Chicago - my kind of town

It's been a while since I've put anything here. I wonder if any of you even come here anymore. No matter. I never really cared who read or didn't read this blog anyways. Although I know of at least on person who would email me regulary to tell me to update. But even he has stopped emailing me as my blog wasn't updated for months. I guess I never wanted this thing to be a chore, but rather an outlet for the creative side of my brain. Not that I was very creative here, but it did allow me to throw some thoughts on paper so to speak.

At any rate, alot of changes have happened in my world since I last posted. I've accepted a transfer within the company I work for and have moved from Texas to Illinois. I will miss Austin for a few reasons, although the one that tops the list is I will miss all of the friends and poker players I have made and played with in my time in that town.

I now reside in the very far northwest suburbs of Chicago. In fact, we are so far out, I sometimes wonder if saying we live in Chicagoland is even accurate. I'm not sure what the official radius of Chicagoland incorporates, but I would have to think we are either outside it or right on the edge.

In my short time here, I believe I already have a fair picture of the poker scene here. There are casinos all over the place, but not all offer live poker. Within about a 2-3 hour drive there must be 8 or 9 casinos, some of them are indian, some are not. Of course the closest one to me doesn't offer live poker...go figure. But within a 2 hour drive there are 2 casinos that do. The shortest drive would be to Potawatimi Casino which is actually in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The only casino in Northern Illinois that has poker is Hollywood Casino in Aurora, but it is a small room of 6 tables and about a two hour drive for me. Probably the best casinos for poker action are in Indiana: Resorts (formerly Harrahs, formerly Showboat) and Majestic Star and Majestic Star II. However, these could be anywhere from 3-4 hour drive for me depending on traffic in and around Chicago.

There is also Rockford Charity Games, which is a traveling casino night for various charities. I've been to several of these and they offer lots of action, both tournament and cash games. This is a great way for charities to raise funds and allow poker players to play poker. They are usually held in the northwest suburbs of Chicago or in and around Rockford. They tend to be the closest organized games for me to go to.

Lastly there are home games. Home games here seem to be a tad different than in Texas, but fundamentally the same. I've been to 4 different locales since I have been here, and all of them leave something to be desired. There are loads more, but I seem to be having a hard time finding any way out here where we live. The closest I have found is about 15 miles from me, which isn't a bad drive at all, but it is on a night that I can't always play.

I haven't found a single home game that has any kind of security. But I guess not enough games here have been robbed to necessitate game runners from instituting it. Besides, if you want security, I guess you can just go to a casino. And there is always the unlikely chance that a home game will get raided too. Of course, I am told no one can remember a home game getting busted here in many years.

Until....

Just this week, a home game was busted in Loves Park, Illinois (west of Chicago outside the city of Rockford). I don't know much about the game or who ran it, I've never played there. Of course "home game" is a bit of a misnomer here as I believe this game was operating on commerical property. Players tell me that the police took all of the poker items - tables, chips, etc. - and all of the cash....including whatever players had in their wallets and pockets at the time of the raid. (I wonder if all of the money actually made it into evidence. ) Some players believe another game turned this game in...eliminating competition. I can't say for sure, I don't really know, so your guess is as good as mine, but it does sound likely. The incident hasn't gained any press but you can be sure it is talked about quite a bit in poker circles.

It seems to me, that we will be reading and hearing about more and more busts as time goes on, since poker has become so popular. I also expect to hear about more robberies as would be robbers find poker games to be an easy target.

I'll take a shot

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 9704796

Is it hot or is the heater on?

I played at Sandia Casino and Resort last week while in Albuquerque on business and while sitting in a 1/2 NLHE game, I heard a fellow make an interesting comment. I should probably fill you in on a bit of detail so you can understand the significance of his comment.

The game was mostly tight with a maybe three loose cannons in the game (myself being one of the three). The game being 1/2 NL had a min buy in of $50 and a max of $200. The table was being fed by a must move game, so the stacks were relatively large compared to the must move table. I think most players had $400+ in front of them. The gentleman in question was definitely a solid player with plenty of experience. When I came to the table, he was the chip leader with about $900 in front of him. He wore glasses and a ball cap, and his facial features were so similar to a celebrity that a new player that took a seat next to me asked me; “Are we playing celebrity poker?”. I asked him why and he said, “Cause that guy down there looks just like Steve Martin.” Looking again, I had to agree with him, he did look like Steve Martin. He certainly seemed to have the demeanor of Steve Martin, constantly smiling and joking. Except for the fact that he had all of the money on the table, I think he was a pretty likable fellow.

Steve Martin seemed to make some pretty remarkable connections too. For example, he top pair, but made a gut shot straight on the river while an opponent had flopped top two pair. He later made another straight on the turn when his opponent had flopped a set of Aces. Resistance is futile and their stacks were assimilated. Sitting on about, $1500 now, he was all smiles.

The fellow beside him is a regular at this casino, I’ve played with him on every business trip to Albuquerque now. He is an average player in my opinion, who’s strongest point is playing aggressively in position. He leans over to Steve Martin and says, “You’re pretty lucky tonight. It’s been a while since I’ve had that kind of luck.” Steve Martin turns and says, “I think people make their own luck.”

Later that night, I sat and pondered on that statement, “… people make their own luck.” After some reflection and observations, I am inclined to agree with Steve, at least in part. People do make their own luck, good or bad.

The statement is true in everything, not just poker. Take if you will a person who loses their luggage on a flight. Bad luck, right? Maybe. I fly quite often and every once in a while, my bag is mishandled. In fact, on the return trip from Albuquerque, I sat at the carousel to no avail. My bag was somewhere in baggage land. My wife says that I am unlucky as my bag does seem to get mishandled a lot. But, am I unlucky or not? If I didn’t check my bag, there is a very good likelihood that my bag will not get lost. However, I chose to check my bag, therefore I provided the opportunity for it to get lost. Additionally, I fly a lot more than the casual flyer, therefore, there is a greater likelihood that my bag will get lost because I fly more often. Additionally, I had a connection in DFW. Anytime you fly with a connection, and especially in a major airport, you again increase your likelihood to have a bag get lost. So was I unlucky? Probably; but I suspect not as unlucky as one might think.

In poker, a player can influence how their game is going to be just by their demeanor and table image to the other players. If I bet more aggressively and with such authority that I instill fear in my opponents (because “he must have the nuts”) I have a much greater likelihood of winning this hand and the next with this image. However, on the flip side, if I am making crying calls and show a sullen despondent table image, I am more likely going to lose as weaker hands who would otherwise have folded now are inclined to call.

Have you ever been on a Heater? You know; when it doesn’t matter what cards you have, you are going to win this hand and the next 4 of 5 hands. Is it luck? Maybe. A skilled player will recognize when the conditions are ripe for a player to go on a heater. It usually happens when there is a large pot and the player who is a severe underdog to win the hand, makes an incredible call to win a huge pot. Was he lucky? Maybe, or maybe he had the right pot odds to call. In either case, he is setting the stage to go on a heater. After winning a large pot, he plays the next hand regardless of what it is. He catches a bit of the board and bets aggressively. He narrowly wins, but wins this pot all the same. All of a sudden the chemistry is just right for a heater to happen. Players are back on their heels; the hero has a large infusion of confidence and bets accordingly. Others who enter the pot on draws throw away piles of chips when their draws don’t come to fruition. Starting hands of the opponents are less than desirable, so they start to tighten up and start mucking more often. Yet the guy on the heater continues to gain more confidence and bets even more aggressively. Both have the effect of reducing the field and increasing the chances of winning. He continues to win pot after pot. The next thing you know, he wins like 8 out of the next 10 pots and his chip stack grows exponentially. It happens, I’ve been on them, I’ve seen others on them. But why does it happen? Is it just dumb luck? Or maybe the player made his own luck by being aggressive, narrowing the playing field, and making draws exceedingly expensive to try and hit. What do you think?

Legal Public Competitive Poker in Texas

Will it happen any time soon?

Greg Abbott, State Attorney General of Texas, issued an opinion nearly a year ago on June 20, 2005 regarding the legality of playing poker tournaments in bars and restaurants. The opinion was prompted by a letter from the Ector County District Attorney, John W. Smith, requesting the Attorney General’s opinion on the legality of playing poker tournaments in two distinctly different scenarios.

