A Sticky Issue

Yesterday I read Bill Rini’s post in which he passed along some inside dope from Two Plus Two regarding strategy posts and “Grand Poobah” Mason Malmuth’s worry that the forums are negatively affecting the company’s book sales. If you didn’t happen to catch Bill’s post, here’s the skinny:

Back in May, 2+2 author Ed Miller put up a post on his popular “Noted Poker Authority” site announcing that “for the last nine months” he had been “receiving pressure and threats aimed at forcing me either to shut down Noted Poker Authority or to make the vast majority of its content available for pay only.” The upshot was that articles older than 30 days would no longer be accessible for free. Am not quite sure how the new system works or what the cost to view the older articles happens to be, but I do see that now one has to login in to see the older articles (such as that nice “shout out” Ed gave me back in January).

In any event, earlier this week Malmuth posted a message -- titled “Some Stickies Need to Be Modified” -- for the 2+2 moderators that begins with an allusion to Miller’s site. This message was apparently not intended to be seen by anyone other than the moderators, but a leak somewhere caused the message to be made public.

“Many of you are not going to like this,” Malmuth begins, “but we have had a terrible time with one of our authors creating a website with so much information on it that it was clearly going to destroy book sales.” 2+2 “is first and foremost a publishing company,” Malmuth points out, and apparently he has concluded that “many of our stickies are similar” in the way they deter readers from buying the company’s books.

The 2+2 forums work like most in that the most recent and most popular threads appear at the top of each individual forum. Forum moderators will create a “sticky” post whenever a particularly important topic comes up that needs to continue to appear at the top of the forum and not be pushed downward when newer threads are begun. For instance, in “News, Views, and Gossip” one finds a “UB scandal sticky” atop the page where many links to relevant posts/threads have been organized for readers’ convenience.

Some of the strategy-based forums had also begun collecting links to some of the best-received strategy posts into “stickies” for the same purpose -- i.e., to make life easier for the reader hoping to find these posts amid the hundreds of thousands that have been created since the site began back in 1997. (Actually, I’m not sure the site’s archival system currently allows one read posts from that far back, but you get the idea.)

In Malmuth’s note, he recognizes that while the site “contains a lot of quality information,” such information is a bit difficult to track down since it isn’t “readily accessible and well organized.” And what he’s noticed is “the stickies are doing just that,” that is, organizing the information in ways that make it easier for readers to access it. “Having links to lots of top quality posts may be serving as a substitute for book purchases,” worries Malmuth, so he is asking the moderators “to look at the stickies in your areas and consider deleting some of the links that can substitute for book purchases.”

My initial reaction to hearing this story was to chuckle at how a website’s owner can arrive at the conclusion that making his site less user-friendly is somehow in the site’s best interest. Malmuth and 2+2 have always been stubbornly iconoclastic (to their detriment, frankly) when it comes to all phases of book publishing -- from writing and editing to promotion and distribution -- so it isn’t at all surprising to see such a strange, backwards-seeming understanding of the relationship between different types of media (print and electronic) emerge from the same source.

I then recalled that little brouhaha that came up last December regarding an allegedly plagiarized passage appearing in Seven Card Stud for Advanced Players, a book co-authored by Malmuth and David Sklansky. I wrote a lengthy post about the dust-up then; you can read more about it there, if yr curious.

That little dust-up concerned a sample hand appearing in the pair’s book that was essentially identical to one that comes up in Chip Reese’s stud section of Super/System (published over a decade before). The similarity caused some to suggest the pair had stolen the material from Reese. As I said then, it appeared to me a fairly innocent slip on the part of the authors, though the pair’s mule-headed responses to the matter (in the 2+2 forums) revealed what I then described as a overly “functional view of style” wherein Malmuth and Sklansky both insist on quantifying things that simply cannot be quantified. Let me explain.

Defending himself against the charge of plagiarism, Sklansky posted the following dismissive comment on what happened: “But duh. Cmon. How easy would it have been for me to come up with a completely different example to perfectly describe the exact same concept? To ascribe this to anything other than an oversight is completely ridiculous. Chip’s chapter was very good but it was 50 pages. Our book has 300.”

That reference to the amount of pages at the end -- our book was six times longer than Reese’s section, chirps Sklansky, suggesting somehow it is six times more valuable -- is indicative of that tendency to overvalue quantity. But it is the idea that he could’ve picked a different example to illustrate the same concept -- and that making that sort of change would’ve somehow made the passage acceptable (and not plagiarism) -- that reveals an utter misunderstanding of the importance of form and its relation to content. And I think Malmuth’s directive to his moderators comes from the same sort of misapprehension about form and content Sklansky evinces in his defense against the plagiarism charge.

Malmuth believes that a significant number of visitors to the 2+2 forums who would have bought a 2+2 book decide not to because they can get all of the good, “quality information” on the site that they need. This view suggests that the form in which this information is presented is of no consequence -- that we don’t care whether it comes in a book written by a “noted poker authority” or via a post from some dude who goes by Butterfingers123. Just tell me what to do when my continuation bet on a raggedy flop gets check-raised by that LAG from UTG and I’m happy, right?

Wrong. While the centrality of print media in our culture has certainly been threatened in our electronic age, the formal differences between books and websites are so vast -- and significant -- one cannot reasonably argue that the 2+2 forums are going to “destroy book sales” for the company. Those of us who read books and want to read more books will continue to do so, no matter what “stickies” get created. And those of us who don’t read books still won’t read them, no matter what “stickies” get created.

Malmuth isn’t entirely indifferent to form, of course. After all, his primary worry here has to do with the formal characteristics of his website. He’d prefer the content of the site be presented in a less-organized, harder-to-navigate form, and is thus asking his moderators to help him achieve this goal by removing the helpful stickies. He seems thus to have some idea that form affects content -- that the content of his site (its usefulness, its value) will be affected by these changes to the site’s form.

But the attention to form here is utterly misplaced. If anything, the changes to the site’s form are intended to lessen the value of its content.

And to end on a less theoretical note, let’s think of the practical consequences of that change. If the site becomes less user-friendly, fewer will spend time on it. And thus fewer will become aware of the books. And fewer will buy them.

