High On Poker

Lest anyone be confused, the following is not a paid advertisement. It is, rather, my honest opinion of Jack Tripper Stole My Dog by Paul McGuire:

Last week, I spent a much needed vacation in Mexico. Thanks to my iPod Touch, I had little use for books and other forms of entertainment. My iPod was loaded up with the last season of Treme and probably ten feature length films, together with a half dozen time-killer games and a full book I had been reading on and off for months. In fact, besides my iPod and an issue of Time magazine, I only had one other piece of entertainment with me, Jack Tripper Stole My Dog, the new novel from Paul McGuire, aka Dr. Pauly of Tao of Poker.

Pauly wrote a book that was released earlier this year about his time reporting on the WSOP. In Lost Vegas, Pauly was able to blend poker anecdotes and event coverage with colorful commentary on the depravity of Vegas life. In Jack Tripper, freed from the confines of poker coverage and non-fiction storytelling, Pauly is able to let his freak flag fly, and for my buck, it’s a thing of beauty.

The story in Jack Tripper is about Ivan, the Russian-born Brooklyn cab driver, his dysfunctional personal life and the crazies he meets on the job. Pauly very effectively switches voices, especially in the chapters dedicated to the cab passengers Ivan encounters. Storylines involving Ivan’s now-adult daughter and her best friend/Ivan’s lover particularly hit a level of depravity that is both entertaining and shocking.

As fair disclosure, I obviously know Pauly from the poker blogging scene and have met him several times. However, I do not post this as a favor to him. If the book stunk, I would simply not post about it. And to be honest, I was worried that it would suck. I have been to many a friend’s rock shows or plays or other events only to have to grit my teeth and pretend to have enjoyed the ear-piercing crap music or the poorly written and more poorly acted plays. But Pauly’s book was actually awesome. He truly channels a Bukowski/Thompson cocktail, with hat tip to Palahniuk (Fight Club) and Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), with his blend of social commentary and lowlife degeneracy.

The best compliment I can give this book is that I finished it in two days and I could barely put it down, even though I was sitting poolside in paradise. I highly recommend the book, particularly to poker players who are more likely to share in the joy of reading about the depravity of others.

It poker parlance, I give the book a sincere Nuts.

Until next time, make mine live poker!

It’s been two and a half months, and the lack of online poker has changed my daily habits. From reading blog posts to playing in the evenings, everything has been thrown for a loop.

When I was recently up in Syracuse, I was chatting with Craig who was experiencing the same issues as me. He realized that without online poker, the crappy shows his wife watches became unbearable. Now, when the evenings roll around, instead of sitting next to his wife on the couch with a laptop running poker, he is in the next room, playing PS3. Coincidentally (or not), he bought the PS3 post 4/15…and I did the same. I’ve been spending most of my free time playing GTA: Liberty City Stories and Red Dead Redemption, games I missed when they came out because I was playing an adult video game: online poker.

It’s enough to make me want to run off and play Bingo professionally. I can hit up one of the local church games or head online to Bingoport Online Bingo. Sit back, watch some B6s and O51s roll my way, and collect some easy money, especially with the Bingo Port Promotions and Bingo Port Bonus.

It’s time for me to flex some of my mad Bingo skillz!

I lost.

Yeah, there is more to it than that, and quite frankly, that first sentence seems a bit bitter, but in actuality, I had a great time and I have no issues with the experience. I may give a more detailed run through at a later date, but since I finally have access to the site again, I thought I’d at least give a quick update. I have a vacation on Saturday and lots of work to do, so brief is the best I can do.

The tournament only had 126 or so players, so there was a 50 person overlay (sweet!). The players were fairly decent, but no actual sharks swam at my table. This was another one of those cases where I just couldn’t get any good cards. In my four plus hours of play, I saw no pair higher than 88 and AK only once. Wah! But that’s the realities of poker.

I bled chips trying to hit flops. I had two players catch me in bluffs. In one, it was blind vs. blind. In the other, the player was super loose, but he rightfully picked up on the fact that I was trying to exploit his looseness. I bluffed with K-high and he called with A-high. LEMON!

In my last hand, it was against the super loose guy. He raised preflop slightly more than double the blinds, a move he had been doing all day with hands like Q7o and the like. This time, he had KK, but I didn’t know that, so I called his position bet. He was the button and I was the BB and everyone had folded to him.

My T9o hit the T92 flop hard, so I checked, knowing he would continuation bet. He did, I pushed over the top (I had 7,500 or so to start the hand, with blinds of 300/600/75, if not higher). He called with his KK. The turn was a 5, the river was another 5, and my two pair was counterfeited. Oh well.