In the first scenario, a bar hosts a poker tournament in which all of the entrants pay an entry fee or buy in. The fee being of equal or greater value than $25, is pooled and then divided among the winning entries; be it 3, 5, 7 or whatever, depending upon the total number of entrants. In other words, you pay $25, which goes into the pot to be won by the top 3 or more. In this scenario, the bar or house does not remove any money from the pot – every dollar which was paid in is paid out to the winners. Is it legal?

No. Why? Because, the bar would be operating a gambling place according to the opinion, in which players are placing a bet on a game in which the outcome is determined by chance or at least partially by chance (until proven otherwise).

How about scenario 2? In this scenario, the same bar hosts a poker tournament in which the entrants do not pay anything. It costs nothing to enter. It’s free. The tournament maybe a one time tournament or a progressive one in which the winners of each qualifying tournament earn seats into a final tournament. In either case, winners receive gifts of varying value. It could be a t-shirt; it could be a gift certificate. In a progressive tournament, the overall winner could win a seat into a major tournament event such as the WSOP. Is it legal?

Yes. Why? Because the bar operators are not operating a gambling place since the entrants did not bet anything (entry was free!) and therefore were not gambling.

Alright! We can legally play in free bar tournaments.

This opinion is a good thing for poker as an industry in Texas. These free tournaments introduce many players to the joys of playing poker for only a little investment of time. It is a breeding ground for new players when you think about it. It’s a great way to learn how to play, have fun, maybe win a prize, and you can’t lose anything. Even well experienced players enjoy playing them because it’s an easy way to try and win prizes as one might feel their skill and experience will give them the edge to beat out their novice opponents.

The opinion however would seem to seal the fate of buy-in tournaments in a public place in which players can win money. The same is likely true for ring games. Although the opinion does not directly address ring or cash games, one might figure that if an entry fee into a tournament is considered a bet, so would the buy-in to a ring game.

Has anyone in this state taken a look around? Poker is everywhere. Competitive LEGAL poker is being played all around Texas. Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, and now Mexico have legal competitive poker being played for money. Yet Texas remains staunchly committed to stand up against the evils all around our borders. Texas is a state of high moral fiber, devoutly religious, and considers gambling to be wrong, immoral, and sinful.

Well, except horse racing. We’ll let you do a little betting on the track. But there can only be so many tracks allowed. We don’t want them all over the place you know.

Oh, and we do have a heart, so you can spend all you want on a chance to win those money prizes at your local charity bingo hall.

What’s that? The lottery? Well, yeah; I forgot, we have one of those too, with scratch off tickets available also. In fact, we know poker is so popular; we named one of our scratch ticket games after the popular game Texas Holdem. The TEXAS lottery – TEXAS Holdem; see the similarities? It’s almost as if the poker game was named after our State! Besides, you can’t loose your house playing those. I mean they are only a dollar or two, right?

I still am trying to figure what it is about gambling that is so immoral.

Is it because it is immoral to win something for nothing based on a game in which the outcome is determined by chance, or at least is determined partially by chance? Wait, that can’t be defined as gambling because you didn’t make a bet if it was for nothing. See the Attorney General of Texas opinion, previously mentioned.

Maybe we don’t allow gambling because it is immoral to make a wager to win more than what you wagered on a game in which the outcome is determined by chance, or at least is determined partially by chance. No, that can’t be immoral. Otherwise, all of our churches who have bingo halls would be doing something immoral and we know that isn’t the case. Otherwise, we would then have to classify bingo as a game of skill with no possibility of chance determining the outcome.

Perhaps it is because it is immoral to make a profit from operating a game in which money lost on the outcome of a game that is determined by chance, or is at least partially determined by chance. In other words, it’s immoral to make a profit from the loses of participants for hosting or providing the opportunity for such a game to take place, regardless if the profit was made directly or indirectly from the game. That’s it, the profits are immoral.

OK, let me get this straight, if you make a profit off of operating or providing the opportunity for gambling to take place it’s immoral, UNLESS we call the profits charity or taxes, in which case everything is ok.

Isn’t all of this just so very silly?

Will poker ever be legal to play in public card rooms in Texas similar to other states? Not as long as we fight over whether poker is a game of chance or a game of skill. I personally think it is a game of chance played with skill. What does that mean? It means that a skilled player can use the tools of the game more effectively to gain advantage and win than a player who is not as skilled in the same situations.

Skill or chance, who cares? Defining poker as a skilled game will never happen. So it isn’t even worth anyone’s time in trying to do so.

The only way to get legal public card rooms in Texas is to change the law. Let’s do a little education. Remember school house rock? http://www.school-house-rock.com/Bill.html

The law which needs to be changed is part of the Texas Constitution. The Texas Constitution is not an easy document to change. The process goes something like this:

Someone writes a bill which hopefully becomes law one day. A State Senator can sponsor a bill to the Senate. Likewise, a State Congressman can sponsor a bill to the House of Representatives.

Once the bill is submitted, it goes to committee. A committee is made up of legislators who then decide if a bill is worthy of being sent to the floor for a vote. They can edit the bill, send it back to be re-written, or submit it to the floor. Most bills die in committee. The floor could send it back to committee or vote to pass it or kill it. If they vote to pass it, it gets sent to the other house for consideration and goes through a similar committee process. Once a bill is approved by both houses, it goes to the Governor for signing. There are time constraints all along the way. For example, the Governor has 10 days to sign it. He can either veto it, or not sign it. In either case, it would go back to the Legislature which would require a 2/3 majority vote to override the veto. After all of that, it goes to the people to vote on.

I have left out a lot of details to simplify the process. Even still, you can see that to change the law will require a monumental effort. Can it be done? Yes, but not likely in the next session, and perhaps not in the session after that. Why?

Because our legislators believe that the voting public does not want poker to be legalized. Did you read that last line correctly? I didn’t say the public, I said the VOTING public. Are you registered to vote?

Poker players tend to be very passionate people, especially when it comes to poker. But the truth is, most of them aren’t even registered to vote. If all of the poker players united, under one voice or organization, donated tax deductible money to the organization to generate the funds to hire lobbyists, and more importantly, these players were ALL registered to vote, we could change things.

The organization would give the players an orchestrated voice, the direction to move as an organized body. However, it is the individual REGISTERED players who would have the most influence.
If every Texas resident poker player did these four things:

1. REGISTER TO VOTE!
2. Write or call your legislator and told them you want them to legalize poker.
3. Tell your legislators that to receive your vote for their re-election depends on them voting for pro-poker legislation.
4. Join a common organization who’s fundamental purpose is to legalize poker in Texas.

We could legalize poker in Texas.

I had mentioned in a previous post a few organizations that were working on this endeavor of legalizing poker in Texas. The first was Texans for Poker. The organization floundered and I believe it is now defunct. The second is the Texas Card Players Association. (Website still under construction.) This group formed last fall and have only just elected a board of directors. Lastly, there is the Texas Poker PAC. They have partnered with the TCPA in a joint effort to legalize poker. These two organizations are still somewhat in their infancy. Considering the TCPA formed nearly 9 months ago shows slow progress, but progress none the less. While I am hopeful that they will champion the cause, I am cautiously hopeful.

In the mean time, if you are a poker player who is not registered to vote you can help out immediately by going and getting registered. And don’t give the excuse that you don’t want to register because you will get snagged for jury duty! The truth is that you can get snagged for jury duty even if you aren’t registered to vote.

We all need to band together to even have a chance to force change!

This confirms I belong in Ireland

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

Farewell to a Great Man. George Stephen

I am sure those who knew George, also knows he passed away April 27th. His obituary was printed on Sunday May 7th in the Austin American-Statesman. I've also posted it below.

I met George at a poker game probably 7 or 8 years ago and have played with him many times since. He was a very respected man whom I found to have a great sense of humor, a fierce competitiveness, extremely intelligent, and out right fun to play with. While my only interactions with him were primarily poker related, I knew him to be a man who I am sorry that I only knew in his twilight years.

One of George’s friend (and long-time fellow poker player) and I were reminiscing about him and some of his poker antics tonight. He was telling me about his conversation with George when he last saw him not long before his passing. George stated, “You know, if I hadn’t chased all of them damned straights and flushes all those years, I’d finished a winning player.”

George; in my book you did finish a winner. Farewell. Fair winds, and following seas.




