I’m really up to writing it today, but Dr. Pauly’s post from yesterday about PLO got me cogitatin’ about it again.

Then I read Luckbox talking PLO over on Up for Poker this morning and realized those thoughts have now moved right there to the front of the cerebral cortex. Kind of blocking my view of other things, so I guess I’ll have to try to sort it out . . . .

In Pauly’s post he lyrically details the intoxicating action PLO provides. “PLO has four cards,” writes Pauly. “Double the dosage. Double the rush.” A primary factor fueling the adrenaline surge of PLO is the fact that one is constantly playing draws. Or should be, anyway. Pauly says he “crave[s] the inundation of the gambler’s high that overcomes [his] senses when [he] shove[s] all in with a monster draw.” Likes it even more when he has to come from behind to take the hand. That’ll happen in PLO.

The point, of course, is that PLO requires one to recognize draws, especially “monster” ones, and play them correctly. Otherwise you’re lost. The post I had been thinking about writing had occurred to me during a not-so-hot stretch of PLO play where I realized I had momentarily slipped into a fairly detrimental, almost lethargic state at the tables. The problem, I finally decided, was that -- for whatever reason -- I had momentarily developed a case of “made hand mentality,” which can be deadly in PLO.

Nothing terribly profound here. It’s really a matter of timing. One cannot sit around and wait to put in bets after making hands in PLO. Rather, one has to be reasonably comfortable with the idea of betting without having already gotten there with your sets, straights, flushes, or boats. This goes for both pre- and postflop play.

Preflop, it is perfectly mindless to wait until you are dealt A-A-x-x and/or huge starters like J-T-9-8-double suited before putting in raises. Never mind the fact that you become predictable, announcing to the table every time you put in a preflop raise that yr holding something premo. Those hands don’t come that often. So you have to be willing now and then to raise with less than the best, understanding, of course, that the flop is going to determine whether or not yr gonna stay active with the hand.

In PLO, the most lucrative hands tend to be those you make on the turn, not those you make on the flop. I suppose this phenomenon is true as well in Hold ’em, although the big difference there that if you do flop the nuts in HE you’re are relatively less likely to fall behind later in the hand.

It’s vital in PLO to gauge when and in what situations you want to be putting the chips in the middle. You love it when you flop that “monster” or “nuclear” wrap draw plus a flush draw giving you 17, 20, or even more outs. You don’t wait to get there before betting, though. You go ahead put the money in, get the made hand to call you (often he can’t do otherwise), then really get excited when the turn brings one of your outs. The point is, you don’t wait to make the hand first, then hope to get action. In fact, in a lot of instances, you probably don’t want action with your flopped made hand (unless, say, you’ve flopped quads and yr opponent probably has flopped top boat).

Avoiding getting locked into “Made Hand Mentality” is probably also a good policy in other games as well, although it seems to me especially important in PLO -- or “Omadraw,” as some call it. Probably one of the more important ideas to keep in mind when playing this game.

Like I said, wasn’t completely ready to write on this one, but realized I had to before I could move on to anything else . . . . Then again, the timing seems to have been right, since tomorrow you have not one but two opportunities to put yr PLO knowledge into practice.

Tomorrow at noon (Eastern time) there is Event No. 4 of the Ante-Up Intercontinental Poker Series III in 3-D, a $5.00+$0.50 buy-in PLO tourney over on Full Tilt. Then at 4:20 p.m. (Eastern) there's Saturdays with Pauly, a $10+$1 PLO tourney on Stars.

So stop yr dilly-dallyin’ and jump in the PLO pool, why dontcha?

Worlds Within Worlds

Finally got over to the barbershop to get that haircut. Way, way overdue, I was.

The woman who regularly handles the task is a friendly, sociable person with whom I usually engage in animated conversation about the previous few months’ highlights. Funny how people like that -- our lives’ “supporting cast” whom we only see intermittently -- can sometimes offer us a different perspective on our own fleeting existence.

Having been caught up in the day-to-day, you’ve missed the changes that occur over the course of a couple of months (or more). Hell, you didn’t even realize how shaggy yr hair had gotten until just a day or two before. Try to chronicle those last couple of months to someone who hasn’t been there, and you’ll sometimes see differences you hadn’t even realized.

During these little reunions, she and I will often get around to talking about poker at some point. I’ve written before about how I don’t generally introduce the subject in certain circles. But somewhere along the way she found out about my interest in the game. I think I told her about it last summer when I had been putting in a lot of late nights doing some back-end work during PokerNews’ coverage of the WSOP. Had a good stretch there where my life had been basically turned upside down (up all night, sleep all day), and so in what was probably a semi-somnambulant state I had explained it all to her as she clipped away in the mirror.

This time I told her about the plan for me to head out to Vegas next month to help cover the Series. Although not a poker player or gambler herself, she asked smart questions about the WSOP, the professional circuit, as well as the whole “skill-vs.-luck” debate.

