DoubleAs is Generous, FirePay is Not, and More on Poker Blogging (UPDATED)

Good karma. Scott (DoubleAs) just e-mailed to inform me that "we" did well in the followup to his "Casino Mystery Picture Challenge," which I got lucky and won. While I explained the logic in how I solved the puzzle in the comments over at his site, the truth was a bit more erratic --- I made a couple of fortunate guesses and they turned out to be right.

My prize? Shoot, that was a no-brainer --- taking a 25% slice of one of our resident expert players in his next $109 MTT. Lo and behold, Scott placed something like 16th and cashed for $240 and change. It meant $40 for me and $20 which is planned to go to Scott's favorite charity, kidney-disease research, which is part of my thank-you in turn to Scott and Wicked Chops Poker for coming up with this cool idea. I hope they keep doing it, though I've promised not to solve any more of these myself for a good while.

---

And we now we move on to my latest episode of windmill-tilting, an often fruitless enterprise for which I seem to have a special affinity. This time the culprit is FirePay, one of the most popular online banking services.

Screw 'em. May they rot in hell for their base dishonesty. All for a measly $10.

I'd like to preface the rest of this story by stating that I'm a small-potatoes player. My typical online poker transactions are in the $50-$200 range, and I can't think of one over $400. I do a lot of site-sampling, too --- I can play a bit, see if I like a site, gather enough information for a review and/or work on a small bonus, then move on to the next. I'm not a bonus whore in the strictest sense, but I won't turn down a good deal, either.

I am entirely unexceptional in this regard.

I needed to pull out some of my poker money recently, not that there was any profit to take. Rather, my car decided to break down during long-distance trips, not once but three freakin' times with what was essentially the same problem. Repair place #2, A-R-A of Madison, WI, gets a special wave of the toilet plunger for charging me $100 and change for gluing and wrapping a cracked plastic connector, instead of replacing it. Said connector was a of a type of plastic that oozes its own lubricant, and is not glueable.... so sayeth repairman #3. Of course, repairs #2 and #3 wouldn't have been necessary if repairman #1 hadn't cracked the connector when replacing the nearby fuel pump in the first place.

Grand total in damages, including two tows: approximately $1,000. Enter the need to use some discretionary funds.

So I go to my FirePay account to snag the couple of hundred I have in there, and I'm greeted with a banner keyed to my account that says in order to withdraw back to my bank, I have to pay a $10 fee, due to infrequent use of the account in the other direction. Of course, if I've recently deposited from my bank account into FirePay, then the fee for that is only $3.99, but the withdrawals are then free.

Okay, I can understand that a site has the need to charge fees. But how often does one need to make a deposit from one's own bank account to avoid this arbitrary $10 fee?

The customer-no-service person who answered my e-mail simply pasted back the same text as was already showing on my page. Thank you, Miss Duhhh. I returned that e-mail to them, writing that no, I wanted to know how often they'd like me to make a deposit. Now I quote from the "customer service supervisor" who sent FirePay's second response:

"Our records show that you had last made a deposit into your FirePay account on: (date/amount --- the date was in September of 2005)

"That is not considered as active user.

"The specific definition of frequently will not be supplied to you.

"Rest assured that you will be warned if there are any fees being charged to your transaction."

Unbelievable. These slimy creeps want to charge me a fee, but they refuse to tell me what the timing periods are involved with the application of the fee they want to charge. Can you believe their audacity?

I sent a third letter, rather more heated. This time I was answered by an Anthony from "Risk Management" who, among other things, wanted to know "Which payment method do you usually use to deposit funds at online merchant sites?"

I bet that you can bet what I told him, and which utensils to use. I also told him to go ahead and take the $10 fee (keeping the extra $6.01), because there was no way in hell FirePay would ever see another dime of my money --- I withdrew the remainder of my account immediately. I also promised that I would publicize to the best of my ability the bad faith in which FirePay acted... if I can cost them a thousand times that $6.01 in bad publicity, I will do so. Wanting to charge a fee is fine; refusing to disclose the nature of the structure upon which those fees are charged is the action of corporate pond scum.

Apparently, what had happened is that I had six or eight small withdrawals, but no matching deposits. God forbid if you should actually win a dollar or two online --- even though most of what I pulled from an online site was quickly redeposited elsewhere, as this Anthony dude admitted when he relayed his research into my account. No matter.

So beware, if you use FirePay. Not only will they arbitrarily assess you a fee when they feel like doing so, they'll even tell you that it's none of your business when you try to plan the best way to use your own funds.

---

There have been several good posts on the nature of poker blogs and blogging recently. I'd like to point out two --- Jordan and BG --- that have well-reasoned ideas on the topic. I agree with both of them in part, neither of them in entirety. This is a good thing.

Please check into my previous posts as well, particularly my "Reviews, Apologies and Rants" and "Poker and Charity" pieces. Despite the fact that you likely won't agree with me, I'd like to add something at this time to the "Poker and Charity" piece, in which I said why I no longer have any interest in being part of the WPBT. Note that this is distinct from showing up to play in a DADI event or somesuch that has WPBT points attached to it; the WPBT part of it is no longer part of my concern. It's like the old running-for-office saw: "If nominated I will not run; if elected I will not serve." (Damn good thing, too, since no one would vote for me.) But I'm not here to please you; I'm here to entertain you and make you think.

Oh, yes, the WPBT. One thing that I was acutely aware of but chose not to mention when I posted my piece was the A-B-C-whatever structure of the poker-blogging "community." Please let me clarify me something here: I thought that the charity-tournament concept was wonderful, but I thought that selling out an otherwise-frivolous WPBT for the purpose of the charity was terrible. And I left out one reason, beyond everything that I did say: there was a hidden pressure placed on the C-listers to "pay to join" to feel part of the inclusive inner poker-blogging group. I could not be a part of that, whether I'm B, C, D, Q, Z or whatever. I recognized that and made my stand --- my principles, whatever they are, are way more important than whether some A-list or B-list blogger likes or hates my stuff, and links or doesn't link to me.

I'm not the only one who feels this way. I've got an e-mail or two to prove it, though I will not release the names of those who commented in support of what I wrote.

Overall, it's not even a close call. I'll huckster and promote myself to the best of my ability, but I will not pay anyone to like me. But even if you hate me, I insist on respect.

. . . .

An update on the above --- both BG and Jordan pulled down their posts after a flame war developed between the two, and at least one phone call was exchanged. I was mentioned temporarily as having "pointed out" the existence of BG's post to Jordan, but my input was rather more indirect --- I just said that I was linking back to both of those blogs to refer to the pieces. It was actually over at tripjax's place where I discovered the existence of both pieces.

But both of the pieces have been removed, now. ROFLMAO.

I did not point out the base hypocrisy in BG's piece as such, obvious as it was; rather, I just said it was an interesting post that would make the reader think. (Check what I said for yourself --- it's in the paragraphs above.) But removing the post, BG? Hiding your head in the sand and hoping the whole mess will go away? That's not hypocrisy, that's gutlessness. If you've got the cojones to write in public --- and get paid for it, no less --- then you better well have the cojones to stand up and take whatever heat comes your way. Own your words if you expect us to respect anything else you might say.

On that other stuff with EasyCure and Biggestron, I was never mad at them. I like both of them, too, Byron in particular. I just thought that the decision that was made wasn't a good one, for several reasons. I'd thought that I'd put that one to bed, and now I have --- I won't return to the matter. I had my say.

As always, people can leave comments for me either through e-mail or through the comments link (below). I do not know how to do the coding for comments or to generate an RSS feed on my own, which is why a comments forum is not at that version of my site. But I do value all feedback, even that of the idiot from Turkey who demanded an apology from me on another matter. (If nothing else, I enjoy a good laugh.)

Content Thieves Again: The Poker Blogger Freerolls Fun-'n'-Sponge

Ever wonder how many people are willing to try penny-ante scams when a few bucks are at stake? Just mention the word "freeroll" and watch the drool start to dapple the floorboards. I was reminded of this while doing some long-overdue work on my own links page. Having a decent blogroll is like any other thing in this world --- if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.

