PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge Debuts

For the first time this year, I decided to pick my team -- the Carolina Panthers -- to win in Dr. Pauly’s Pigskin Pick’em pool. (Wrote a little about the pool a couple of weeks ago.) I’d gone against them three times, and was right to do so in each case. But I decided they had a chance at home versus the Redskins yesterday, and so finally decided to go with the Cats.

Wasn’t looking so good at first, as Washington scored a touchdown within the first minute of play. When Carolina countered with a safety, I noted that the score -- 7-2 -- resembled the kind of hand Carolina fans had been dealt all year thus far. Got as bad as 17-2 in the second half, but somehow the Panthers got their act together and won 20-17. Good news for my team, More Cowbell.

After the game, I kept the tube on to watch the premiere of the “PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge” on the Fox network. I’ll be honest -- my hopes for the show, which from what I’d read sounded not terribly unlike the less-than-thrilling “Face the Ace,” were not that high. I’d be pulling for it, just as I had pulled for the Panthers. But like with the Panthers, I can’t say I was expecting greatness.

Really not fair to the show, coming at it with such low expectations. But I find myself wondering what exactly shows like “PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge” and “Face the Ace” have to offer those of us who are already fully immersed in the poker scene? (More on that below.) By the way, there are spoilers here, so if you are planning to watch the show online or on your TiVo or whatever, you might just skip to the last three paragraphs.

The show was hosted by Chris Rose, who calls MLB and NFL games for Fox and has hosted Fox Sports’ “The Best Damn Sports Show Period.” Rose appeared much better suited for this sort of thing than was Steve Schirripa on “Face the Ace.” (The pretty Michelle Nunes also had a little face time to announce a freeroll on PS for viewers.) As a PokerStars production, there were a number of PS pros shown on the set, but only a couple participated in the proceedings, with Daniel Negreanu announced early on as “the star of the show.”

Like with “Face the Ace,” what we have here is poker being squeezed into a “Deal or No Deal” game-show type format, with a contestant first playing a heads-up no-limit hold’em match versus a celebrity (a non-poker professional). If the contestant wins that first match, he or she gets a paid trip to the Bahamas during the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. (No entries or anything, it sounded like.) The contestant also wins a second match against a PokerStars pro, and if he or she wins that one the prize is $25,000 and the chance to play one more match against Negreanu for $100K. (If the contestant loses the third match, he or she apparently also loses the $25K.) Winning the third match also gets one entry into another sit-n-go down the road, the winner of which takes home $1 million.

There were a number of gimmicky twists thrown in as well involving Negreanu. He sits at the table with the contestant for the first match, coaching but not looking at cards. He then sits in a booth with a headset and advises the player during the second match, this time being able to know the contestant’s hole cards, too. There are other particulars in there involving time outs and whatnot, but you get the gist.

The featured contestant for the first episode was actually a Catholic priest, Father Andrew Trapp of Garden City, South Carolina. You can read more about Fr. Trapp and the whole question of where poker and/or gambling fits into Catholic teaching here. On the show, some fun was had now and then when Fr. Trapp blessed the cards, thanked God when a fortunate river card completed his flush, and so forth.

Indeed, in the first match in which Fr. Trapp played former NBA player John Salley, he was all in and needed a river spade to survive. When the came on the end, Fr. Trapp turned to the camera and said “For all the non-believers in our viewing audience, that was proof that God exists,” getting a laugh from Negreanu and others. Salley countered that it proved “God is dangerous,” and we cut to commercial.

Salley proved a predictably awful opponent, and soon after Fr. Trapp’s fortunate flush the basketball player horribly mangled a hand resulting in the priest winning the match. Five hands were shown in the Salley match. Fr. Trapp then moved to face Vanessa Rousso. They shared some table banter during the three hands shown, which concluded with another win for the priest. Fr. Trapp, who’d noted that the money he won would be going toward the building of a new church, went for the third match against Negreanu, and in just four hands he’d won that one, too.

On his Twitter, Pokerati Dan yesterday noted that while he’d missed the second half of the show, he liked the first half. “Overall a pretty good infomercial,” said Dan. Indeed, my read of the Twitter crowd was that the show was basically well received, with several noting that it was more fun to watch than was “Face the Ace.”

As I suggest above, I personally couldn’t get into the show very much and was wondering while watching what exactly I was getting from it. Negreanu is certainly a smart, funny guy and has a winning enough personality to make a show somewhat interesting, but like Dan I found myself responding to the show with the same sort of ambivalence I do when watching an infomercial. The only difference here is I have already bought the product (having long ago opened a PokerStars account). Of course, whenever I linger over other infomercials, I never, ever buy the product, so my sense of detachment there is in fact quite similar to what I was experiencing yesterday afternoon watching “PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge.”

The show might well prove a bit more compelling as it continues, with different contestants and that prospect of the million dollar sit-n-go at the end drawing closer. And while my interest might increase eventually, my hopes for the show remain tempered, not unlike my hopes for the Panthers for the rest of the season. In other words, I ain’t expecting any miraculous conversion on my part to occur.

Tunes, Talk, and a Place to Raise My Lonely Dental Floss

Been listening to some cool stuff on the iPod these days. A few new things, including the latest Tortoise album, called Beacons of Ancestorship. Released over the summer, but I’m just now getting to it. Awesome grooves, soundscapes. The instrumental outfit’s 1996 album Millions Now Living Will Never Die is probably one of my all-time-top-ten-most-listened-to records -- a “desert island” disc, for sure -- and this one might be their best since that one.

