High On Poker

Holy Chowder! My corporate overlords are really pounding away at me today, but I still find a bit of time for you good people. God bless me.

I mentioned briefly in my last post about how PirateLawyer and I were chatting about a hand that went down in the Mookie. The conversations started when he asked if I would have played the hand any different from his perspective. There was some back and forth, but in the end, the answer I gave was simply, If he could explain the reasons behind his play, then it was justifiable. This simple explanation is a cornerstone to my thoughts on poker and probably a reason why hand history strategy is becoming less and less of a focus here at HoP and generally across the blogiverse.

In the early days, I thought there was a perfect path in every hand. I have since learned that this is just not true. In fact, it is SO untrue that the act of discerning the “right” play in a given situation has largely become a fool’s errand to me. It’s not to say that in particular situations the best play isn’t clear. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in most situations, there is a “best” play. But “best” does not equal the totalitarian idea of “right” as in, “You called a raise with T8?! That’s wrong!” I am okay, however, with the general statement, “You called a raise with T8? That’s probably not the best play.”

Sure, it seems like splitting hairs, but I think it’s a very important distinction. This isn’t really about the PL hand specifically, but let’s use it, since it’s a decent example.

The major sequence worth examining was the preflop play. PL had over 100k and was the chip leader with 6 players left. We were already in the money. Blinds were 800/1600, with an ante. Three players had shorter stacks of between 20k and 30k. One other opponent and I had stacks around 50k to 60k. PL, in the CO (I think), min-raised from 1600 to 3200. Everyone folded to me in one of the blinds (SB, I think), who raised to 14,400, for an additional 9200. PL called and we saw a flop.

That’s the only sequence of events you need to know, and there are only two actions by PL to examine: (1) the preflop min-raise and (2) the call after facing a 3x re-raise (or is it considered 6x since he only min raised for 1600 more…anyone?). Let’s break it down.

(1) The Prelop Min-Raise. Taken in a vacuum, if I said, “Is it good to min-raise with T8s preflop?” you may recommend a fold instead. Let’s add more info. “There are 6 players left, I’m the big stack with almost 2x the chips of the second place player, and I’m in late position. Is it good to min-raise with T8s?” Suddenly, it’s not as bad. Add some more facts, “I think the players are starting to tighten up to move up the pay ladder.” Great, the play is even better now. And so on and so forth. But even if we are convinced that the min-raise with T8s is a decent play or even the best play in that scenario, can we ever determine if it is the “right” play. The answer is no. The answer is that the best play in that scenario is to fold sometimes and raise other times. That transcends the information we’ve gathered. Even knowing that you will likely win down the pot uncontested, it still doesn’t mean that 100% of the time, you should min-raise there. Why? Because if you did things the same way every single time, you’d be a predictable robot and your opponents would eventually adapt and beat your ass. There must be a certain amount of variability in every situation.

Let me make it even more obvious. Is there ever a time to limp in EP with AA? Yes, if you feel confident that you will face a raise and then have an opportunity to re-raise. BUT, even under that scenario, you shouldn’t always limp, right? Sometimes, you should bet out. You might be able to identify the BEST play, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the RIGHT play and that all other plays are WRONG.

(2) Calling the Raise Preflop. At first glance, I thought that this was PL’s mistake. Right? After all, what would you say to a guy who gave you this info: “I min-raised preflop, faced a significant re-raise from my opponent, and all I had was T8s. I called. Was that wrong?” I’d say, “Hell yes, dude. VERY VERY WRONG.” But I’d be wrong, because there is more to poker than cookie cutter decision-making based on cards. It’s about feel. And, it’s about different paths. No one would blame a player for folding T8s, but if that player can set forth the reason for their play and their play actually coincides with the reason provided, then how can it be wrong. It might not be how you do it, but you don’t get to dictate how other people play and as I already mentioned, with poker, there are many paths to success.

Here are legitimate individual reasons (which can, and probably should, be combined for extra justification!) for the call in this situation: (i) you are in position and will be able to act with knowledge of the flop and your opponents’ reaction to the flop when you next have to act, (ii) your opponent is a loose donk and could be playing ATC, (iii) your opponent is one of the best at the table and if you can bust him, the rest of the tournament will be a cakewalk, (iv) you expect to be able to put pressure post-flop on your opponent because he’s going to be extra-cautious going all-in due to the many shorties, etc., etc., and so forth.

