The Wrong Focus (Another Cheating Pro)

Two weeks ago I was driving home late on Friday afternoon. Was turning left into my neighborhood and out of the corner of my eye noticed a patrol car cruising off to the right. I remember consciously thinking I should keep it under the posted 25 speed limit, which I did. Hung another left and then a quick right. As I slowly motored down my street I noticed the blue lights in the rearview.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I thought, knowing full well I couldn’t possibly have exceeded 25. I glided over to the curb, just a couple of doors down from where I live, and waited for the policeman. As I waited I took a quick peek up and down the street to see if any of my neighbors might be watching the fun.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asked. Suddenly it dawned on me I had an expired 30-day tag. Ended up taking nearly two months for the plate to come (it didn’t arrive until earlier this week), so I’d spent a few weeks driving around after the tag had run out. I was actually feeling relief as I replied “I know I have that 30-day tag,” pointing backwards as I spoke.

I stopped short, though, when I saw the officer shaking his head. “You ran right through that stop sign,” he explained. He was right. There’s a four-way stop just before the turn into my neighborhood, and I’d blown right through the sucker. Having focused on my speed, I’d missed the sign.

“So you just got this car?” he asked, stepping back and looking up and down the side. I nodded. “Do you have the Bill of Sale?”

Oof. Did I? I had a sinking feeling. I started rifling through warranty info and manuals. But I knew I didn’t have it. As I looked I gestured pitifully across the street. “I live right there,” I said. He remained nonplussed. Good Lord, I thought. This is turning into one fine day.

When the sign says stop, you’re supposed to stop. No negotiating that. I’d been caught. And now it was up to Officer Blue to decide my fate.

Speaking of breaking the rules, I happened to hear the guys over on the Hardcore Poker Show mention something about Mike Matusow’s latest “Mouthpiece” episode (on CardPlayer TV) in which he reveals having taken over for a friend deep in an online tourney, Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi-style. The Hardcore Poker guys refrained from commenting on the subject, saying they wanted to have Matusow on the show to let him explain what had occurred.

I dialed up the “Mouthpiece” today -- the latest episode (#32), dated February 7th. After wading through the first 22 minutes or so, Matusow finally comes out with the admission during a ramble about online tournament poker. Here’s what he says:

“Tournament poker involves tremendous focus, I mean tremendous focus . . . . If I was to play tournaments online, I would have to play just the one tournament, and have everything turned off around me, and then put my heart into it. And I haven’t been able to do it yet except for once, and I did it once for a friend of mine who was six hours deep into a tournament -- I’m not gonna name what site -- and I took over for him because he’s not really a good closer, and we finished third. ’Cos I put my heart into it, and I knew we had chips to move with and I could evaluate players and we should have won it if we would have won a coin flip. So, that’s what it comes down to is the focus.”

Incredible, really, how casually Matusow admits to not following the rule against account-sharing. He doesn’t name the site, but I’m sure it has such a rule in place. We all know the site that sponsors Matusow, Full Tilt Poker, has such a rule.

No, Matusow seems completely unaware that what he did might be considered unethical and/or against the rules. He’s also obviously unaware of the irony of what he is saying. His point is that by taking over from his friend late in the tourney, he was able to focus much better than he would have had he played the first six hours himself. Meanwhile, Matusow is oblivious to the fact that those against whom he’s competing are themselves battling to maintain that “tremendous focus” after having put in the long hours beforehand.

In fact, he seems to be suggesting that the best way to stay focused is to do what you can to remain fresh -- e.g., not play the first part of the tournament and only step in at the end. That way you’ll be better able to “evaluate players” and play winning poker.

I don’t have it in for Matusow in particular here. I’m just tired of these pros acting as though all of these rules the rest of us take for granted somehow don’t apply to them.

How did things go with Officer Blue? I got lucky. He let me off with just a warning. Sort of like getting my money in bad and sucking out. You better believe I’m coming to a full stop at that sign every time from now on. Of course, Matusow and his friend won’t even receive a warning -- only, perhaps, a small bit of backlash that will surely fade away in short order.