Also have Metric’s latest (from the spring, I think), called Fantasies, which is pretty hard not to dial up again and again, especially thanks to the start of that gripping opening track “Help I’m Alive” (“I tremble... tremble... tremble... tremble...”). Not as stunningly satisfying as Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, their 2003 debut, which I go back to repeatedly, but a nifty collection of idiosyncratic pop, nonetheless. (Can you tell I’ve been thinking of starting a music blog?)

Mixed in there, too, as usual, has been Frank Zappa, for whom I noticed the other day I have exactly 600 songs loaded on the little music player. Some might think that obsessive, but FZ fans understand the requirements for uncovering conceptual continuity. Have been once more working through the You Can’t Do This On Stage Anymore discs here lately. Up to the start of Volume 4 and that cool sequence at the start that moves from “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama” to “Willie the Pimp” to “Montana.”

Have also worked in a few poker podcasts of late, and had a few shows to recommend to you.

The latest installment of The Poker Beat (10/8/09) featured an interesting discussion of the marketing of the November Nine, now less than a month away. Had a lot of good comments on my post on the subject earlier in the week, and the discussion on the show added still further insight. Definitely appears as though we’re going to see more “mainstream” attention this time around. The show also featured a visit with Amy Calistri to talk about the demise of PokerPages (for which she once wrote/edited).

Daniel Negreanu was the guest on this week’s Hardcore Poker Show (10/7/09). Interesting as always, was Kid Poker, as he discussed his near miss at the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. He was additionally asked about Phil Hellmuth’s speculations -- first aired on the 9/23/09 episode of the Hardcore Poker Show -- concerning Harrah’s new online site and the possibility of the other sites teaming up to compete with Harrah’s. Negreanu roundly dismissed the Poker Brat’s idea as wayward fantasy, particularly the notion that a site like PokerStars, which he represents, would ever enter an alliance with Hellmuth’s site, UltimateBet. “I want nothing to do with that company,” says Negreanu, adding that “personally, I don’t think they should exist anymore... we don’t owe them any favors.” Run over to Pokerati to hear the UB-related stuff, which Kevmath excerpted out for your listening convenience.

During the middle portion of this week’s Two Plus Two Pokercast (10/6/09) there’s lengthy interview with Neil Channing in which the British poker pro talks about the current state of poker in the U.K. as well as his own interesting path through sports betting, backing, and poker. As always, hosts Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz do a great job with the interview, and the result is both compelling and at times laugh out loud funny.

Going back a little bit... they’ve been successively interviewing the various members of the November Nine over on Phil Gordon and Andrew Feldman’s podcast The Poker Edge. I think they’ve had six of the nine on thus far. For more on your favorite logger Darvin Moon, check out the 9/25/09 episode. (Moon should really start a blog and thus become the first poker-logger blogger.) Finally, a while back Howard Schwartz had poker author Arnold Snyder on his Gamblers Book Club Podcast (the 9/3/09 episode). I’m a big fan of Snyder’s Poker Tournament Formula books, and he made for a great guest on Schwartz’s show.

Speaking of podcasts, I do have a new episode of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show in the works (I know it has been a while). Hopefully it will not be too long before Episode 19 of that makes it onto your iPod or iPod-like device.

Meanwhile, I think it’s gonna be more Zappa this morning for me. Actually received a spammy e-mail today with the subject line “Montana Investment Property” that included this picture. No shinola! Looks like a nice place to raise a crop of dental floss, yes? Yippie-Yi-O-Ti-Yay!

Playing As If Your Life Depended On It

Have found myself over on Deuces Cracked here of late where I recently started watching a few of the instructional vids, including Tommy Angelo’s unorthodox series titled “The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment.” I call Angelo’s series “unorthodox” because unlike the other series that focus mainly on strategy advice and theory, Angelo’s deals with larger “meta”-issues having to do with the psychology of the game.

I’ve only watched the first (of eight) episodes thus far, but it appears they mainly consist of Angelo and Wayne Lively having conversations about various topics, some of which one can find introduced in Angelo’s book, Elements of Poker. (Read more about his book here.) There are also some subtle animations and nifty piano music by Angelo himself that punctuate the conversation.

I have also started to watch some of the other instructional vids on the site -- a new thing for me, really, as I’ve never really partaken in this form of poker learning. Once I get through Angelo’s series I’ll come back on here and write something about it, I imagine. And I’ll also keep you updated on how watching the other vids helps with my play. (You Deuces Cracked peoples -- have any particular recommendations?)

There was one idea Angelo brings up in the first episode of “The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment” that he also discusses in his book, something called “The Professional.” As I understand it, The Professional exists as a kind of guiding principle in Angelo’s mind that helps govern his actions at the poker table. The Professional is sort of like a version of himself, a person who is much like Angelo in every way except for the fact that his approach to poker is unwaveringly serious. That’s because he plays for a living, thus his very existence depends on making correct choices.

“I created The Professional to help me decide what to do,” writes Angelo in Elements of Poker. “When I need some advice about a poker decision, I just ask The Professional.” The Professional is someone whom we cannot really be, I think, but rather someone whom we can conjure up as a particularly good, right thinking version of ourselves. As Angelo explains, “when we talk to The Professional, we’re just talking to ourselves, our best selves.”

