Onilne Gaming in the U.S.: Reservations from the Reservations

I watched that hearing yesterday of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, titled “What’s at Stake for the Tribes.” You might recall this is the second such hearing for that committee, following an earlier one back in November.

If you’re curious you can read the testimony from yesterday and view the hearing yourself over on the committee’s web page, although if you happen to dial up the video skip to about the 44-minute mark because for some reason the actual hearing doesn’t start until there.

With that opinion from the Department of Justice first made public in late December indicating an altered position regarding the Federal Wire Act, the tribes and those representing their interests are now viewing the prospect of online gambling in the U.S. as not just a possibility but likely. And, as I cracked after the first hearing, there appear to be a lot of reservations coming from the reservations when it comes to the possibility of legally-sanctioned online gaming coming to the U.S.

In fact, now there appears to be more explicit fretting over negative consequences for the tribes should individual states start moving forward with offering online gaming. Such appeared to be the sentiment being expressed by some of the witnesses yesterday, anyway.

I. Nelson Rose, the gambling law professor, was there as a witness and his testimony -- outlining his speculative view of what will be happening as we move forward with states lining up to pass legislation, establish regulations, issue licenses, and start offering online gaming (either intrastate or with other states as a “consortium”) -- seemed to me as though it probably mostly confirmed the tribes’ fears that their significant gaming revenues were going to be in danger.

Meanwhile, Patrick Fleming, an attorney who is serving as the Litigation Support Director for the Poker Players Alliance, appeared to be trying assuage such fears, suggesting instead how online gaming need not necessarily eat into the profitability of the tribes’ brick-and-mortar casinos. Fleming also made an effort to distinguish poker from other casino games, but I’m not sure how significant that argument really was in this context.

In the end, the hearing again seemed to demonstrate how discussions about online gaming on Capitol Hill have tended to veer away from being marked by moral objections to gambling, generally speaking, and are becoming more focused on practical questions regarding (1) how it is all going to work, and (2) who is going to benefit financially.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was a guest last night on the poker podcast “Keep Flopping Aces” with Lou Krieger and Shari Geller, and we did spend some of the hour talking about the prospects for online poker in the U.S. both on the state and federal levels.

When asked by Lou to predict whether or not we’d see any online poker in the U.S. in 2012, I had to say I didn’t think so. While things are moving on the state level -- having progressed the most in Nevada -- it still feels to me like logistical concerns may require significant time to pass before anyone is actually playing online poker in the U.S.

And as far as the idea of an interstate “consortium” goes, I can’t help but think the feds won’t stand idly by and allow that to happen without some sort of meddling that’ll at least delay such a development if not prevent it altogether. (I could be way off-base in thinking that way, but I guess I’m still mired in a believe-it-when-I-see-it mode for a lot of this.)

Meanwhile, I suppose there always exists the possibility of some surprise addendum to a federal bill to allow for online poker. In fact, there was some of that talk coming out of the rumor mill yet again this week -- i.e., that Harry Reid was again primed to try to do just that by adding an online poker bill to an upcoming payroll tax bill. I might have accounted for that possibility when answering Lou’s request to make a prediction, but I feel like there are so many variables affecting the prospects of a federal bill succeeding that it is hard for any of us amateur prognosticators to foresee that turn of events.

I was reflecting on Lou’s question again today, and thinking how in fact there still are a lot of months to go here in 2012. Still, with all of the various political forces in play -- Indian gaming being just one of them -- it continues to seem like the odds are mighty slim that online poker could be legally offered anywhere in the U.S. before the year is out.

Heels Heartbreak and Pats Parallels

Earlier this week I wrote a little about that wild, weird Super Bowl XLVI, ending the post with a statement about how since I didn’t necessarily care whether the Patriots or Giants won, I was thus able “to enjoy the strategic thinking and execution without all the associated anxiety and stress that stems from having a strong rooting interest.”

Last night’s UNC-Duke basketball game -- in some ways uncannily similar, actually, to how the Pats-Giants game went -- proved that concluding point. Most painfully.

As a longtime Heels fan -- and, necessarily, Blue Devils hater -- it was most upsetting to see UNC enjoy a 10-point lead over Duke with just over two minutes left, then watch everything go terribly wrong over the final stretch to lose the game 85-84.