My point is simply this: There are no hard, fast rules of poker. If you have a plan in place and the plan is legitimate and your actions fit within your plan and advance it, then you made a justifiable play. It may not be the best play, but I can’t call it the wrong play just because I had a different plan in place.

In the end, this doesn’t really negate the importance of hand analysis. It just puts things in a different light. Even when you don’t agree with a play, it doesn’t mean that it was a bad one. It was just different than what you would have done. And you aren’t wrong necessarily either, as long as you can justify your logic. Let’s go back to the AA example.

One guy can say, “Never limp preflop with AA, because you run too high of a chance of having too many players in the pot. Even if the other players are likely to raise preflop, you can’t guarantee that, and at a table like that, you are likely to get a caller or two anyway with a preflop raise, so it’s not like you are losing all value in the hand.” That strategy is a sound one. The main goal is to get money into the pot but avoid a situation with too many opponents. By raising preflop, his actions fit and advance his goals.

The other guy says, “You are throwing free money away by raising and you just might end up with a bunch of callers anyway! Just limp. At this table, someone will raise, likely after some limpers, and you may get calls on that raise too, and then you can re-raise big and take down the sizeable pot right away or narrow the field to maybe one other player.” That’s not a bad strategy too. It has more risk of ending up in a multiway pot if you don’t get an opportunity to re-raise preflop, but some players don’t mind that risk. And, it’s actually a small risk, since little money is put in the pot from your chip stack in that scenario. This player’s goal is clearly to win the pot preflop or narrow the field while pumping the pot. His play matches his goal and advances it, and therefore is legitimate.

Maybe this wasn’t the most elegant explanation, but the key is that there are more than one justifiable play in most situations, even when there are the same conditions. It’s all about the individual goal and style of the person making the decision.

In poker, there are often no Right Answers. Are there Best Answers? Sure, most of the time. But sometimes that Best Answer is to raise 90% of the time and limp 10% of the time, and really, how many of us are willing to answer a simple question of “Did I play this right?” by suggesting the percentages of how to play it.

Until next time, make mine poker!

With Mookie Win #2 in the bag, I figure at least a little recap is warranted. I didn’t keep hand histories and I don’t particularly remember much of the details of the tournament, but I do remember the broad strokes.

After another long day at the office, I seriously doubted that I was going to play the Mookie. Instead, when I got home and finished cooking dinner (spinach and panko crusted chicken cutlets with feta-cheese twice baked potatoes) I figured I would play a 45-person SNG. I decided to pay attention and go for the win, instead of half-assing it as I am prone to do. I should’ve half-assed it. About halfway through the tournament, I made a misread in a blind vs. blind confrontation. I held T9 on the J98 flop and didn’t believe my opponent’s bet. I re-raised all-in and he called, showing AJ. No straight for me and I was out.

That sucked donkey balls, but what sucked worse was the stream of shitty television wifey Kim had settled down to watch. Desperate Housewives is actually a pretty decent show, but it is infinitely better when I’m playing online poker at the same time. The same could be said for American Idol or any number of shows I can sit through with the wife and my laptop.

It was probably 30 to 60 minutes later when I decided that I would, in fact, play the Mookie. I signed in, signed up, and then signed up for the 9:45 Token Frenzy. By 10pm, I was two tabling.

My goal in the Mookie was to play smart, cautious poker. I was trying to figure out the best strategy against bloggers, as opposed to the usual player. It’s a very basic thing to do. The usual MTT (multi-table tournament) player and the blogger MTT player are different breeds of animal, so changing tactics should be standard. I just hadn’t thought about that fact in a long while.

If you don’t think that regular MTTs and blogger MTTs are different, just take a look at the list of bustouts after one hour at the Mookie. It was easily less than 10% of the field. In a regular MTT, you can count on a MUCH larger percentage to have busted out by then.

So what does it all mean? Well, the most noticeable thing is that the blogging community is a lot tighter in these games, probably moreso than usual because of the allure of the BBT4, points and all. So, I decided to look for spots to loosen up. I wasn’t just going to loosen up. I was going to pick my spots carefully, because while the group is tight, it’s also aggressive.