Angelo speaks of The Professional as someone who plays poker as if his life depends on it, and lives his life as if his poker depends on it. “The Professional is all meta-game, all the time,” says Angelo.

Like I say, it’s really just a heuristic device, this Professional. (If I understand it correctly.) An idea to help us clarify our thinking at the table when faced with a particular decision. Asking oneself “How would I play this if my life depended on it?” might be a little much at times, but you get the point. Such thoughts do encourage a kind of seriousness and/or focus, and as we all know, there are times when a lack of either cause us to do things we wish we hadn’t.

That picture, of course, is of the knight Antonius Block playing chess with Death from Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal. Block really is playing for his life there. Those of you who’ve seen the film know that even in this literal example of playing for one’s life, Block’s concentration wavers.

He’s only human, after all. (Unlike The Professional.)

One Month Left to Hype 2009 November Nine

One month from today the final table for this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event will at last resume after a 115-day hiatus. On Saturday, November 7th, the nine players still with chips will reassemble around a table in the Penn & Teller Theater in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino to play out the sucker. At last.

When the first hand of the final table is finally dealt, Maryland logger and amateur player Darvin Moon will enjoy a large chip lead with 58,930,000 -- that is, a little more than 30% of the chips in play. Moon’s nearest foe, Eric Buchman, will start with 34,800,000, followed by Steven Begleiter (29,885,000), Jeff Shulman (19,580,000), Joe Cada (13,215,000), Kevin Schaffel (12,390,000), Phil Ivey (9,765,000), Antoine Saout (9,500,000), and James Akenhead (6,800,000).

Last fall around this time there was a lot of talk about an apparent lack of hype surrounding the delayed WSOP Main Event final table. While there were interviews and articles about the players appearing within the poker media, there didn’t seem to be a great deal of publicity happening elsewhere, and by the time the final table arrived in November, a lot were wondering what exactly was accomplished promotion-wise during the intervening four months.

One reason we were watching for such extra attention was the fact that when the idea for the delay was first announced in May 2008 we were told to look for such. “The added time prior to the final table will help get poker mainstream media attention,” suggested Daniel Negreanu, a member of the Players Advisory Committee that had approved of the delay. WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack also noted that the delay created what he called “an unprecedented opportunity to capture the world's attention,” characterizing the interim as a period of “16 weeks of promotion and relevance” for the November Nine.

There were a few moments here and there during which the nine finalists were covered in places they might not have otherwise, such as when Brooklyn native Ylon Schwartz was profiled in the The New York Times. And we heard something after the final table had completed about invites to major talk shows like “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “Ellen” having been turned down by players. But by the time the 2008 WSOP Main Event final table began, most were noting how little the “mainstream” seemed to have picked up on the story.

Another much-referenced argument in favor of the delay concerned the added opportunities it provided the nine players to solicit endorsement deals, including from non-poker entities. No one knows precisely how much last year’s November Nine benefited from the extra time, but most agree they all made more cabbage than they would have otherwise. After the final table had concluded, Barry Greenstein (another member of the Players Advisory Committee) said on Gary Wise’s podcast Wise Hand Poker that players had received three times as much as they would have otherwise.

So what has the “mainstream” been saying about this year’s November Nine? Well, again, outside of our little poker world, mostly a lot of nothing. Thus far, anyway.

Darvin Moon did get some press last week when a feature on the chip leader appeared in The Washington Post. It’s an interesting profile. Moon apparently had never even flown a commercial jet prior to his summer trip to Vegas. He earnestly claims he believes all eight of the other players at the final table are better than he is. And he’s not interested in seeking more publicity or even working on his game, eyeing a three-week deer hunting trip here in October instead. (Both pics on this post courtesy the great FlipChip, btw.)

As far as the other eight players go, I can’t say I’ve really noticed much “mainstream” attention of them, though each has been on the radar within the poker world in various ways over the last three months -- perhaps more so than was the case with last year’s November Nine.

Eric Buchman (in second) got a little bit of attention over on Two Plus Two during the last couple of days when someone -- an acquaintance of Buchman’s, apparently -- started a thread as Buchman himself complaining about how Full Tilt Poker was giving the player some difficulty with regard to the two one-day endorsement deals he’d signed with them at the end of play in July. The real Buchman then came on to clear things up a bit, though the story brought attention to the fact of Buchman’s switch from Full Tilt on Days 7 and 8 to PokerStars for the final table. Here’s the new thread (the old, spurious one was deleted), and here’s a Poker News Daily article from late July in which Buchman mentions his endorsement deals (and the distractions they cause).

Steven Begleiter (in third) turned up a bit on last night’s WSOP coverage on ESPN. The 47-year-old from New York seems like a nice fellow, and I’m not just saying that because he’s the only member of the November Nine who follows me on Twitter (haha). See for yourself in this interview with “Begs” on episode 10 of ESPN’s “Inside Deal.”

We’ve been seeing a lot of Jeff Shulman (in fourth) on ESPN over the last couple of weeks, and continue to talk about his criticisms of Harrah’s and potential “villain” role at the final table. And, of course, the victory by Barry Shulman, Jeff’s father, at the Main Event at the World Series of Poker Europe last week adds yet another interesting plot development to Jeff’s WSOP ME run. I mentioned last week that Gary Wise conducted a lengthy interview with Shulman and wrote it up over on the ESPN Poker Club. In the interview the publisher, president, and COO of Card Player discusses the Main Event, Harrah’s, and his having taken on Phil Hellmuth as a coach.