I say the game was similar because just like the Super Bowl, the winning team (Duke/NYG) led for almost the entire first half, with the losing team (UNC/NE) grabbing the lead just before halftime. Then the losing team came out hot to start the second half to build a significant lead, the Heels going up by as much as 13 and New England by eight, maintaining the advantage all of the way to the very end before giving up the lead amid a dramatic sequence of events.

And in both cases, the losing team (UNC/NE) made mistakes and the winning team (Duke/NYG) made big plays to help decide the outcome.

After Duke had attempted more than 30 three-point shots leading up to that conclusion (making about a third of them), the game had come down to a situation in which there was no possible way the Blue Devils could come back without trying -- and making -- a few more threes. And somehow UNC let them do exactly that.

Duke made a three three-pointers in the last two-plus minutes, with UNC fouling them on one by Seth Curry to make it a four-point play. And the only three-pointer they missed during that stretch the Heels’ Tyler Zeller unfortunately tapped into the basket to give Duke two points.

Of course, one big difference between the games was the fact that New England purposely let the Giants make the go-ahead score at the end so as to preserve time on the clock to try to score themselves. UNC didn’t exactly let Duke score the winning basket -- the last of those three-pointers -- as the clock expired last night, but it kind of felt that way to a Heels fan watching Tyler Zeller inexplicably give Austin Rivers a few feet of space to allow him to launch his winning shot uncontested.

As I say, I’m emotionally invested here, so I’m not going to claim to be seeing all of this as clearly as I might otherwise. But there was something exquisitely painful about losing to Duke at home in such a way -- again, not unlike Tom Brady and the Pats getting that chance at some revenge against Eli Manning and the Giants after the heartbreak of losing to them in Super Bowl XLIV to ruin their perfect season, then losing again... and in a similarly heartbreaking way, too.

I keep thinking about that Super Bowl XLVI, especially the way it played out with New England letting the Giants’ Ahmad Bradshaw score that go-ahead touchdown despite his own apparent efforts to avoid doing so.

The game began with NE winning the coin toss, then deferring, giving the Giants the ball to start the game so as to get it to start the second half. And it kind of ended the same way, with NE deferring, too, giving the Giants the score so as to get the ball back.

I’ve been hearing some commentators offering criticism about the ending, for instance ESPN writer Tim Keown in a column titled “Unworthy End to Super Bowl XLVI.” Like others, Keown is complaining that even though it was correct for New England to concede the touchdown, he believes it was “not a proud or particularly dignified way to decide the Super Bowl.”

I think Keown and others making this complaint are failing to appreciate how the strange turn of events at the end of Super Bowl XLVI helped demonstrate how football is in fact a strategically-interesting game, perhaps more so than some other sports. That is to say, I didn’t think that ending detracted one bit from the Super Bowl and in fact made it all the more interesting.

Keown describes what happened at the end of Super Bowl XLVI as “a true sports anomaly,” claiming how “there is no other situation in American sports in which a team would make a similar strategic decision.” He recognizes and lists some “loose parallels in other sports,” but maintains that nowhere else is there an equivalent situation “that call[s] for a team to relinquish its lead at the end of a game as a means of facilitating a comeback win.”

We poker players are very familiar with the concept of giving up something now in order to give ourselves a chance to win later, such as in a tournament where we might even have to fold what we think is a better hand in order to keep some chips with which to try to mount a comeback and win. I explored that idea some earlier this week in a “Community Cards” column over at Epic Poker, “Poker-Like Plotting at Super Bowl XLVI.”

Sure, poker isn’t really a sport, but it has a lot in common with many sports, particularly on the strategic-level. And here I think it might help make what was happening at the end of the Pats-Giants game a little more understandable -- and not so “unworthy.”

I suppose poker could also help me come to grips with that collapse by my Tar Heels last night against Duke. When I woke up today and remembered what happened, it really did feel a lot like remembering having lost big in a session of poker the night before. A session in which I might have experienced some bad luck but mostly played poorly in order to ensure my loss and add to the bad feelings about how it all went.

But I’m going to refrain from studying that game any further. Hurts too much.

By the way, if you want to hear me talk about other things -- i.e., all poker-related and most assuredly not about the UNC-Duke game -- I’m going to be a guest tonight on the “Keep Flopping Aces” podcast hosted by Lou Krieger and Shari Geller. The show goes from 9-10 p.m. Eastern time and can be heard live on Rounder’s Radio. And if you miss the live show you can always grab the archived podcast (look for 2-9-12).

Nikolay Evdakov (1964-2012)

Sad news yesterday regarding the passing of the Russian poker pro Nikolay Evdakov who leaves us at the much-too-young age of 47.