So . . . what is today’s “tip from the pro”? Let’s see . . . something to do with focus. I think I have it:

Don’t focus on the rules so much that doing so affects your ability to focus on winning.

Oh, and remember also -- put your heart into it.

Absolute Poker “Security Summits” (In Search Of)

Remember those “Security Summits” Absolute Poker told us about back in January in its response to the audit? What ever happened to those?

I thought I’d ask . . .



Sent that middle of last week. Haven’t heard a peep from AP. Perhaps recognizing I haven’t played a hand on their site for months, Absolute Poker support doesn’t feel the need to respond to me anymore.

I heard a few days ago something about plans to integrate the online poker site Vegas Poker 24/7 and Absolute Poker. My understanding is that Vegas Poker 24/7 has operated as an Absolute “skin” all along, although players have been able to open separate accounts on each site. In a statement about the upcoming integration (planned for March), Joe Norton, owner of Towkiro Enterprises ENRG “which holds a 100% interest in Absolute Poker” had the following to say:

“Today’s online gaming community demands and expects a transformative gaming experience that seamlessly integrates superior technology, responsiveness to customer needs, and a safe and secure environment in which to play . . . . Absolute Poker and Vegas Poker 24/7 are at the center of this trend, and this acquisition will build on our combined heritage to redefine the online gaming experience.”

Man, oh man. If I held a 100% interest in Absolute Poker, I doubt I’d be chirping about the site’s “heritage” or saying anything about “redefin[ing] the online gaming experience.” That’s just me, though. I try to avoid undesirable ironies whenever possible.

I know I said yesterday I tend not to listen to online poker shows live, but I did happen to hear “Pumped on Poker” on Sunday afternoon and heard an interview with a Vegas Poker 24/7 rep concerning the plans to integrate the two sites. There were a number of logistical questions being asked and answered -- nothing too remarkable, for the most part. I was surprised by one tidbit, though.

Apparently players who currently have accounts on both Vegas Poker 24/7 and Absolute Poker will be allowed to login using either username once the integration has occurred. Meaning you could be playing against CaptainKirk341 one day and MrSpock22 the next, but both players are actually the same Trekkie.

Now this here integration apparently won’t concern Ultimate Bet at all -- that site, though owned by the same group that owns AP, will remain distinct. Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder about what we were talking about a couple of weeks ago -- namely, the fact that two different players can currently log into the same Ultimate Bet account from different locations. I haven’t heard anything about that being possible on Absolute, though if it were, the upcoming integration -- and the decision to allow players to use two different usernames on the same site -- seems like it might create some problems.

Of course, allowing multiple usernames may not pose any problems at all. Nevertheless, it strikes me as a bad idea, creating conditions that may even encourage attempts to multi-account.

Maybe someone will bring that up at the Security Summit . . . ?

Talkin’ Podcasts

A few items of interest on the poker podcast front here of late.

For one, the Hold ’em Radio website appears to be back online. I sent head pirate Wade Andrews a note telling him I was glad to see the site had returned, and he wrote back to say that since they’d come back he had had to increase their stream bandwidth to accommodate all of the folks listening in. The podcast section remains a bit disordered (and not updated), but I’m hoping things settle down over there soon.

Of course, a few of the better Hold ’em Radio shows have emigrated over to Rounder’s Radio, including Keep Flopping Aces (with Lou Krieger) and Poker Psychology (with Dr. Alan Schoonmaker). There are a couple of episodes of KFA available for download over at the Rounder’s site. I believe Schoonmaker is on a brief hiatus and plans to return with his show in the spring.

There’s also a new World Series of Poker podcast which appears essentially to be a revival of the old Bluff Radio show with Nick Geber. The show is broadcast live every Monday night and syndicated on a number of over-the-air stations by the Sports Byline Broadcast Network. I’ve only heard the debut show (featuring yet another Hellmuth interview -- yawn), as it is the only one that has been made available for download.