Like several of the November Nine, Joe Cada (in fifth) has been interviewed over on Phil Gordon’s podcast (another ESPN production), The Poker Edge. The 21-year-old came off as surprisingly together in the interview, even when pressed about his sponsorship deals (which he didn’t really want to discuss, it seemed). “Are the November Nine going to be logoed up more significantly than they have been in the past?” asked Gordon, adding that while last year’s players were seen to represent online poker sites and some charities, “we haven’t seen any real mainstream brands.” Cada said no, he had not.

Kevin Schaffel (in sixth) was among the chip leaders at the EPT London Main Event before busting out in 19th place. The final table of that event, featuring last year’s WSOP Main Event winner Peter Eastgate, has just begun. Follow the coverage on PokerNews here and/or watch the action on the terrific EPT Live webcast here.

Rounding out the November Nine, Phil Ivey (in seventh) has enjoyed his usual prominence in the poker world over the last few months, although in terms of “mainstream media” I suppose we can only point to his brief cameo on the first episode of NBC’s “Face the Ace.” And the table’s short stacks, Antoine Saout (in eighth) and James Akenhead (in ninth) both got a bit of attention by making the final table of the WSOP Europe Main Event, where Saout finished seventh and Akenhead ninth.

As I say, I do feel like I’m a bit more aware of these guys that I was of last year’s November Nine at this time last year. And I am a little more interested in seeing how it all plays out than was the case last time around, too.

Still looking for that “mainstream media attention,” though. Perhaps we will ultimately see one or more of these guys pop up on the talk shows or elsewhere. Don’t necessarily expect to see Darvin Moon on Jay Leno’s new prime time show, though. Something tells me he might have left the cell phone at home so as to concentrate more fully on the deer.

UIGEA Compliance Less Than Two Months Away, Frank Seeks Delay

We poker fans and players have a lot to occupy ourselves at the moment. There are the various tourneys happening in London and Aruba to follow. We continue to look forward to the November Nine (just over a month away now). And, of course, we continue to enjoy our own games.

Meanwhile, that Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 -- or, as I sometimes purposefully mispronounce it, the Awful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act -- continues to creep up on us. Will something be done before that absolutely-final-no-we-cannot-delay-it-any-further deadline of December 1 arrives? Or will time run out?

You may recall that the finalized regulations for the UIGEA were put into effect on January 19, 2009, the very last full day of the George W. Bush presidency. In other words, it has been the case for a while that banks (or “designated payment systems”) can, if they choose, block clients’ transactions with online poker sites, although for the most part very few have bothered to do so.

There have been a few reports scattered here and there in the forums of people running into occasional hassles with transactions. There was also that bit of applesauce that occurred over the summer when the Assistant Attorney General of the Southern District of New York ordered a few large banks to freeze the accounts of a couple of companies (Allied Systems and Account Services) that were processing payouts for online poker sites. Not sure, actually, that it was the UIGEA that afforded the legal leverage to do that or not, but it did cause quite a bother for online poker players nonetheless.

Something like $30 million in funds were frozen, with the result being that many online poker players faced inordinate delays when trying to withdraw from the sites, most particularly from Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. The sites eventually found new means to make the payouts happen, though, and all was (mostly) well.

However, from the perspective of the “designated payment systems,” adhering to the UIGEA’s prohibition against allowing their clients to make transactions with online sites that offer (still undefined) “unlawful internet gambling” has been essentially voluntary, since the regs state that “compliance... by designated payment systems is not required until December 1, 2009.” Also noteworthy is how in the finalized regulations the blocking of transactions will only be required when players try to move funds from their bank accounts to the online sites -- not when they withdraw.

That’s less than two months away. Meaning if nothing happens between now and December 1, the online poker experience for the American player is going to change significantly, I think. We’ll be able to withdraw, I imagine, but depositing is gonna be a headache. And you can imagine how things will go once that starts to happen.

We’ve seen a few bills proposed over this year -- a couple in the House, one in the Senate -- that if somehow rushed through and made law would successfully stop the UIGEA madness, either temporarily or permanently.

There’s the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2267) introduced by Barney Frank (D-MA) which seeks to establish a federal licensing and regulatory system for online gambling to be run by the U.S. Treasury. That one has exactly 60 co-sponsors at present, and has been referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. So there are members of Congress other than those on Frank’s own Financial Services committee who have been (theoretically) invited to contemplate it.

Then there’s the Internet Poker and Games of Skill Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act of 2009 (S. 1597), introduced by Robert Menendez (D-NJ) over in the senate. Menendez’s bill offers to create a similar system of licensing and regulation, but focuses more specifically on “skill” games like poker. Menendez’s bill also includes a few other differences that make it less attractive than it might seem to online poker players. S. 1597 appears to be collecting dust at the moment, having no co-sponsors after having been referred to the senate’s Committee on Finance.

And there’s also Barney Frank’s H.R. 2266, the Reasonable Prudence in Regulation Act, which very simply asks that forced compliance with the UIGEA regs be delayed for a year (to 12/1/2010). That one, which has been referred to the House Committee on Financial Services (chaired by Frank), has collected 46 co-sponsors.