I stayed even early, not making much waves. I had busted from the Token Frenzy at some point early in the Mookie and decided to not open any other tournaments. That’s not to say that I didn’t play distracted. Wifey Kim eventually put on The City, a terrible spinoff to the atrocious The Hills. I couldn’t even stand to stay in the same room with that claptrap, so I headed into the bedroom where I…sorted wifey Kim and my documents drawer. Basically, while playing online poker, I went over our leases, insurance, etc. organizing as I went. It was a boring chore to do, but online poker makes it slightly more bearable. During this time, I had already chipped up a bit to about 5.5k, before dropping back down to the 4k region. I was pretty much back to playing tight after taking a couple of stabs earlier to gather my stack.

This post seems to be more about everything I did while doing the Mookie. You can add the dishes to that list. Yep, I took the laptop into the kitchen and emptied the dishwasher, replacing the clean dishes with the dirty ones in the sink. All while folding, checking and raising. Multi-tasking at its best.

And then finally, at about 11pm, I sat down and I played poker. Real poker. Just me and the Mookie. I began paying attention to my opponents a bit more (I was doing it throughout, but now I was without distractions…if you don’t count the fact that I was also listening to Howard Stern). I had some fortunate cards, AA a couple of times, KK a few times when it mattered, and managed to catapult my way to a large stack. Of course, the majority of my chips came from one particular player who shall remain actually nameless. I had been keeping an eye on her play and her looseness made me salivate. She sat two seats to my right. When she raised preflop, I could call light or even better, re-raise and take down the pot immediately. I felt so in tune to her play that it was a cakewalk. I even said as much in a brief chat with 23Skidoo.

By the time we were nearing the final table bubble, my personal ATM was long gone. I had a good read on my table and I played accordingly. It was that simple. It helped that we were 6-handed and then 5-handed. I play best in shorthanded games, so I took advantage of the situation by betting hard when opportunities arose, which happens rather often with so few competitors.

I don’t remember all of the details, but I think by the final table, I was no longer the big stack that I once was. Most of the remaining players had caught up, and I was no one of the shorter stacks, although I still had my fair share of blinds. I played my way up the ladder, actually tightening up and getting paid off on some solid hands. Every once in a while, I would go on betting tares, raising 4 or 5 hands in a row, usually successful. Eventually, I found we were back to six-handed play and I was a middle-stack. I continued to attack the table, trying to take advantage of the shorthanded play. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. One thing I made sure of, though, was that I was never putting too much of my stack in play unless I was very strong.

I have been discussing one hand in particular with PirateLawyer all day, so its the one hand that I actually recall quite vividly. PL was the chip leader with over 100k. One player was in the 60s, I had somewhere north of 50k, and the three remaining players had between 20-30k. I was in one of the blinds and PL opened the betting with a min-raise to 3200 (blinds of 800/1600 with an ante). I held KK, so I naturally raised to 12,400. He called. The flop was KT8 with two diamonds. I led out with a 16,000 bet, leaving me with about 24k behind. I was trying to make it appear like I was going for a continuation bet…and that I was perserving chips in case I needed to fold to a re-raise. All of the theatrics, though, were unnecessary, as PL had flopped bottom two pair with his T8. He re-raised all-in, I called, and my top set held up, bringing me a hefty 100k+ stack.

That’s not the end of the story. As we got down to four players, I was no longer the big dog. That honor had moved to cardgrrl. Meanwhile, we had one shorty left around 20k and Heffmike was still in it with a stack close to mine. The shorty busted and my stack continued to dwindle. Details elude me, but Heff took out grrl and we were heads up.

Let’s backtrack for a bit, because now I see that Heffmike has posted another hand in which I was fortunate to have KK at the right time. I will say without shame that I had KK a fair amount of times last night. Besides the PL hand, above, and the Heff hand, below, I probably saw KK two more times over the course of the tournament.

The Heff hand happened when we still had 9 players. I was down to somewhere in the 24k range and was dealt KK in either LP or a blind (it was all preflop this hand, so the point is I had position preflop…and it fell into my lap). TwoBlackAces was a shortstack and pushed all-in for his small 3k stack. Heff pushed all-in after him for way more than I had. It was a no-brainer, so I called all-in. TBA had A7o, Heff had JJ, and I had KK. Easy moneys. That was what brought me to the 50k+ stack and the hand against PL.