I suppose there are some folks out there -- perhaps the ones who play online poker 40-plus hours a week -- who can listen to these live networks and shows, but I almost never dial up these things live. Thus, if I can’t hear the show as an .mp3 download, I’m probably not going to. (Those dates listed next to the shows on the right-hand column refer to the latest downloadable show, not necessarily the latest show.)

I know creating the .mp3 files and putting them in the RSS stream takes a bit of time and effort, but I’d think all of these folks would be getting a lot more attention & listeners if they made their shows available more quickly and more regularly.

The other bit of poker podcast news from the last week is that Bart Hanson will no longer be co-hosting PokerRoad Radio (with Joe Sebok and Gavin Smith). Ali Nejad (Poker After Dark, NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship, ESPN WSOP PPV) will be assuming the seat formerly occupied by Hanson, Joe Stapleton, and Scott Huff. Hanson did fine, as far as I was concerned, although I preferred the humor and perspective of Stapleton and Huff. Having an amateur on there asking questions and responding to the two pros always made the shows more enjoyable -- for this amateur, anyway. We’ll see how Nejad works out.

(Meanwhile, it appears as though CardPlayer has made “CP Audio” a low, low priority.)

Finally, I’m hearing from Karridy the Beyond the Table guys have shaken off their podcrastination and a new episode is a-comin’ soon. (You read that right. A new coinage for ya.)

To tide you over, go click on the jukebox to hear where the BTT guys get all their bright ideas.

Good Reason to Crow

joaquinochoa: “i have a hand to break a hand”

joaquinochoa: “told you all..The Rooster is bring his agame...I just read a book”
joaquinochoa: “on how to play this game”

Phtnm: “hope it wasnt sammys book”

joaquinochoa: “I play with sammy...he says I’m the best”


Managed to finish 10th (out of 42 runners) in the “Saturdays with Pauly” PLO tourney ($10+$1). Only the top five spots paid, so while I bubbled the final table I didn’t get close enough to the money for it to hurt too badly. Saw a bunch of familiar names/avatars at my tables, including Haley, IronGirl, Gracie, and PokerKat. All in all a fun way to spend Saturday afternoon.

Did not surprise me to see joaquinochoa -- a.k.a. “The Rooster” -- end up on top. He was at my starting table, which held for the first hour-and-a-half or so, and, as Pauly says, he was a “cagey mofo” pretty much from the start.

That chat above began as the first hand was dealt, and right away the Rooster was involved in a high percentage of hands -- just looking at the hand history, I see him playing 8 of the first 10 (and winning 4). His stack fluctuated between 1,000 and 3,000 for most of that first hour, but I knew he had a clue after seeing him take some reasonable chances as well as make a couple of big folds. (In fact, with reference to him I see I wrote “good player” here on my scratch paper sometime during Level 5.) He hung on, and once the tourney got down to 12 players or so I noticed the Rooster at the other table having built up a nice lead.

Meanwhile I was ultra-tight during the first couple of levels -- mostly out of fear of being the Gigli, though I also wasn’t picking up much worth playing. Had a spot in the middle of Level 2 where I limped from the button with . Five of us saw a flop of , and I watched the Rooster from EP bet out 60 into the 150-chip pot. I was preparing to come over the top when the player to my left beat me to the punch, raising to 240. I thought a bit and let my middle set go. Didn’t get to see a showdown there, but with 15-minute levels I knew I didn’t have to take unnecessary early risks.

Finally picked up some chips in a BB special-type hand in which I flopped the nut straight, then had a player bluff reraise me, doubling me up to almost 3,000. Picked up another small pot at the beginning of Level 4 and I was up over 3,700 -- and in the chip lead! Still very early, though (only three players had busted, actually).