This doesn't mean you can't visit other sites to see what other links are out there --- that's the essence of web-surfing itself. So if you've seen an upsurge in your site's own blogroll from an IP in the NW Chicago suburbs, it's probably me. Just checkin' things out.

But an oddity occurred --- I noticed that the blogrolls showing the participants in a couple of "poker blogger" tourneys showed marked contrast to those found on more traditional poker-blogging sites. I've done some checking, particularly into the links over at the poker.com "Poker Blogger Tour," a series of events with a largish prize to the eventual winner. Sure, I'll play in these tourneys from time to time --- my bankroll's too minuscule to not take a shot when some of these freebies roll around.

So what's the deal? What's worth the post?

Just the noticing of how vast the difference is between a well-managed freeroll and a poorly-managed one, which leads into the examination of why these sites are offering the freerolls in the first place.

For a recent well-run example, we don't need to look any further than Matt Crystal's work for the $1,000 blogger tourney sponsored by pokersavvy.com. Decent affair, and smallish, too... by the time Matt was done weeding out the scammers who tried to sneak into the tourney, there were only 30 or so of us left. The tourney had two drawbacks. First, even with the overlay of perhaps $30 per participant, it still wasn't enough to interest some of the biggest-name, highest-stakes bloggers. (As for me, I go 0-for-2 on those counts.) Second, the event was at Titan Poker --- the favorite online destination of... damn few. But I've blasted Titan Poker elsewhere --- let's just say that getting a pure freebie was about the only way I was ever going to return to the site.

Well, I took fourth in the thing for $100. Thank you, Matt and PokerSavvy. I've even run that up to $135 or so, playing a few SNGs and a smattering of low-limit ring games. But it's getting that money out of Titan that will no doubt be the greatest tribulation.

As usual, though, I've digressed. Let's go over to the different-flavored beastie, that of the "blgger tour" at poker.com. Here's a link that shows the current list of bloggers (loosely stated) itself. I'd recommend this one, or this one, or maybe even this one, or possibly this one. I could even cite flaming turdlets like this one, but I'll cut the guy some slack --- at least he's making a half-assed try at it. Looks like he's happy about the free money he's already received from poker.com and he'd like some more, please!

Note that these aren't the only examples --- poker.com's blogroll has a flaming outbreak of ass pimples all over it.

Funny stuff. Which explains why simply programming a macro to check to see if your promotional banner is present on a given site is a shit-poor way of verifying these blogs. (Pardon my French.) It's also obvious that poker.com is catching on to the depth of the scamming they've suffered, as can be seen by this hilarious comment from their current tour page:

"Don't bother emailing us if you just chasing freerolls and have no intention of becoming a regular blogger. The same goes for anyone we have let play until now that does not have a regularly updated blog. Get writing on those new blogs of yours or you won't be playing in event #4!"

I sincerely doubt that many of them will even bother to check for that text... at least unless and until their invitation to another freebie doesn't show up as expected.

It's easy enough to ride poker.com for doing a crappy job of adminsitration, but the truth is that in the pursuit of raw numbers, it can make sense to take such an approach. Maybe poker.com can say they have 100 bloggers participating, as opposed to perhaps the 50 or so that would be left after the normal application of a crud filter. That's 100 poker.com banners floating across the web, right? Much better than 50. Easy to sell that to a boss who doesn't check the details, particularly if he's not likely to find out that 50 of those banners aren't going anywhere except back to poker.com itself.

That's the nature of advertising, business and so on: when in doubt, don't believe the hype. So why the appearance of the above admonishment, then?

Here's the likeliest explanation. Because the first prize is a trip to the WSOP, and it's already been established around the theme of "poker blogger," Poker.com is setting itself up for big-time embarrassment if it sends out a "blogger" to the WSOP who doesn't know his umlaut from a hole in the ground. This appears to be a step to protect poker.com's own image.

That said, there's one type of scammer that I really can't stand --- the plagiarizing kind. Content thieves. Asshats, as Bill Rini would say. And there's at least two of those in the current poker.com blogger-tour lineup. Here are the links:

"Limbo74 / Poker Articles" --- at http://pokerarticle.blogspot.com

"Poker: Daily Tips..." --- at http://dailypokertips.blogspot.com/

The first one has stolen several advice columns from FullTilt and a longish piece from F-Train, slapped WSOP and WPT logos at the top, and has passed the stuff off as being a blog. The second one, assuming it's not the original author himself, stole most of his stuff from pokertips.org. By the way, pokertips.org seems to be quite the target for content thieves --- here are three more (not even counting some foreign-language ones) you might want to help wipe off the face off the Internet: The Poker Strategist, http://www.potwatch.com/ and GoldenPoker.ws. Feel free to contact the content's creators and help get these turds rightfully flushed.

Obviously, slapping down content theives is like playing Whack-a-Mole, but it still has to be done. So we'll return to poker.com. Will they do the right thing and remove the two thieving "blogs" from their tourney? We'll see.

LATE UPDATE: Usually when I take a swipe at someone, I do them the nominal courtesy of letting them know I've posted something of interest via e-mail. Good or bad, I do this --- and so I sent off a letter on the above over to poker.com. Oh, yeah, they answered. Twice. At length.

So I won't modify my original post -- it remains above, warts and all --- and if it upsets anyone who stumbles along and reads it, well, them's the breaks.

I was chided for my lack of "journalistic professionalism" in the above, with the admonition that I should have pre-written those folks for their side of the story. I chuckled at that --- this is a personalized blog after all, and when I'm on my own dime, I'll say and think what I wish. When I'm writing the stuff that I get paid for, then yes, there's a higher threshold. But this is my space; Heere be Dragyns.

That said, to paraphrase Kris (the poker.com rep), she wondered why I was so angry about the above, and the truth is I'm not angry at all. I just try to write with energy, be direct in what I say, and sometimes people take my bluntness as a form of anger. It is both my writing style and a direct reflection of my personality --- I have some sharp edges. Yet except for the two content thieves, I find this whole thing to be darkly humorous... and that's the stuff I enjoy writing about. And as for the content thieves, well, that's more a writerly public service than anything else. LadyXTermn8r, even.

But, seriously, though, I do want to take the time to thank Kris for her very lengthy and sincere replies. I've had other stuff going on for a couple of days and I'm just getting back to this. I see that it generated a comment from Matt at PokerSavvy as well, and all I can say is, thanks Matt, and can I get a plug or a link from ya sometime? :-D (The comment's over at the blogspot version, not the main site, for those of you reading this on the home domain.)

I'm shameless, I admit it. But I do appreciate the good works that these sites are trying to do in supporting poker bloggers. May we support those who are in sincere in their efforts in return. I think poker.com made a big statement here, in announcing a couple of changes to their tour structure in the wake of my (and perhaps others') post.

Although one small mystery remains. Despite the fact that I duly copied and pasted the code into both of my blogger sites, it doesn't seem to want to display properly. Is this a problem with my computer's Flash installation, a glitch in the blogger-tour code, or something else altogether? I know it's been verified, or else I wouldn't have particpated in the first events, nor would you be reading this, in all likelihood. Still, I wonder.

---

Fun time. Here's one of those gossip stories that's gathering steam on the internet, and I wrote about it for my other blog here. Go check it out. But, just on the off chance that the tale is true, then I think you'll see a few dozen of these stylin' t-shirts at the WSOP:

T-shirt sizes available are Men's XL, 2XL and 3XL.

Many New Poker Links!

A very brief note here --- I finally had the chance to update the poker-links section, both in the template here and on the "links" page over at the home site. If you have a poker link of interest for me, please send it my way!

Poker and Charity

Here's where my fellow poker-blogging brethen get mad at me.

Them's the breaks. I write what I feel, and say what I mean.

While it's hardly earth-shattering news, I've decided to cease participating in the WPBT "fun tour" events, effective immediately. The reason? The announcement that the next event was a charity event, EasyCure's "Hammer Out Cancer" event on Sunday, April 16th... perhaps not so coincidentally, Easter Sunday.