Evdakov came on the radar for most poker players and those who follow poker back in 2008 when he set a new record for cashes at the World Series of Poker, making the money an astonishing 10 times. That was the first year I had the chance to report from the WSOP, and so became quite familiar with him early on as he always seemed to be sitting with chips once the cash bubble burst.

His highest finish in 2008 was 12th in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em Championship, his first cash of that year’s Series. He’d made the final two tables a couple more times, and the final three or four tables most of the other times he cashed in 2008.

In 2009 Evdakov followed up with six more cashes at the WSOP, again making it down to the last couple of tables most times before falling. He was a prominent figure at the WSOP over the last couple of years, too. He final tabled the $10K Seven-Card Stud Championship in 2010, finishing fourth. And last summer he made a deep run in the $25,000 NLH Heads-Up Championship where he made it to the quarterfinals before losing to Eric Froehlich.

Hendon Mob lists Evdakov as having amassed over $1.15 million worth of cashes in his career, with the earliest listed being 2006. They have him as 15th on the all-time money list for Russian players.

As I say, Evdakov was a player with whom I became familiar pretty quickly that first summer I reported from the WSOP for PokerNews. When I heard about his passing yesterday, I couldn’t help but think somewhat grimly about how the news jarred with the most prominent characteristic I could think to assign to him, namely his ability to survive in tournaments.

I remember the nickname “cockroach” starting to come up now and again to refer to Evdakov, a reference to his repeatedly continuing to last in events while others fell around him. I have no idea where the tag originated, but I’m pretty sure it started that summer of 2008. And when it was used -- by reporters and players alike -- it was certainly meant in a complimentary way. The guy just couldn’t be knocked out, if often seemed.

Besides being an accomplished tourney player who was adept at many different games, Evdakov was also well liked both by players and the media, particularly the Russian reporters. Indeed, I believe he started and/or helped run the CGM website (a poker news site and forum) where the announcement of his passing was first posted.

In fact, my only other significant memory of Evdakov relates to his friendliness and special relationship with poker media. I had the chance in 2009 to help cover the European Poker Tour Kyiv event, the only one ever held in the Ukraine, which unsurprisingly attracted a number of Russian players and media. Evdakov, I recall, participated in many of the tourneys in Kyiv, including the High Roller in which only three played and Shaun Deeb won.

I remember playing in the media tournament and at one point near the end of the event Evkdakov coming around with a video camera to shoot some footage. I think he was mainly shooting the Russian guys who normally reported on him all of the time, and there were a lot of grins and laughter during the entire time he was there.

We were down to six-handed. Simon Young of PokerStars was there playing, too, and I remember Evdakov aiming the camera at him at which point Simon took the opportunity to deliver a hilarious speech in which he explained how he’d paid €20,000 to enter our tourney (which I believe was the buy-in for the High Roller). And, said Simon, he was ready to challenge Evdakov next, which inspired a lot more laughter.

I never saw that video Evdakov shot. I remember looking for it, but struggling to decipher where to go on CGM or other Russian-language sites where I thought it might turn up. That whole experience was a special one for me, not least because I somehow managed to luckbox my way into winning the sucker. And Evdakov’s cameo just made it that much more entertaining and memorable.

I didn’t know Evdakov, but like I say my memories of him are all good ones. And from the messages players have been sharing regarding having competed with him it is clear he was a valued member of the poker community and will be missed.

Subject:Poker Signs Off

After about nine months and a little over 70 articles, the investigative news site Subject:Poker has decided to call it quits.

Started in May 2011 as a conscious response to an apparent void created by other poker news sites, S:P presented itself as an independent outlet dedicated to reporting on items of interest to the poker community without bias. As noted in an early post announcing the site’s launch, S:P accepted no advertising from “gambling institutions and their affiliates” so as to eliminate even the perception of influence when reporting on those institutions. That post also explained how its founders, Thomas Bakker and Noah Stephens-Davidowitz, had “no expectation of profit from this site, nor do any of our reporters, nor do any of us have other affiliations that might taint our motivations” when reporting for S:P.

From the start, the site’s motto was “Poker News Done Right,” an obvious jab at other poker news sites that had failed to report on certain scandals, Black Friday-related matters, or other items of significance in poker or had reported on those items in ways that were tainted by various motivations (such as the desire to retain particular advertisers) or at least perceived to have been influenced so.