(EDIT [added 8/14/08, 5:30 p.m.]: It appears the message from Malmuth to the 2+2 mods was sent some time ago -- likely near the end of May, judging from the post count listed under Malmuth’s name in the message -- although it was not until earlier this week that it became known to anyone beyond the original recipients. Also, it looks as though after subsequent discussion the directive from Malmuth contained in the message was ultimately rescinded -- good news to those who appreciate the usefulness of the “stickies.” If you are curious, start here and read further to learn a bit more about the original message and its having been leaked this week.)

Sometimes the Cards Play Us

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how I’d run especially well during the second half of July. August hasn’t gone quite as smoothly -- lots of ups & downs, although I’ve held at just around break-even for the month thus far. Not too satisfied with how it is going, though, and I’m not talking exclusively about results.

What I’m referring to is this feeling, which I seem to have been having a lot over the last couple of weeks, that I haven’t much control over whether my sessions are ending in the red or in the black. Rather, it’s all coming down to the cards. (That is what it seems like, anyhow.)

Ever get that feeling? Like yr slowly losing yr “feel” or reading ability or whatever, becoming ever more reliant on the cards and not yr other well-honed poker skills to get you where you need to be?

I know, I know -- we are always reliant on the cards to some extent. An unlucky (or lucky) river can make or break a session, especially if one plays no-limit or pot-limit games. I suppose I’ve just had a higher than usual number of sessions lately that were dominated by these kinds of hands, where it seemed like there was little I could have done differently to avoid a fate that might as well have been predetermined for me by the order of the deal.

For example, on Tuesday I sat down at a 6-handed PLO table, buying in for the $25 maximum. Had played several orbits, slipping just under $20 while noting the erratic play of WildChild, a player sitting exactly opposite the table from me. He’d been doing a lot of preflop raising with random hands, which wouldn’t be remarkable but for the fact that he didn’t seem too cognizant of the importance of position. His recklessness often continued after the flop as well, and I’d already witnessed him having found himself in a couple of especially bad spots while struggling to maintain his $15 stack.

Then came a hand where I was dealt in the big blind. Two players limped, and WildChild raised pot to $1.35. The player to his left called the raise, the small blind folded, and I went ahead and repopped it to $5.90. As I rule, I try not to go beserk with aces in PLO -- especially from early position -- but thought here I had a chance to isolate against what was likely a much inferior hand.

One limper folded, but the next -- SandCastle -- called my reraise. Didn’t like that too much. Then WildChild reraised to $13.25, putting himself all in. The player to his left folded, and I didn’t see I had much of a choice. I pushed my entire stack in, SandCastle made the call (making the total pot about $55), and as we were on Full Tilt our hands were then flipped over.

Don’t care much for races with aces -- even single-suited (and with faint straight hopes) -- especially when up against two opponents. WildChild showed , a perfectly silly hand for him to be holding here. Wouldn’t be so bad to be heads up versus just him. But SandCastle had , giving me a few more cards to fade. A six flopped, as did two hearts. But no third heart came, and I was stacked.

No biggie, but it is hard to feel like yr much in control in hands like these. I suppose I’d played the hand reasonably, mathematically speaking. I’d tried to push SandCastle out but couldn’t, and in the end had used my $20 to try to win a $55 pot (a little under 2-to-1, pot odds-wise) in a hand where I had a 43% chance to win. Do that a hundred times and I should be coming out ahead, I guess.

But once we push it all in, we’re all just-a wishin’ and hopin’.

Then yesterday I sat down at a full ring game at PokerStars and again found myself in situations where it seemed utterly necessary to yield to the cards -- to abandon oneself to fickle fortune and let it determine who the winners and losers would be.

Started with the very first hand when I flopped the nut straight, then ended up paying off a short-stack who managed to turn his two pair into a boat. I battled for a while, building back up to $36.50. Then came this hand:



Like I say, sometimes it seems like the cards are playing us. Here PoorSap decided not to raise with his A-A-x-x from the blinds, which he might have considered doing (he was single-suited and also had a king), but I completely understand not wanting to do that from early position. His check-raise on the river was terrific, frankly. I’d have had a hard time checking there, worrying that the second queen on the river would’ve scared my opponent into checking behind. But he knew I would bet out, which I suppose I probably would’ve done even with jacks full.

Didn’t matter, though. None of it did. There was nothing either of us could have done to avoid that conclusion to the hand. That’s a pretty lame starter I’m holding -- -- but I’d have probably still called a preflop raise given the fact that the button folded and I would be last to act for the rest of the way. Perhaps I might’ve bet out on the flop, but I’d imagine PoorSap might take one off with his gutshot straight draw. (Maybe not, I dunno.) In any event, once that turn card came, our fates were both sealed.

I should add one disclaimer here. When one routinely plays crap hands (like my Q-Q-x-x) or hands from out of position, one tends to end up in these “what could I do?” positions much more frequently. And I’ve probably been guilty of that a bit here lately, letting my impatience encourage me to play (and proceed with) certain hands I normally wouldn’t be as eager to push if I were thinking more clearly.

When, say, in PLO you pick up something like two nines with two other cards that aren’t providing any real straight or flush potential and you decide to play ’em, hoping to hit a set, yr asking for trouble. The flop comes J-9-2, you get stacked off by J-J-x-x, then you scratch yr head wondering “what could I do?”

The good player understands the cards didn’t “play him” there. He recognizes his own not-insignificant role in his demise, and hopefully he learns something going forward.

But then there are times when it really is out of his control.

And, in a way, that can be fun, too. Especially if he isn’t the one the cards are playing for a sap.

Poker & Pop Culture: Rolling Stone (1967-2007) (2 of 2)

Following up on my search of the Rolling Stone archives for references to poker (see previous post), I wanted to give some attention to three other instances when the magazine did focus on poker in a somewhat meaningful way. Indeed, as I pointed out before, these were really the only three times in the first forty years of Rolling Stone that the magazine specifically addressed the game of poker at all, really. And even in these cases, one could argue the real focus was elsewhere.

Poker & Booze: College Life (1981)

The first is in a pair of companion articles about college life that present the phenomenon of professors and students socializing with one another. In the April 16, 1981 issue, several different pieces were presented under the heading “College 1981,” and these two -- “On Drinking with Professors” by Grif Fariello and “On Drinking with Students” by William Kittredge -- both bring up poker as a regular facet of teacher-student interactions outside the classroom.

Fariello and Kittredge were both at the University of Montana, and so in a sense they are writing about each other in these two articles. Kittredge’s article is decidedly pro-drinking with students, viewing it as an important part of his role as an educator. He looks down on a colleague who takes it too far and thus finds himself enmeshed in a sticky, adulterous liaison with a student. “No one ever said drinking with students would be easy,” says Kittredge. “Nothing sacred ever is.”