I suppose it’s possible -- though highly unlikely -- that one of these bills could suddenly catch fire and start moving through Congress. There’s always a chance, too, that one could get appended to some other bill and via a bit of legislative legerdemain (not unlike what helped the UIGEA become law in the first place) could get pushed through before December 1. But the likelihood of that happening seems mighty remote, too.

Let’s not give up hope yet, though. As always seems to be the case when it comes to U.S. legislative procedure, there’s still another way.

Last Thursday (October 1), a letter was sent to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke asking for a one-year delay of the implementation of the UIGEA regs, citing how the enforcement of the law would place an “unreasonable burden on regulators and the financial services industry at a time of economic crisis.” The letter is signed by Frank and 18 other members of the House Financial Services Committee.

To be specific, the letter asks the feds to use their authority under the Administrative Procedure Act to bypass the usual hurdles and go ahead and agree to the one-year delay. Mention is made in the letter of Frank's H.R. 2266 (which would accomplish the same purpose), with the optimistic statement that “we believe this legislation is likely to move.”

So, yeah, the feds can still do whatever the hell they want when it comes to the UIGEA. Here’s hoping they do, in fact, give us another year to pursue the fight against that awful law.

But, really, it is hard to have any idea here what river card is gonna fall.

First, the Invention of Lying; then, the Invention of Poker

This weekend Vera Valmore and I made it out to the movies, catching The Invention of Lying. A fun flick, affording several grins along the way. Not a life-changer by any means, but entertaining enough. I wrote up a review over on Film Chaw, if yr interested.

If you’ve seen the commercials, you know the film stars Ricky Gervais (of the original, British version of “The Office”). You might also have picked up on the film’s premise, namely, that Gervais, playing a fellow named Mark Bellison, lives in a world very much like our own, except for the fact that no one ever lies. One day Bellison accidentally manages to utter a lie, and when it is received as the truth finds he has discovered a means to fortune, fame, and just about anything else he can imagine.

One of the first scenes following his discovery of his new power involves Bellison visiting a casino. Thought for a moment there might be a poker scene coming -- indeed, there did appear to be poker being played in one of the establishing shots as they entered the casino. But Bellison instead opted for roulette and the slots, both of which proved relatively simple to cheat. All our hero had to do was lie about what number he had, or that he’d hit the jackpot but no funds came out, and he was believed and thus given his winnings.

Afterwards Vera and I were talking about the film and I suggested to her that poker was avoided because it would have made Bellison seem less sympathetic if he were shown cheating other players rather than the house. Might’ve been worth a laugh or two, having him lie about his hands or ask others the truth about theirs. But probably would’ve made him seem too insensitive, directly taking money that belonged to others (besides being more elaborate a ruse than was necessary).

I thought a little more about it, though, and realized that poker simply couldn’t work at all in the movie. In fact, one could argue it didn’t make much sense even to show poker being played in the background (one of a few “how could that be?” elements that nit-pickers might want to highlight in the film). Because, really, how can you even play poker without lying?

No, there’s no doubt about it. The invention of poker could not have come until after the invention of lying.

Speaking of the invention of poker, I’ve started reading James McManus’ new book, Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, his long-awaited history of poker that I believe is officially due to hit the bookshelves in November. Much of the book was serialized in Card Player from 2006 to early this year, and so I’ve read a lot of it before, particularly these earlier chapters. (I’ll probably share some thoughts about the book here once I’m done.)

During this first part of the book, McManus describes how poker came to be in the U.S., dating its origin near the start of the nineteenth century. As he traces the game’s journey through riverboats and saloons in the Old West, McManus greatly emphasizes the preponderance of cheating that characterized the game, ultimately suggesting that in reality the game wasn’t so much about the cards at all, but merely an occasion for a kind of complicated form of robbery.

“Even against run-of-the-mill sharps,” writes McManus, “an honest player had to summon prodigious amounts of concentration and courage simply to limit the sums he was cheated out of, which didn’t leave much left for playing good poker -- calculating pot odds and value bets, picking up tells while disguising his own, figuring out whom to bluff and when. A poker world in which those skills were paramount wouldn’t fully evolve until late in the twentieth century.”

I don’t disagree that one had to be on the watch for “sharps” at all times at the poker tables of the 19th century. Nor would I object to the claim that cheating was highly prevalent well into the 20th century, too, although it might be overstating things a bit to suggest actual poker skills were not as important as one’s ability to cheat and/or catch cheaters until the late 20th century.

That said, notice how McManus characterizes “good poker” in the above-quoted passage, which includes hiding one’s tells and knowing how to bluff. You can’t play poker without lying, even when you aren’t cheating. The game doesn’t work without it.

In fact, if you think about it, the ability to lie (and to suss out others’ lies) is pretty much what we’re talking about when we argue for the “skill” of poker. Sure, as McManus notes, “calculating pot odds and value bets” is part of “good poker,” too. But knowing those things is hardly sufficient. One has to be able to lie, and lie well, to succeed.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) once stated on the House floor with regard to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that he believed the “real reason” the UIGEA was made law was “a moral disapproval of gambling” on the part of some people. Some have since taken up the cause for poker by trying to distinguish it from other forms of gambling, pointing out how poker requires skill and thus shouldn’t be subject to such condemnation on moral grounds.