Heads up, Heffmike started with a decent lead, his 209k to my 84k. As Heff mentions in his post, at one point he had me down to a 1:6 deficit, but I kept fighting back. I love HU play, so I felt that this was my time to shine. Ironically, Heff thinks that he was in control for the most part (as per his post), but I felt the same way. Even though I was playing the shortie, I wasn’t willing to be pushed around. I also wasn’t willing to make light plays with the hope that he didn’t have it or I could get lucky. I just played solid, uber-aggressive heads up poker. Probably most importantly, though, I wore down Heff, and once I caught wind of the fact that he was losing patience, I had enough information for those previously dangerous calls. For instance, I raised preflop with A8, he re-raised me all-in, and I called. He had King-high and I doubled up, still a far cry from even with him. But it didn’t stop there. It seemed that whenever I picked off his all-ins, he was carrying a dominated hand. I called all-in preflop with A8 vs. Heff’s A4, giving me the lead. I finally took him out when I raised with KTo and he pushed all-in for 95k more. That’s no small potatoes, but I already knew my opponent was playing light, so I made the call, expecting to have two live cards, hoping to be ahead, and praying that I wasn’t dominated. He had T9, and that’s all there was to it.

It was a long HU game, and a couple of times, I felt myself slipping into awfukkit mode, but that never made it onto the keyboard. I just kept refocusing myself when needed and made my plays cautiously and with a set game plan.

After winning, it was already 2:15am, if not later. Man, these tourneys are a bitch for an East Coaster’s schedule. Sleeping post-poker is not easy, so I headed to bed, where wifey Kim had been sleeping for hours, and put on my headphones, listening to Howard for a bit before turning it off and attempting to sleep in earnest. It’s never easy to sleep after a poker session, but its slightly easier if you leave a winner.

Until next time, make mine poker!

I’m going to go pin a tail on a donkey. In the meanwhile, enjoy some cake.

Until next time, make mine poker!

Ever since this weekend, I’ve been exhausted.

Saturday night was wifey Kim’s 30th birthday. Since she’s a twin, it was also bro-in-law Marc’s 30th birthday. The plan was to have a birthday party for both of the Wonder Twins at a bar in NYC called Mason Dixon. It’s a country-themed bar with a lot of space and a bucking bronco for entertainment.

Men, if you want to meet women in NYC, go directly to the nearest Crumbs Bakery, order 50 cupcakes and walk around just about anywhere. Crumbs’ containers are clear plastic, and their bags are clear plastic too. Amazingly, cupcakes work better than puppies. On my short 5 minute walk from bakery to home, every single female I passed had to make a comment. Two cute chicks were coming out of a deli when they saw me walk by with a plethora of cupcakes. “Can I have one?”, the cute one said. The other one added, “What are they for?” I answered, “My wife’s birthday…gotta go!” Yeah, not so much a lethario. The other highlight was the 40-ish crazy lady who looked at the bag with wild eyes and asked several times, “Where are you going with those ice creams?” (And yes, she referred to the cupcakes as ice creams, with ice creams in the plural.) With her crazy eyes, I just tucked my head down and kept moving.

Drinking got the best of me and I was exhausted all day Sunday. Of course, that Friday, wifey Kim and I, along with her whole family, were invited to a quickie wedding scheduled for Sunday night. We assumed it was a ceremony and a small dinner, since the bride was knocked up and everything was last minute. In reality, the family had somehow planned a complete 7 hour Sunday night wedding, complete with a Cabaret Show at the oddest Russian wedding venue I’d ever been to. It was like being at a hybrid wedding/foreign variety show. I expected a drunk bear to come out on a tricycle wearing a fez at any moment. Just surreal.

Yeah, so I’m exhausted.

It doesn’t help that I am just starting a big trial and have two more trials ready to go. In the life of a litigation attorney, you really don’t try many cases. The vast majority settle. If I have 3 cases going to trial from my case load all year, it’s a lot. To have three this month with another one or two coming is a fuckton. But a man’s gotta do.

What else does a man gotta do? Play poker, of course. So last night, exhausted from a long day at the office, I arrived at the weekly 1/2 NLHE (no limit hold’em) Wall Street Poker game. We started off shorthanded with 6 players, which to me is an absolute dream. There is just so much more game to be played with less players. I really cannot comprehend the players who will not play unless the table is full (not that there was anyone like that last night). I figure it makes sense if you are super tight, since the more players at a table, the more hand selection matters. But who the hell wants to play super tight poker? Not me. Any of you feel this way?