Then comes a discussion of the “Student Poker Game.” Kittredge recognizes that he, like other drinking teachers, “is supposed to bring lots of money and be a Terrific Sport.” He shouldn’t object or find it at all unusual for a student to take him to the cleaners, for “this is a teaching experience and not be confused with coldhearted gaming for profit.” Then they start smoking some dope.

The fact that he ends up losing at the poker game is largely immaterial to Kittredge. He continues to argue -- somewhat disingenously, one must admit -- for the importance of these occasions in which “personalities are being formed,” with Kittredge apparently being gravely serious about his own mentoring role.

The article by Fariello (the student) also celebrates the activity, arguing that “drinking with professors is an honor and a privilege and an rite of initiation into the higher reaches of academe.” He feels special to have been invited to such gatherings. He enjoys fraternizing with his prof, but also recognizes that after a few drinks “you come to realize these fellows are a lot like you -- or is it that you are a lot like them?” The exalted view of the teacher clearly becomes diminished as the drinks continue to flow.

When Fariello speaks of the poker game, winning and losing are a greater concern to him than to Kittredge. He enjoys the game because “my favorite professor was also a lousy poker player, and I could cover the cost of tuition and books just sitting across the table from him once a week.” (It isn’t clear whether he’s talking about Kittredge here or not.) The game is also of value to him for the less tangible rewards that come from dialogue and debate with well-read elders.

Fariello ends his piece with a reference to the “darkest valleys of Poker Night,” namely that time when the profs are too sloshed to go on and they all head to the nearest tavern to drink and talk some more. That’s when the teachers utterly expose their innermost selves, offering “painful admissions of failed hopes and unwritten books; the rending laments of professional ennui and disillusionment.”

In the end, I find the student’s self-aware, insightful piece much more convincing than the professor’s self-indulgent, screed-like defense of less-than-commendable behavior. (Doesn’t surprise me a bit that the student wins at poker while the teacher loses.) I would’ve thought to have found such articles in an earlier issue than one from 1981, although it would still be some time before administrations of colleges and universities began taking a less forgiving view of such untoward student-professor interactions.

The New Vegas (2006)

In the October 5, 2006 issue, Rolling Stone offered a lengthy overview of the “new Vegas,” with several short, illustrated blurbs punctuating the analysis. The overall conclusion by the authors is that after an unsuccessful attempt to transform Vegas into a family-oriented vacation destination, the place has returned with renewed enthusiasm to its “Sin City” roots, now having become “bizarrely hip.”

Among these blurbs are several mentions of poker and its newly-prominant place in Vegas’ gambling culture. “Poker chic has made gambling cool again,” chirps the author of the lead-in piece. There’s another short piece celebrating Antonio “the Magician” Esfandiari, who at the time had already won over $2.4 million on the circuit, but “is just as famous for being a dedicated club-hopper.” One gets the sense that it is the latter trait that landed him the spotlight here.

There’s another brief description of the “Big Game” in Bobby’s Room. There is also a passing reference to poker in a story about the band The Killers (who are from Vegas). The interviewer meets the band in Binion’s, and so reference is made to the Horseshoe’s décor made up of pictures of famous poker players.

Despite poker’s prominence, it is pointed out in another piece that poker is hardly the motor driving the gambling scene in Vegas. “Poker might get all the buzz, but it truth, Vegas is all about the slots.”

The Young Guns (2005)

The last article I want to discuss is the only real “feature” that focuses on professional poker players that I found in the entire forty years of Rolling Stone, a four-pager in the June 16, 2005 issue titled “Poker’s New World Order.” The article by Ivan Solotaroff gets a teaser (“Poker’s Crazy Geniuses”) on that issue’s cover -- the only RS cover in its first forty years to mention poker at all -- and is accented by several photographs of those mentioned in the piece. (The first page of the article appears above at the start of this post.)

The focus of the article is “The Crew,” that group of young, bankroll-sharing players marshaled together by Russ “Dutch” Boyd following the 2003 World Series of Poker. The article discusses all seven members: Boyd, his brother Robert, Scott Fischman, David Smyth, Tony Lazar, Joe Bartholdi, and Brett Jungblut.

The piece starts out painting a somewhat glamorized portrait of the young men’s lifestyles, presenting us Robert Boyd cleaning up at the Borgata, Bartholdi killing at the Bellagio, and Smyth, Lazar, and Fischman all tearing up the games online. Bartholdi (for example) is described at “the tail end of a two-day binge that’s netted him a good week’s pay -- for a mid-cap CEO.” We read about Dutch Boyd having “stitched together this loosely knit crew of savants,” and how they all touch base at their “unofficial HQ,” a frat house-like condo on Rancho Drive about ten miles from the Strip.

The article then steps back to present the state of online poker circa mid-2005. Fischman is described as playing online poker “with 149,344 others” that night. We get a brief background on the founding of the World Poker Tour, mention is made of some of the more famous poker celebs (Negreanu, Lederer, Duke, Hansen, Laak), and Esfandiari chimes in to say of the burgeoning poker boom, “This story’s just beginning, believe me.”

Then the focus turns to Dutch Boyd. We get a detailed recounting of the PokerSpot debacle. Boyd helped start the online poker site in May 2000. By early 2001, the site was earning $160,000 a month, and “in the online poker forums, Boyd was predicting $50 million yearly profits for the top Internet card rooms.” Then comes the fall, which the author of the article tenuously ties to the dot-com crash, though does clarify how PokerSpot had its assets frozen by its credit card processor (Barclay Banks of London), and how Boyd continued to solicit new accounts, a move that could be interpreted as him having “turned pokerspot.com into a Ponzi scheme.”

PokerSpot finally ceased operations in late 2001, and the article leaves the PokerSpot story in the ambigous state in which it remains today. (Cashouts for many PokerSpot players remain “pending.”) We then read about Boyd’s bipolar disorder, his unrealized vision to create a rake-free online poker site, his stay at a mental hospital in Antigua, and his 12th place finish in the 2003 WSOP Main Event, after which he formed The Crew, infamously stating they would soon “take over the poker world” and thus giving the author a title for his article.