But what if the “skill” of poker is (primarily) connected to being able to lie? I mean, really, there’s no lying with the lottery, horse racing, sports betting, or other casino games, is there? Whatever the other “moral” objections are to those forms of gambling, they certainly don’t require players to lie. Maybe that’s what makes poker seem even worse to some -- the fact that it involves gambling and lying. (And cheating, too, sometimes.)

The Invention of Lying does suggest how dull and humorless the world would be without lying. And, indeed, whether you want to associate lying with “skill” the poker or not, it certainly makes the game more fun.

End of Story: 2009 WSOPE Main Event Concludes

Spent much of the afternoon and evening following the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event final table on PokerNews. Sucker ultimately went something like 16 hours all told -- not quite the 22-plus hours from the year before when John Juanda outlasted Stanislav Alekhin, but a marathon nonetheless.

The last five hours consisted of Daniel Negreanu and Barry Shulman battling heads up for the bracelet. Negreanu had the chip lead when heads up began, although the Card Player publisher pulled even and then ahead after an hour or so. But Kid Poker moved in front again and looked as though he was going to win it all after getting Shulman all in preflop holding versus Negreanu’s two black aces. But two hearts flopped, then a third came on the turn, and Shulman was back in front with a three-to-one chip lead.

Negreanu would spend the next couple of hours clawing back close to even, and had the lead once more when the hand Danafish declared “Hand of the Day” occurred. The pair got it all following a jack-high flop with Shulman having A-A this time versus Negreanu’s . Then a second jack stunningly came on the turn, and it again looked like Negreanu’s day. Then came an ace on the river, saving Shulman and crippling Negreanu. Shortly after that one, Shulman would take the last of Negreanu’s chips with pocket tens versus Kid Poker’s pocket fours.

As I said, I followed along for most of the latter part of the final table yesterday, thoroughly enjoying the reports on PokerNews. Like Snoopy (who reported earlier days), both Danafish and Djinn employ a keen wit and (to me) add a great deal of fun to the reports, exemplifying what makes live blogging ultimately more valuable than the ticker-type updates one can find on Twitter -- although those are fine, too, for those desirous of the quick check.

I love posts with headlines like Danafish’s “Negreanu Has Chips Delivered to Him on a Trey,” in which one learns Negreanu flopped a set with pocket threes. Or Djinn’s “One Way Street Changes Direction, Confuses Tourists” describing how after a brief spell of pots won by Shulman the chips had begun to flow back Negreanu’s way. Fun stuff, and the kind of thing that definitely encourages one to keep hitting refresh to read more.

Last summer while helping cover the WSOP for PokerNews I wrote a post asking the question “Does Humor Belong in Tournament Reporting?” My answer was ultimately an affirmative one, noting that even if there were millions of dollars at stake, we were reporting on a game, after all, and so I concluded that “keeping it light (within reason) is probably the right instinct, generally speaking.”

Wouldn’t want to sacrifice accuracy, clarity, or reader interest, of course, in order to yuk it up too wildly... but a little bit of wit here and there definitely adds value to the reports, in my view. One could even argue doing so lends a “literary” quality that ensures the reports endure a little better than they would otherwise as straightforward, unadorned accounts of the action.

And as I say, Danafish, Djinn, and Snoopy are in my opinion the tops, striking the right balance throughout. Thus what’s left there on the PokerNews page is a vivid account of all of the important hands, as well as a fine balance of humor and color that makes the chronicle well worth reading through even after the event has ended. Well done, mates!

Barry Shulman’s win obviously adds another layer of intrigue to the upcoming November Nine, where his son, Jeff, will be trying to match his father’s victory with a win of his own. Gary Wise has a new interview with Jeff this week up over on the ESPN Poker Club in which the publisher, president, and COO of Card Player takes back his earlier threat to “renounce” the bracelet by “throw[ing] it in the garbage” should he win the Main Event. (He’s currently fourth in chips.) Jeff also points out in the Wise interview that “[n]ot once was [he] ever thinking about trying to get extra publicity” by making the statement, which some -- including your humble gumshoe -- remarked was a pretty obvious consequence of the whole brouhaha.

Wise comes away from the interview saying Shulman doesn’t appear a “villain” to him in the still-unfolding 2009 WSOP Main Event story. Some will still characterize him that way, though. And it will be interesting to see how Barry Shulman’s WSOPE Main Event victory will play into that bit of story-manufacturing.

’Cos like I say with regard to the live blogging, that’s part of what makes all of this fun -- the stories. That’s a point WSOP Commish Jeffrey Pollack made on this week’s Two Plus Two Pokercast with regard to the WSOP ME final table. “I think the November Nine table is straight out of central casting,” said Pollack, noting how among the nine there are “a lot of great players and interesting characters” -- Shulman included.

I know I’ll be reading.

The Royal Treatment

Had a longer-than-usual session yesterday of online pokery over on PokerStars, the site where I play probably 90% of the time these days. Began with a vague idea that I might be able to retain my Silver Star status, but after a hundred hands of my usual pot-limit Omaha ($25 buy-in) it became obvious that I’d have to play 1,500 hands or something ridiculous to get there, and I wasn’t up to that.

However, I was closing in on 5,000 frequent player points. Did some quick math and saw I’d probably need to play only around 500 hands to reach that mark. Knowing that I could then trade the 5,000 for a $50 bonus -- but only as a Silver Star, which would expire at day’s end -- I decided to do just that and so began three-tabling, one six-handed, and two full ring.