The site gained a lot of attention during its brief run thanks to several “breaking” stories about the Black Friday indictment and civil complaint, a few articles related to the small U.S.-facing sites that remained after the big ones left, Full Tilt Poker’s spectacular fall to go offline entirely and become subject to additional allegations by the DOJ, reports about the efforts by FTP to find a buyer including the eventual emergence of Groupe Bernard Tapie, as well as other items including occasional interviews with and profiles of prominent figures in the stories on which they were reporting.

Contacts with various “insiders” -- particularly within Full Tilt Poker and even the Department of Justice -- allowed S:P to report certain stories that other sites could not, although in many cases those articles had to be filed with the sources either listed as “anonymous” or without particular reference.

A recent report on “Chris Ferguson’s Secret FTP Bank Accounts and Threats to GBT Deal,” for example, reported a number of provocative statements without much indication of how they had been verified other than to refer obliquely to “multiple sources” confirming items or “one source, whom we believe to be credible” adding information.

Occasionally the site would report on items that caused some to wonder about its self-professed lack of agenda or bias. And every once in a while there would appear posts that raised questions about journalistic ethics, such as last September when the site reported that “‘DOJ Plans Action Against Merge.’”

The headline of that article appeared as a quote, although no attribution was offered in the article which began “Subject:Poker has recently been told....” The story reported that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland was about to seize assets of payment processors Merge had been using to serve U.S. customers. The report severely affected the traffic at most Merge sites, which in turn had other consequences throughout the industry (including upon other poker media). When no action followed by the DOJ -- a possibility accounted for in the article -- some speculated that the mere appearance of the article might have had some significance in affecting the DOJ’s plans.

Another story from late July reporting “FTP’s Financial Relationship With Two Pros” similarly raised eyebrows by its inclusion of information learned after gaining “access to [Phil] Ivey’s and [David] Benyamine’s account history on Full Tilt’s internal systems.” Among what was reported there, we were told Ivey had borrowed money from FTP a total of 18 times for more than $10 million, about half of which he had paid back. (We have learned in recent days that several other pros -- not all FTP-affiliated -- allegedly borrowed significant sums from the site as well.)

Such stories provide a couple of examples of how Subject:Poker sometimes itself became “poker news” during its brief run -- i.e., while reporting on the news occasionally also being part of the story. In fact, the site rarely reported “poker news” stories that were not somehow “exclusive” thanks to having special access to individuals with information other sites lacked. Thus a lot of the stories often provoked commentary and response both about the content of the articles and about the methods by which that content was obtained and provided.

As a result, the site enjoyed considerable influence, although in the end I think those involved might have found running S:P overly stressful and/or unrewarding (not just financially speaking) to continue. I’m just speculating here, but that is a sense I got from hearing Noah Stephens-Davidowitz interviewed a few times and reading some of his frequent posts as “NoahSD” on Two Plus Two.

As noted in their “Goodbye” post, Stephens-Davidowitz and fellow founder Thomas Bakker are starting a poker security consulting company, which may well be a good fit for them. Indeed, I believe it was after doing similar security-related consulting work for an online poker company that the idea for the S:P site initially arose.

I’ll admit I was always a little cynical both about S:P’s claims to objectivity and that “Poker News Done Right” motto. With or without advertisers’ pressure (real or perceived), it is hard for anyone to report on anything without at least some bias, particularly when reporting on the types of stories S:P chose to pursue. And while I don’t disagree with the complaint that many poker news outlets -- often primarily for financial reasons -- haven’t reported as thoroughly as one might wish on certain stories (especially Black Friday-related), I also wouldn’t dismiss such sites as entirely without value or suggest they don’t “do poker news right” from time to time.

That said, S:P’s decision to step aside is worth noting, especially among those of us who find poker news relevant and/or interesting. As is the site’s unique contribution to our understanding of what exactly is happening with regard to the current legal machinations and other items of importance in the poker world, especially online poker.

Logic and Emotion, Poker and the Super Bowl

Like many of you, I, too, watched with interest Super Bowl XLVI last night. Didn’t have a particular favorite in the game, nor did I bet on it in any fashion, other than to enter a fantasy team in the Draft Day freeroll, that is. But as a fan of the NFL I was nonetheless riveted from start to finish by yet another dramatic, highly engaging game that literally came down to the final play.