I found a new seating groove, which is nice. It used to be standard that I’d sit to Bakini Mary’s right. Since Bakini is so tight, I like her on my left, since I don’t have to worry about what she’s doing. 9 times out of 10, she’s folding and the other time, I’m folding. She wasn’t there, though, so I opted for a seat to the immediate left of Sean, one of the regular 1/2 players at the WSG. Keep in mind, the WSG’s 1/2 game is slightly different than most of the games there, since it was designed around some corporate guys. These corporate types tend to give more action and, quite frankly, are not as good as some of the lower-stakes players at the WSG.

Shawn and I get along very well. We both have an unhealthy knowledge of shitty movies and a sarcastic sense of humor. I’ve also learned his game quite well. I’m praying that he doesn’t read here, because I don’t want to give it away, but I sincerely think I have him pegged. I alternatively knew when I had to check it down because he was slowplaying his K8 on the KKx board and when to get more chips out of him through bet sizing when I flopped a set and turned a river.

With his play pegged, I merely had to figure out the rest of the table. Since I’d played with most of them before, it wasn’t too difficult. Of course, it also helped that I was getting paid out when I made hands and had the intelligence and patience to fold when card dead. Here are some of my better hands:

In one of the first hands, I was dealt 44 and limped. A late position player raised to $7 and there was one or two calls before me, including Sean, so I decided to call.

The flop was Q74, rainbow (i.e., three different suits), so I had hit my set immediately. Sean checked, I checked, and the preflop raiser bet $15. I expected a continuation bet, hence my check with my set. Sean called and I decided to call as well. I didn’t want to push anyone out of the pot since very few hands scared me. The turn was a low card, maybe 5 or 6, and Sean checked. I checked as well, hoping that the preflop raiser would take the bait, but he correctly checked. The river was another 7, giving me the full house. Sean bet out $23 and I raised to $55. The preflop raiser folded and Sean took a while before begrudgingly calling. When I showed my full house, he mucked. Easy moneys.

I had some more easy money when I was dealt AA. I decided to raise preflop to $10 from EP. A player two seats to my left had joined the game fairly recently and opted to call. I don’t remember this guy’s name, but he had been at the game once before. As I recalled, he did not have much money on him last time and seemed very tentative about playing as high as 1/2 NLHE. He seemed to have the same vibe this time. The guy was in his 30s, most likely, slightly overweight and bald, with the whole horseshoe hair thing going. By the way, guys, if you are going bald, just shave your head. Trust me. He was reminiscing with Jamie about how Jamie’s home game started with $10 tournaments, which used to be the highlights of everyone’s week. It was clear that in all that time, Baldy had gotten rusty, assuming he ever was very comfortable with the game.

So, Baldy calls as done, you guessed it, Sean. We saw a flop, 653 with two clubs. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it. Sean checked and I bet $25. To my surprise, Baldy came over the top for another $35 or so, all-in. To my bigger surprise, Sean called.

“SHIT,” I thought. I may’ve said it too. My biggest concern was that someone played 66 and got lucky. Still, I could easily see the weak Baldy playing an overpair to the board, which I obviously had beat. Sean called, which was confusing, but if he was strong, he would’ve re-re-raised. I opted to call, and for safety sake, checked it down. In hindsight, I should’ve bet the turn, because Sean was apparently on a draw (although not the flush draw). At showdown, I took down the pot. Baldy had 77, so he had an overpair, but barely. Easy moneys.

I had AA one more time. There was a $5 straddle and one caller, so I raised to $20, getting two callers, including Sean. I continuation bet the Qxx flop for $55 and took it down. I hit a set of 6s once, and got paid off as well, although it never reached showdown.

After amassing a bunch of chips, I went utterly card dead. I was never happier to be card dead. I had already announced that I was leaving early, at 9pm. I was so tired from Court and partying from the weekend, even though it was several days later. Finally, at 9, I cashed out, up $320. I said my goodbyes and returned home.

This has been a great year so far. I’m almost reached my total profit last year in the first two months of this year. I still need to get in more play at higher limits, but at least I’m feeling my groove.

Until next time, make mine poker!

With Julius Goat having seemingly quit the Heroes-recap business (all for good reason, too), there is a lack of good TV commentary out there in the poker blogodome. You won’t find any of that here. Lord knows I don’t have the skills or self-hate to take on the task of recapping Heroes as it continues to shed viewers and any semblence of good writing. But I do have some general insight into the show, so I might as well toss in my two pesos.