The session went well initially, then I stumbled a little to come back down to even. Was back up a few bucks when the following hand took place.

This was the six-handed table. I was on the button with $35.05 where I picked up . Under the gun folded, then the next player, TenaciousD, raised to 75 cents. The cutoff called and I called as well. Both blinds folded. Pot $2.60.

The flop came all hearts -- -- giving me the second-best possible flush. TenaciousD quickly led out for an almost pot-sized bet of $2.50. The cutoff folded, and I took a moment to consider the situation. Seemed a little odd to be so bold if he had the flush with the queen, although to be honest I was thinking more that he’d shown a tendency to follow up just about all his preflop raises with c-bets, regardless of position. So I called, kind of hoping we could keep this pot reasonable moving forward. Pot now $7.60.

Those thoughts changed with the turn card, though -- the . Whoa. And adding to the fun, TenaciousD rapidly made another nearly pot-sized bet of $7.50.

Again I had a decision. At that point, with four hearts on the board and no chance of him having a heart better than a nine in his hand, I figured he had to have a set of aces and was ready to go for it in the hope that he’d fill up on the river. I’ve gotten royal flushes in PLO before, but never had gotten any action whatsoever when I had. So this was entirely new territory.

I decided if indeed he was going for the full house (or quads, I guess), I needed to get him to put money in now and not wait to see if he hit on the river. I raised the pot to $29, and he instantly called. Sweet. Pot now $65.60.

The river brought a meaningless , and I was a bit startled to see TenaciousD bet out, pushing his last $8.65 in the middle. The reason for my surprise was I had thought I’d gone all in on the turn, and so it took me a few seconds to realize I had $2.80 left behind. Finally I called, he showed for the lowest possible flush, and the post-rake pot of $68.20 slid my way.

A couple at the table typed “nh” after, though not TenaciousD. I typed a quick apology for the river delay, saying I thought I was all in, as I didn’t want it to appear as though I’d slowrolled the dude. (Probably wasn’t necessary, as it had only been a few seconds.) All I can imagine is that he thought maybe the might bring him the straight flush and the better hand. Or that he thought I only had a set or straight or something (?).

Or maybe he simply didn’t believe I’d had anything. Was kind of an unbelievable hand, I guess.

Played on for a while longer and finally inched past that 5,000 FPP mark, then left my tables. I opened up the VPP Store and realized I had other options with my FPPs that made my end-of-month push unnecessary. Not sure if these were September-only promotions or not, but I could trade 2,500 FPPs for $40 instantly (rather than trade 5,000 FPPs for $50, then have to earn still more FPPs to clear the bonus). My first thought was to do that twice, and thus get $80, although I saw one was only allowed to take that offer once in Sept. So I did.

Then I noticed another one-time only offer -- trade 500 FPPs for $8. Okay, I said, and so in the end got $48 for 3,000 FPPs. Something I could have done without playing a hand yesterday, but then I’d never have enjoyed that royal.

Even with that nice boost at the finish, I ended the month down a bit, thanks largely to that horrendous week early on. But I eagerly move forward, newly-armed with the experience of having handled that highly delicate situation of dealing with an aggressive opponent while holding a royal flush.

Here’s hoping that situation comes up again. Frequently!

By the way, the final table of the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event is just now getting underway, and it is stacked with storylines. Two November Niners are there -- Antoine Saout and James Akenhead -- as are Barry Shulman (father of a third November Niner), Chris Bjorin, and Daniel Negreanu. Jason Mercier has the big, big chip lead heading into the final day of play. Follow the coverage with me over on PokerNews.

WSOPE Main Event Down to 36, Hawrilenko Ahead

They are down to 36 at the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, that £10,000 + £350 no-limit hold’em event that began last Friday. Also known as “Event No. 4” or, perhaps, “Event No. 61.” Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko is atop the leaderboard going into today’s play.

Hawrilenko won a bracelet this summer at the WSOP at an event I helped cover. In fact, it was the last bracelet awarded in Vegas -- Event No. 56, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. I wrote some about that one here, particularly noting how most of the attention in the Amazon Room at the time was being directed toward that Ante Up for Africa celebrity-charity event. Meanwhile Hawrilenko was busy taking down a $1 million-plus first prize.

You may also remember “Hoss_TBF” as the fellow who posted some side-splitting chat between himself and Phil Hellmuth on his blog last spring. Hellmuth and Hawrilenko were engaged in a heads-up session of $2,000/$4,000 limit hold’em over on UltimateBet, and Hawrilenko was apparently crushing the Poker Brat. (Obviously hands Hellmuth lost weren’t resulting in pots being shipped his way that session.)

Amid Hellmuth’s chatbox insults of Hoss_TBF’s play, he at one point complained “I should have 50k right now.” To which Hawrilenko wittily fired back “Maybe if you started with 200k.”

Hellmuth also went so far as to suggest Hawrilenko might somehow be cheating during the session, noting threateningly that “Im having scurity review this session first time ever.” Read more about that applesauce in this earlier post, titled “I Am Irony Man.”

Hawrilenko enters the WSOPE Main Event today with 701,500 chips, followed by Steven Fung (648,000), Praz Bansi (471,300), and Arnaud Mattern (469,500). And in fifth place is Barry Shulman (452,500), whose son, Jeff, is, of course, currently in fourth place in chips awaiting that final table of the WSOP Main Event in November.