Amazingly, after busting, I walked over to Craig, and he was in the process of his own suckout bustout, with his AK falling to A9 on an Ace-high flop. His opponent hit the 9 on the river.

So, there you have it. We both busted in the 70s or so.  Nothing to do but get back on that horse and try again.

Until next time, make mine live poker!

When I first heard about the Summer Poker Classic at the Turning Stone Casino, I called my friend Craig, a fellow poker player and husband to wifey Kim’s college roommate. Craig lives in Syracuse, and before that, lived in Vegas with his wife. He is, not surprisingly, a poker aficionado, and whenever I am in town, we tend to make a side trip to the casino while our wives spend a girls’ day doing whatever it is girls do when I gamble.

I called Craig to see his opinion of the event, particularly since I was concerned about when it would wrap up on Sunday. If I am going to play a tournament, I want to be comfortable playing to the very end, regardless of the likelihood of success.  But I was also curious to see if Craig had any other pointers about his home casino.

He had one major point, which ironically may be moot: Turning Stone gives out a lot of seats for their guaranteed events, meaning that there would be a fair amount of dead money. Oh, but not so fast!

A week or so later, I was checking the tournament schedule again when I realized that on Sunday, the day after my tournament starts, another tournament with a $350 buy-in is scheduled, with a guarantee of $65k (as opposed to my $50k guarantee). And to make matters more interesting, that tournament, along with a midweek $65k guarantee, explicitly states that 100 seats will be given away in various promotions. Interesting.

The way I see it, players who get entered into the tournament for free are going to primarily fall into two groups. Some will be grinders who have a lot of experience, if not necessarily skill, and may be somewhat of a force in the tournament. The vast majority, however, will be freeroll players who will not be a threat. This was confirmed by Craig, who said that there is a ton of dead money when they give out seats.

Of course, the analysis does not stop there, because my measly $50k guarantee does not list any freeroll seats. That’s not to say that it won’t happen if Turning Stone can’t reach the guarantee. But I certainly don’t expect the amount of freeroll players, since the flyer specifically advertises 100 freeroll players in the mid-week and Sunday fields. And really, this makes perfect sense. After all, Saturday is the domain of the weekend warrior, and we’ll probably reach the $50k guarantee (167 players). But what can I expect from the Saturday field, given the presumably weaker field (due to freerollers) and larger guarantee of the Sunday and weekday event?

The analysis does not stop there, either. Interestingly, at the same time as my tournament, the WSOP is happening in Vegas, so any serious tournament player in the upstate New York area may very well be in Vegas already. Granted, a $350 buy-in attracts a different player than a $1500 WSOP event, but the WSOP is the time where players may be willing to take their shot, so at least some of the local successful players will be out of town.

And there is more! Because a mere five hours away by car, the Foxwoods is running their own tournament series, the Spring into Summer Mega Madness (which I learned about through Hoyazo‘s recent posts — gl, Hoy). And what event is Foxwoods hosting on the same date as my event? Why, its a $600 buy-in, $125k guarantee event! Joy of joys, because I have to imagine that anyone in the general vicinity with a larger bankroll and skills will tend to go for the Foxwoods event rather than the dinkier Turning Stone event.

So, if all goes well, by my estimate, a lot of the more difficult players will be sitting out the Saturday event at Turning Stone. The locals who are interested in big stakes or taking their shot will be heading to Vegas. The people close enough to Foxwoods looking for a serious tournament are more likely to go to the ‘Woods. The locals who are looking for good value may decide to sit out on Saturday and play at Turning Stone on Sunday to grab the benefit of the 100 added seats. What does that leave? Middling players and small fish, hopefully.

Time will tell, ultimately, what the field will really look like, but I am hopeful. And for now, that’s all I can hope for.

Until next time, make mine live poker!

A couple of weeks ago, I made a solo trip to AC for the day, since Wifey Kim certainly had something better to do than hang out with me. I first played 1/2 NLHE at Caesars, mostly because that is where the bus dropped me off. I usually avoid the place because of its inflated minimums at the table games and the general attitude of the place, which to me feels outright snobbish. The poker room is located in the back of the casino on a raised area of the casino floor, but it is open to the rest of the casino. It’s a terrible combination because it is not located in a spot to catch casual players but its still open enough that you can hear all of the noise of the casino floor.

After playing there for a few hours, I found myself down $270. I was utterly card dead, with nothing better than A9 or 22, which had led to my slow bleed. I finally had enough, though, and I decided to rack up and find a tournament. I ended up at Bally’s because, by the time I passed it, there was only 15 mins before a cheapo $80 game. I was planning on walking to the Showboat for its $100 tournament, but I’d have to walk for another 15 minutes or so and then wait around nearly an hour for the game to start.