There's nothing wrong with running a charity event... heck, I'm all for it. But what is wrong is to denote this as a WPBT points event --- despite the frivolous nature of the WPBT itself --- and doing it some four events after the WPBT has already started to play. I've exchanged some e-mails with Ron about it, explaining my stance and why I felt I had to drop out. Basically, if any mention had been made before WPBT events began that charity events would or could be included, than all well and good --- it would've been up to me to decide to participate with that information in hand.

After the fact just doesn't cut it. It puts all participants in the position of having to donate to the organizers' pet charities (worthy or not) in order to maximize their chances of winning the whole thing... not that I'm in danger of that, mind you. But it's a line that's been crossed --- the purpose of the WPBT has been co-opted here --- a sellout, if you will. It also opens up questions of what other changes to the structure can be made pretty much at the whim of the organizers.

As Ron rationalized it in one of his e-mails:

"This will sound odd, but what the WPBT organization is is that it is not. There was never any decision to make a WPBT, it simply came to be. It grows organically and most of us like it that way. We reserve the right to make it up as we go along."

And I reserve the right to step out of it, too, as I've done... and to say why. I'm reminded of the first job I had when I graduated from school, working in a shoe store. A few weeks after I started, it was time for the company's annual United Way drive to commence, and the store's manager told me exactly how much he expected to see me contribute in percentage terms. "The stores have their own contest," he offered, "and I don't intend on losing my ranking."

I told him, in not-quite-so-blunt terms, to stuff it. It wasn't up to that long-ago boss, a nice man with the unfortunate name of "Will Rule" (I kid you not), to determine how and when I make my charitable donations. Whether it's the long ago Mr. Rule, or EasyCure today, I'm part of no one's quota unless I choose to be, and I accept no coercion in even the politest form in an effort to reel me in. Too often charities and those who work on their behalf justify their bad manners and practices because their efforts are "for the greater good."

I think that's bullshit. Always have, always will.

As an aside, while I am poor and cheap, I'm not heartless; I surfed over to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation today and dropped in a $15 donation. I did it today, frankly, for all the wrong reasons. But it's a worthwhile charity, too, as is the American Cancer Society. Pick one. Help 'em out.

As for the WPBT, yes, it's marginal silliness, and yes, this is something of a mountain-out-of-a-molehill situation. Nonetheless, it's crossed a behavioral line that's abused far too often in today's society, so it needed this further examination. In order to clarify the wrongness, let's just scale everything up a few hundred notches and create an admittedly absurd example:

Suppose the Toyota Player of the Year title at the WSOP was underway, and all of a sudden the WSOP organizers decided, halfway through the Series, that the last six events counted toward the POY title would have a buy-in of $25,000, with all the overage going to charity. Think the players would be P.O.-ed? Oh yeah, baby. And they'd be rightly P.O.-ed, too.

It's all about overstepping the bounds of decorum, and it's not the charity or the need to do good that's wrong. It's the changing of a process in midstream that's wrong.

And that's why I'm out of the WPBT. Best of luck to the rest of you, and my extreme best wishes to those of you who've been affected by cancer in any way.

As for the other, next time, just solicit me directly. That I'll respect.

Future "ZeeJustin" Appearance

Just a note for those of you capturing this feed... I was able to confirm yesterday that caught-'n'-confessed online cheater "ZeeJustin" (Justin Bonomo) will be the featured guest on the debut episode of Lou Krieger's upcoming webcast "radio" show. For more information, please visit my complete news release at the Kick Ass Poker blog. Thanks!

Always Something New Under the Sun

Honest to Peteza, I witnessed something in a tournament a week ago that I didn't believe possible until it unfolded before my eyes: a re-buy maniac so out of control that he managed to skew the structure of an entire tournament.

Screen grabs included, as evidence. This is a good one.

The scene of the crime was a familiar one, for me --- the "Expert Series" on Royal Vegas Poker (Prima skin) on Thursday evenings. (With the recent Daylight Savings Time change, they now start at 6:00 p.m. EDT). Something was afoot in the 3/22 tourney --- this re-buy/add-on event averages 80-100 players, and on most occasions there's a large overlay when all is said and done. We were up to 127 players when play begin, with lots of new faces. It turned out that Royal Vegas had opened up additional entry paths through its newer sister skins, Poker Time and 7 Sultans.

Good to see. Even if it did make my chances of winning or even cashing tougher.

Our opening table looked to be an average mix. I'd drawn the #10 seat, site host Lou Krieger was over in Seat #7, and seats #6, #8 and #9 also included players that are regulars in the game. Typical to see Lou... if he or Matt Lessinger doesn't end up at my table it's a bit of an upset. On the other side of the table, seats #1, #4 and #5 were all newcomers, or at least unfamiliar to me. (Seat #2 might've been a newbie as well, but that player didn't last long --- I flopped a set against that player's top-pair/top-kicker holding, getting it all in on the turn, and that player chose not to re-buy.

What was unexpected, however, was the all-in ferocity of the newbie over in seat #5, whose name on the images below is mercifully blurred. We've all seen the type --- the player who goes all-in hand after hand after hand during the re-buy stage, trying to randomly jump his stacks up to six or eight times the original buy-in. Trying to intimidate the table, too, by impressing upon us just how meaningless these $10 re-buys really were. (For a truly hilarous lesson in how this works, I recommend the "Big Buck" tourneys on Paradise. Priceless.)

Only one problem: most of the other players in this tournament aren't likely to be intimidated. Despite the low buy-in and the across-the-gamut talent range of those who play, the competent players still have the clueless ones outnumbered by a healthy margin. Here's a screen grab that shows the average in-hand situation:

Hand after hand after hand it continued. The player moved all-in pre-flop, and the rest of us, as you'd well expect, sat back and took turns picking him off. I caught hot early and jumped up to about 8,000 chips, the chip leader at an unimportant juncture. And on occasion, this player would suck out some garbage collection, build a bit of 3,000-5,000 chips... but give it right back in another hand or three. After one such 3,000-chip beat, one of the other newbies, the "rollie" dude over in seat #1, went off on a rant. My thought was, "Are you kidding me, sir? When you know this maniac is going to turn around and hand those chips right back?"

Which the player did, of course, and in fact by the end of the hour "rollie" had replaced me as the chip leader by a wide margin... but more on that in a bit.

Players slowly dropped out and the tables shifted and condensed. We picked up another name you might recognize, over there in seat #2:

Think our table-boss wannabe was going to figure out that the competition wasn't likely to get shoved around?

Nahh. The buy-ins kept on coming. Click. Click. Click. And all this within the first 40 or so minutes of play. Just a few minutes later:

My God. Look at those chip stacks, and compute in the fact that besides our original buy-ins, perhaps two re-buys from the group, and Barb bringing over some chips when she joined the table, everything else came from our maniac. 15... 20... 25... and the re-buys just kept coming. Now, I have seen this level of manic buying-in before, though rarely at even the $10-per price we had here, but when you've got two name pros at the table and a handful of others who can be presumed to at least understand the basics, at what point do you figure out that you're not going to out-aggress your way to the top of the board?

Well, never, in some rare instances. Our chip-stack financier made it to the hour two, but disappeared (as expected), shortly thereafter. And after all that, it wasn't even the point of this post.

Think back to the intro. There were only 127 players in this thing, and simply by being at the this table, three or four of us took our turns at the top. Our benefactor single-handedly turned this from an overlay to a non-overlay tournament --- the first time this has happened since I joined the fun --- but even that fact is unimportant when one considers the greater skew: Even though his own actions were unlikely to succeed, his re-buys significantly increased the chances that the winner and other high finishers would come from our table.

I've never seen a tourney entrant pull that off to quite this extent. Halfway through the first hour, I said to myself, "This guy's gonna make a winner out of one of us."

And he did, too. Though it wasn't me, or Lou, or Barb, or any of the other regulars.