George A. Stephen died at his home in Austin in the company of his family on April 27, 2006. He was a nationally-recognized tax lawyer and authority on civil and criminal tax fraud. Until his final illness, he was in private law practice in Austin and Washington, DC. He had retired in 1973 as Chief, Intelligence Division, United States Internal Revenue Service, based in Austin. During his 25 year career with the IRS, he was twice given Outstanding Performance Awards and at retirement received the Albert Gallatin Award, the Department of Treasury's highest career service honor, conferred by US Treasury Secretary George P. Shultz. He earlier received a Special Commendation by US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy for outstanding achievement in the extended federal investigations of the US Task Force on Racketeering and Organized Crime. George was a visiting lecturer on civil and criminal tax fraud at the University of Texas School of Business and Texas Junior Bar Association and a seminar instructor in financial investigative techniques for the Texas Department of Public Safety Investigative Training Schools. He was past chairman of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and former chairman of the Board of Directors of the Government Employees Federal Credit Union. George received a BBA degree from the University of Texas at Austin and completed all accounting courses for an MBA there. He received a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from South Texas College of Law, Houston. He had earlier completed 3-1/2 years of Texas A&M's 5-year petroleum engineering degree program when he was drafted after Pearl Harbor. He was commissioned by the US Army Air Corps as a Bombardier Navigator at Kelly Field, San Antonio. After graduating from Pan American World Airways Advanced Navigation College at Homestead, Florida, he flew in bombers and multiengine aircraft in combat in every WWII theater of war. He also served as a special consultant on fuel-conservational transoceanic and transpolar route planning. Later, he was among the volunteers who flew the "Hump" over the Himalayas between India and China to supply Chinese and Russian Allies. Following the end of WWII, "five years, a wife, and one baby later," as he often said, he began college anew at UT while working full time as a radio news and sports announcer. George was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, July 14, 1920. As a youth, he lived in five Texas and Oklahoma cities as the family followed his father's oil business. He attended San Jacinto High School in Houston as a freshman, where he drew attention on the track team as a prospective Olympics high hurdler. When the East Texas oilfields boomed, he moved with his family to Kilgore, where he starred as an all-regional basketball player and left end on the championship football team at Kilgore High School and met his future wife, LaVerne Anding. He was preceded in death by his parents, John Earnest Stephen and Vida Klein Stephen; his wife of 53 years, LaVerne (MiMi) Anding Stephen; and his son, David Darden Stephen. Survivors in his immediate family are his brother, John Erle Stephen of Austin; granddaughter Sarah Stephen and daughter-in-law Jeanna Hamilton Stephen of Bulverde; niece Leslie Stephen and her husband, Anthony L. Renzi, of Austin; nephew Kurt Stephen and his wife, Victoria Shawn Stephen, of McAllen; and great-nieces Elyse Stephen and Sophia Stephen and great-nephew Alexander Stephen, all of McAllen. George was admired for the intelligence, insight, and integrity he brought to all his dealings and relationships. He had a fun-loving spirit and wit, and his wisdom and generosity enriched the lives of many friends and relations. He was a fierce competitor at bridge, chess, and poker, which he played regularly until a few weeks before his death. He supported many charities as an Honorary Member of the Stephen F. Austin Chapter-Order of DeMolay, Honorary Lifetime Member of the Elks, 25 year member of Hill City Lodge No. 456 AF&AM, Scottish Rite Mason-32nd Degree, and sponsor of activities of the Austin Area Boy Scouts and Vaughn House, Inc. He also was a director of the Austin Area Garden Council and organized the Austin Rose Society, serving three terms as its president. A Life Member of the University of Texas Ex-Students Association and Member of the UT Longhorn Club, his other memberships included the Travis County Bar Association, American Bar Association, Federal Bar Association, American Judicature Society, Association of Former Special Agents of the Internal Revenue Service, Austin Chess Club, Texas Chess Association, and US Chess Federation. George's family is grateful to all the dedicated professionals who cared for him over the past eighteen months, most especially to Angie Richter, Ida Sparks, and Ernest Valle, and to the huge circle of friends and professional associates who showed their love and respect for him in so many ways. In keeping with his wishes, George was cremated and his remains will be buried privately by the family at Lake Side Cemetery, Eagle Lake, Texas; a farewell gathering of his friends and family will be held in Austin on June 7th at 4:30 p.m. in the Amphitheater at Laguna Gloria. Memorial contributions may be made to Vaughn House, Inc., of Austin; Houston Shriners Hospital for Children; or Scottish Rite Learning Center of Austin. Published in the Austin American-Statesman on 5/7/2006..

You're so Jaded

I am sometimes amazed at how poker players think. In some ways, we are so jaded when it comes to the value of money. Perhaps the old adage fits the bill here: Penny Wise - Pound Foolish.

Case in point: Sitting at a table in Las Vegas last week and the conversation turned to oil and the rising prices of gas. Players at the table offered up the amounts they had recently paid for a gallon of gasoline. The players being from different locations around the country clearly showed that gasoline prices were higher all over. Regardless of location, prices are clearly reaching $3.00 a gallon and more in some areas.

“It used to cost me about $35 to fill up my tank. I just filled up on the way to the airport before flying to Vegas and it cost me almost $50! It’s ridiculous how much money these big oil companies are making!” The player making this statement was clearly angry for having to spend so much more money to fill up his gas tank.

Let’s assume that his vehicle gets 400 miles between fill ups. I believe most vehicles get between 350 and 450 miles between fill ups depending upon their size and function. 400 seems like an appropriate number to base our assumptions on. In real terms that would mean he went from paying 8 cents a mile to fuel his vehicle to 12 cents per mile, or…$15. Come on! Are you serious? $15? Hell, how far will a taxi take you for $15?

Yet these same players were buying and re-buying into the game for HUNDREDS of dollars. I made a point to ask the guy when he bet $75 into me on a particular hand, “$75? Your hand is worth a tank and a half of gas?” To which he replied sheepishly, “uh, call me and I guess we’ll see.” I didn’t call him, but some else did, much to his dismay.

I guess it all comes down to how much value you place on things. Apparently bluffing at a pot for $75 must have more value than the extra $15 it cost him to fuel up his vehicle. Luckily I can see the silver lining for him. At least when he bluffs off all of his money, he is guaranteed to get home from the airport since his vehicle has a full tank of gas. Surely having that feeling of security is worth the extra $15. Don’t you think so?

Are you drunk or do you always talk this much?

I was playing at a game last night where there was an older gentleman who was rather inebriated. He was having a good time and winning some big pots. He also was VERY talkative. His slurred words and unsolicited opinions seemed to be annoying a few players at my end of the table. I personally liked him being this way – he was providing all kinds of action, raising pre-flop, straddling, and betting with apparent abandonment. He was definitely playing loose, but I think some of the players were underestimating his ability to discern where he stood in hands and he was cleaning up rather nicely – or at least his growing chip stack seemed to support such a notion.

At any rate, after a rather long diatribe about something which none of us could quite comprehend I stated, “Well; it could be worse.”

To which a fellow player asked, “What? Like if there were two of them?”

A Wiggly Good Time

I recently returned from a family trip to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. We took our daughter and her Grandparents joined us for 4 of the 6 days we were there. We kind of scheduled this trip around taking our daughter to see The Wiggles in concert. They were performing at the Thomas & Mack Center.

If you don’t have kids, you probably have no idea who The Wiggles are. I can tell you I didn’t know who they were 2 years ago. Kids are addicted to their funny antics, catching songs, and wiggly dances that they perform. They hail from Australia and families came from all over to see them. We heard one woman “bragging” that they had come from Virginia just to see the Wiggles. Their US tour will take them to many cities, but Las Vegas was just the right place for us to see them.

We arrived on Sunday and while I watched our daughter, my wife went off to play blackjack. She loves to play blackjack and doesn’t get to do so very often, so I wanted to be sure she could get some play in. We later learned that it is not at all uncommon for parents to just leave their kids unsupervised in their hotel room while mom and dad run off to the tables. Personally, I think this is criminal and couldn’t imagine a parent doing such a thing.

At any rate, it wasn’t until 9am on Monday morning that I was able to play my first hand of poker. I walked over to the Bellagio and signed up for a single table satellite to their $500 buy in daily tournament. The buy in was $130, and the top two received a seat. I busted out 4th. Incidentally, John H. was in the same satellite and we were able to catch up on his adventures since moving to Vegas last summer.