The tournament went fairly well, such that by the time I got to the final table, I was amongst the top half of the stacks. When we got down to 6, I was probably in 2nd place or so by a narrow margin. Blinds were high and going higher, and the few short stacks seemed to keep doubling up.

Before the shorties doubled up, two gentlemen on my side of the table began discussing a save. They mentioned that if everyone agreed to take $20 out of their pockets, we could make a $120 save for sixth place. Without any deal, the payouts were as follows: Fifth place paid around $150. Fourth paid around $195. Third paid $295 or so. Second paid $450. First paid around $810. The total prize pool was $1907, and I just accounted for $1900, so those numbers are fairly accurate.

I was in good chip position at the time, so when my neighbors idly wondered whether the big stack across the table would agree, I had to interrupt. “Sorry, guys, but I can’t agree to a save.”

I never agree to saves, although if I were the shorty, perhaps I would. Otherwise, why would I? It’s literally just giving away money for what? A bit of certainty? I didn’t need certainty with my stack. It was very unlikely that I would end up 6th, so all I would be doing is literally giving away $20.

I’ll give the guys credit. They were okay with my objection and never discussed it again. However, by the time we hit the next break, I looked down and realized that I was no longer in 2nd. I was probably closer to 4th or 5th, and with blinds reaching an astronomical height, the reality that I might bubble became clear.

During the break, I quickly used the bathroom and then returned with my iPod Touch in hand. I opened the calculator function and started running numbers. I came up with this plan: $200 per person outright, including the 6th place “bubble”. That left approximately $700 in the prize pool, which would go $400 (more) to First, $200 (more) to Second, and $100 (more) to Third. Fourth through Sixth would all get paid $200 flat.

As the break ended, I ran this by the various players and amazingly, everyone agreed. The big stack had gotten bigger, but he was a friendly weight lifter (who beat the NJ record for some sorta shot put thing that morning) and he was also buzzing on beers.

I suppose it wasn’t a shock that everyone agreed. After all, it was a fantastic deal. Everyone was guaranteed a decent $120 profit (150% profit on the $80 investment), and the big stack was still in position to win $600.

Once everyone agreed, play was back under way…and I busted in 6th. It was nothing special. I became short by calling an all-in where I had two overcards to my opponents undercards, but he hit a pair. No big deal. I lost my stack by pushing with 44 on the button, only to discover that my opponent had QQ. Whoops!

My deal required me to stick around, and I watched as the other players eventually busted. I did my best to organize the deal, and when it was all said and done, everyone was happy.

Sometimes I wonder if I should not be making deals, but deal making is as much a part of poker as table selection, for instance. You need to assess your position in the tournament, your opponents’ stacks and mentality, the probability of winning and losing, and the benefit of certainty, and hopefully come to an arrangement that benefits you and gives your opponents enough benefit to reach an agreement.

Sometimes, this cannot happen, because of a holdout or because of chip stacks. In those cases, you just have to play on. Sometimes, you have to be the wrench in the works, because its a bad deal. But sometimes, you can find that sweet spot, where everyone is satisfied and you get your benefit. That was what happened at this Bally’s tournament.

Out of all the plays I made that day, my best one was rejecting the first idea (the save) and pushing for my alternative. In general, my rule of thumb is that I will not give a save, but I will agree to a chop that gives me money. So, if you want a save with me, just offer a chop of some sort. I’m not interested in making a safety net for the bubble, but I am interested in getting paid.

For what its worth, this was hardly my most difficult deal. That must’ve been my 9-way chop with four tiers of payouts I arranged with a final table of a Showboat tournament. But that’s another story.

Until next time, make mine poker!

*** WARNING: NO POKER CONTENT ***

If you ingest any news at all, you’ve probably heard about the “scandal” involving New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. It seems that ole Weiner decided to use Twitter, a mostly public and certainly permanent forum, to flirt with girls. This included sex chats and sending pictures of his unclothed chest and underwear-covered boner. Keep it classy, Weiner!

But this is not a post slamming Weiner. It’s about something bigger than that. But first, it needs to be said. Anthony Weiner is a fucking moron. The list of things he did wrong is long, but the worst things he did was (a) lie about it after it came out, and (b) use Twitter for this type of shenanigans. The lie will ultimately be his undoing, if anything in this scenario. Using Twitter was basically guaranteeing that sooner or later, he would get caught. Because, believe it or not folks, everything that appears online is permanent, regardless of whether it is a private message or something you delete when done. Somewhere it still exists, and if you are a showboating politician, it will catch up to you.