The winner turned out to be the "rollie" dude over there in the #1 seat --- the same player who'd berated our maniac for his hyper-splashy play. "rollie" busted me, too, in bubble-land, when his A-rag in the small blind stayed ahead of my slightly-worse A-rag in the big blind, when I was down to about 11,000 chips with 1,000/2,000 antes, and had to make a stand. This after he'd taken a chunk of my chips at our earlier table, when he dodged a couple of big, big draws that I held when he let me play them far too cheaply. That didn't matter. It was "rollie"'s night; he was meant to win. Good enough.

Justice? That the guy who wins it was the loudest whiner at the maniac who put him in position to win in the first place? Silliness to even think about it. This is poker, after all; short-term justice in the cards is seldom what transpires. Take the next week, for instance: a chnage in the format for the tourney had been enacted, placing an additional bounty on the head of the previous winner --- in this case ol' "rollie."

Came the bubble's approach, this subsequent week, and I was switched to a new table as mine broke and the others were condensed. I find myself in middle-late position, about in the middle in terms of stack size, and two seats to my right is a short-stacked "rollie"... looking for all the world like low-hanging fruit. Even better, he comes in for a standard 3x raise, which is just about half of his remaining chips. (!) I find a true monster, a pair of eights, but re-raise in hopes of isolating the bounty boy anyway. That part works, and of course "rollie" comes in for what's left, turning over an unsuited A-J.

Neither of us improve... and I snag the cheap $50 bonus. So guess who groused?

Some folks just don't know when they've had it good.

Housecleaning stuff.

Spending undue wordage on the thanky-thanky-thanky stuff is not something I'm good at, nor often choose to do, because too often the practice degenerates into the print (or pixel) version of group masturbation. (That's why this stuff is down at the bottom of this post, too.) Nonetheless, enough has transpired in recent weeks that I need to acknowledge some credits and thanks where such things are due. So...

My continuing thanks go to Jason and Brad over at Kick Ass Poker for the chance to contribute to their growing site. In addition to a few other chores, I get to do the poker blog, and I've been doing my best to make it an entertaining read. It's appreciated, guys. As for the rest of you, get your butts over there once in a while. You might not agree with everything you'll read, but I'm damn sure going to try to make your visits worth the surf.

A couple of thank-yous for recent citations of my various blogs, because they took unusual form. Wil Wheaton quoted one of my Kick Ass Poker blog entries in his recent post on Card Squad. Now, I'll do shameless self-huckstering when it comes to procuring links within blogrolls and such, but in-story mentions are a different beast; it's the difference between advertising and editorial. (For a claasic example of what happens when that line is crossed or ignored, do a little research into the demise of once-mighty Omni Magazine.) Wil groks this difference, too; once one knows why the line is there, one can tell. So on behalf of my bosses, Wil, thanks for the mention --- they'll appreciate the added traffic.

It's good to see that Iggy seems to have popped out of his recent malaise. Iggy's own postings venture into deeper areas than most of what's out here, and I value that when I do my own 'switching of the hats,' from writer to reader. I don't know Iggy hardly at all, apart from a couple of e-mails and a few dozen words of chat at the table; nonetheless, there's enough of him in his writing to know when he's running hot or in a bit of a funk... as has shown recently. I've been there.

Lou Krieger --- who I already owe more favors to then I could count --- once described this stuff to me as "life tilt," a neatly-turned phrase that speaks volumes more than the words themselves. Here's hoping that Iggy continues remembering the difference between a contributor and a filler, and that he's part of the first group.

Lord knows, the world needs people that have an operable shit filter. Iggy passes muster.

Monte-ZeeJustin's Revenge

Some screen names that might tip you off that feared internet player --- and caught cheater --- "ZeeJustin" (Justin Bonomo) is making a surreptitous comeback:

#8: NoMo_Zee
#7: ZeeJustinRun
#6: Kiss_Me_Lee
#5: EeZeeJustin
#4: BrokebankZee
#3: TruthOrJustn
#2: I_heart_Party
#1: Justin6times

Reviews, Apologies and Rants

An uber-post, in the grand Iggy tradition.

One of the things I've noticed in my return to the keyboard (after a three-year absence) is that I'm concentrating again on the the overall quality of writing in the universe. It hasn't improved a whole helluva lot. That's true in blogdom, above all else, and it's one of the reasons why I kept from starting my own blog for quite some time. Blogs are nothing if not the modern epitome of Sturgeon's Law (originally known as Sturgeon's Revelation): "Ninety percent of everything is crud."

It's as true for poker writing as anything else. Most of what's out there is an exercise in vanity--- either derived from other work, a quick grab for cash, or something that just suffers from that writer's bane, the "I"-infection. That last group is easy enough to identify. Just look for work that starts with the word "I" --- with "My" being a symptom of the same affliction --- and you'll usually find the writers who aren't valuing their audience in the way that they should; rather, they write under the misheld belief that their readers' time is theirs by right. Go on over to Blogs On Poker [site now down, see note at bottom], which pulls in blogs that put out an XML feed, and see just how prevalent the "I" disease really is.

How sad. Writers owe their audience, not t'other way around. Note that good writers occassionally start their pieces with possesives, too, but those are usually contrasted with their other work. Bad writers do the I-thing virtually every time.

I'm reminded of this when I think about some of the really good poker writing that's out there. I'm not talking about the strategy books, but rather, the real-life accounts of this or that or some other aspect of the poker world. The poker "story" books. I'll share a story here.

Frequent readers of this blog know that I've become good phone friends with poker author Lou Krieger, and I engaged him on this topic one day not too long ago. Lou opted for Al Alvarez's The Biggest Game in Town, and I mentioned James McManus's Positively Fifth Street. Both are thoroughly gripping reads, and in both, some of the very best writing is on topics connected only peripherally to the core issues of the respective books.

Both are stories about life, and poker just happens to be the mechanism for the telling.

One of the closing passages from Biggest Game serves as its epilogue; it could've been left out of the book in its entirety, yet its inclusion somehow puts the capper on the whole deal. The anecdote is not about the tournament making up the core of the book, but its impact is timeless. At a post-tournament game, a New York journalist asks veteran Jack Straus if he feels sorry for the people he beats....

Straus stretched comfortably. His left eyelid drooped, and he looked at the journalist's face as though along the barrel of a gun. "Funny you should ask that," he said. He put his elbows on the table. His voice was low and imminent. "Just last month, back in El Paso, I played a house painter and beat him out of a whole month's salary --- twelve hundred and forty dollars --- and I took a hundred dollars on tab. When the game was over, he signed his paycheck over to me, and I drove him home to collect the rest. He lived in a lower-middle-class section of town, and when we got to his house his wife was there with their six children. 'Honey,' he said, 'I've got some bad news. I lost the paycheck paying poker.' 'Shush,' she said, and herded the children into the next room. Then she started to cry. 'How are we going to feed the kids next month?' she said. 'Honey,' he said, 'I haven't told you the worst part. I still owe this gentleman a hundred dollars.' Well, while they were talking I was looking around, and I noticed her purse lying open by the telephone. There was a ten-dollar bill in it and a one. So you know what I did?'

As Straus talked, he had gradually leaned forward across the table, until his face was just inches from the journalist's. "No," said the journalist, eyes wide with concern. "What did you do?"

Straus's left eye drooped further; his expression was grave. "I just took the ten-dollar bill," he said, "and let him slide for the rest."

--- Al Alvarez, The Biggest Game in Town

Such wonderful, detailed, insightful writing. There's a reason Biggest Game is considered a seminal work, and passages such as this are it.

Now here is beautiful writing of a very different sort from McManus's New Wave shosetsu. The following passage captures McManus, playing an ever-bigger part of his own story, in the days between his satellite victory and the start of the WSOP Main Event:

T minus sixty-three hours, forty-seven minutes, and counting. The last time Time trudged this recalcitrantly Mary Beth Marino had agreed to let me take her to Topp's Big Boy as soon as I turned sixteen and got my driver's license, companion milestones a good seven months off. The time before that I was in second grade, looking forward with evangelical ardor to my First Holy Communion; having reached the Age of Reason --- six and a half, according to the Roman Catholic Church --- I'd recently made my first confession ("disobeyed my parents four times, told a lie twice...") and was champing at the bit to receive the body and blood of Christ on my tongue, then get showered with presents and cash. The time before that was in utero.