The dissolution of The Crew is then chronicled, with Bartholdi and Jungblut leaving first, and the others kind of drifting away by 2004. We’re left with an impression of Fischman as the true star of the group -- he was certainly the most successful member at the time, having won two WSOP bracelets and the WPT Young Guns title in ’04 -- and Boyd as a crazy schemer. Indeed, mention is made along the way of the over 1,000 domain names Boyd had registered. (If you haven’t noticed, over the last couple of weeks Boyd has begun trying to sell some of those domains on eBay and via his blog.)

Conclusion

Although everyone reads Rolling Stone, the magazine -- like the popular music industry it primarily covers -- does mostly target a younger demographic, and I think that, more than anything, explains why one doesn’t find a lot of references to poker in its first forty years of publication. During most of those forty years, poker was a game for older people (primarily men), folks whose interests rarely intersected with those looking for the latest about David Bowie, Madonna, the Spin Doctors, ‘N Sync, or Coldplay.

Indeed, all three of these more detailed looks at poker would have particular appeal to younger readers (i.e., those in their late teens or early twenties). Given that poker has recently become a game dominated by that very age group, perhaps Rolling Stone will find more reason to discuss the game in its pages in the coming years. In any event, I do think this little research project does tell us something about how poker has rated in the popular culture over the last forty years.

Poker & Pop Culture: Rolling Stone (1967-2007) (1 of 2)

I mentioned last post that my brother gave me this nifty birthday present, a DVD set collecting the first forty years of Rolling Stone magazine. Every page of every issue is scanned and readable on the computer screen, and, of course, one can perform the usual searches (by keywords, date, etc.) to track down that article you remember reading long ago but can’t quite put your finger on today.

Was curious to see what Rolling Stone might have written about poker over the last forty years (or, to be more precise, between 1967 and 2007). While the magazine obviously focuses on music, it has always provided commentary on other aspects of popular culture, too. I figured simply searching the archives for the word “poker” might reveal a little something about the cultural impact of the game over the last four decades. (If not that, perhaps I’d find some article or two of interest to share with you here.)

The whole exercise made me think of what Kevmath did back in March when Sports Illustrated made their entire archive available online. He searched through and found a number of interesting poker-related articles, then began a 2+2 thread with links to several of them.

My search of Rolling Stone was much, much less fruitful, I’m afraid. In fact, as far as so-called “professional” poker and the WSOP are concerned, neither really existed for Rolling Stone prior to 2005. Well, there was one mention of the WSOP in Peter Travers’ 1998 review of Rounders, but no articles about the event itself until the summer of ’05. That’s right -- it would take two full years after his Main Event triumph for Chris Moneymaker even to be mentioned in RS, and then only in passing.

The generic search for the word “poker” revealed a total of 59 “articles,” although some of these aren’t really articles at all, but simply appearances of the word in the Table of Contents or in blurb-like insets appearing within other articles.

In our analysis, we can toss out several of the references as largely extraneous to whatever conclusions we might want to draw here. For example, three were not to the game at all, but to the metal rod with which one stirs a fire.

There were about fifteen instances in which a person -- usually a musician or actor -- was described as “poker-faced.” The musicians included the Animals, Willie Nelson, the Rolling Stones’ drummer Charlie Watts, Dinosaur Jr. front man J Mascis, and Devo (twice), among others. The actors included John Huston, Dan Akyroyd (in Dragnet), Gary Oldman, and a few other, lesser known folks. (Oh, Stephen Colbert gets the descriptor, too.) There were also references to certain individuals not being “poker-faced,” such as Prince in his video for “Kiss.” Then certain groups, like the Flaming Lips, A Tribe Called Quest, Modest Mouse, were congratulated for their “poker-faced humor.”

That left just under forty actual references to the game of poker, although some of these references were also made simply by way of analogy, such as in a review of the 1993 documentary The War Room, where James Carville is shown playing politics “like a raucous game of high-stakes poker.”

Then there are the movie reviews of films which feature poker, such as Milos Forman’s 1971 film Taking Off in which characters play strip poker. Poker also comes up in the plot synopses of Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Maverick (1994), Rounders (1998), Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003), The 40-Year Old Virgin (2005), and Casino Royale (2006).

Travers’ review of Rounders, by the way, is mostly positive, although he did find the film derivative of both The Cincinnati Kid and Good Will Hunting. He likes Matt Damon’s performance as Mike McDermott (he’s “a winner”), calls Ed Norton “riveting,” and finds John Malkovich “over the top.” Travers ultimately characterizes the film as “stylish entertainment and smartass fun,” pointing out that it limits itself somewhat because it does become a “crowd pleaser” (“the movie stacks the deck in favor of Mike”).

That leaves us just two dozen or so references to poker. Again, a couple of these are just incidental, such as an article in which Willie Nelson talks about his ownership of a truck stop in Texas which he jokingly says he won in a poker game (he didn’t).

There are a small number of instances where bands recorded songs about poker which get mentioned in reviews. The Everly Brothers had a song called “Three-Armed Poker-Playing River Rat” on their 1972 album Stories We Could Tell, but the reviewer wasn’t impressed. The Electric Light Orchestra has a song called “Poker” on Face the Music (1972) -- the reviewer likes that one. And in 2007 there was a quick blurb about magician Ricky Jay’s compilation of poker-related songs, Ricky Jay Plays Poker.

When the Beatles came to America in 1964, they played poker with photographer Curt Gunther -- not very well, apparently (Gunther made a couple hundy off the Fab Four). Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane talks about playing poker during Woodstock. In a late 2004 interview with Kanye West, he talks about his love for video games, then the interviewer strangely asks him “What’s the most money you bet on a poker hand this year?” His answer is he doesn’t play poker, although he did lose a little at blackjack. And a 2001 feature on Jay-Z also tells of his love for the game Guts, described in the article as a “high-stakes poker game that’s all about balls.”

There’s a passing reference to poker in a creepy Stephen King short story that appeared in the magazine in 1984. I remember reading this story when it came out. It starts with a woman accidentally shooting herself in the head, yet weirdly surviving. She goes on to have a bunch of hallucinations and ultimately kill her husband (who, by the way, plays poker) and herself. I reread it and can’t say it strikes me as one of King’s finer moments.

There’s also an article about the rise of online gambling sites from September 1999, although it doesn’t mention online poker at all. (Just a passing reference to video poker.)