“You’re telling me there are people who do nothing but go around playing poker tournaments over and over again?” she asked. “Can they really make a living?”

“Some do,” I explained. I defended poker as a form of gambling that does, in fact, reward skill over time, and she demonstrated her understanding of the concept with reference to the lottery, the only form of gambling our state technically allows. Like us, she doesn’t see why poker shouldn’t be legal if the lottery is.

Then she asked what I thought was a particularly revealing question for those of us who sometimes find ourselves overly immersed in the poker world.

“So are any of these poker players really famous? Like would I have heard of any of them . . . ?”

The usual names popped into my head, but I realized immediately there was no way she would recognize any of them. Sure, we all spotted Negreanu, Hellmuth, and Nguyen in that Pepsi commercial, but would anyone who doesn’t follow poker know their names? Indeed, where in the “mainstream” do we really find these poker celebrities upon whom those of us reading the forums, blogs, magazines, and books focus so intently? Where could she have encountered Doyle Brunson? Chris Ferguson . . . ?

I didn’t even try. “Yeah, some are pretty famous,” I answered half-heartedly. “In the poker world, anyway.”

Amid all the speculation about the relative status of poker’s popularity (has it peaked? is the “boom” over? is it as popular as ever?), I think many of us tend to forget just how small the “poker world” really is. Relatively speaking, anyway.

The phenomenon is partly a function of the game itself, I’d venture. I’ve mentioned before here that anecdote in Al Alvarez’s The Biggest Game in Town in which he demonstrates how severely poker players tend to isolate themselves from the outside world. Alvarez tells the story of a man who had been playing in the Golden Nugget the night Jimmy Carter was elected president. It was after midnight, and the fellow decided to take a break from the game and run up to his room to see who had won the election.

Alvarez explains: “When he returned, he announced to the table at large, ‘We’ve got a new president -- Jimmy Carter.’ The dealer stared at him coldly, as if he had broken some obscure house rule, and the man sitting next to him said, ‘The bet is three dollars.’ There was no other comment.”

Kind of the same deal in reverse, really. While poker players (sometimes) cannot seem to fathom there’s a world where poker is not front and center, there’s also that non-poker part of the world that can’t fathom poker could possibly matter that much at all.

I think I’ll try to get back over there to the barbershop for one last trim before I head Vegas-ward. Might prevent me from becoming too shaggy by mid-July. Might also help to get that one last dose of perspective before leaving the non-poker world altogether for seven-plus weeks.

It’s Time to Fold: Frank & Co. Tell Feds to Cease “Sisyphean Task” of Finalizing UIGEA Regulations

Following the April 2 hearing of a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) jointly introduced a new bill, H.R. 5767, designed to prohibit the Federal Reserve and Treasury Dept. from finalizing and implementing the UIGEA regulations. At the hearing, representatives of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Treasury Department (the authors of the regulations) as well as the American banking systems overwhelmingly demonstrated how unworkable the regulations were in their present state, and together suggested strongly they could never be made to work, practically speaking.

The newly-proposed bill is still at the very beginning of the legislative process, having only been introduced and, at the moment, only having Frank and Paul as co-sponsors. (It would likely require many more co-sponsors before being scheduled for debate and a subsequent vote.) However, Frank, Paul, and two other House members have decided to go ahead and recommend the regulators stop their work of revising the regulations now.

Along with Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), chairman of the subcommittee that held the April 2 hearing, and Peter King (R-NY), Frank and Paul have written letters to the Secretary of the Treasury Department and the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System asking both to consider abandoning the business of finalizing the UIGEA regs in favor of other pressing matters. The press release and the letters can be found here. Both letters recognize how the respective groups “have been struggling to issue these regulations,” and to each the foursome suggest the following:

“[A]s the [April 2] hearing made clear, the underlying statute makes your job extremely difficult, if not impossible. Given the many other priorities that are pending at your agencies, including the mortgage crisis, HOEPA [the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act], and UDAP [Unfair Deceptive Acts and Practices] rulewriting and many other issues, we believe it would be imprudent for you to devote additional agency resources to this Sisyphean task, especially as we intend to vigorously pursue legislation to prevent the implementation of these regulations.”

In other words, Frank, et al. are telling the feds to stop betting their thin draw and fold now. There’s very little hope you’re going to win, they say, so avoid increasing your already substantial loss of effort and expense and let the UIGEA go gentle into that good night.

Nobody likes to have their work characterized as “Sisyphean.” Except for masochists. And perhaps those who genuinely believe their work is not futile, but will actually bear fruit. The fact is, both of the federal representatives who spoke at the April 2 hearing did anything but suggest they believed their assigned task to be achievable. It would be difficult to imagine the feds not understanding the logic of the argument presented in these letters.

Doesn’t mean the work to finalize the regs won’t continue. But it does look like the big UIGEA ball might’ve rolled back down to the bottom of the Hill for now.