After I busted out, things seemed kind of slow at Bellagio, so I headed over to Caesars where the World Series of Poker Tournament Circuit events were taking place. I really wanted to play in Event 8. ($1000 +60 buy in NLHE on Wed) They run single table satellites all day every day so I entered a $130 single table which paid the winner 2 $500 tournament entry chips and $170 in cash. Unfortunately, I busted out 4th again. This trip was definitely not starting out the way I wanted.

After busting out of my second satellite, I decided to try my hand in the cash games and promptly bought into a 2/5 NLHE game. A couple of buy ins later, I walked out of Caesars having lost nearly every hand I played. I was beginning to question whether I should even play anymore the rest of the trip.

I walked back over to Harrah’s were we were staying and decided to play some blackjack. While blackjack is not my favorite game to play, I do like to play occasionally. After a couple of hours of playing, I doubled my money and cashed out. Even so, I was still down over $700 for the day.

My wife’s parents flight was severely delayed, so while we waited on their arrival, we decided to take a stroll on the strip. We walked from Harrahs north to the Wynn and back to Harrahs taking in sights along the way. We then headed south to Belagio to see the fountains and maybe catch Leslie on a break while there.

This was Monday May 1st and the illegal immigrant march was taking place as we started to head to Bellagio. There were so many people in this march, when you stood on one of the bridges over Las Vegas Blvd, you saw a sea of people in both directions. I don’t know how many showed up, but there had to be in the neighborhood of 100,000 marchers. The march lasted nearly 2 hours. I wonder how Las Vegas would operate if all these people were “sent back” as some have suggested.

I awoke Tuesday morning (Wiggles day) and decided to head down to see what was going on in Harrah’s poker room. But on my way, I heard it calling to me. You see I don’t really play slot machines. Truthfully, they are nearly the worst thing you can play in a casino, but there is one machine which calls to me and I must answer the call. I usually play $100 a trip in these machines and as I had to pass right by them to get to Harrah’s poker room, which means I had to stop. WHEEL OF FORTUNE! There is just something about getting that wheel spin. After 20 mins and blowing the $100, I walked into the Harrahs poker room just as they were starting a $50 tournament. So I bought in. I didn’t realize that this was a re-buy tournament and that there was absolutely no way I could finish it (if I were that lucky) since the concert started in 3 hours. It’s a good thing anyways, as I couldn’t stand this tournament. The dealers treated the players like morons. Well, that was because half of the table was made up of very inexperienced players who had no clue as to what was going on. Normally, this would be a good thing, as they have virtually no shot at winning the tournament. But I found that my patience was worn thin as every hand was a lesson on how to play a tournament. I know you have to start somewhere, but damned this was just too painful to sit and play. There were 3 ladies at this table who had only seen poker on TV and had never actually played before. You can imagine how slow and agonizing the hands were. All the while, knowing that I had to leave before the tournament would finish, I decided I was not going to re-buy and that I should probably just bust out for my own sanity’s sake.

I went back to the blackjack table and waited on the family to come down for lunch. When they came down, I cashed out (for a loss) so we could eat lunch before we headed over to see the Wiggles. If you are trying to keep track, I was down over $1100 for the trip. Thankfully, my wife had booked some wins at blackjack, so we were positive overall, but the losses weren’t helping my ego any.

After the show, Grandma and Grandpa took over babysitting so we could both go play. I headed over to Caesars and my wife stayed to play BJ at Harrahs. Still wanting to play in Event 8, I entered another single table satellite. This one was for $200. The winner got 3 $500 chips, plus $310 in cash. When we were down to two players, we chopped the pot. I took 2 $500 chips for my tournament entry into event 8 plus $140 in cash, the other guy got the other $500 chip and the rest of the cash.

Feeling good about my win and wanting to get plenty of rest before the tournament, I headed back to Harrahs where I found my wife still playing BJ. We hadn’t played “together” yet, so I sat down at her table and bought in for $500. She was up quite a bit, so we played together for a while. After some brutal shoes and dumping all of my $500, we cashed out her winnings and headed up for a good nights rest before the tournament.

I entered event 8 and was hopeful to make the money as were the other 210 people that entered. Sadly, it was not meant to be and I went down in a blaze of glory, AKs losing to a gut shot Q on the river to KJd. I am not even sure how far into the field I lasted, there were still more than 100 players left, so I wasn’t even close. Oh well, I’ll try again next time.

After losing so much at no limit, I decided to try some limit poker. I prefer 15/30 and 30/60, and as I hadn’t been to the Wynn poker room, I decided I would give it a shot. I stopped by Harrahs and Grandma, wife, baby, and myself headed over to Wynn. Grandma hadn’t been to the Wynn before and said she wanted to go check it out. We stopped for lunch on the strip and then strolled over to the Wynn. I think Grandma was impressed, as anyone would be. The Wynn is a beautiful casino with perfect attention to every detail.

I got on the list for 15/30 and bid the girls adieu. After about 20 mins, I settled down into the 15/30 game to play. There were some very aggressive players on this table and I had to get out of no limit mode and back into limit poker play. The table was a must move game and the whole time I was there (maybe an hour and a half) the table was short handed. Players were moved to the main table, others sat out, walked away, or just cashed out. At one point we were 4 handed for about 20 mins with 2 players missing from the table. I finally decided to book the win before I blinded it all off. I cashed out +$106. Wooohooo! I finally won at poker. Hell, that only left me down -$1900 for the trip. Things were looking up!

I left the Wynn and jumped into a cab to head back over to Caesars. When I arrived, the room was packed. The tournament was down to about 15 or so players, plus they had started the second chance tournament at 7:00pm. It was nearly 8pm and I decided to try my chances at no limit again. I bought into a 2/5 nlhe game for $300. As players busted out of the tournament, they would fill seats that were occasionally vacated by busted players in our 2/5 game. I was doing ok, up about $180 or so around midnight. I considered calling it a night, but this guy sat down at our table and I saw him make a bold steal. He showed his hand of 67o and I decided I was going to take his stack.

Reminiscent of my trip to Vegas in March of ’05, I ordered a chilled Tuaca to loosen things up. One of the players at the table then turned me on to a drink called an oatmeal cookie (Baileys/Butterscotch Schnapps/Goldschlager). After a few of these, I wasn’t feeling any pain. I then proceeded to go on a run of cards you get when the deck hits you square between the eyes. What made things even better is that many of the players thought I was being “over aggressive” in my inebriated state – how wrong they were. A local who was playing with us said, “You are unbelievable! You’ve knocked out like a dozen players.” My chip stacks steadily grew. One player even pointed out that I had a “dirty stack”. I responded by saying, “I know. That’s my nickname. Dirty Stacks.”

I must have tipped out over $400 to the dealers/chip runners/floor people. One particular chip runner named Tej, became a personal assistant of mine if you will. I informed him that every time we had an empty seat, it was his job to get it filled. I rewarded him handsomely and his tokes were probably better than he had ever received as a chip runner.

The dealers were all my friends too. (Funny how that happens when you are throwing tokes around.) On one particular hand, I was getting a massage from one of the massage therapists that work the room, and I looked down to find KJd in my hand. I raised preflop and the board came QJ8 with 2 diamonds. I made a small bet and my target stack raised me. There were 3 callers when it got back to me so I went all in to isolate. He called. I told the dealer (Patches) if he hits this hand he was getting 10%. I wonder if he believed me as he was getting pushed as soon as the hand was completed. There was no waiting for the diamond and I told him I’d get him after I counted the size the pot. It took a while to count the pot down as my manual dexterity seemed to be non-existent at this point in the night. With the help of a couple of the players, we determined that I owed Patches $65.00. So I cut out $65.00 in red chips and walked, err, stumbled, over to the table he was on and plopped the handful of chips into his shirt pocket with the familiar clanking that only true clay chips can make. I then said, “I told you, 10% - I’m a man of my word.”

Later still receiving my massage, Patches came over to join in giving me a massage. I am sure all of the players at my table were either entertained by all of this or completely in raged that some drunk ass is winning all of the money, and getting all of the attention. I didn’t care what they thought though – in fact, I probably wasn’t coherent enough to even know that anyone was steaming.