That brings us down to just ten or so mentions, although really we are just talking about three different “articles” per se. One involves a pair of articles about college students partying with their professors that appeared in the April 16, 1981 issue. Then there were a series of short pieces appearing in the October 5, 2006 issue about the “Best of Vegas,” several of which mention poker. And in the June 16, 2005 issue there was a feature article about “The Crew” -- that group of young poker players that included Joe Bartholdi, David Smyth, Scott Fischman, Tony Lazar, Brett Jungblut, and Dutch and Robert Boyd. Indeed, in the entire forty-year run, this one four-page article about “The Crew” is easily the most studied look at professional poker that appears in Rolling Stone.

Since this post has already run on to a decent length, I’m going to save the discussion of these latter three pieces for tomorrow. Suffice it to say, my scan of the archives demonstrates Rolling Stone’s ambivalence toward poker fairly unambiguously, I think. Not that we’d necessarily expect a music mag to care much about poker, but it still might be surprising to those who might (rightly or wrongly) think of Stu Ungar as a “rock star” to discover he’s never been mentioned in Rolling Stone a single time.

Perspectives on Poker

Have had a few occasions this week to contemplate poker’s popularity and its place in the “big picture.” Found myself recognizing several different perspectives on poker, all coming from different angles and in different contexts -- most of which were not the usual ones I encounter when it comes to pokery-type observations. As I considered whether I might be able to bring ’em all together here in a Friday post, I realized they might all add up to a kind of commentary on the current position of poker in the “mainstream” of society and/or culture.

These anecdotes begin as somewhat personal in nature, then become gradually less so. I present ’em here for yr consideration as to whether they add up to anything or not.

1. Week started with a consulting visit with an accountant regarding this “freelance writing” gig I’ve found myself pursuing ever more earnestly over the last couple of years. Thought it might be prudent tax-wise to look into whether I should be thinking about declaring certain expenses, establishing an LLC, or contemplating any other moves to increase the profitability of this here side job.

Won’t get into specifics, but there was something novel (for me) about sitting there and telling my “story” to a person I’d never met before, including sharing detailed info about my hobby (online poker), the blog and its history, getting recruited to write for PokerNews, and so forth.

As I described all of these things, I couldn’t help feeling a bit of hubris about it all. Maybe more than a bit. I mean, hell, it is a “success” story, in a way, involving winning money at poker, earning some attention (and some cabbage) for writing, and other stuff all of which might be thought to reflect generously on the storyteller.

My audience wasn’t all that moved, though. He was friendly, professional, and courteous, but I could tell none of this really meant much to him. Of course, a big part of his non-response probably came from the realization that I probably didn’t really need his services, but his few comments about poker pretty clearly revealed a less-than-enthusiastic attitude, miles away from the instinctive interest the rest of us maniacs have when it comes to poker.

2. Then came the ESPN broadcast of that final table on Tuesday which I worked (wrote about it earlier in the week). A few friends and family members watched in order to try to spot glimpses of me in the background. Meaning there were a few folks watching poker this week who never watch it otherwise, and who frankly cannot fathom the appeal of a show like the one ESPN puts on. Again, talking to them about the show demonstrated pretty clearly how little poker signifies to most.

Favorite moment came when my father called to say he’d caught a glimpse of me. He’d been watching Family Guy, but had flipped over during a commercial and just happened to see me. As much as I like poker, I could see watching Family Guy instead, too, if I were in his place.

3. I spent a few off-hand minutes this week enjoying this very cool, belated birthday gift from my brother, a DVD collection of the first forty years of Rolling Stone magazine. All of the issues have been scanned and are searchable by keyword. While searching for old articles about Brian Eno and Hüsker Dü, I thought it might be interesting to look up “poker” and see how this arbiter of popular culture had seen fit to report and/or opine on the game over the last forty years.

I’ll be writing more about what I found next week, but I’ll go ahead and share one finding with you today. It is safe to say that poker -- particularly so-called “professional” poker -- pretty much did not exist for Rolling Stone until the last couple of years. And if you think about it, did it for most other folks, either?

4. On Thursday, I saw where doubleas had shared an excerpt from a sports blog he reads called Two in the Box. The post from which the quote came began as a response to the ongoing Brett Favre saga. The author of the post, Monkey, was expressing his fatigue with the nonstop, wall-to-wall coverage of Favre on ESPN.

That rant led Monkey to fashion a top ten list “of others I could live without,” one item of which was “Professional Poker Players.” Says Monkey, “The infatuation period is finally over, and all that is left is grown men acting like 10-year-olds every time they get an (un)lucky card. Seriously, guys like Mike Matusow & Phil Hellmuth are not modern-day cowboys; they are immature narcissists who are too emotionally unstable to hold day jobs.”

Monkey has a point, we must admit. A couple, actually. Of course, those of us who pay attention know that adults acting childishly is not “all that is left” of televised poker. But it is more than understandable how that might seem the case to those who aren’t tuned in as closely. Even so, it’s hard to argue with the observation that “the infatuation period is finally over,” particularly when we compare poker’s place in popular culture today to where it was a few years ago.

5. Finally, with the 2008 Summer Olympics kicking off today, I recalled how four years ago there was a tongue-in-cheek campaign to get poker included as a sport this time around in Beijing. Does anyone else remember this? A website -- “Poker in Athens” -- even launched an online petition to have poker included at Beijing. (The site no longer exists.) Here’s an old BBC article about it, the author of which jokingly suggests Brits should sign the petition, as the campaign represents “the best chance we have of winning a medal.” Oof!

Such a proposal was rightly considered a fun, distracting bit of human interest then. And while I have noticed a thread or two on the forums about how poker players might be chosen and ranked in an Olympic competition, I haven’t seen any similar petitions this time around. A silly idea, to be sure (even if one thinks of poker as a sport), but not completely off-the-wall to have come up in 2004, even as a gag. No one’s thinking about poker that way today, though. Not even as a joke.

Like I say, just thought I would share these various perspectives and let you decide if they add up to anything.

Have a good weekend, all!

The Most Popular Table In Online Poker

There is something strange going on over at Full Tilt Poker.

The strangeness is happening over on one of the sites’ high-stakes no-limit hold’em tables.

It looks like just another table, on the surface. The table in question is a $25/$50 heads up table -- called “pokernubz” -- and sits there among several other high-stakes NLHE tables, waiting for players to take their seats and start playing each other for the big money.

But here, check this out:



That’s right. 241 players are waiting to take a seat at Table pokernubz. WTF?