No, this is not a post about how Weiner is a fucking moron. This is a post about how the rest of the world are fucking morons.

Why is it that every time a politician has a sex drive, he has to resign from office. Notice, I am not saying “she” because most female politicians seem to be smart enough or prude enough to keep their kinky side in check. But as will naturally happen, the male, egomaniac narcissists that make up our government will eventually want to get their dick wet, or in Weiner’s case, fantasize about getting their dick wet, and suddenly our prudish nation is up in arms. The push for Weiner to resign is loud and strong. And it is also stupid and misplaced.

The last time I ranted about this was probably the Eliot Spitzer scandal. Like this one, the real issue may be the coverup, moreso than the sex act. I can understand why someone would want to ouster Spitzer because he was a lying hypocrite who prosecuted prostitution rings while he frequented one. I can also understand, I suppose, the belief that he may end up blackmailed, although once it is out in the open, blackmail is done. And I can kinda, although to a lesser extent, understand those who want Weiner to resign because of his silly efforts to cover up his activities. What concerns me, though, is that just because a politician wants to get his dick wet, it does not make him unsuitable for his job.

Let me ask you this: what does sending out tacky shots of one’s pectoral muscles have to do with the ability to legislate? Answer: NOTHING. What does being turned on by a 20 year old have to do with the ability to represent one’s constituents? Answer: NOTHING. What does covering up your online flirtations because you are married and are a public figure have to do with corruption or waste of taxpayer money? Answer: NOTHING.

This is all bullshit smoke and mirrors. Look what happened when Spitzer resigned. He was replaced by a laughing stock, unelected, unelectable joke of a Governor, who immediately admitted that he, too, had extramarital affairs. We traded one philanderer with another one and for what?

Meanwhile, now Nancy Pelosi wants to spend taxpayer money to investigate Weiner’s ethical violations? Fuck that. Let’s just throw money at it! WHOOPEE!

This is reckless, people. Granted, its fun to make penis jokes at Weiner’s expense. I don’t blame the media for making it into the joke it has become. But I do have a problem with everyone climbing up on their high horses. The guy sent some unattractive glamor shots to chicks, even though he is married. He had goddamn internet chat sex, not real sex. These are all stupid things, but they are not criminal, and they are not even infidelity in its truest form. What do we get from forcing the man out of his job? The answer, Nothing.

So, here’s what I ask of you: Will you all stop acting surprised when a politician turns out to have a libido? Will you also stop acting surprised when politicians have sex out of wedlock? This country was founded on philanderers, has been run by philanders since its inception, and will continue to be run by philanders. All we do by calling out for resignations is put on a face-saving play act. The next guy will certainly be worse, either because he doesn’t just send pictures but actually fucks around, or perhaps because he will simply be an ineffectual politician.

A very, very brief reminder of some (but not nearly all) philandering through US history:

* Thomas Jefferson slept with at least one slave and fathered a child.

* In 1884, Grover Cleveland admitted to having an extramarital affair and a bastard child while running for president. Admitting his transgression was said to have contributed to his success in the presidential race.

* Circa 1920, news broke that presidential candidate Warren Harding had an extramarital affair. He was then elected to president.

* FDR himself was getting some side action until Eleanore Roosevelt found out. He promised to stop and did…for a while, eventually returning to the scene of the crime.There are various reports that John McCain has had extramarital affairs.

* John F. Kennedy was linked with Marilyn Monroe, Vegas stripper Blaze Starr, painter Mary Pinshot Meyer, and mafia wife Judith Campbell Exner.

* Bill Clinton stuck a cigar in an intern’s vagina.

Does sending a picture of one’s underwear really call for resignation after that brief recitation?

Until next time, don’t resign!

I wanted to take a moment to link to a post from MeanHappyGuy, about a recent trip to play live poker. I found it an interesting read, due in large part to the fact that MeanHappy gave a sincere telling of his time as a fish playing NLHE live. I give the guy credit for speaking the truth. After all, he hadn’t played live in years, and we all suffer ring rust.

Until next time, make mine live poker!

Hey folks. Lately, HighOnPoker has been nothing but The Leak, as I can’t seem to write about my day trip to AC this weekend (-$150 for the day; -$270 in cash play and +$120 in tournament play). But the timing is right, as I’ve been leaking all over the place lately.

I may’ve mentioned it before, but prior to the start of the NBA 2010-2011 season, I placed a bet through one of my Las Vegas cohorts on the Miami Heat to win the championship. I would’ve gotten a much better deal on the bet if I waited three months into the season, but either way, I now stand to make $300 if the Heat can pull it off. They’ve already won the first NBA Finals game; I’m hoping for a sweep.