When we reached the first break I had 3,715, putting me 6th of 28 left. Bled some chips, slowly, eventually settling back into the middle of the pack. Then towards the rear. At Hand No. 84 I was dealt , had one caller to my preflop raise, and took the hand without a fuss after a ragged flop. Next hand went similarly after I flopped top two. I was back up to 3,765, though by now the average stack size was up above 4,200. I was 8th of 15.

I frittered away chips again, then with 11 left found myself dead last. On Hand No. 107 I pushed with 9-8-7-6 and all folded. Our table was five-handed, which made things tough for the short stack as those 200/400 blinds were coming around fast and furious. Down to just over 2,000 chips at Hand No. 112, I decided to shove from UTG with . Folded around to the SB who with nearly 6,000 decided to gamble with .

When I first saw my opponent’s hand, I thought I might be a modest favorite, though in fact with both of us being double-suited (and not sharing suits) we were almost exactly 50-50. Then the flop came all , and suddenly we’re talkin’ 98-2. The longshot runner-runner didn’t materialize, and I was toast.

Played well, overall, but became too complacent during that middle stretch. Then when I did finally get active it had already gotten (too) late . . . .

Lesson learned. Gonna have to wake up earlier if I hope to catch the Rooster.

A Man and His H.O.R.S.E.

Am reasonably certain I’m gonna take a virtual seat in the “Saturday’s with Pauly” tourney tomorrow. Unlike some of the folks who’ll be there, $10+$1 won’t represent a step down for me, buy-in-wise. Especially when it comes to tourneys, of which I’ve played exactly three all year. Not too uncomfortable of a step up, either, though. Great time and day for me (4:30 p.m. EST), and the game is the right one, too. I also like the fact that it is on my favorite online site (Stars). At the very least, I’ll win a story to tell next week.

Have been plugging away at the H.O.R.S.E. tables, though I’m realizing it is hard to rack up a lot of hands over there. For one, I can only play so many hours per week. And the tables don’t fill up as fast as they do for other games, so occasionally I’m waiting to find a seat. Also, I’ve discovered I don’t do very well at all multi-tabling with H.O.R.S.E. The stud games especially require a bit more attention -- primarily because of having to remember others’ up cards -- than do the flop games, and so I can’t really play more than one table at a time.

And as those of you who’ve tried H.O.R.S.E. all know, the game don’t exactly gallop. It dawdles along at a slow trot, usually, meaning I can’t really get more than 45-50 hands in an hour.

Haven’t played enough to make any sort of reasonable generalizations yet, but I have experienced a few things I didn’t necessarily expect to when I started trying to play H.O.R.S.E. more regularly. Here are three . . .

For one, I’m actually finding I enjoy the stud games (Razz, Stud, Stud/8) better than the flop games, and in fact feel more comfortable during those rounds, probably because I’m noticing many others not handling those games terribly well. A key, of course, is to be patient enough not to get involved with poor starting hands and/or chase the thin draws too far (i.e., across the big-bet line). Have had my share of heartbreak Razz hands -- starting A-2-4 and brick-brick-bricking out -- but on the whole I’m finding I look forward to Razz coming back around in the sequence.

Another reason why I ain’t minding the return of Razz is the fact that I’m feeling least comfortable about what I’m doing in Omaha/8. I’ve no stats on how I’m performing in each game -- that’s something I’d like to start trying to figure out how to do, actually. But my sense is I’m playing way too many hands in O/8, and somehow keep myself getting twisted into these imprudent quarter-pot quests. I know better than that.

Finally, much to my surprise, I enjoy Hold ’em the least -- by far -- of all five games. I suppose it has something to do with either (1) the relative paucity of variables in Hold ’em when compared to the other games (it seems too “simple” somehow), or (2) the lack of novelty Hold ’em currently possesses for me relative to the other four games. Maybe it is something else, but the “H” round has become the most tedious of all five.

Will report back more on my H.O.R.S.E.-in’ around later.