This is actually one of those “private” tables one sometimes finds over on Full Tilt Poker. There’s one such table down at the low limits where I usually hang out, a $25 max. pot-limit Omaha table called “SmBoatDrinks” where there is always a seat reserved for the player after whom the table is named. I wrote Full Tilt support once to ask about the table, and they explained to me that SmBoatDrinks had “purchased” his own table through the Iron Man Challenge promotion.

I looked into it. Looks as though one needs to accumulate 750 medals to be able to go into the “Iron Man Challenge Store” and get the private table created. The Iron Man Challenge is not unlike other programs (like Stars’ VIP program) that are designed to reward high volume play. Looks like the minimum amount of time it would take to accumulate the needed medals is six months. Don’t ask me how many hands one would have to play to get there -- I’ve never played enough to bother too much with the Iron Man stuff.

In any event, the player “pokernubz” was able to create for himself such a table some time during the spring. However, pokernubz apparently chose to make a table at a much higher limit that the one he currently plays. He can be found on the site from time to time, but sticks to $1/$2 NLHE. It appears he created the table with an idea that one day down the road he might be ready to play at the higher limit.

The long waiting list began to develop shortly after the table was created. This thread over on Two Plus Two that began in May provides some background on how the list became so large. The thread started with someone asking why the waiting list was so long (it had climbed over 50 names at that time). Then it appears 2+2ers soon decided en masse to join in the fun, artificially ballooning the number of players waiting to over two hundred. (Indeed, the picture appearing above of the marathon runners comes from the thread, a visual comment from one of the posters.)

Full Tilt Pro Eric Liu was sitting at the table earlier today, but he has just left. (He was there when I took the screen shot of the lobby page, which is why the name of the table appears in red.) Huck Seed was on the list at some point early on, but he either made to the table and left or removed his name. Craig Marquis is there now in 164th, hoping perhaps to get a crack at pokernubz before he plays the WSOP Main Event final table in November. Another player who has made a WSOP ME final table, Lee Watkinson, is also on the list right now in 176th.

There’s another thread over on the Hendon Mob forum as well discussing the list, with the original poster also asking why the waiting list was so long. Within a few responses, one poster said when he checked in on the list he put his name on it as well. “Not really sure why,” he added. He “just wanted to be part of the crowd.” Someone follows up saying “there’s your answer” to the original question. Indeed, the phenomenon resembles one of those virus-like “memes” in which the content becomes less and less significant and the act of being “part of the crowd” takes over.

Meanwhile, the world waits to see if pokernubz ever sits down at his own table. Perhaps one day his bankroll and skill level will have increased to the point where he is ready to play.

And when that day comes, he knows he’ll have a game.

Reality TV

Last night was fun. Started out the night making a pizza, kind of a new trick for me. Have made a couple over the last week, including building the crust from scratch. Toppings included a tomato sauce (with onions, basil, olive oil, a carrot, and a little garlic salt), portabello mushrooms, parsley, garlic, and mozzarella & parmesan cheeses. Crust a mix of regular flour & wheat, which adds a little flavor as well. Good stuff.

Then Vera and I watched -- pretty intently -- ESPN’s coverage of the final table of Event No. 4, the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em (Limit/No-Limit) event. Between the pizza and the TV show, I ended up missing the start of Dr. Pauly’s tourney, though I was kind of on the fence anyway, knowing I probably wasn’t going to get involved in a late night of poker. I’m seeing this morning that my PokerNews colleague, Garry Gates, actually won the sucker & so will be heading to the Borgata in September. Congrats, Garry! And kudos again to Pauly for hosting (and for five years).

I was looking forward to last night’s broadcast for a couple of reasons. One was to see how many times I could catch glimpses of myself in the background. Pure narcissism, I’ll admit it. The other was to compare ESPN’s repackaging of the final table with the experience of witnessing it live. Thought I’d share just a few impressions of the show.

The entire final table took 197 hands to complete, and with the breaks took around nine hours to play out. ESPN showed exactly 27 of those hands during the two hours of coverage (around 85 minutes with commercials). Each elimination hand was shown except for that of Pat Pezzin (who finished 8th). Poor Pezzin really got the short end of the coverage. (Hell, I might’ve been on screen more than he was.) Indeed, given the hands they did choose to show during the first hour, they really should’ve found the time to show this one hand of Pezzin’s, I’d think.

The first hour of the show was quite entertaining. I was surprised to hear Norman Chad editorialize about Justin Bonomo’s history of online cheating, although it actually makes sense that ESPN would acknowledge it here, especially given Bonomo’s starring role in this particular telecast. (By the way, Otis has a brief, smart reaction to Chad’s comment.) And I enjoyed Roland de Wolfe joking with David Williams about the Magic card game (“Never play a hobgoblin out of position”). From where we were stationed (about fifteen feet from the players), we couldn’t really hear much of the table talk, so all of this was new to me.

I noticed on a couple of hands small discrepencies between how we reported the action over at PokerNews and what was said or shown on ESPN (including one clear error on PN), but everything matched up for the most part. One thing I realized fairly quickly watching the broadcast was the fact that I had no memory of several of the hands shown -- namely, the ones about which I did not post. As my partner Tropical Steve and I were alternating hands, I would be typing up one hand while another was ongoing, and so usually gave little attention to those hands.

There were a few other little things I noticed and/or discovered when looking back through the reporting.

The first hand of the second hour -- the 15th of ESPN’s coverage -- was a very interesting no-limit hand in which Roland de Wolfe made a hero call on the river, successfully sniffing out a Bonomo bluff. This was a hand I wrote up -- Hand #84 of the final table. De Wolfe limped from the button with pocket sixes, David Rheem completed from the small blind, and Bonomo checked from the big blind. The flop came 8-8-7 with two clubs. Rheem checked, Bonomo bet 30,000 into the 46,000-chip pot, de Wolfe called, and Rheem got out. The turn was a deuce, putting a second spade on the board. Bonomo bet 80,000, and again de Wolfe called.

The river was the . On the blog, I said “Bonomo didn’t take long to bet 200,000.” On the program last night it appeared Bonomo took about ten seconds to make his bet, and I think that was just about the actual time span. Then it appears de Wolfe takes about thirty seconds before making the call. (Bonomo had , and de Wolfe took the pot.) On the blog, I reported that de Wolfe “went into the tank for several minutes” before making the call -- and I’m confident that was the case. I rarely would say “several minutes” in a post unless, indeed, at least 4-5 minutes had passed.