The problem with Heroes is the same problem that faces many a comic book. After a while, once you’ve established the characters and relationships and had some reveals, a comic can easily fall into a creative rut. Continuity is ignored (so, for instance, in the first half of last season Mohinder found a cure for the powers, but in the second half, he laments how he did not have any luck finding a cure and suddenly wants to help proliferate powers?!) and storylines get rehashed over and over (how many times is someone going to paint a prophetic vision of an nuclear mushroom?!). But the solutions to Heroes’ creative rut can also be found in comic books, as well as by looking back at what Heroes originally was.

Make no mistake about it, the cast of Heroes was never supposed to be. The original idea was to have each season as entirely distinct stories focusing on how real people deal with the development of super powers. That’s why season 1 was so great. It was exciting to see how Hiro actually learned to control time, or unravel the mystery of what happened when Nicki blacked out and woke up to a bunch of dead guys in the room. This was a chance to see real people in extraordinary situations, and some of them embraced it (Hiro) while others fell apart (Nicki). If all went according to plan, the entire cast would basically either be released or used in lesser roles in the next season, during which we could introduce a whole new group of super powered real people.

Unfortunately (or not, depending on who you are), the case actually became breakout stars when the show first came out, so the studio decided not to mess with a proven formula. Suddenly, it wasn’t a show about real people dealing with powers, but the interconnectedness of these particular characters. Eventually, it felt like everyone had powers, and that just plain sucked. The excitement of the show was that it felt real and as everyone developed powers (Mohinder for one, then Ando, and later BS coincidences like Sylar accidentally kidnapping a boy with microwave powers who coincidentally he lived next door to Sylar’s intended target), the show felt less about a real world with a few special people and more about a pulp comic.

The other side effect was that when you have a (formerly) beloved cast, no one can die. When you anticipate new casts every year, you can kill people willy nilly without the need to bring them back to life in contrived ways (HRG, Daphne, etc.). Instead, death matters, and we are closer to feeling that these impossible characters exist in a possible world.

So, how can the show be fixed? I have two suggestions, one of which comes from something I read early on about the intended trajectory of the show and one that is based on natural development of the storyline as it exists.

Very early on in the show’s existence, I read that Season 2 (or maybe 3) was going to be called Generations and would focus on the prior generation of Heroes. This should be Plan A. Set an entire season in the past. You can start with a whole new cast, bring in Hiro for a couple of cameos or an episode, and show what happened in the 1970s and earlier when the group that would eventually create The Company first came together. It would be like the intended feel of the show, with a new cast every season to explore what it is like to develop unworldly powers in the real world. It would be connected to the past storylines as a prequel, and it could explain how things degenerated to the point that they did in Season 1. Sounds exciting? I think so.

A second idea would be to allow the Heroes to be outted. This is a game-changing move, but it keeps the show locked into the real world. Nothing annoys me more than seeing the speedster Daphne running into a crowded market at super speed, throwing papers and whatnot in her wake, but when she stops, no one seems to notice that this Caucasian chick in the middle of an Japanese market (actual Japan) just appeared out of nowhere at the same time as this gust of air and a streak of color. No one notices this?! Come on! That’s not real. Real would have everyone freak out. At least have her run to a secluded alley and then walk out into the crowd. But to have her just appear? Plain silly.

So, allow the heroes to be outted. Let Nathan be caught on camera flying or have Sylar make the news during a killing spree. Then show what happens to the world in the face of people with extraordinary powers. You can keep the current cast and still build a story that is fresh to the show, unique to viewers, and compelling. I am sure that some heroes would grow cult followings. Stealing from the X-Men storylines, there could even be wannabe heroes who desperately want to become one of the special. There could be anti-hero movements. All sorts of storylines could come out. Coming out tales. Odd medical tales. Political intrigue. A school for heroes (another X-Men ripoff, but permissible nonetheless). The world might not look like the one we currently live in, but the characters would still act in a realistic manner.

Of course, lest someone at Heroes finds this, we will probably be stuck with the same lame storylines and bad acting (and the acting has gotten worse and worse as the show proceeds). Let’s hope the writers can turn this ship around before it blows up (as foretold by a prophetic painting).

Until next time, make mine poker!