And I’ll let you know how things go tomorrow with the other Omahalics. Here’s where we’ll be:

Given the Choice; or, Betting Unfair at Betfair

As a regular Internet user, I encounter my share of too-good-to-be-true offers via email and other unsoliticed avenues. Aside from those ungrammatical, syntax-defying messages with rude speculations about my love life, most contain some version of the “money-for-nothing” promise. You get ’em, too. Put a tic in the delete box and move on.

There were a few online poker players who received a message of this sort during the wee hours of the morning of Saturday, January 12th. This time, however, there was something to it.

As an American, I cannot play on Betfair. That’s the site Annette Obrestad signed on with just before taking down the 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event, I believe. Still, I read with interest that story about the software snafu that enabled 20 or so players back in January to pilfer a fortune of ill-gotten winnings from the site in the matter of hours.

The glitch appears to have only come up in the site’s short-handed (6-max) SNGs -- what they call “6-pak” tourneys. Apparently if all six players went all in on the tournament’s initial hand, the winner of the hand would receive first place prize money and the other five players would all receive second-place prize money. In other words, rather than the top two splitting the prize pool, the total payouts were much larger -- by a factor of three, I suppose -- than what the six players were paying to play. A guaranteed positive ROI.

Players in the know began hastily registering for multiple $1K 6-paks, and the free-for-all lasted about three hours before Betfair discovered the problem and took measures to correct the glitch. The site then went about trying to secure whatever funds they could from the 20 or so players who had exploited the problem.

It is unclear how much the players made away with -- some have suggested the total might be as much as £1,000,000 (around $2 million) -- nor how much of that Betfair thus far has able to recover. Incidentally, Betfair is, in fact, entitled to recover the money, as section 9.2 of their Terms and Conditions states that players agree to refund winnings that result from “any bug, defect or error in the software.”

Kind of curious to learn how the glitch was first discovered, actually. One of those 6-pak SNGs must have gone off with, say, just three entrants who each must have been dealt (or made) good enough hands to end up getting it all in there on Hand No. 1. And when all three got paid, they somehow communicated that fact to each other . . . ? In any event, happy hour commenced shortly thereafter.

The first news of the problem popped up in a post over on 2+2 on January 12th. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the poster concluded his report with a lament: “I just wish I had been part of it.” Several respondents in the thread echoed the OP’s sorrow at having missed an opportunity for some easy money. In the story’s wake there have been a few other discussions on the forums and elsewhere about the ethical obligations of online players and/or sites, and about cheating, generally speaking.

On the surface, the incident provides an interesting contrast to the Absolute Poker so-called “superuser,” insider cheating scandal of August-October 2007. With that sorry episode in mind, some responded to the Betfair story as an example of online poker players exacting a “revenge” of sorts against the industry.

Of course, it is more accurate to view the Betfair incident as just another example of the online poker culture’s pervasive, antithetical attitude toward ethics, fairness, and personal responsibility. The behavior of those who took advantage of the glitch recalls that of patrons hungrily gathering around a malfunctioning slot machine paying out jackpots for every pull. Or kiddies exploiting video game “cheats” and “hacks.”

The latter is probably the better analogy here. I do think that a significant percentage of those who play online poker look upon it as just another video game. The same can be said of the Internet as a whole, which I think many (still) do not regard as “real” enough to warrant the sort of ethical standards a lot of us instinctively recognize in our non-Internet activities and interactions.

Another reason why most lawmakers in this country won’t ever support online poker. And why many will actively continue to try to suppress it. Indeed, for a lot of folks, there are two reasons to oppose online poker . . .

It’s poker. And it’s online.

(For more on that, see “Online Poker’s Outlaw Status” & Part 2.)

Poker “Reality”

About a year after publishing Lolita in 1955, Vladimir Nabokov wrote a short afterword “On a Book Entitled Lolita” in which he offers a few remarks regarding the furor caused by his novel. While that piece is primarily concerned with responding to some of those reactions to the novel’s controversial subject matter, Nabokov also takes the opportunity there to share some details about the circumstances under which Lolita was composed.