--- James McManus, Positively Fifth Street

In its own way, that's every bit as wondrous as the Alvarez passage. And so enlightening beyond the words themselves, in the tradition of the best story-telling.

Were that the people who serve as poker's day-to-day frontline writers be as gifted. Michael Craig comes to mind. No one else has had the guts to say it, so I will: In The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King, Craig took a topic that had the potential to be as gripping as the above two books, and turned it into a pleasant but thoroughly uninspiring read. Craig is at best a competent, hard-working writer, basically what journalists ought to be. But at this point in his career, Craig lacks both the wordsmithing mastery and the authoring acuity --- that special insight --- that can take a story and make it more than the sum of its words.

But there's a larger issue within what I've read from Michael Craig than the actual skill level of the work. Too often we see how Craig hedges his wordplay to ensure his continued access to his subjects. Craig's far from the worst at it, but it's there, nonetheless. Here's a typical example from The Professor,..., taken from an early chapter that describes the initial poker excursion of Andy Beal to Las Vegas:

Amid the fun time, Andy Beal understood the real game being played. At $80-$160, his opponents were all professional poker players who saw him as easy pickings. He was just killing an evening, relaxing. If they could figure out how to get a few thousand of his dollars, good for them. He played aggressively, by instinct, and his wary opponents usually afforded the newcomer a wide berth until they figured out how he played. So he continued to win.

--- Michael Craig, The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King

Yep; you read it from Craig first. All you have to do is play aggressive, and the pros at the 80/160 tables will duck you and you're on your way to a profitable session. What crap. There are only two explanations: either Beal's cards ran hot or he already had lots more game than the pros would give him credit for, at least initially. And while subsequent events proved that Beal could play, it still doesn't explain the faulty logic and careful non-fault-assigning wording embued in the above. "Wary" and "respectful"? I'd say "professionally tight" and "caught making some moves" instead. But saying that would reduce the suck-up factor to all involved.

Seriously, Craig's work isn't that bad. What he writes is Laureate material when compared with what we see from some of the player-writers whose work is slapped into print just to pump another big name onto a magazine's cover. (Antonio Esfandiari's dreadful "Poker Like a Rock Star" columns in Bluff come to mind.) Nor is Craig the only writer to fall into the suck-up trap. Here's another example of that, from the otherwise reliable Michael Kaplan. This time we excerpt from the preamble of his interview with Mike Matusow, published in Card Player last September:

[Matusow] didn't win the event (the 2005 WSOP), but he took home a prize of $1 million and busted out with nary a whimper (which is way out of character for The Mouth). That Matusow had recently gotten out of jail, after serving six months for what appears to be a trumped-up charge of drug dealing, makes his Series performance all the more impressive. --- Michael Kaplan, "Mike Matusow --- More Than a Mouthful," Card Player, September 05, 2005.

We have here the classic writer's sin of omission --- in this case, stating that Matusow served six months on a "trumped-up charge...," without offering a single shred of evidence why this is so.

Bleeeah. I'm surprised that the passage got through editorial at Card Player. Needless to say, my trust in that interview went out the window before I even got to the start of the questions and answers.

Which brings me around to me, and why this most introspective and scathing of my posts was written in the first place. I wrote it because I was angry at me.

I took over the writing duties just recently for Kick Ass Poker's "This Week in Poker" blog, a nominally-paying gig. Cool enough. The guys at KAP have given me free reign to come up with entertaining poker content, and I'm trying to hard to oblige. That said, I was put in an unusual situation after only a week on the job.

What happened is that Lou's new book (co-authored by Sheree Bykofsky), Secrets the Pros Won't Tell You About Winning Hold-Em Poker, hit the shelves. A mention of a new book is always newsworthy, particularly one from a veteran, high-quality poker author such as Lou. But in walking the fine line between blurb and plug, I turned my own mini-piece a little bit sideways. It happens. It's not my best work, even if I am still working the rust off my writing chops.

So here's what you need to know. The book is a solid addition to the working library of the intermediate-level poker player. In the KAP piece, I contrasted this to some of Sklansky's books, and I did this to highlight the difference between an instructor and a teacher. Sklansky's an instructor: he shapes his learning packages into a form that fits both the material and Sklansky's own manner of thinking. By contrast, Lou's a teacher: he formats his strategy books into thought patterns that match to what he believes his target audience to be. The difference is vital, and it explains one of the great values of Lou's books (and this work in particular): The difference in the way the message is communicated impacts how well the knowledge is received. Many people do better with Sklansky's books. Others would do better with Lou's.

But I screwed up, and didn't get my own message across very well. Ah, well.

Be forewarned: You may encounter a review or two on major sites with a summary along these lines, and I'll tell you in advance, I may well have written it. It doesn't mean I'm right or wrong, or whether Lou's book is right for your current level of poker knowledge and education. But at least I'll be writing closer to my personal sense of true.

A late update: Some unnamed poker blogger, in his infinite wisdom, has recently complained about the blog-accumulator site mentioned above, with the result that the above site is no longer being available. As Bugs would have said, "What a maroon." My totally insincere thanks goes out to the navel-gazing blogger who's unaware of the distinction between a content thief and a site accumulator, pulling down something marginally valuable in his fervor. A site accumulator, such as the one formerly above or the "blogroll" that can found over at All-In, works much like a real-estate listing service, for much the same reasons. The above site pulled in the first 50 words of so of recently posted blog entries and dutifully offered titles and links to the blogs posting the original work, much the same way a real-estate agency posts or publishes photos of houses. It's a service: that's what services do. I didn't see content theft at the above; I saw an aggregation service, of some value. I'd ask the complaining blogger to remove his head from his nether regions and go query Bill Rini about the difference, because Bill indeed gets it --- he knows more about the tug-of-war between technological capabilities and intellectual rights than virtually any other poker-content writer. But this other blogger... well, that's sort of the point of this post, anyway.

Mindless stuff...

Our Top Ten Scrabble®-Board Poker Names:

#10: DEEB
#9: KRUX
#8: BONYADI
#7: FARHA
#6: SICA
#5: AMIT
#4: NEGREANU
#3: ARIEH
#2: LEDERER
#1: HACHEM

Bluff Equity and Made-Hand Equity --- A Bounty-Tournament Example

Today's entry focuses on a recent hand I played in a recent "Expert Series" tournament on Royal Vegas Poker. Sometimes one has to play the cards; sometimes one plays the situation. This is the latter, of course, and your comments are welcome.

We'd just cracked the bubble into the land of [small] pay, but don't think we were talking untold riches here --- this is a promotional tourney with a $20+2 entry fee and $10 re-buy and add-on options. It's a publicity tool for the site and the pro players involved, and this tourney also includes bounties: Knock out a pro, collect an extra $50, a t-shirt and maybe an autographed book, too, if the pro you knock out is an author.

As it was, the final 20 made the cash, and spots 11-20 were all scheduled to receive the same --- $50. (First place was $1,500, so there was significant reward for reaching the final table.) We were down to 19 players, and I was rather short-stacked, in 17th position with about 7,400 chips. The blinds were 500/1000, almost ready for another jump, and I was in the small blind. Site host and poker author Lou Krieger was one of two pros at my table; he was a couple of seats to my right. To my immediate left was Matt Lessinger, author of The Book of Bluffs, in the big blind, and he was in 18th place, even a bit more short-stacked, with about 7,100 chips. I'd played with Matt extensively in the previous week's tourney, so he had some basic feel for my style --- no major advantage for me there.

Anyhooo...

Despite the fact that Matt and I are the short stacks, it's folded all the way around to me in the small blind. I have J-9 of diamonds. I have four options, near as I can tell: (1) dump the hand; (2) limp in and hope Matt lets me play (not veddy damn likely, wot?); (3) come in for 2,000-3,000 and hope Matt has bricks... and tosses them; (4) move all in. What would you do here?