After winning another large pot, I decided I was going to toke ALL of the dealers and stumbled to every table in play and toked every dealer dealing, and then the girls at the cage, and then the floor persons, the girl who maintained the wait list, even a nice Hispanic fellow who was wiping down tables. Hell, “It’s not my money!” I exclaimed. “Share the wealth!”

Around 3:00am, I determined that I should stop drinking as my trips to the rest room became more frequent and more difficult….as I couldn’t walk straight anymore. I decided it was time to call it a night and go. How much did I win? I wasn’t sure as all of my stacks were dirty and I wasn’t in any condition to rack them up. So my personal assistant, Tej, racked up all of my chips for me. I told him I had bought in for $300 and he said, well, you’ve had a good night – I count you at $3,120.00.

Call it $3,100 and keep the $20.

Finally, I was in the black, for the trip.

But then came the time to pay for my foolishness. I exited out an emergency exit as a short cut and the wave of alcohol hit me like a tidal wave. After puking 3 times in the bushes, I staggered back to Harrahs to sleep it off. It’s a wonder I actually made it. Wondering through the casino, I ran into my wife and family. Thank goodness. She guided me up to bed.

Well, I didn’t really get any sleep. I was soooooo sick for the next 12-14 hours I could barely do anything but run back and forth to the restroom. We were scheduled to fly out this day and there was just no way I could fly. So we extended our trip for another day. (Maybe that was my plan all along!)

The rest of the trip was rather benign, although I did get to play one more 3 hour session Friday night before we headed off to the airport. It was a worthwhile session as I booked another win for just over $500. So all in all, it was a good trip. Baby got to see the Wiggles, Grandma won playing BJ with my wife, Grand parents spent time with their granddaughter, I won, my wife won, we paid for our room and Grandparents room in cash, covered all of our expenses and came home with more money than we left with. What more could you ask for on a trip to Vegas?

Breakfast of Champions

There is a certain poker player that plays in Austin: whom many of you know. I recently heard a story involving this player which happened many months ago, but I have only just heard it and thought it was humorous.

A group of players made a road trip from Austin to play in New Orleans for a few days. After a rather difficult night of playing poker and busting out, our hero found a buddy at another table and said something like this:

“Hey man, I’m kind of hungry, can you spot me some, so I can get breakfast?”

The player looked up from his cards and said “Sure, man. How much do you need?”

To which our hero replied:

“$200.”

The Sky is falling.

Well, it’s been a long hiatus, for those of you that venture back here occasionally. I think the biggest reason I stopped posting was that I was beginning to feel that my postings really didn’t fit into the poker blog world.

Most poker blogs focus on personal play, strategy, bad beats, and poker in general. I wanted this blog to be about poker, but I wanted to focus more on the political, social, and economic aspects of the industry, with of course my own opinions on the issues, solicited or otherwise.

And then there was the issue of writing something that was worthy of posting. When I get started, I can be a real conversationalist. However to talk about something and to write about it are two entirely different things. It takes me entirely too long to write a post. I write, and then re-write. I go away and come back and re-write it again. I tell myself it is because I want to be sure that what I write is clear and concise, and if you know me, I am anything but concise.

So here is a post. I won’t promise that I will post everyday. I won’t promise I will post every week. But I will post….eventually….and who knows? Maybe we will both be surprised Comments always welcomed.

Some one mentioned to me the other day that the “poker fad” has reached it’s peak. I was surprised to hear that. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t. All I can tell you is that I run into new poker players all the time, and often asked things about poker from people who don’t play. I sat down and decided to put down a few anecdotes for you and let you make your own conclusions.

Yesterday we went for a walk in my neighborhood and we noticed a man doing some wood working in his garage. It was evident he was making a poker table. We didn’t know the neighbor, so we walked up and exchanged pleasantries. I was curious to find out more about the table and maybe find out about a game I was unaware of.

It turns out this man doesn’t even play poker. He only makes the tables because he enjoys woodworking. He builds these as a sort of a hobby, making a small profit. He built one and next thing you know, people kept calling him to build one for them. He now has 8 on order. Clearly there is still a need for poker tables, an indicator that the industry is still growing.

I too ventured into the table building business. I’ve made several tables. Each one was a bit better than the last. What I discovered was it is difficult to make an affordable table without mass production. A sentiment my neighbor also agrees with. The amount of labor involved makes it hardly worth the time, unless you do it as a labor of love – either for love of wood working or love of poker.

I also made a proto-type folding table. The table was 9’x4” oval (10 players/dealer), but you could fold it up into a 3’x2’ square and fit it into the trunk of your car. It had inherent problems, but it did work. We played poker on it for greater than 6 months. The biggest problem we found was it just weighed too much to make it reasonably portable. I had visions that this kind of table would do well in charity events where portability was a very important feature. I tell you this because when you see the cost to build one versus the cost of mass produced tables imported from China, it would be a very hard sale. Yes, it will store in a broom closet, but it would be 4x the price and the set up would be 4x as complicated

When a game room furniture store in Austin closed, I went by and looked at their inventory of poker tables. They had a few high dollar tables and dozens of the low cost tables imported from China. The focus of their business was on billiard tables, but clearly they had thought there was a market for poker tables. The fact that they went out of business could be an indicator that the fad is slowing.

I also learned that a gambling supply house in Austin is likely to close. I somewhat find this remarkable, but then maybe not. Clearly you can obtain many of the items that they carry from internet shopping. In fact, if you know what you want, you can find almost all of the items they carry for a better price online – so long as you can wait for it to be shipped to you. This too could be an indicator that the supply has outpaced the demand. Forcing smaller margins and reducing or even nullifying any profits from operating a brick and mortar retail outlet.

Legalize poker in Texas. There are at least 3 groups that I am now aware of in Texas who’s intent is to legalize public poker card rooms in Texas. This is a hot issue that I think I should discuss in more detail in a later posting. But suffice to say, the fact that these groups are organizing and that there is more than just one of them, suggests that poker is still gaining momentum.

I am also privy to some local poker television that is in the works. Will it make it to the airwaves? Who knows? It is however, an indicator that there are still some people willing to gamble that poker hasn’t reached its peak just yet.

There is a new poker site that is in the works and will hit the internet very soon. I too thought that the number of onsite poker rooms had reached its peak, but this would suggest maybe not.

Venetian® Resort Hotel Casino recently opened a new 10,500 sqft - 39 table - poker room. Are you kidding me? 10,500sqft? Do you know how many slot machines you can put into that kind of floor space? The fact that the casino industry recognizes poker is hot and is dedicating large chunks of precious Las Vegas Strip real estate to let people play; well, that has to indicate something. Las Vegas Casinos don’t usually make multimillion dollar gambles like this one unless they feel reasonably assured it will make a return and a good return at that.

I saw a player wearing a t-shirt the other day that depicted Snoopy and all of Snoopy’s brothers playing poker. (Do you know all of their names? I didn’t.) I was in Garden Ridge this weekend and they had Texas Holdem door mats. I went and got a haircut last week (I get one every 6 weeks or so, whether I need it or not.) My barber was sitting outside smoking a cigarette and playing an electronic hand held TEXAS HOLDEM game. Go figure.

Maybe it has peaked, maybe it hasn’t. Apparently, there is still plenty of money being spent whether it is still on its way up or down. I just hope I can get some of it.

OT 10 Months!

Did I tell you it's been 10 months since I had a cigarette? From 2.5 packs a day to zippo...cold turkey no less. Sorry folks, but I had to toot my horn on that accomplishment.

WinStar

The other casino I visited was the WinStar just across the Oklahoma State Line. This place is significantly closer than Bossier City, hurricane stricken Lake Charles, or you better know how to speak Spanish Eagle Pass.

I was in North Texas on business when I made the trek north of Ft. Worth to visit this new casino. Word has it that Bossier City casinos are taking a beating as most of the DFW crowd have switched allegance to the new casino, not because it is better, not because it is prettier, but because it is closer. WAY CLOSER than driving to Bossier City.

So I arrive at the TENT casino at about 6pm. The Sun was still out when I arrived. The significance to this is that the everything above about 8 ft is painted flat black. When you first arrive, your eyes will take a lot of time to adjust to this. I found it to give me an uncomfortable feeling. It made it feel like you were hiding from someone. Personally, I like the bright and airy feeling you get when you walk into a well lit casino.