Since the game represented a rematch from four years ago between the New York Giants (again, technically, an underdog) and the New England Patriots -- and since the game turned out quite similarly to Super Bowl XLII in which a late score by the Giants stole the lead from the favored Pats to deliver New York the win -- most of the post-game talk is understandably involving comparisons to the earlier game.

For me, though, the Super Bowl I was remembering most vividly as I watched this one play out was the one in which my Carolina Panthers came up just short versus New England back in early 2004 (Super Bowl XXXVIII).

Remember that one? For some, the game will be forever remembered as the “wardrobe malfunction” Super Bowl. But it was also probably the most friggin’ exciting football game I’ve ever watched, punctuated by a frenzied fourth quarter in which the Panthers scored three touchdowns, New England scored two, with the Pats tacking on a game-winning field goal with four seconds left to seal a 32-29 win.

While last night’s game didn’t have the rush of scoring at the end, there was a similar up-and-down, roller-coastery feel to the second half, with New England appearing on the verge of crushing New York, the tide of momentum then turning the Giants’ way, then that truly wild sequence near the very end in which the Giants didn’t want to score and the Pats wanted them to score, and thus the go-ahead touchdown was made almost despite the effort of Ahmad Bradshaw to stop his forward progress at the 1-yard-line before he fell back into the endzone.

Actually, that particular play -- in which New England allowed New York to score the go-ahead TD in order to get the ball back with sufficient time to try to score themselves -- recalls one from the end of Super Bowl XXXII when Green Bay let Denver score the go-ahead TD with a little under two minutes left in order to get the ball back with time to try to match the Broncos’ touchdown. The Packers couldn’t do so, however, and Denver won 31-24.

That decision by New England to let Bradshaw score will no doubt be the focus of much debate and commentary during the off-season. I can understand the argument against having done so. Given that New York apparently wasn’t looking to try to score a touchdown and thus would’ve played along, the down and timeout situation added up to New England either winning the game on a missed Giants field goal (very unlikely) or getting the ball back with less than 30 seconds left down by a point.

Instead, New England chose to let the Giants score that TD to go up by more than a field goal and thus got the ball back with about a minute remaining needing to score a touchdown, which meant driving 80 yards in a handful of plays in order to win. And that’s the path they took. To clear a path.

Neither option was particularly attractive for the Pats. The chance of a missed Giants field goal was close to zero (say 5%?). And if they held NY to that go-ahead FG, the chance of hitting a couple of big plays (i.e., totaling 50 yards) to set up their own long winning field goal was also slim (perhaps 10-15%?). Meanwhile, driving 80 yards in just under a minute with one timeout left was probably no better than a 20-25% shot or so (at best).

I’m sure somebody has already crunched the numbers so as to produce exact percentages on all of these, but we don’t really need precise figures to know it was not an outrageous decision to let the Giants score. Or to understand that the Pats were in a pretty desperate spot at the end, no matter how they chose to play it.

Talk about a poker-like decision, though! So many possible analogies to draw to describe what was going on, the most obvious being the way it resembles deciding to fold and concede one hand in order to preserve enough chips to battle for the next one. As the Giants mounted that final drive, it really felt like a heads-up battle in which one player had seized the momentum and suddenly had a significant chip lead, one that ensured the other was going to need to double-up more than once just to have a chance to win.

In any event, it was a thoroughly exciting game to watch. And unlike that Panthers loss from eight years ago, I was able to enjoy the strategic thinking and execution without all the associated anxiety and stress that stems from having a strong rooting interest.

Playing By a Different Set of Rules

Worked on a couple of different poker-related stories this week that shared kind of a common theme. Both involved people in power -- who, not coincidentally, were people with money and/or access to money -- enjoying considerably greater freedom and influence than the rest of us poor saps (jingle-brained and otherwise).

One appeared over on Epic Poker, an entry for my “Community Cards” column on poker and pop culture that was inspired by the current presidential election. As we watch the Republicans continue with their debates, primaries, and caucuses in an effort to determine who will be their nominee to run against President Obama in November, I was reminded of an old story about another election in which Republicans were also trying to decide upon a nominee, this one for a U.S. senate seat in Minnesota back in the 19th century.

The story appears in a neat 1899 collection of poker tales by David A. Curtis called Queer Luck and describes how two backers of opposing candidates found themselves pitted against each other in a high-stakes poker match.

Eventually a five-card draw hand develops in which both pick up huge hands and after betting all of the money they have decide to add another, curious element to the pot -- namely, the promise of one that he’ll leave the state until the nomination and election is over so as not to be able to use his financial influence to promote his candidate.