Even so, I don’t think the editing really misleads all that much, nor does it really throughout the broadcast. There were a couple of moments presented non-chronologically, but neither really mattered. They showed Phil Hellmuth make his cameo (and get booed by the crowd), then showed a hand that took place a good 15 minutes before Hellmuth had walked in. They had a reason for doing so, though, as they caught Hellmuth talking to de Wolfe about a hand in which Bonomo had laid a bad beat on de Wolfe -- so they edited in Hellmuth’s appearance just after that hand.

Probably the most affected part of the broadcast was the heads-up portion. Lindgren and Bonomo actually played 40 hands, but only four of those were shown (and Lindgren won all four). The first hand shown was one in which Lindgren had pocket aces and raised, then Bonomo, who held 7-2 offsuit, folded. That was in fact the eighth hand of heads-up. Then they show Lindgren ordering a Milwaukee’s Best Light, something he had done prior to the first hand being dealt.

Like I say, though, most of the edits didn’t create too false of an impression of how the final table actually went. Of course, from the show I don’t think one can necessarily appreciate the extent to which David Rheem and David Williams -- the chip leaders heading into that final table -- struggled to get anything going that night. Andrew Robl came off as not terribly strong player on the show, and while I don’t believe he was the greatest limit hold’em player at the table that night, the overall depiction of his play (the one hand they showed him winning was a huge suckout versus Howard Lederer early on) probably wasn’t entirely fair to him. And it does look like Lindgren was simply untouchable, catching cards and making correct reads at every turn. Which was only partly the case.

Even so, I have to give ESPN some credit for putting together a decent narrative and presenting the thing in a mostly accurate fashion. Like following a recipe, these shows. And like the one for the pizza I made last night, the one ESPN follows generally produces something halfway decent.

Weapons of Choice

I’ve been perusing Arnold Snyder’s first book about hold’em tournaments, titled The Poker Tournament Formula (2006). The book concentrates largely on “fast” tournaments, i.e., tourneys with rapidly rising blind/ante structures that require players to master strategies that Snyder collectively refers to as “speed play.” A sequel, The Poker Tournament Formula 2, came out this summer, and it focuses more on “slow” tournaments with large starting stacks and longer levels with more gradual increases of blinds/antes.

Incidentally, “Arnold Snyder” is actually a pseudonym for a successful tourney player who has also written some well-regarded books on blackjack. He writes quite clearly and has many interesting ideas that build upon and, in some cases, refute well-known concepts appearing in other books such as Dan Harrington’s Harrington on Hold’em series. For example, in the second book Snyder offers a particular criticism and clarification of Harrington’s much-lauded “M” concept that I would think most hold’em tourney players would find persuasive (or at least intriguing).

In this first book Snyder starts out with an explanation of how to analyze the structure of a given tournament and thus determine whether or not it is “fast,” “medium,” or “slow.” Snyder provides some formulas to help figure out the “patience factor” of a given tournament based on its starting chips and schedule of play, as well as the relative “skill level” one might therefore associate with the tournament.

I’m not going to get into the specifics of Snyder’s formulas (which do seem quite helpful), but wanted instead just to share one observation he makes early on in the first book regarding the relative importance of cards, chips, and position.

Snyder believes that in tournaments with fast structures, “your cards are the least important of your three weapons.” Also, echoing Doyle Brunson’s point from Super/System, Snyder believes that “position is the most important weapon you have in... a fast no-limit hold’em tournament.” That said, “it’s usually best not to tangle with a big chip stack when you’re really just making a position play.”

Thus when assessing the relative value of cards, chips, and position in these fast tourneys, Snyder suggests thinking of of the three factors as a version of the “rock-paper-scissors” game. He even offers a helpful mnemonic device for remembering what beats what: “Cards are made of paper. Chips are something you could throw, like a rock. If you can remember those two, there’s nothing left for position except scissors.”

Thus, cards beat chips (paper beats rock). Chips beat position (rock beats scissors). And position beats cards (scissors beats paper).

An interesting analogy. Of course, as Snyder goes on to explain, there are a few reasons why it is incorrect to think of hold’em tourneys as simply an elaboration on the game of Rochambeau. For one, in rock-paper-scissors, all three weapons are always of equal value, no matter what. In hold’em tourneys, the relative strength of your three weapons is constantly changing -- as is the case for your opponents, too -- and so it is important to recognize where you stand with regard to each when determining how best to proceed.

I’m hardly doing Snyder’s idea justice here -- you’ll have to go check out his book yourself for more explanation. Interesting stuff, though.

Even so, I haven’t left my usual pot-limit Omaha and H.O.R.S.E. ring games and started jumping into any hold’em tourneys just yet. Although I am thinking of playing in a certain one tonight.

Most reading this blog probably know all about it already, but Dr. Pauly is hosting a $5.00+$0.50 no-limit hold’em tourney on PokerStars tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time as a way of celebrating the fifth anniversary of Tao of Poker. And in addition to the usual prize pool, the winner will receive an entry into a $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament during the Borgata Poker Open (September 12th) as well as two nights’ stay there Borgata Hotel & Spa in Atlantic City.

Pretty swell deal, there. Like I say, I’m probably going to be playing, although I might be distracted for the first hour as tonight ESPN is showing the final table of Event No. 4, the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em event which I covered for PokerNews. That airs from 8-10 p.m. Eastern time.

Whether I make it or not, let me encourage everyone reading to join in the fun. And don’t forget yr weapons.

New “Clarification” Bill Provides Little Clarity for UIGEA

There were a few items related to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 that came up during the last couple of weeks, including the introduction of two more bills having something to do with the UIGEA and/or online gambling. That makes a total of seven different bills concerning internet gambling that have been proposed since April 2007. Meanwhile, the regulations for the UIGEA have yet to be finalized.

I thought I’d throw in my two cents regarding the most recently-proposed bill, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Clarification and Implementation Act of 2008 (H.R. 6663), introduced late last week by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX).

First off, it should be noted that this one has a very misleading name. You’d think that after nearly two years of fussing over the UIGEA, including the feds coming back to Congress to say they can’t make heads or tails of their charge to finalize the regulations, a “clarification” bill like this would be especially welcome. Unfortunately, this bill doesn’t try to clarify what really needs clarifying as far as the UIGEA is concerned -- but I’ll get to that in a moment.