Well, anyone with half a brain would guess that I tried Door #4 --- if I hadn't, I wouldn't have anything to write about, would I? And Matt called me with his A-4 off, neither of us improved, and I was down to nearly zero and eliminated two hands later. So be it.

But here's the interesting part: Even though my hand was mediocre and I had four ways of playing it, in reality this was my only good option, due to the tournament situation. The final-table bubble looked like it would pop at between 20,000 and 25,000 chips, meaning that even with a double-through, either Matt or I would still have an uphill battle to the table, but at least have a reasonable chance of succeeding in that battle with a doubled stack of chips. I went out in 19th place, but spots 18th through 11th paid nothing extra. In addition, I had Matt slightly outchipped, so if he did look me up and lose to me, I'd be guaranteed $100 plus swag, rather than just the 19th-place $50 payout.

So in an important way I was getting better than 2-to-1, but on the hand payoff, not the hand itself. Toss in whatever "bluff equity" (one of Lou's pet terms, I've discovered) I had, and I suggest that this play goes into the category of an almost-automatic all-in. Not with any two, but with any two reasonable to have a chance, which I did. And I did it knowing that my bluff equity was smaller than normal, too: I put the odds of Matt's folding here at 10% or less. Without attempting to speak for someone who's a helluva lot better player than I am, I'll simply note that Matt knew that I wouldn't be afraid to make a play, rightly or wrongly on my part.

I expected Matt to look me up, and I expected to be behind once he did, but the situational rewards were simply too great to pass up. I made the play. The expected outcome occurred: I was out of the tourney. And I have no regrets. Nonetheless, the fact that I was able to make this secondary analysis on the fly suggests that I'm making some basic strides as a poker player.

As I mentioned above, Lou Krieger chatted with us at the table about how the pros have little or no "bluff equity" in a bounty-style tournament. He even wrote an article about it a few months back in Card Player. His hypothesis, briefly paraphrased, is that the pros in a bounty tournament are at a relative disadvantage because it's seldom possible for them to pull off a great bluff; the bounties on their heads mean that other players will look them up with any reasonable holding. Lou's article then posits that it ultimately means that the pros will be, sooner or later, knocked out of the proceedings.

I agree largely, but not totally. While it's undeniable that the pros' ability to bluff is greatly diminished in a bounty tournament, I pointed out to Lou that the opposite is true as well: When the pro in a bounty tournament does possess a made hand or a solid pre-flop holding, he is likely to receive a greater-than-normal reward for his hand. I quipped it to Lou as "made-hand equity," and it does exist --- one need look no further than the situation with my final hand against Matt above to see how it benefitted Matt there, though it's more often noticeable post-flop, when bounty hunters chase with holdings not worth the chasing. Think about it: While I might make the same play above against someone else, I'd be far less likely to do so without the bounty in place and at hand. The counterbalance to the loss of "bluff equity" is there, but whether it's an equal counterbalance is something better left to the experts. As always, it's a learning experience for me.

Agree? Disagree? Don't be afraid to drop me a line --- that e-mail address is around here somewhere!

--- Haley :-)

Moving Days

Moving days, again and still...

The relocation to a new apartment has finally completed, and I'm back online. That said, I've been in somewhat of a malaise the past few weeks, probably the combination of the moving stress, the fact that I've become estranged from my my parents and my "growin' up" family this past year, and that the temporary job gig continues to suck up major hours for the time being.

Persevere. Onward. Always move onward.

I've played a bit of poker, of course, with unexceptional results the past weeks; only a third-place in a small tournament on Titan (I-Poker) and the usual (and now predictable) overall gain playing Party SNG's having any positive impact on bankroll. As of now, the temp gig precludes me from getting back in time for most of Wil Wheaton's tourneys on Friday evenings, so I haven't even had a chance to run across the other poker bloggers as of late.

Goals? None for now. Live to see tomorrow, school the young pups, and keep a roof over my head betwixt and between the rest. That'll do this holiday season, that'll do indeed.

More soon, but for now it was just time for the update to let both of my fans know that I am indeed back in business. Thanks!

...

And that previous text, which didn't appear for very long:

I've been in the process of relocating to an apartment over the past couple of weeks, here in this alien and seemingly endless suburbia that's north and west of Chicago. It's been a slow process, because I'm a disorganized, slow-motion mover, though I'd like to take this moment to publicly invite the dinks at U-Haul to take the proverbial long walk off a short pier. Im attempting to return the damned truck, I encountered customer service so terrible it was disgraceful --- from a website that sent me to a non-existent business to a help-line customer "service" rep who laughed at me when I asked him what I was supposed to do with the stupid truck, after finding and returning from the emptied storefront. How nice. Then again, at least the truck's speedometer/odometer was close to accurate, not like the 30%-altered gauge I remember from when a friend moved and rented similar equipment from Ryder. Seems like an industry where scum rules... Anyhow, U-Haul and I aren't quite finished with each other yet --- heh.

My hour's drive (or more) each way to the temp job each weekday reminds me again why I really hate that stuff, and though the people I work with are nice folks, I'm just not one of them. In an analytical sense, one must be a sheep to do the stuff I'm currently doing, and one must also be highly risk-averse to swallow the high level of corporate pap slammed down the workers' throats on a minute-by-minute basis. Sadly for me, I'm neither risk-averse nor a sheep. So in a few short weeks I'll search for work again, because I'd go postal if I knew I was stuck in that environment for the duration. No doubt the rut I'm currently in emanates from these early paragraphs --- sorry! Sometimes life's not a lot of fun, and it just hasn't been for me of late.

As for poker? Sure, that's what I've been spending the rest of my spare time on. I've been continuing my experiment concerning Sit-'N'-Gos as a way of measuring my poker skills, and the results have been mildly encouraging. I wish there was an easy way to determine when one is ready for the jump up to the next level, but I don't seem to be able to do much more in the 10+1 games, so after some more bankroll-building, it'll be on to the $20 level. I set a personal record myself here by recently cashing in 11 straight SNG's, but I've also had some runs of six or eight in a row where I haven't cashed at all. Ahh, variance.

I also dropped a couple of hundred into an account at Titan Poker, then discovered ruefully that until I get a faster computer, I won't be able to make significant headway on the bonus. The host network is even slower than Prima, which is saying something.

Addendum to that: I've discovered that one of the two "problems" I've had with Prima software is technically mine --- my old computer's processor wasn't fast enough for Prima's needs. The upshot is that I kept timing out when attempting to play two or more tables, even though most other sites I used with the old computer didn't lock up when multi-tabling. In addition, Prima was having some issues with rampant "hand being saved" problems which casued interminable stretches between hands; near the end of one small tourney we encountered a stretch where the software only let us play four hands in 30 minutes. And no, it wasn't hand-for-hand time.

As for Titan, yes, there'll be a review coming up, but my generally feeling is that Titan and the other related skins comprise a network that is searching for (and is bubbling just shy of) critical mass. I'm not enamored of their software, either, but we'll touch on that stuff soon, too.

Ta-ta!

Catching Up, Always Catching Up

In a no-limit tournament, you have exactly one true weapon --- your chip stack. Wield it wisely and cautiously!

Sunday evening update! I had an absolute blast at the first ever Blogger Poker Championship at PokerStars, which has just reached the final table as I write this. (Even later update: Easy_Wind won the durn thing, and MattyWhoOwesMeALinkCuzHeKnockedMeOutDammit! took 3rd. My durned TT ran into his KK buzzsaw, in case you're not wondering. Not even a bad beat. Boo-hoo.) Nearly 1,500 bloggers entered, and I indeed "swagged" in this one, coming in 92nd after being short-stacked much of the way, garnering a t-shirt... which is plenty cool enough for a freeroll of this nature. ("Swagging" is hereby defined as placing in the "cash" --- read: merchandise --- in a tournament where only non-cash prizes are awarded.)

And it's the rare tournament indeed that keeps me watching and chatting after I've been bounced, which is what happened here, though I did sneak over to --- and win --- a $10 SNG while I watched and chatted.