You can find out what happens in the column, titled “When a Poker Party Influenced a Political Party.”

The other story concerned the recent headlines coming out regarding Full Tilt Poker, including those having to do with ongoing efforts to finalize that deal whereby Groupe Bernard Tapie will be taking over the site.

You’ve certainly been following these stories, too, including the one from last week in which Subject:Poker alleged Chris Ferguson and his lawyer, the appropriately-named Ian Imrich, were seeking payment of about $14.3 million from FTP, with the article suggesting the situation could possibly threaten the deal from being completed. Both Imrich and the GBT lawyer have since refuted S:P’s take on the situation.

Then yesterday Matt Kaufman (a.k.a. PokerSmell) of PokerStrategy shared another very curious bit of news regarding GBT’s lawyer saying Full Tilt Poker is actually owed “between $10 and $20 million” by several pros, including Team Full Tilt guys (Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, and Mike Matusow), ex-red pros (Layne Flack and David Benyamine), and perhaps most surprisingly, Barry Greenstein (of PokerStars).

Kind of an odd juxtaposition of stories, with one involving FTP apparently owing a pro and the other concerning players owing Full Tilt. I delved into all of it for a feature over on Betfair that went up today, titled “More Full Tilt Poker Headlines for Players to Fret Over.”

In any case, both of those stories highlight the extreme difference in status between the guys with money and/or access to it -- and the resulting freedoms and influence such status provides -- and the rest of us.

With regard to the FTP situation, I realize certain individuals are obviously at greater fault than others, but I still can’t help but be enormously peeved at the idea that pretty much all along there were those who were able to borrow hundreds of thousands from the very site on which they then played with the money. Never mind the fact that we now know thanks to FTP’s failure to segregate operating expenses from player accounts that the money being loaned to these players came (essentially) from our accounts!

Anyhow, click on those links above for a couple of poker-related stories about corruption and injustice. And about how whenever there is money and power involved, there is generally always going to be a lot going on that is well hidden from the view of most.

On Endings, Wished For and Otherwise

Over the last eight months or so, I’ve been gradually working my way through a draft of a new novel. Started with an idea back in May, something I originally thought might be just a short story. But the sucker gained momentum and by the time I made it to the World Series of Poker in mid-June I already knew it was a novel-length puzzle I had given myself to try to solve.

That trip, followed closely by another to LAPT Uruguay, introduced what amounted a two-month break from the fiction writing. But I got back to it and have steadily pushed through to where I am now looking at just a couple more scenes to go before I can say the draft is done and begin the work of revising.

I was realizing over the last few days how a small part of me doesn’t want to reach the end of the draft. That is to say, while I have known for some time how the story is going to end, not knowing precisely how I was going to get there allowed me to indulge in the fantasy of my novel having a kind of limitless potential -- that there was still time to include all sorts of scenes or characters or allusions or what have you.

But now that the end is nigh, I’ve started to accept that my options are becoming fewer as far as introducing new elements is concerned. Sure, when I revise I already know of a few new items that are going to have to be brought in as part of the story. But it’ll no longer be a “no-limit” game then, given the considerable constraints of the plotting already in place.

I used to play poker in a similar fashion, not wanting a session to end no matter how long I’d played, or even how the session was going. But more and more I’ve found myself cutting sessions short. In fact, it has gotten to the point sometimes that I find myself starting to think about leaving even during the first orbit of hands.

There are several reasons for this change of attitude or lessening of enthusiasm about playing or whatever you want to call it. One, in fact, is that I’ve often preferred to work on the novel than to play.

Also, being relegated to sites with fewer options for game selection, not to mention having to stick with the micros (thanks to my unwillingness to deposit), has made the idea of sitting down to play less inviting. This recent VIP Cash Rebate I earned on Carbon -- for two whole cents! -- is a good indicator of how little time and money I have been investing trying to build my small roll on the site.

Another factor may be simply that the novelty of playing online has long since worn off, too. The “stories” poker used to provide me on a regular basis have mostly gone away or become less interesting. There was a lengthy stretch when I’d play a decent number of hours every week and almost always be guaranteed to come away with some interesting anecdote or hand or something that I would subsequently write about here. But things that are happening at the tables these days just aren’t as inspiring, I’m afraid.

Which is why I go back to the novel. Like Same Difference, it’s a murder mystery, although the protagonist is not a detective. Nor is the story especially “hard-boiled” or as licentious as was the case in the first one. Oh, and again, no poker.