As I hadn’t eaten in a long time, I made my way to the deli area. I ordered a hotdog and drink then went to sit down. As I was dove into the dog, I notice something moving on the floor near the trash can in the corner. It was a Rat. Yes, Rattus norvegicus. I went to the counter and informed one of the employees. They sent out this snaggle toothed dude to check it out. As he approached the trash can, the rat took off out onto the casino floor and they guy just shrugged his shoulders, “Sector 12 secure”. I guess that is why it is so dark, they don’t want you to see the rats.

I then make my way to the poker room. I sit down in a 5/10 game as I waited for a seat in the 10/20 game. A few hands in, the board comes: K Q J A 10 rainbow.

It was heads up and when the 10 hit the river the guy in first position made a beat. The guy in second position was about to lay down the hand when the dealer intervened, pushed back the bet from the bettor and said the board played. She made the person in second position turn over his hand as she began splitting the pot. If that wasn’t amazing enough, I waited for someone to say something and no one did. Are you kidding me?

After about 15 mins, I moved to the 10/20 game. I found this game to be so soft, I couldn’t really believe how many hands I stole. After only about 3 hours, the game broke, much to my dismay. I was up a little over $500 and I had only shown down 3 hands.

I thought about getting on the 5/10 no limit game, as there was this guy who had about $6K in front of him, but I didn’t bring that big of a bank roll with me, so I sat down in the 2/5 game. Another rock garden. I am beginning to think I just don’t have the patience anymore to play no limit cash games. I’m tired of players who sit, sit, sit, get AA and go all in. I donated $300 to their cause as I went all in over the top of a guy with AsKc when he bet $80 the turn. The board read 7s, 4s, 10h, Ks. He thought about it for like 4 minutes then reluctantly called. The river was a blank and his Js, 3s flush held up.

Where have all the posts gone?

The poster is back…well sort of. I want to thank you all for your kind words encouraging me to post again. Especially you Duck. What will life be like without that email every other day telling me to post something? I mean, after all, if Eston can post an entry….

Since I last posted, I have certainly played some poker. Mostly in town, but I did make a couple of trips to casinos when nearby on a business trip.

The first place I went to is the Sandia Indian Casino in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I happened to get there after a weekly tournament started, so the room was packed. They have about 15 tables and the room seems to be fairly organized.

I ended up playing 10/20 limit with a half kill. There was tons of action and quite a few players who were somewhat novice. I had built a somewhat tight aggressive table image…yeah, can you believe that? Me? Tight? LOL. Well these players didn’t know me, so once that image was put into their minds, I was able to make some pretty bold but successful moves. I played for about 3.5 hours and took home a win of $545.

I played the next night when there wasn’t a tournament at the same 10/20 with a half kill game and found it to be a very still rock garden. There was one loose cannon in the bunch who would have the tremendous swings. I played until they closed -4am. (Yeah, for some reason they close at 4 am during the week.) I did have a chance to cash out on a postitive note if I had just cashed out. I pulled the classic “I’m in the dark” play which resulted in a pot worth about $450 being pushed my way when it was over. I made some shitty two pair and snapped off AA and KK. Nice. Should have cashed right then. But that hand loosened up the table a bit and I thought this is starting to look like my game. Unfortunately, I then had AA, AK, and QQ cracked. At any rate, my previous night’s success was not relived and I donated back about half of what I had won the night before.

Still, it was a successful trip and I will definitely be heading back sometime soon.

The Golden Age Of Poker

Remember the old sitcoms with the guys smoking cigars and playing poker? Poker isn’t your granddad’s game anymore. Thousands of new players are entering the poker nation. Universities are becoming breeding grounds for the next group of professional poker players. Bars and Restaurants host weekly tournaments, casinos are opening poker rooms, and home games are a dime a dozen these days.

Ask any player about why poker is so hot and you will hear one of three fundamental reasons. Number one is Television, Number Two is the Internet, and Number Three is the World Series of Poker. These three vehicles have propelled poker into what many people are calling The Golden Age of Poker. The interesting thing is that the three vehicles are all intertwined with each other, such that without anyone of them, poker probably would never have reached the popularity it garnishes today.

Television.

ESPN has been filming the World Series of Poker for many years. The series would usually air late at night when ESPN needed to fill air time. It was boring programming to watch as we could only speculate what each player was holding unless there was a showdown. Watching poker was kind of like watching grass grow. Truly, the filming of the WSOP was not what brought about poker popularity…..or was it?

Enter: the table video camera. Contrary to popular belief, the World Poker Tour is not the first television series to use a camera to reveal the players cards to the audience. The first television show to use this concept was Late Night Poker, a British poker television show which first aired in 1999. The WPT began airing on the Travel Channel in 2003.

The use of the camera allowed the audience to “sweat” a player’s hand, analyzing how he plays relative to the information available to him. The viewer now had a “stake” in the game. In fact, it was more than that. The viewer now knew what all of the cards players were holding.

Thusly, the “secrets” of the pros were revealed. We could see when a player was bluffing, or when he was slow playing. I think it was like when a magician gives away the secrets of a few tricks so you will come back for more. We could see how someone can skillfully affect the outcome of a hand. Viewers were able to learn how a bluff in one hand will win a pot but in another hand might cost a player a lot of money.

The WPT might not be the first show to use the table cameras, but it can take the credit for catapulting Poker into the spot light. I believe the cameras were a large reason that the show is successful, but I also think the hosts need to take some credit. Late Night Poker had the camera, but British commentary is considered very boring in the United States and wasn’t received with as much gala as the WPT. Think what you will of Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten, but they have been a well received team and are in no small measure a rationale for the shows success.

Internet.

While television has brought the high stakes game of poker in to every living room across the country for us to watch, it is the internet that has been responsible for getting all of those players together to play. With the advent of online came instant player pool. You could play from the comfort of your own home with players from across the world. The greatest thing about the internet is there is ALWAYS a game at ANY TIME you want to play. Additionally, you have the largest choice of the type of poker game you want to play from triple draw low ball to the evermore popular, Texas Holdem.

The internet made playing tournaments a breeze. There is no easier way to run a large field of players than to do so using the internet. No one ever would have believed that 4000 players could be playing simultaneously in the same tournament. The internet made that possible. As more and more players log on, tournaments buy ins were reduced to affordable levels with large pay offs. A $30 buy in could now net you thousands of dollars for a first place win.

World Series of Poker.

The WSOP has been happening since 1970. There have been a lot of changes since then, but the biggest change of all is the ability of the average Joe winning the big one. It used to be that the $10,000 buy-in was so enormous; it prevented the average or even an above average player from entering. That all changed Chris Moneymaker turned $40 into $2.5 Million dollars. The on-line sites began running satellite tournaments that allowed players to earn a seat to the WSOP with a small investment. Moneymaker was one of 839 entries in 2003 $10,000 buy-in main event. Since Moneymaker, the number of entries has exploded such that in 2005 there were an unprecedented 5619 entries in the main event. No one has ever hosted a live tournament with so many entries. The sheer volume of players makes running a tournament of this size a logistical nightmare. But the popularity of the tournament shows no signs of slowing down and early estimates are that 2006 will exceed 8000 entries.

As you can see the three vehicles are intertwined and continue to propel Poker to the forefront of recreational activity. Don’t believe me? Go look at PP, PS, and UB sites right this minute. I don’t care what time of day you are reading this, there will be thousands. In the evenings, the numbers are staggering. Flip through your television guide and you will find dozens of poker programs during the week. Watch the television commercials and you will notice that a significant number of them are using a “poker theme”. Poker has arrived. The question everyone wants to know though is, how long will it last?

Where have all the fish gone?

The funny thing about fish is that most of them know they are fish. I mean, if you have played on line for any amount of time, you know what I am talking about. You flop top set and your opponent calls. You turn top full house, and your opponent calls your huge bet. The river comes and gives your opponent a one outer hitting quads. Bad beat. What is your next move? If you are anything like most of the players out there, you begin to berate your opponent for his fish like calls.

After years of playing, I have seen it all. I have had my quads beaten by quads, I have had my straight flush beaten by a bigger straight flush. I have had quad kings beaten by a Royal Flush. And all of that happened in live games. Online play is even more brutal. Online bad beats happen more because of two reasons. There are more fish, and the hands per hour are significantly higher. If you can’t get over those beats, you need to find another hobby, because no matter how good you are, you are going to find someone will make unbelievable calls and catch unbelievable outs to beat you. It will happen, over and over again.