Major ups to PokerStars for this one. Though I really wanted the damn monitor(!), the action was plenty tough later on and I'm satisfied with my result. I had a chance to run into some of the poker bloggerscenti, and had a great time chatting with them all. Up4Poker visited a table that had me, eventual-third-[placer Matty, April, Iggy, PokerNerd, and a couple of more well-known bloggers at it --- well, except me, that is --- and I'd like to toss Up4 special ups for not only given me a link, but putting it directly under Daniel Negreanu's entry. Thanks, but how are you gonna 'splain that one to Daniel?

I'd seen reports that some people thought it was an exceptionally loose and easy-playing tourney, and all I can say is, luck of the draw, doods. My tables were largely tight and present-and-accounted for; I didn't encounter my first blank player until into my second hour of play. But I was there for the chat as much as the game, and collectively, it was the best damn table-chat ever in a largish tourney... despite the all-caps cretin who GONZO'd at visiting bossman Lee Jones at the final table. Excepting that, the blogger tourney showed how table chat is supposed to be used --- a true rarity in online poker.

And now, back to the rest of our scheduled rambling...

---

A short piece will suffice here, to let [both of] my readers know that this isn't a cob-web site after all. I'm five weeks into my current temp-to-hire gig, otherwise known as Purgatory, and if you think I exaggerate, then change your mind: I'm answering calls all day dealing with health-insurance and pensions. From retirees who often view the call as the highlight of their days. Shoot me, please, shoot me.

Alright, it's not that bad; it pays more and is less soul-rending than the almost-as-recent gig as a CNA at South Elgin, IL's Alderwood Health Care Center, a nursing home surely a northern cousin of that place in New Orleans that let their residents drown in Hurricane Katrina. I left this place on short notice, preserving both my sanity and my accreditation in one fell swoop, because the CNAs at the facility were put into a position where compliance with administrative practices and state law was not only contradictory, it was physically impossible. And speaking of shooting me, please let someone do that before they stick me in a nursing home like that. And this, time, I'm serious.

But I digress. This is a poker site, after all, so I can't even go beyond the merest mention of my Thursday night cribbage league without risking the loss of your interest. As for the game with chips, I've been rotating my recent time between Party, Bet365 (Prima skin) and PokerStars. Despite Stars' minimal sign-on bonuses, I wanted to get a feel for the action there (hint: review in progress), and see just how tough the action is in general. Most of what others have said about Stars I find to be true, but that will appear elsewhere, very soon. And as should be obvious, I'll give the Poker Blogger Championship a go and hope for the best --- the tourney's tomorrow as this is written. That should be interesting --- I expect a heavy mix of better and solid poker players, sprinkled with a decent-sized number of people who have, relatively speaking, no clue. The early action may be highly entertaining.

Over at Party, in the wake of their ruthless actions concerning their affiliates, I've drawn down my account there to just $100 or so --- I simply don't feel comfortable there right now. In a way it's a twofold measure for me, because I can always reload when the inevitable Thanksgiving bonus comes around. But in the meantime, I'm moving into a new apartment in the next week or two, so having a little more cash on-hand is just fine right now, given my overall nonexistant budget.

The Bet365 Prima skin is one of those places that's just too profitable for me to not keep giving it some action. In addition to the nice freebies offered across all of Prima, Bet365's had monthly bonus programs for September and October that have been all but a pure $100 handout. Thank you, Bet365! Then, toss in the relatively easier Prima action --- though their software shows no sign of improving ---and Bet365's own customer-loyalty perks, and I simply can't stay away.

For instance, Bet365 has an every-Saturday $5,000 freeroll that you're eligible for simply by opening a cash account. Yes, it draws nearly 7,000 players every week, but it's still a damn site better than the pathetic crap that you find on Stars or Paradise. I took 140th out of 6,817 earlier today for a whopping $7.50 --- whoop-de-do!! --- but the point is this: I could do it while packaging up some mail and responding to stuff on the web. No muss, no fuss, and no risk.

Then comes Bet365's monthly $30,000 "VIP" freeroll, which is reserved for players who manage to achieve a whopping 200 raked hands in the previous month. Now think about it: nearly 7,000 players will logon and try their luck at a weekly freeroll, but barely 2200 players achieved the 200 raked hands needed to qualify for a freeroll with six times as much money at stake. Let's see...: One third the players and six times the purse (compared to the weekly $5K freebie) equals a freeroll with 18 times the overlay per player. In my second try two weeks ago I grabbed 52nd (out of 2200+) for a quick $120. Hey, I'll show up for that...

So where will you find me next? Hard to say --- I've been playing lots of $10+1 Sit-'N'-Gos lately, trying to work on my end game as much as anything, and have been showing a slight profit so far. There is a link to a separate page within my tourney notes section, for those of you not already bored to death. (Let's just say that I've been disappointed in my own play in these so far, but am still a bit ahead at these stakes, about $50 net for something like 25 tourneys. Not great; I can do better.)

I've been playing micro-tournaments as well, when I'm not chopping out a sign-on bonus somewhere. I've come close to decent paydays twice in the last few weeks, and took a final table bad-beat in one that ended my dreams of a new computer the following day. Out in 7th for a hundred and change --- drat. C'est la vie, sweetie!

One of the features that I've been toying with adding is a quickie review/comparison of the three leading poker "print" magazines --- Card Player, All-In and Bluff. The recent Card Player interview of Mike Matusow struck me as one of the most gutless pieces of journalism I've come across in recent memory; it was what those of us in the writing profession refer to as "kiss-ass journalism". And who the hell is Mike Matusow to deserve that?? Aside from that bankrupt offering, all three of the magazines suffer from internal inconsistency, but all have strengths as well. The reviews are definitely something for the "when I get around to it" file.

My search for the right type of software to make my crosswords and word searches interactive also goes on, and it's been fruitless and frustrating. I can buy the software for the crosswords easy enough, but the only wordsearch software around is garbage that builds the puzzle itself from your list. My professional opinion (as a writer who's also had dozens of puzzles published) is that such software invariably sucks --- the finished puzzles they churn out play like last week's fishwrap. But my search for the Holy Grail of wordsearch puzzle software continues...

Seriously, I'm starting to get a few e-mails from visitors, so thank you all for stopping by. I do appreciate your taking the time to visit my little electronic backwater.

What Good Play? A Tourney-from-Hell Recap

Want to go for a wild-and-crazy ride? Then find yourself a spot in an ultra-low buy-in fixed-limit tournament, preferably with the availability of re-buys and add-ons. And be brave, very brave. The following is a recap of my play in one of these recent tourneys, and it's not pretty.

By way of background information: This was the $1,000 Guaranteed Fixed-Limit Tournament on the Prima Poker Network, starting at 3:30 a.m. EDT on September 12, 2005. I'd played this tournament a dozen or so times previously, doing quite well. The tourney normally attracts 170-200 players, invariably pays 20 places, and I'd already won it once and cashed two or three other times. This tournament epitomizes loose tournament play... but that doesn't mean a tighter player's necessarily going to win. The times are in military format: 0230 = 2:30 a.m.

Tourney Recap: $1,000 Guarantee Fixed-Limit Hold-'Em
Entry Fee: $3.00 (+ 0.50)
Starting Chips: 1,500

0232: First hand --- I catch 10-8 suited one ahead of the button, watch two limpers, a raiser and a cold-caller jump in in front of me. Tempting, but I want to get a handle on who the donkey betters are before I speculate. (Chip Total: 1,500)

0234: Second hand --- and already we have the first re-buy request for the table. Yee-hah! In fixed I like to wait a little while before making a rebuy, usually until I can't cover the needed four rounds of max bets without going all-in. I mean, when the blinds are 10/20, what's the point? I prefer to play on other people's money.

0241: Almost all Euro players here this time of night --- just me and one dude from Atlantic City representing this side of the pond, out of the 10 at my start table. Three of them, out of five Swedes total, are from Stockholm.

0242: I find K-10-off in the BB; six limpers to me this hand. The Q-7-5 rainbow makes it a throwaway. Across from me, a player named Lars_Vegas (claiming to be from Atlantic City), who's already played at least five hands, completes a Q-high straight with a J on the river, fitting his lovely 10-9-off pocket.