Like I say, the finish line is in sight as far as the draft goes, and I’m hoping to get through the revising and have it out into the world by the spring. At which time we’ll see what new games there are to play.

No November Nine, But Delay Remains for WSOP Main Event

F-Train was the first I remember mentioning last summer how the November Nine -- that four-year long experiment tried by the World Series of Poker to delay the Main Event final table nearly four months from the start of the tournament -- might not be returning again after 2011.

He noticed early on how the move to “almost live” coverage of the Main Event kind of ran against one of the original reasons for the delay, namely, as a means to build interest in the tournament for a close-to-simultaneous presentation of the ME’s conclusion in November.

Indeed, when the prepackaged shows dedicated to telling the story of the Main Event saw a precipitous drop in ratings during August, September, and October from previous years, some pointed to the “almost live” shows back in July as having perhaps negatively affected the size of the audience for the later, edited shows.

There were certainly other reasons, too, for the drop in numbers, but by the time we got around to November and it was announced that every single hand of the final table was going to be shown in the same “almost live” format, it really did seem as though the whole November Nine concept had perhaps run its course.

In fact, our buddy Kevmath kicked off the conference call we had a few days before the November Nine with that very question, alluding to WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky’s comment in a PokerListings interview that having both the delay and the sort-of-live coverage “doesn’t quite work.”

There were no WSOP folks on that call, and so only Doug White, Senior Director of Programming and Acquisitions for ESPN, was able really to address the issue. White suggested the delay still had a place insofar as it helped contribute further to “the pomp and circumstance that you get around the final table in November.” Even so, by then many observers were starting to believe we were about to see the last November Nine.

Those suspicions appeared to have been confirmed yesterday when the WSOP cheekily hinted over Twitter that the November Nine would not be part of this year’s schedule.

Initial reactions to the apparent end of the November Nine experiment were mixed, with many seeming to say that while they opposed it at first they eventually came to like the format and were sorry to see it go.

I remember way back at the start of May 2008 when the idea was first announced -- at a relatively late date, if you recall -- I was strongly opposed to the idea as affecting too greatly the overall integrity of the most important tournament in poker. Fired off a few posts suggesting as much, including one titled “Nine Players in Search of a Final Table” and another with the angry-seeming header “The WSOP Main Event: Birth, Build-Up, Boom... Bastardized?”

While I have eventually come to enjoy certain aspects of the unique (if artificial-seeming) narrative arc created by the delay, I still haven’t entirely accepted the idea of building a whole, strange four-month long “season” out of a two-week long tournament.

As it turned out, when the WSOP finally turned over its hand today we discovered that tweet from yesterday was in essence just some misleading table talk -- in fact they will be keeping the delay in 2012. Indeed, the November Nine is (technically) no more. But that is only because the sucker has been moved earlier to the end of October so as to avoid coinciding with this year’s presidential election.

For details, check out the official 2012 schedule released by the WSOP today. I have to admit I’m a little disappointed to see F-Train’s early suggestion -- subsequently echoed by many -- not coming true and the delay remaining part of the WSOP Main Event schedule.

Four years is a long time in poker, though. More than enough to create the impression of a “tradition.” And so to alter that now would probably seem almost as incongruous as it did when the idea was first introduced.

Poker Turning the Page

Bill Rini offers us a good read today with a post titled “The Death of Poker Media?” There Bill comments at length about how poker publications like Card Player have clearly been affected significantly by Black Friday and the sudden down-sizing of online poker in the U.S. that happened in its wake.

Bill’s post reminded me of one I wrote last May titled “On Spines, or the Lack Thereof” in which I noticed how Card Player had swiftly reduced in size after losing PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and UltimateBet/Absolute Poker as advertisers.

In that post I remarked on how it had taken a few issues of Card Player for there to be any comment whatsoever on Black Friday, and when they finally did get around to mentioning it -- only briefly, in the issue dated May 24, 2011 -- it just so happened that was the issue in which the advertising from the indicted sites had stopped. (The fact that the new issue didn’t have a spine but was stapled together encouraged the pun in the title.)

Bill noted in his post that he’d picked up a recent issue of Card Player (dated January 25, 2012) and saw it was a mere 68 pages long, less than half of which contained actual content (i.e., features, strategy articles, etc.). In fact, that issue from last May -- the first one without a spine -- was also just 68 pages, so CP in particular has been scaled down for quite a while.