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Poker on the TV post, mostly because as poker declines from its peak in popularity, shows are no longer shoe-horning poker scenes into their episodes. This is probably a mixed blessing for yours truly, since most portayals of poker on mainstream television is utter claptrap; yet, the more poker is exposed to the mainstream audience, the more the game is accepted by the mainstreamers. And mainstream acceptance is key to the next evolution of gaming in the United States, which as I envision it, involves the expansion of legal poker both live and online.

That said, the second season of Celebrity Apprentice aired on Sunday starring a fairly decent cast, including none other than Annie Duke. While Duke is probably not in your top ten list of people to represent the poker community, she is a huge step up from the last poker player to obtain such national exposure, Jean-Robert Belande, who came off as a lazy asshole (not that there is anything wrong with that) on Survivor in 2007.

Amazingly, Duke, who isn’t necessarily loved in the poker community, may actually be our best representative for the Donald Trump-led show. She grabs TV time in the first episode by being opinionated and at times overbearing around her teammates, but that should come as no surprise. Poker players, by their very nature, are not used to following orders. In fact, one of the many appeals of professional poker is the fact that there are no set hours, no bosses, no company lines to toe. So it should come as no surprise that Duke came off as aggressive and did not necessarily appear to be a team player.

But the beauty of Duke’s appearance thus far is the way in which she sees the game. Unlike most of the cast, Duke seems to recognize the game-aspect of the show. She isn’t trying to prove her business acumen; she is trying to WIN. That’s a huge difference. She clearly watched season one of the show because she was able to argue (likely, rightly) about the location of a goddamn cupcake stand by recalling Trump’s opinoin as to the same location in last season’s hot dog stand contest. In other words, while the rest of the cast was trying to make a business decision based on their respective knowledge of the city, Duke was making a game decision based on historical data. This, too, is a poker trait. It’s the difference between making a play because you have a good hand and making a play because you remember how your opponent acted the last time the same situation occurred, and you are exploiting that knowledge. For a non-poker player, the decision was about finding a good location based on their own frames of reference; for poker-player Duke, it was about remembering prior situations and viewing the hand in the eyes of the ultimate judge.

The bottom line is, poker players play a game for a living, competitively. It makes perfect sense, then, that a poker player has an edge in a game like Celebrity Apprentice, moreso than even Survivor. Whereas Survivor is about group dynamics, Celebrity Apprentice is about getting the job done, and as long as you perform, your personality conflicts are practically a non-issue. People called out Duke’s aggressive style, but she brought in an ass-ton of money and she argued coherently and correctly as to why, although obnoxious, her bossiness was justified and beneficial to the team.

There is one other aspect that makes Duke a shoe-in to go deep (not that there have been such spoilers…). Poker players care nothing for money, so when Annie Duke, a high-profile name with lots of connections in the community, asks a fellow poker player to donate money, it’s usually a non-issue. Celebrities like Tony Hawk donated $1000 for a cupcake, which in and of itself is something to be commended. After all, $1000 buys a lot of skateboarding equipment. However, in the same vein, unnamed poker players showed up and donated as much as $10,000 for a freakin’ cupcake. Do these poker players have more money than Tony Hawk? Hell no. But they do routinely shell out $10,000 merely for an opportunity for a day’s (or several day’s) work/payday. It’s this utter lack of regard for money combined with the peculiar generosity of poker players (I’ve seen it myself, time and time again, when it comes to charities) that puts Duke ahead of the pack.

But beyond Duke’s chances for success, the poker community wins no matter what. Having Duke on the show demonstrates to a mainstream audience that (a) poker is played by men and women, (b) these people may actually have some business acumen, (c) they are not all thugs and/or lowlifes, and (d) poker must be important and legitimate. After all, having a poker player on the same team as real celebrities (!) (granted there is a Deal or No Deal model too) simply lifts the status of poker player to a new height, or perhaps at least maintains the idea of poker player as a glamorous job. It also implicitly suggests that poker is not just luck; how could a star emerge if it’s just gambling in its purest form. There are no high stakes roulette players on the show. But there are professional athletes.

One final thought: Duke looked great on the show. She did not appear out of place among actresses and models. I don’t mean to say she is model caliber, but you do have to give credit to the woman for looking good. So, if nothing else, she is a welcome change from the usual stereotypical poker player. She may even get more ladies to try out the game, and that works for me, because we all know that women are no good at poker.

Until next time, make mine poker!