You may be wondering why I would bet on the Heat to win it all. Or you may not be wondering. Either way, unless you recall my prior post, you may be surprised to learn of the logic behind the bet.

Wifey Kim and I went on vacation to Spain several years ago. That same year, Spain won the World Cup. We went to New Orleans one year; that same year, they won the Super Bowl for the first time. We went to Chicago one year, and the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. So, when we went to Miami in 2010 to see my cousin get married, I decided that I had to bet on a Miami team to win a championship. Between the Dolphins winning the Super Bowl and the Heat, with the new holy trinity, winning the NBA Championship, my decision was obvious. Now many months later, it looks like wifey Kim and my vacation championship streak continues. To book wifey Kim and Jordan to travel to your city, email me a the link on the top left of the site! We can’t guarantee which of  your hometeams will win, but statistically speaking, there is a 100% chance* that one of them will win a championship.

Meanwhile, my WSOP Prop bet got interesting when Phil Ivey decided to boycott the WSOP. On a personal level, I am actually impressed by Ivey’s decision to speak out against FullTilt. I am also personally delighted, as Phil Ivey was available to me in my WSOP Prop pool, but I passed on him for Phil Hellmuth. I actually considered the fact that the FullTilt boys would be dealing with fallout, not to mention my personal belief that it is hard to have two good years back to back. So, I went with Hellmuth, who I figure has the most to prove, seeing as how he would logically want to solidify his spot at the top of the bracelet race and he was without sponsorship. Looks like that is paying off already.

What won’t pay off is my god awful bet with iam23Skidoo. We made a prop bet on the amount of entrants in the main event and I went way too high with a number slightly north of 6313. The over/under is now actually 5977, based on his number and my number. That’s pretty high, although I do think it is possible. My thinking was that even after the UIGEA, things didn’t dip too bad. In hindsight, though, I guessed way too high. I may have to consider arranging a buyout if the preliminary numbers are bad.

Until next time, make mine poker!

*Based on data accumulated from 2009 to the present.

I put out the search for readers/bloggers interested in entering a prop bet on the 2011 WSOP and ended up with a six-participant bet. The rules are simple. Each participant chooses four people (or “horses”) for the 2011 WSOP. The participants’ original draft order was decided by random number generator. After the first round of picks, the order reverses.  It reverses each time a round is done until all four rounds are complete.

For each horse’s final table, the participant gets 1 point. For each bracelet won, the participant gets 3 points (total, and not 1 point for the final table + 3 points for the bracelet). For the main event, a final table appearance will count as 3 points, so that we do not have to wait for the November Nine before paying out the prop bet. At the end of the WSOP (not including the November Nine) the points are totaled and a winner is declared.

Over the beginning of this week, the participants picked their horses. The results are as follows:

I was reading a blog that’s probably off most poker bloggers’ beaten path, the Atlantic City Poker Man, when I saw a post that covered a topic I don’t see discussed much: memorizing your suits.

ACPM opined that there were several tricks to remember the suits of your hole cards without having to check back. He recommended a system where you cut chips from your stack that correspond with the suits in your hand. For instance, spade would be one chip and diamond would be three, so if you have AsKd, you’d cut out one chip with your left hand and three with the right to remember the suits you held in your hand.

I don’t necessarily agree with his particular trick to remember your suits, but I do incorporate my own trick: acronyms. Basically, I convert in my head each suit to its corresponding letter (Spade = S, Heart = H, Club = C, and Diamonds = D). When I look at my cards, I pick out the two letters, in order of which card is highest, and I apply a standard acronym that helps me remember the two cards.

Now, it just so happens that a majority of my acronyms are for curses. I don’t know why this happened, but it very well may be that when I am playing poker, I am surrounded by “enemies” and the aggression or competitiveness of the game naturally led me to inappropriate acronyms. But it could have just as easily been the fact that it is easier to remember certain curse phrases than some other random phrase. This is especially true since many curse words are called by their initials (i.e., the F-word).

For instance, if I am dealt AcKs, I can’t help but think AK cocksucker (i.e., C for the ace of Clubs, and S for the king of Spades). If its SD, I think suck a dick.

It’s not all fellatio references and curses. HD (heart, then diamond) is harddrive or hi-def. I think of comics for DC, and music for CD (compact disc is actually what goes through my head). HC is hardcover. But DS is dumb shit, so curses do come into play more often than is necessary.

Whatever the case, I thought I’d pass along this idiosyncrasy, since it may help some of you out there who tend to forget the suits of their hole cards when playing live. Nothing sucks more than seeing a three or four flush on the board and having to look to see if you are in the running for the flush.

Until next time, make mine live poker!