Nabokov had emigrated to America in 1940 and shortly thereafter began writing in English. By that time he’d already written nine terrific novels in his native Russian. My favorite of those is probably Despair, although I have a soft spot for The Defense (about a mentally-troubled chess player). (Most rank his last Russian novel, The Gift, as the best of his Russian works.)

Lolita was Nabokov’s third novel in English -- stunning, really, to think such a verbal tour de force could be written by someone composing in a language other than his native tongue. It is also his first novel to be set in the United States, and in that afterword Nabokov talks about how he had to play catch-up to research the novel sufficiently. “It had taken me some forty years to invent Russia and Western Europe,” he says (referring to his earlier novels), “and now I was faced with the task of inventing America.”

Then comes one of my favorite quotes in all of Nabokov. Speaking of what it took to gather enough information to write Lolita, Nabokov admits that “obtaining of such local ingredients as would allow me to inject a modicum of average ‘reality’ (one of the few words which mean nothing without quotes) into the brew of individual fancy, proved at fifty a much more difficult process than it had been in the Europe of my youth when receptiveness and retention were at their automatic best.”

The contrast between youth and middle age is in itself a good point (and one I’m paying more attention to now than I did when I first read it as a naïve, fresh-faced frosh). But what I like most here is that observation about the word “reality” requiring quotation marks around it. Nabokov tucks that point inside parentheses as if it weren’t all that important, but conceptually-speaking you can’t get much heavier than that.

People sometimes speak of poker as a game especially grounded in “reality.” The observation usually has something to do with the definitive way the cards “speak” (so to speak). That is, no matter how we might later characterize a hand, a session, a career, the “reality” of the cards persists through whatever elaborations, embellishments, or enhancements we might try to give to them. (Sorry for the alliteration -- thinking about Nabokov has temporarily infected my prose, I think.)

This so-called “realistic” nature of poker is a commonly-struck theme in Al Alvarez’s The Biggest Game in Town. According to Alvarez, poker is “one of the most realistic of all disciplines.”

Illustrating the point, Alvarez tells the story of a losing player, referred to only as Joel, whose primary flaw is his inability to assess “realistically” what happens when he’s at the tables. Joel “was cursed with a childish imagination and the inability to distinguish its workings from reality.” As a result, Joel “invariably reported large poker losses as small wins, small wins as fortunes,” thereby dooming himself to be one of the game’s “providers.” He even goes so far as to make up stories about the mob setting him up as a way of explaining his repeated misfortunes. Eventually he hightails it out of Vegas, “trailing bad debts” behind him.

After the Joel story, Alvarez quotes Mickey Appelman explaining how “There can be no self-deception for a poker player” if he or she wants to win. “You have to be a realist to be successful,” says Appelman. By which it is understood that one simply must accept the “reality” of whatever the cards happen to say when one sits at the table.

But so many of us don’t. Most of us. Maybe all of us.

Dr. Alan Schoonmaker discusses this phenomenon at length in Your Worst Poker Enemy. “The gambling industry is based on a denial of reality,” says Schoonmaker. “Without it the entire industry would collapse immediately.” As the example of Joel suggests, players with less skill tend to have a less “realistic” idea of their own abilities. “The worse people play,” writes Schoonmaker, “the more likely they are to deny reality about themselves.” He quotes an article from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in which a study confirms “the less skilled people are, the less aware they are of their own limitations.”

Those less-skilled players also tend to misunderstand their opponents’ abilities and/or limitations, thus denying the “reality” of the game situation when they sit down to play. Or -- another way of saying the same thing -- they create a “reality” for themselves that is different from the one created by the better players.

But think about it. No matter how good poker players are, each of those sitting at the table has his or her own idea what the “reality” of the game is. Such is one of the game’s paradoxes. Poker might well be “one of the most realistic of all disciplines,” yet poker also relentlessly challenges our ideas of “reality” at every turn (or flop or river).