What I really want to talk about today is belittling those fish for making those bad calls.
Why? Why would you get mad at him for calling? Because he hit a one outer on you? Get over it. That is poker. If he paid to get there and actually did hit it, good for him. In the long run, I want those fish calling all the way. Keep calling me, please!

We used to have a player that played with us every week. This player wasn’t very good, in fact, he was down right terrible: The quintessential big fish. Each week, this player would dump $300-$500 into the game - EVERY WEEK! On the rare occasion, this player would book a win. Well, that just meant that next week, the player had even more money to dump into the game. This player played religiously every week for years.

Then one night, Mr. Fish put a bad beat on a guy who’s ego barely fit into his cranium. I will admit that the beat was pretty bad. After calling all the way, when the river came, our Fish made a bet. We all knew he had made a big hand, but Mr. Ego couldn’t believe it, so he raised Mr. Fish. Mr. Fish re-raised - clearly indicating that he had the nuts. Mr. Ego called in disgust and turned over his full house. Mr. Fish turned over his gut shot straight flush to win the pot. Definitely a bad beat.

“You are a fucking idiot! Didn’t you know I had the full house? How the hell can you call with that fucking hand?” Mr. Ego yelled going on major tilt.

Mr. Fish usually played all night…or until he was out of money. So with this win, it was a guarantee that he would be playing all night. That is until Mr. Ego wouldn’t stop running his damn mouth. Mr. Fish, being quite offended, simply cashed out (a winner no less) and we haven’t seen him back in over a year.

Thanks Mr. Ego.

Police Bust Poker Game in South Texas

In Brownsville, police bust a poker game where the operators were charging patrons $5 an hour to play tournaments. The police say the operators were making between $5,000 and $10,000 a night. Some more police propaganda if you ask me. $5000 a night? Please. Do the math. $5000/$5=1000. If the operation was open say for 12 hours, 6pm to 6am, that means you need at least 83 people paying $5 for every one of those 12 hours or 166 people to make $10,000. Not likely, especially since there were only 11 patrons when the place was busted. Go here and here to read more about the bust.

This makes me angry. You see the news organizations have it both ways. I was watching TV last night and one of the local TV stations is using a gambling theme in their commercial to promote their sports coverage. The commercial dipicted the sports casters rolling dice, playing black jack, slot machines, and various other gambling references. No doubt that gambling is hot right now, but it is these same people who will blow a poker bust so far out of proportion that it is just sickening.

When the Austin Poker Club was raided a couple of years ago, the news put up file pictures of slot machines and rolling of dice as a way to "spurce up" the bust. In actuallity, all that was going on were a bunch of people sitting around a table playing cards. But you see this just doesn't give the sensationalism that they need. So they juice it up. "They were making tens of thousands of dollars!" IF that were true, do you really think that all of the casinos would have closed their poker rooms over the years? They only started re-opening them in the last year or two because of public demand, not because they make significant amounts of money. The only people making any decent money in poker are the poker players who are skilled. Am I saying game operators don't make money? NO, not at all. I am saying they aren't making $5000 a night.

5th Austin Home Game Robbery since Nov 2004

I learned Tuesday night that Austin’s 5th poker game was robbed Monday night, August 8, 2005. The robbery took place at an apartment in south Austin. My sources who were present at the time of the robbery say there were two black suspects who simply kicked in their dead bolted door, brandished a weapon and robbed the game. It is not known exactly how much cash they absconded, but it was at least several hundred dollars, including the buy-ins and various wallets. Apparently one player was not in the main room and fled out a window, called police, and tried to give chase to the suspects. The police arrived quickly, but the bandits had already made their get away. The police did pull over a suspect, but the description of his clothes did not match those given by the players and they were forced to release him without searching his vehicle because they did not have probable cause to do so.

Here is the interesting thing about this robbery. This game had been robbed previously this year when the game was at a different location in central Austin and it was known as “The Blue Room”. It had been running at this south location “temporarily” for about 6 weeks or so. But that isn’t the most interesting thing. No, even more interestingly, is the fact the game runner announced he is getting out of the business and moving back to Dallas. I am not saying this is the case, but what if I play the devil’s advocate and suggest that it’s possible the host had his own game robbed? Is it possible?

With so many games running, you can expect that more robberies will happen since most poker games are easy targets. The reason these games are easy targets is quite simple. Most game runners are “former players” who needed a way to increase their bank roll because they couldn’t do it by playing poker. They love poker so much, how can they consistently stay close to the game if they are not consistently winning? After all, eventually your bank roll will disappear with out winning. Solution: Start your own game. The game hosts only have dollar signs in their minds and security is the least of their priorities. In deed, so many games have popped up, because the game runners know that they can make money by simply having a table, some chairs, chips, cards, and dealer in the cheapest apartment possible to reduce the overhead. (The problem with this is that the apartments tend to be in areas that have a higher crime rate…that’s why they are so inexpensive!)

I feel if you are going to host a regularly run game, you ought to be worried about how to make the game safe for your patrons. A notion that is easily overlooked in this “get rich quick” attitude many game runners seem to have.

Well, if you want my advice, find a game where the operators have taken security very seriously. The problem is security means different things to different people. In some games, the game hosts have decided to have an armed security person at their games. This seems to be the prevalent solution in the many games I have been to lately. Why? The reason is simple. It is the least expensive solution for the game runner. He can have his buddy hang out all night with his gun and throw him a couple of Franklins and voila…security. Besides, many of the younger players think it is “cool” to have a guy walking around with a 9mm strapped to his hip and have whole heartedly embraced this solution. I personally think it gives players a false sense of security and will likely end up being a tragic ending if something does go down at a game where someone is packing heat.

I certainly hope that no such tragedy happens, but if it does, it will mean the end of live poker in Austin as we know it. Why? Because you can bet that the incident will get unparalleled press coverage. When that happens, there will be an outcry from the religious zealots that these games shouldn’t be running in the first place. Law enforcement will be forced to start cracking down on the multiple “Dens of Iniquity”, not because they in and of themselves are illegal, but rather to prevent them from being robbed by criminals looking for an easy score which will prevent such tragedies from happening again.

In the mean time, games that are still running will have a hard time making a table because the patrons will disappear in fear of either being robbed, or being busted by law enforcement. The game runners will find themselves in a precarious situation as the games that do make won’t make the kind of money that they currently do. How then can they pay rent, keep playing, and all the other things that they currently do with the kind of money they are used to? You know that they aren’t about to go get a job. Hell that would mean they would have to actually work for a living. “Oh, I know…let’s raise the rake. The players won’t know the difference.“ The sad truth is that most players won’t notice the difference. They will just start wondering why it is so hard to win anymore.

So how can you help prevent all of this from happening? Well you could just play on the internet or travel to a real casino in another state. OR, you could force your regular home game to start taking security seriously. How you ask? Tell the game runner you aren’t playing anymore until they do something or tell them you are playing somewhere else that provides better security. There are places in town that have some fairly stout security measures for their games, and I’m not talking about a guy with a gun.

Some ramblings from Vegas

During the Orleans Open $200 NL Re-buy Event, the woman pictured below was in the big blind when the button made a blind stealing raise pre-flop.

It was readily apparent that her choice of clothing was purposeful in trying to use every tool at her disposal to win, including distraction. While the photo is blurry (sorry, used my camera phone) you can immediately recognize her largest assets in this psychological war of poker. She smiled often, batted her eyes and made sure everyone got an eyeful. I have to admit, it was definitely a DISTRACTION.



When the button raised, this woman re-raised with such authority that the button decided to fold instead of playing heads up. After scooping the pot, the woman says with a chuckle,

“You can’t have my chips. Nope - not my chips. You can have my body - but you can’t have my chips.”

There were a few chuckles from around the table and then right as the table was quietly viewing the next hand as it was dealt to them, a small player of Asian decent said quite calmly:

“You can have all of my chips if I can have your body.”

I nearly fell out of my chair as did the rest of the table. You just can’t find that kind of entertainment when playing on line.