I’ve actually seen a few people around the intertubes reporting on H.R. 6663 as “yet another anti-UIGEA bill,” but anyone who actually reads the bill would realize instantly it is hardly that. In fact, I’d describe it as precisely the opposite -- a “pro-UIGEA” bill that seeks to reinforce the significance of its having been signed into law.

The bill’s “Congressional Findings and Purpose” state that “Prior to the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006... on October 13, 2006, Federal law was both vague and outdated regarding Internet gambling activities.” A lot of us -- particularly online poker players -- would argue that the law continued to be vague even after the UIGEA was signed, but the (unstated) implication here is that the UIGEA sets straight what is legal and what is not.

I’ve argued before here that from a legal perspective, the UIGEA does indeed make clear that not just sports betting, but other types of gambling -- including poker -- are intended to be covered when it defines a “bet or wager” as “the staking or risking by any person of something of value upon the outcome of a contest of others, a sporting event, or a game subject to chance.” Unless a bill like Rep. Robert Wexler’s so-called “Skill Game Protection Act” (H.R. 2610) miraculously made it into a law and provided an exception or “carve out” for poker from the UIGEA -- which ain’t gonna happen -- the matter of whether or not poker is gambling has been settled. Legally speaking, anyway.

Anyhow, the “Findings” go on to point out that “to date” all federal prosecutions of online gambling have concerned sports betting only (i.e., were covered by pre-UIGEA law). Then it is said that many foreign companies who offered online gambling to Americans that did not involve sports betting (e.g., poker) made the decision to refuse U.S. customers “upon receiving clarification of United States law regarding internet gaming through the enactment of the UIGEA.” The reference here would be to sites like PartyPoker that immediately withdrew from the U.S. market when President Bush signed the UIGEA.

The next section is the one purporting to provide “UIGEA Clarification and Implementation,” and essentially says that companies like PartyPoker that have complied voluntarily with the UIGEA since it was signed into law will not be subject to prosecution. Frankly, none of this even needs to be said. There is no point at all to “clarifying” that someone who broke a law before it was a law, yet voluntarily abided by the law after it was passed, will not be subject to prosecution.

The “Findings” conclude with a recommendation for the feds to focus their efforts on stopping online sports betting in the U.S. Also, a final section adds the disingenuous disclaimer that “No provision in this Act... shall be construed as clarifying or implying that Internet bets or wagers, other than sports bets or wagers, which were accepted subsequent to October 13, 2006, are in violation of Federal law.” As I’ve already suggested, this final disclaimer is a bit suspect, given that H.R. 6663 does, in fact, appear to reinforce the UIGEA’s definition of a “bet or wager” as extending beyond sports betting to cover other types of gambling (like poker).

H.R. 6663 concludes on an especially ironic note, then. It is called the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Clarification and Implementation Act,” yet it ends by explicitly denying that it clarifies anything regarding what exactly internet gambling is! All it clarifies, really, is that the law cannot be used to prosecute those who violated its terms prior to its passage. Utterly needless, in other words.

As the feds demonstrated in that April hearing before the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology (a subcommittee of the House Financial Services committee), they want clarification all right when it comes to the UIGEA. But this is hardly the kind of clarification they are requesting.

What they need is clarification about which sites are to be designated as prohibited sites (i.e., specific guidelines regarding what kinds of activities are covered by the UIGEA), and clarification about how exactly to instruct financial institutions to implement the policies and procedures for blocking transactions outlined by the UIGEA.

None of that here, though. And frankly, that sort of clarification is never going to come in the form of yet another bill. If it ever comes at all.

The Poker Players Alliance has already made a statement that it does not support H.R. 6663, primarily because of the way the bill indirectly suggests the UIGEA does, indeed, designate online poker as a prohibited activity. I’m in complete agreement with the PPA here.

Of course, not many others will support H.R. 6663, either. Like most (or all) of the other online gambling bills presented to Congress, it will also die before ever coming to a vote. The only bill that I would suggest has any chance whatsoever of getting out of the House would be Rep. Shelley Berkley’s H.R. 2140, a bill to provide funding to the National Academy of Sciences to study online gambling. In fact, Berkley’s bill (which has 73 co-sponsors) was supposed to be considered last Wednesday, but got postponed as the House found itself preoccupied debating a resolution whether or not to find Karl Rove in contempt for not appearing to testify after he’d been subpoenaed.

And now it is vacation time. Congress is in recess until after Labor Day. And when they return, the November elections will surely eclipse any other considerations for a good while.

So when it comes to online gambling, you can safely forget about any sort of legal clarity for a good while.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 6: The Ambassador of Poker

The latest installment of the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show went up yesterday. It is already in iTunes, so if you subscribe to the podcast over there you’re already seeing it show up. I assume it also is appearing in the other feeds, too. Or, if you just want to listen online, click here.

This episode starts and ends with some audio I recorded at this year’s World Series of Poker. Vera gave me this little microphone attachment thingy for my iPod which enables one to record voice memos. I had thought at one point I might try to do some interviews along the way, but never got around to it. But I did grab some noise on the first day of the Main Event, and so am sharing it here.

I’ve included a short story about poker by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. The story is called “Four Men and a Poker Game, or Too Much Luck is Bad Luck.” It was written in the 1920s, and definitely has a hard-boiled feel to it. As I have done at certain points on some of the other episodes, I added a bit of background ambiance to the storytelling to make it a more interesting listen. Still an amateur when it comes to audio theater, but am having fun learning.

That’s followed by an episode of Escape called “The Ambassador of Poker.” Kind of an adventure story, with a so-called “Virginia gentleman” using his poker playing prowess to swindle a Chinese warlord.

Neither of my usual partners in crime -- Tim Peters or the Poker Grump -- appear in this one, although both should be returning soon in later episodes. I had mentioned at the outset my goal was to produce a show at least once per month, so I am pleased to see six episodes have been cranked out here in the first four months.

If you haven’t heard the show yet, you might go back and check out Episode 1 to get an idea what it’s about. None of the episodes necessarily focus on contemporary happenings, so unlike some podcasts these don’t necessarily go out of date.

As I have said before, doing these shows definitely increases my respect for those who do them on a regular basis -- a lot harder than it looks to pull these together, believe me. If you do happen to listen to the show, I’d love any feedback -- either here, on the show’s blog, as a review in iTunes, or via an email at shamus AT hardboiledpoker DOT com.