See how those scare quotes come in handy?

CardPlayer Sez Go On & Play at Absolute Poker

A proposed boycott of Coca-Cola products in response to Bill “UIGEA” Frist’s appearance in a Super Bowl commercial? Yeah, that ought to make everything right.

Speaking of boycotts . . . or the lack thereof . . . .

Was listening to the 2+2 Pokercast last week and heard the hosts discussing CardPlayer’s system for ranking their Online Poker Player of the Year. Now there are very few things in the world I care less about than the race for CardPlayer’s Online Poker Player of the Year. Pictures of eccentric poker authors with their pets are more interesting, if ya want my honest opinion.

Still, there was something about what the hosts said regarding the OPOY that got my attention.

According to CardPlayer’s “Online Poker Player of the Year Rules,” the OPOY is determined by ranking how players perform in tournaments of at least 100 players, with minimum $100 buy-ins, and minimum $100,000 prize pools. That reduces the number of tourneys in play considerably. Also, only results from five sites are included: PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Ultimate Bet, Bodog, and Absolute Poker.

Obviously CardPlayer has selected these sites because all five allow U.S. players. That much makes sense. However, the inclusion of Absolute Poker strikes me as a clear affirmation that AP is as legitimate a site as any other when it comes to integrity and fairness. Implies a similar endorsement of Ultimate Bet, a site owned by the same pack of rogues who run Absolute and currently experiencing a host of serious problems affecting its integrity and fairness.

Of course, CardPlayer has continued to sell advertisements to both Absolute & UB all along, both on their website and in their magazine. We’re all familiar with the myriad of conflicts of interest that dominate poker “journalism.” An operation like CardPlayer depends heavily on online poker sites’ advertising and related affiliate programs, and so it isn’t surprising to see those ads remain. (Nor is it surprising to find a hopelessly soft editorial touch from such outlets when it comes to covering scandals like the one at Absolute.)

Still, does CardPlayer have to include Absolute Poker in its list of sites being considered in their OPOY ranking system? Do they have some advertising agreement with AP obligating them to do so? If not, they should, as CardPlayer is directing a considerable amount of traffic toward those sites whose tourneys count for its fancy pants OPOY.

For funsies, I shot an email to CardPlayer inquiring about their decision to include AP & UB in their rankings. (Hey, I am a subscriber.) No response as yet -- if one comes, I’ll append it here.

Meanwhile, best of luck to all of this year’s competitors. Here’s hoping you get through the year without having to dodge too many superusers, multi-accounters, or colluders.

Then again, maybe those are precisely the folks who go for things like the Online Poker Player of the Year . . . ? (Too cynical? Srry . . . .)

[EDIT (added 2/27/08): Finally got a answer from CardPlayer on 2/25. Here is an excerpt:

“In our role as an objective media source, it is not our place to tell players what to think about a poker site. We published several stories on the Absolute situation to alert the public and will continue to provide as much up to date, substantiated information about all poker sites as possible. Ultimately, it is up to the poker-playing public to decide whether or not to patronize the business at that point.”

So not everyone sees the decision to include Absolute Poker in the Online Poker Player of the Year race as implicitly supporting (indeed, promoting) that online poker site. All a matter of how one views these things, I suppose . . . .

Meanwhile, for more on that claim of objectivity, see my 2/20/08 post “On Poker Mags.”]

Day of the Underdog

Remember the day before the final table of the 2007 WSOP Main Event? Read the forums that day? Or during the final table itself? Never saw so many Lee Watkinson fans in my life. (Doubt he has either.) Seem to recall seeing a poll during the ESPN PPV of the final table that showed Watkinson to be an overwhelming fan favorite among those clicking through on their site. (Too bad for him, he’d already been knocked out by the time they got that graphic up on the screen.)

Lee Watkinson? Seems like a nice fellow when I’ve heard him interviewed. But really, unless you’re an endangered chimpanzee or something, how can you get behind Lee Watkinson? Because you don’t know anybody else, I suppose . . . .