While playing early one morning at the Bellagio, a fight broke out at the table behind ours. Apparently on player told the other player to “Go fuck yourself”. The offended player stood up. The offender (a regular in the Bellagio room – actually, he is regularly barred from the Bellagio poker room I was told) having seen the other player stand up, stood up quickly and rushed at him. They had locked horns when about 6 guys jumped up to separate them. A flurry of superlatives was echoed as we just sat and watched the show. Security showed up almost instantaneously (you have to love the eyes in the sky) and they separated the two players. In the end, both players were removed, their chips picked up. Our table kind of sat and reflected on the episode asking each other and the other table what had happened.

I was playing 15/30 in another session, when I checked raised my 10/10 from early position on a K10 4 flop. The better re-raised me to which I took a moment to think and then re-popped him. I then hear this 24-ish year old say to his buddy in the seat next to him, “Fucking tourists. They see the WPT on TV, read a couple of books, play a little on line, and think they are professionals.” He then folded and the pot was awarded to me. I wanted to tell him, “I was playing poker while 1000 feet under the world’s oceans when you were still wearing your Underoos, watching Sesame Street, and learning why the letter A and the number 4 are not the same even though they do both have points on top." But what came out was, “You got me.” This happy individual then proceeded to display his male dominance by over betting his hands or overcalling out of position. I think he re-bought twice and then stood up declaring that he was moving to another game. Too bad, I kind of liked playing with that guy.

Even with the recent insurgence of players into the world of poker, I still think it is a relatively small circle as I run into people I know or have played with over the years when ever I go to a casino. Aside from the Austin players I ran into, I sat down at a table with a guy who I immediately recognized, but couldn’t remember from where. We played for probably an hour before I finally confessed to him that I definitely remember playing with him but could not figure out where. Turns out, I knew him from when he used to be a dealer/player at The New Phoenix and The Last Frontier in La Center, Washington, nearly 10 years ago.

The Luxor
We stayed at the Luxor for a couple of nights. I won’t be staying there again. You would think being the world’s 4th largest Hotel (a distinction they like to ensure you are aware of) they would have a better idea of customer service. Here are some things that I disliked:

Valet parking.
If you are out of the hotel at another casino and get back late, forget about Valet parking. They only have 800 spots and regularly have 10,000 guests. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the problem here. Self parking is a hike, so you may want to hail a cab to get back to the hotel entrance.

Check-in.
Unless you are an “invited guest”, plan on camping out at the registration booth for at least 30 minutes to an hour.

Tram:
If you want to go return to the Luxor from Excalibur, you must ride the Tram to Mandalay Bay first, then change trams to go back to Luxor.

Poker Room:
They spread 1/2, 2/4, and 4/8 Limt and a $50 buy-in NL game. I didn’t play here. In fact, I didn’t gamble a single dollar at this casino.

Food Court:
We bought a chicken wrap, a Philly cheese steak sandwich, with two orders of fries and an order of bite sized hot dogs, two soft drinks, total $29.00.
We ate at the Mexican Restaurant. The service was absolutely awful from our main waitress. However, the person who brings water was very good as she was far more attentive to our needs. You will find when you travel with a baby, you have a lot of needs!

Rooms:
We reserved a King, we received a room with Two Queens.
The rooms are somewhat run down, showing signs of age and abuse. This wasn’t just our room, I know this because we saw three different rooms, one in each tower and one in the pyramid.
The beds were very uncomfortable. They were lumpy and extra firm.
THERE ARE NO SAFES IN THE ROOMS.
Cell phone reception is almost non-existent in this casino/hotel.
The room smelled moldy.
Don’t even think about asking for a late check out.
There is no refrigerator in the room, but you can request one for an extra daily charge. ($15/day) Traveler’s secret: Tell them you are diabetic or you need to store breast milk if you have a baby, they’ll waive the fee.
When our crib was delivered, the person delivering it made us feel we had put her through a huge inconvenience in the way she told us that this room had also requested a Fridge and she had to go get that now.
When our bags showed up, they weren’t our bags.
For our $400 we had a beautiful view of the North Valet Entrance.

Just so I am not totally one sided, they did do some things correctly.
When I was able to Valet, I did get the same car I left.
They waived the fee for our Fridge so we could store Milk for our baby.
They charged my credit card for the correct full price.
The A/C worked well.
During the day when you are sleeping, the curtains did a great job blocking out the Sun that couldn’t reach our windows because it was blocked by the other tower.
The separate shower with hand held shower head was nice.
You can do an express check out, but then you can do that at all of them.

The Rio

General
Our stay was complimentary, yet there are a few things that are worth pointing out.
All of the rooms at the Rio are Suites.

Check-in
If you check-in after midnight, you have to use the main registration regardless of total rewards status. The front desk was manned by only one or two people.

Phone
It is difficult to reach a person by phone after midnight. The room service button on the phone and the extension to room service did not work. This required us to call the operator and after being on hold for 15+minutes, they were able to connect us.

Housekeeping
Expect to be woken by the phone ringing at 11am so they can find out when you want your room cleaned, regardless of the “Do not disturb” sign. Especially on the day of check out.
They only supplied one wash cloth, lots of towels, but only one wash cloth.

Room
Each room has at least one refrigerator. This worked out well for keeping baby Milk from spoiling.
The windows are large, so the curtains don’t totally block out all of the sun if you are sleeping during the day.

Poker Room
I didn’t play at this poker room. I did go by several times. There was zero to 2 tables going at any one time.

Casino
Most of the blackjack tables are single deck games and had minimum bets of $25 or more.

Seafood Buffet
We ate at the Village Seafood Buffet. If you like seafood, you might want to check out this buffet. At $35, it’s a little pricey, but worth it, especially if you have comp dollars available.

The Wynn
I didn’t stay here but wanted to let you know that I did check it out. To me it is the Bellagio plus. The décor and painstaking attention to detail is easily noted.

Poker room
The poker room has some pluses and minuses in my opinion.

Very comfortable chairs. They are using swivel, castered chairs, which are more comfortable than the ones at Bellagio.
Cramped. Like almost all of the rooms, they have put too many tables in too small of a space.
Rail. The room is located just outside of the Ferrari shop, which creates a lot of Rail Birds. It can be very distracting as there is a lot of noise from kids screaming, people walking/talking, etc.
Computer screen. They use a computer program to keep track of players waiting for various games. This is similar or the same as used in a few other places I have been to, namely the Borgata in Atlantic City and Harrah’s in Kansas City.
All tables have shuffle machines.
All in all, I’d say the room is very comparable to Bellagio.

Klingons and the Collective
The Star Trek Experience at the Hilton is worth doing. We enjoyed it. If you are a Trekie, you will probably enjoy it that much more, but you don't have to be to have a good time. The actors are very serious in their roles, so try and play along. I'll have a photo or two to post when I get them developed. (sorry, SLR, not a digital camera)

Wedding.
We attended a family wedding at the Hyatt in Lake Las Vegas. This is a beautiful hotel and the resort area is breathtaking. If you are interested in getting away from the strip and want a nice place to stay, check it out.

Elvis stopped by to wish the newlywed couple his best wishes and cronned some love songs for them. Hopefully the photos will come out. He looks great for his age!

Gold Coast Casino Poker Room
The Gold Coast Casino has a tiny 6 table room, but has one of the best action low limit games in town. They spread a 4/8 with 1/2 kill that may be worth checking out. Apparently, there is so much action, the pots are bigger than a 10/20 game. I went over to check it out, but couldn't get on the table as it was full. I sat down into a feeder game for about 25 minutes when it broke leaving me stuck for $40. The players at the main table had all pitched their tents for the night, so I didn't see any point in hanging around after that.

More to come.

Quick and Dirty Update

OK readers, here is a very quick update from Candy Land. I will have a more detailed follow up when I return to Austin and I'll have a few photos to post as well.

Orleans Open.

Thursday, 148 entires, 323 $200 buyins/rebuys, Paid top 18, busted out 41st...KK beat by AQ.
Sunday, Only 209 entires ($1000 buyin)$202K prize pool. Paid top 27...busted out 101, AK beat by AQ. Yeah,AQ again.

Guess I can't fade the draws.

Played first cash game on Saturday (15/30 at Belagio)...cashed out up 23 big bets.
Played second session Monday morning (15/30 at Belagio) ...cashed out up 26 big bets.
Played third session Monday afternoon (15/30 at Wynn) ....no cash out, lost 16 big bets.

Austinites I have run into, Applied Math, Adel S., Leslie (our favorite dealer at Belagio), Big, and Will.

Stay tuned, more updates coming.