Speaking of Jeff Shulman, I watched a bit of the coverage of the WSOP Main Event on ESPN last night on which Shulman was featured prominently. They are up to Day 5, I believe, where my buddy Tom Schneider had cruised into the chip lead with more than two million, although he was barely shown. I believe he makes it over to the feature table soon, though, so hopefully we’ll see more of the Donkey Bomber.

Like I say, Shulman was at the feature table and was on camera fairly frequently during last night’s show. Not the most dynamic personality at the table, but interesting enough to watch, I guess. They did a short feature on him at one point that discussed his being the publisher, president, and COO of Card Player. I didn’t watch the entire two hours last night, but during the time I was watching I did not catch them saying anything about his beef with Harrah’s. (Perhaps that may come up during the next few weeks.)

Other notables still with chips at the WSOPE include John Kabbaj (6th), Daniel Negreanu (12th), WCOOP Main Event winner Yevgeniy Timoshenko (15th), Doyle Brunson (21st), Liz Lieu (26th), Steve Zolotow (29th), Jason Mercier (32nd), Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott (34th), and Men Nguyen (36th). There are also two 2009 WSOP November Niners still alive: Antoine Saout (24th) and James Akenhead (30th).

Only 334 entered the WSOPE Main Event this time around (a dip from last year's 362). Hasn't been a heckuva lot of hype stateside about the WSOPE, as far as I can tell, but I personally have enjoyed following the coverage thus far over on Betfair and also PokerNews.

And I'll be following today and tomorrow to see who takes down the sucker, for sure. The first hands of the day have just been dealt and Snoopy and Danafish are there at the Empire Casino with the coverage over on PokerNews. Check it out.

Tough Table

I’m a sports fan and particularly enjoy following basketball and football. As a kid, baseball was the number one game for me, but its appeal lessened considerably following the strikes, the ballooning of salaries, and free agency causing nearly half of the players to move to different teams from year to year. So these days I mostly just follow college b-ball and pro football, and will spend leisure hours watching both when I can.

I’ve mentioned here before how I’m not really a gambler by nature, and so rarely, if ever, bet on sports. Most recently talked about the subject in a post last spring titled “Confessions of a Non-Gambler.”

I did bet on baseball game this summer. I was in the MGM sports book watching the games go by, and just for kicks took a random shot at a Mets-Yankees game, placing a bet on the underdog Mets. They were at home, had a decent pitcher starting (or so the stats suggested), and would pay $26 for my $10 bet should they have beaten the mighty Yanks. They lost something like 9-1, natch, duly punishing me for my frivolity.

So I rarely bet on sports. And I never, ever got interested in the “fantasy” games that are so popular and which were given privileged status (like betting on horse racing) in the finalized regs of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. There it is said that “participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game or educational game” is allowed with a few provisions (e.g., the prizes have to be declared up front).

On the eve of this year’s NFL season, though, I did decide to join in Dr. Pauly’s football pool, in which one picks winners for all of the games every week (straight up, no spreads). The top four finishers (out of the 40 who are playing) split the prize pool. You can follow the standings, too, by going over to ESPN’s Pigskin Pick’em game and checking out the group Pauly’s Pub.

As Week 1 played out, I saw I’d hit 11 of the 16 games. Was feeling pretty good about that until I checked the standings and saw how that had put me near the bottom of the list. Everyone else had 12, 13, 14, or even 15 correct! Sheesh.

The next week I only picked 9 of 16 correctly, but everyone else struggled, too. Still my team name -- More Cowbell -- was appearing in the bottom half of the group.

This past week was a breakout week for me, as I hit 13 of the 16. Was most proud of having picked Detroit to beat Washington -- that’s right, I picked a team that had lost 19 straight games to win, and they won. Kind of felt like hitting a two-outer, there.

Still, though, my 33-of-48 performance thus far lands me right in the middle of the pack, tied for 22nd and looking up at folks like Lance Bradley of Bluff Magazine who sits with a gaudy 40 correct picks, including 15 this past week. Yeah, he picked Detroit, too.

Am starting to think I’m at a tough table here. A bit like what happened the other day at my usual PLO25 six-handed game. Took a seat and saw a player across the way with nearly a hundy, an obvious sign the dude had a clue. Sure enough, within a few hands it had become apparent that he was the one with the edge, raising more than other players, showing a bit more savvy after the flop, and basically keeping everyone else in a defensive mode.

How do you respond in that situation? Do you leave to find a better seat elsewhere? Or do you stick around, taking the presence of an obviously more-than-worthy foe as a challenge? And if you choose the latter, why do you play it that way? To prove yourself? To improve your game? Or out of a stubborn unwillingness to move and/or accept you might not be the best?

Sometimes, of course, you find yourself with a couple or three tough spots at the table (though not so often at six-handed PLO25 games). Then it becomes more obvious that remaining in your seat -- when there are always plenty of seats at other tables available -- is an even more meaningful decision. How do you play it?

More often than not, I react like the amateur I am and stick around. Partially out of curiosity (can I beat him?), but mostly because of stubbornness. And like that bet on the Mets game, it often doesn’t work out so well.

There’s no leaving Pauly’s Pub, though, as we’re locked in for the duration. Not that I want to, anyway. ’Cos I think I can beat these guys. I got a fever. And the only prescription is...

MORE COWBELL!