Given a choice, I’d rather go with the underdog. Which is how most of us are, I think, when it comes to events other than WSOP Main Event final tables.

I therefore have to believe most watching Super Bowl XLII were pulling for the Giants like me. Not that I cared for Eli Manning all that much before the last week of the regular season. Was pulling hard, though, for the Giants to knock New England off its undefeated perch then. Of course, the way things turned out, it was even sweeter for it to happen the way it did.

Quite a thrill when NY took that 10-7 lead in the 4th quarter. (Who else suffered from a minor buzz kill, though, when Bill-Friggin’-Frist appeared in a commercial directly afterwards?) Once New England took the lead back, I’d basically given up hope three or four times -- until David Tyree made that ridiculous catch of a 32-yarder on 3rd-and-5, that is. Crazy-ass play like that makes you think perhaps something strange might be happenin’ . . . .

Then the fade to Plaxico Burress, completing the runner-runner, come-from-behind upset. Unreal.

We’ve no need, really, for any unseemly shows of perfection in this here imperfect world.

Congrats to the Giants, and all fans of underdogs.

Presidential Poker

“What?! Did you hear that . . . ?”

Spoken by an animated Vera Valmore to me. Someone was yammering on the dummy box about something or another. Presidential campaign-related applesauce. I put down the paper.

“Whazzat?” I asked.

“McCain just said we are facing a ‘transcendental challenge’ in the twenty-first century,” she said, her voice still tinged with incredulity. “A ‘transcendental challenge’!”

“Oh, yes. Of course we are,” I replied sarcastically. Nonplussed, Vera pressed on.

“But he said that on the Straight Talk Express!”

Been watching the debates here lately and following the campaigns as they ramp up to so-called “Super Tuesday” next week. Then it’ll only take nine more months to birth us a new leader. We should all start experiencing morning sickness sometime this spring.

I recall the elections in 2006 and remember writing something here about the so-called “Poker Vote.” You’ll remember those elections took place within shouting distance of the UIGEA being signed into law, and a lot of observers in the poker world (perhaps a bit too eagerly) attributed the outcomes of certain races to have been meaningfully influenced by ire caused by the UIGEA.

In that November 2006 post, I did a short Q & A about what effect a Democrat-led House and/or Senate might have on efforts to repeal the UIGEA (or pass legislation to counter its effects). My conclusion there was that it didn’t matter that much whether or not the Dems won themselves a slight majority -- which they did, in both the House and the Senate -- we probably weren’t going to see much leeway in the near term. And we haven’t.

In 2008 all the focus is on who is going to lead the Executive branch, and as the stump speeches and debates roll along we see the occasional thread popping up here and there speculating about which presidential candidate would be best for proponents of online poker.

Here, again, I have to say it doesn’t matter a whole heckuva lot who wins in November. Obviously a Democrat would be less likely to veto any legislation (such as Frank’s IGREA) that somehow made its way through both the House and Senate. But as we’ve discussed before, the prospects for that are still somewhat dim at the moment -- never mind whether we actually even want such legislation to be made law.

Did see that bit on the Colbert Report earlier in the week where Charles Nesson -- the Harvard Law School professor who strikes me as the second-coming of Timothy Leary -- spoke about online poker and suggested getting the presidential candidates together to play against one another.

Pure fantasy, of course. Still, I think we all know how it would go . . . .

After a hour or so fussing over seat assignments, they’d finally get the game underway. For the first couple of rounds all would fold without looking at their cards, giving the big blinds walks. Then the bluffing would begin, and pretty soon the less savvy candidates would find themselves crippled and forced to go all-in with trash.

Once down to heads-up, endless discussions of chopping would bring the action to a standstill. That’s when the candidate with fewer chips would storm away from the table, formally protesting the match as unfairly rigged in favor of his opponent.

We’d have a winner, then. But no one would be all that happy.