Having also noticed how the content being provided had slowed to a trickle, it was late last year I finally let my subscription to Card Player run out after many years. Actually the slimming down of the magazine had been happening pretty much over that entire stretch, starting with the signing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

I still have all of my old issues of CP and so can quickly confirm what Bill is noting in his post about the lack of heft in the new Card Player compared to the good old days. The first issue of 2006 was 164 pages long, more than twice the number of pages of today’s Card Player. And observing the number of pages in the first issue of each year since further reveals the trend: 2007 (156 pages), 2008 (148), 2009 (112), 2010 (100), and 2011 (84).

Other poker-related print publications are struggling, too, of course, and Bill does a good job outlining how too great of a reliance on online sites’ ad revenue and the affiliate game help explain a lot of the wasting away that has occurred. As Bill points out, all poker media outlets are necessarily having to adapt to new circumstances in order to survive, let alone thrive.

I don’t think poker media’s “death” is necessarily imminent, although the future of print publications is understandably highly uncertain. Such is the case for much of print media, generally speaking.

Still, it is interesting to consider how the physicality of the magazines covering our favorite game -- not even their content, but how they feel in our hands -- can be said to provide a kind of literal marker of the game’s currently embattled status.

Stranger Than Fiction

I mentioned last post (on Friday) my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class, as well as another class taught by Professor Bruce McCullough over at Drexel University, titled “Poker, Probability and Decision-Making.” When I spoke with Bruce about his class, we talked about various teaching strategies, including the relative usefulness of having students actually play some poker in our classes.

If you take a look at our Betfair poker interview from last week, you’ll see us discussing the various topics Bruce’s course covers, including probability, expected value, Bayes theorem, odds and outs, Sklansky's Fundamental Theorem of Poker, decision trees, expected utility, prospect theory, bankroll management, and more. You’ll also see Bruce describing having set up weekly tournaments online for his students to play, and really it made a lot of sense to me that he had them playing poker as a way of immediately applying various ideas from their course.

In my course, I have the students play a session of poker in class just one time early on primarily to help them understand the rules of the various games -- draw, stud, and hold’em -- that we’ll be reading about and watching being played in films. Not everyone who signs up for the course is a poker player, and indeed even those who are don’t always have a lot of familiarity with five-card draw or other variants.

I mentioned this strategy here a few months ago, sharing an especially boring handout I provide the students detailing the rules of the various games. Knowing that actually handling cards and chips and having to play hands can be much more instructive than simply reading a sheet describing the rules, our little session does a good job getting everyone at least somewhat familiar with the games.

Last week we met for the second time and so as I’ve done before we went ahead and had our day of playing poker in class. I shared on Twitter last week a remarkable seven-card stud hand that occurred in which two students put in a number of bets to force others to fold, and by the end both had incredibly drawn four of a kind. One had quad nines and the other quad jacks.

We all marveled at the hands, and I tried to convey just how unlikely it was for this to have occurred. After all, I was introducing the game to just about all of them, so most had no frame of reference to help appreciate just how crazy a hand it was. I insisted on taking a picture (see above), just to chronicle the moment.

“What are the odds?” I was asked, and I had to tell them I didn’t know. I’ve seen a couple of different attempts to calculate it, both coming up with different yet similarly long odds against. (If any math-minded folks want to work it out exactly, please do -- my students and I would be grateful.)

One reason why I want to make sure the students realize quads over quads is hardly an everyday occurrence is because we are going to be reading a number of stories and watching some films (both clips and entire features) in which these sort of improbable hands are fairly common -- e.g., straight flush over straight flush, four aces over four kings, etc.

In many cases, cheating helps create these unlikely hands, though not always. Of course, we might say that cheating always creates these hands in the stories we read -- that is, either the characters are cheating or the author is “cheating” (in a way) by giving the characters such hands.

But in reality, hands like the one we had in my class last week just don’t happen. Pro player Joe Tall was telling me last week he’d never seen quads over quads in 7CS live, and perhaps once in ten years’ worth of playing online (including 1-2 years of full-time play online).

So I’m preparing today’s class during which I’ll be showing a few different film clips, including the great scene from The Sting in which Gondorff outcheats the cheater Lombard aboard the 20th Century Limited. And as I was looking over my notes and thinking about showing the scene to a new group, I realized what hands are turned over at the showdown.

Quad jacks over quad nines!

A different game (five-card draw), but the same hands as my students last week! Now what are the odds of that?