0244: Woo-hoo! Ks-Kd on the button, but a dangerous 2-J-J flop comes, including two hearts. I'd raised pre-flop and do it again on the turn when the board J's are checked to me, though I still get two callers. My bet on the heart 9 turn (representing the flush) gets rid of one of them, but the other, a player named LeDiable who's also already played several hand, calls again. A scary heart Q arrives on the river for the board four-flush, and the donkey turns out to have played the deuce of clubs and the (*sigh*) six of hearts. He called a pre-flop raise with 6-bleepin'-2 unsuited!! Jesusfuckingchrist!! (TC: 1,350)

0246: I try to steal on cutoff w/ A-10-off, and no betting before me; behind me the button 3-bets. Junk flop, no help. Crap. Lovely frigging start. Last place at the table. (TC: 1,230)

0248: There's lots of infomercials airing on a Sunday night/Monday morning.

0253: 8-3 suited in the BB. With four limpers between me and the button's raise, I'm almost tempted. Said "almost". Fittingly, a third manic type playing Q-4-off takes it away from that button raiser when the doof spikes a third four. I need a hardhat around here.

0256: It's checked around to me on the button where I give it a pop with a suited 9-8, but the LAG (loose-aggressive) player behind me (a thomas5555 from Stockholm) comes over the top again, out of the small blind. I end up with a gutshot straight draw plus overcards to the rag flop of 2-5-6, which kept me in all the way to a cheap showdown when a surprising check occurred. Unfortunately, a third player takes it down with a paired six. It turns out the 3-betting LAG has A-Jx --- about what I figured. (CT: 1,005) At least a couple of loose types have plummeted below me.

0258: A-8x under the gun, the second A I've seen. Well, -I- won't play it.

0300: Played to the turn for free from the BB. No nothing, not even a pair. Really sucky first half-hour. 0% hands won. (CT: 930)

0302: My K-10-off on the button gets dumped to the inevitable raise and re-raise from the two manic types in middle position. The board ultimately reads 8-4-6-6-7 with no flush possible. LeDiable's K-Qx didn't win, losing to the cold-call BB who turned over a suited J-7. Gawd. And the 3-better, who played to the showdown, had to have had slick or similar, too.

0305: With A-J-off, I smooth-call behind Lars (who raised pre-flop again), with the added protection of a cold-caller between him and me. The flop comes 3-8-A rainbow; Lars bets, I raise, and we've lost the third player. I bet again on the raggy 7 turn and raggier 5 river, and Lars_Boy mucks it there. (CT: 1580)

0307: My pocket 5-5 goes nowhere in the face of an A-J-6 all-diamond flop. Good old LeDiable's 10-9-of-diamonds pocket pushes him up to 5,390. Sigh.

0308: Good girl --- I dump K-Jx from position 5. The 8-K-A flop was trouble anyway.

0309: On the TV, Ron Popeil's done spieling; now Time-Life's selling their '70s soul collection. Ron's better entertainment in the context of an infomercial, somehow. Time for CNN.

0312: I find K-K again in the BB. The UTG player raises, there's one cold-caller (Lars), the button 3-bets, and I cap. The flop is a two-suited 8-8-9, with a Q and a 3 falling later, no help to the flush. Looks safe, right? Particularly since my bet on the flop scared off two of the players. But... Loose_Lucky_Lars takes it down with his lovely suited 8-7. And now I've got a cat on my lap, too, stomping my lap for attention. (CT: 480) K-K sucks.

0313: Re-buy. *sigh* (CT: 1,830)

0315: K-K a third time?? Sure enough. It gets capped again going to the flop, whcih comes a semi-dangerous 10-6-10 rainbow, but it's just me and the player who re-raised and capped me pre-flop. The 2 and 3 on the flop don't change my opinion of the strength of my hand in this heads-up match, whci, by the way, is against the player under the gun. I'm prepared to tell him nice hand for his AA at showdown time, but he turns up K-10-off. Yes, this from the UTG raiser. Fuck K-K and these loose morons. Must the junky trips card always be out? And who the hell caps with K-10x?? (CT: 780)

0320: I limp with 2-2. Six players see the flop, which comes 4-7-6. Fold. Cat evicted. Damn thing's shedding anyhow. (CT: 680)

0322: I dump 5-5 from UTG+1. I'm seeing tons of PP's --- but can't win with any of them. I have had, mildly put, luckier runs.

0323: Time for my second and last rebuy, not counting my add-on coming up at the break. I normally don't even go past one re-buy, but it's a treat for this first-time tourney recap, which already seems like a tourney from hell. I bet you don't think I've got the guts to write and post this crap, do you? (CT: 2,180)

0332: Time for my add-on at the break. (CT: 3,455; do or die) A puke-y 96th of 124 before the add-on, out of 195 entrants.

0335: Pee break. Thought you should know!

0337: Hee-hee! I win the first hand after the break when it's folded around to me in the small blind. I bet it with a paired J at the river (despite an A and K also on the board) since the BB has done nothing. Turns out he wasn't even connected, so the auto-fold brings it home to me. Good thing I didn't check it through! (CT: 3,605)

0340: Wow: A-A. LeDiable raise in front of me, of course, and caps it behind; we've got a third player as well. The flop comes a scary Q-J-9 with two hearts. Diable bets (again of course), I raise, and the the third player cold-calls behind me. Diable 3-bets, and I cap it because he's shown me a manic approach: he'll re-raise on a bottom pair, a joker, the little "poker odds" card that's always left behind in the deck box... anything. The third player isn't as loose as these other crazies so his two cold-calls to cap on the flop are far more of a concern.

Did I mention that the blinds had jumped to 100/200? It's a big hand for me, to say the least. Sure enough, the J turn on the river spells doom for my rockets, and I'm stuck making the crying call with over 6,000 in the pot. A small consolation: the cold-calling dude was all-in, and he's no surprise for me in turning over the third jack. (CT: 1,030). Don't care no more. At least LeDiable crashed out in the process with his pair of Q's, small consolation. What a wonderful run: AA, KK, KK and KK... and 0-for-4 on the batch. Plus a 10-10 and 9-9 I didn't mention earlier. I believe I've caught 9 pocket pairs in a hair over an hour and lost all nine, seeing a flop seven times. And I've been sucked down for bonus chips throughout by a couple of manic morons.

0345: A freeroll window opens; I'm already registered for it. Can I play two tables --- one fixed, one no-limit --- and write this all at once? We'll see! Stuff like 6-4, 4-9, 7-2 makes it easy for a while. The overnight freerolls are always like the translation of "Tora, Tora, Tora": Dive, Dive, Dive! But Prima freerolls are good money, too --- I took second in one a week earlier for $120. I've made the final table six times in two months.

0348: I'm all-in with K-Q-off and a Q comes on the flop. My challenger had sixes, so I doubled through. (CT: 1,760)

0349: Over in the freeroll, I dive in with 9-9 for my 1,000 chips from middle position... just because I'm on total tilt. Naturally, I'm cold-called by a suited J-10 on the all-in. And of course, the J comes on the flop. It's a good sotto voce lesson on tilting, not to mention going all-in on middle pairs, the moron call from that player notwithstanding. But whatcha gonna do when the cards run cold? At least I can type the rest of my notes on this fiasco at my leisure.

0353: I flip-flop the position of the table and WordPad windows on my terminal. That'll change my luck!

0354: I miss the BB when the player to my right crashes out! But my SB hand demands a limp, then a fold when I again utterly -whiffff- on the flop. So I only save a SB.

0355: I limp in with Qh-10c on the button, one of three to see the flop, which is 9-7-5, all hearts. My semi-bluff at the scare board takes down a mini-pot (CT: 1,910). 87th out of 90 and on the move!

0358: Two of the three manic LAGs at our table are gone now, though Loose_Lars lives on. The truth is, terrible flops aside, a chunk of my drop is attributable to the increased variance caused by their wild play. I was caught in the backwash, so to speak. In the long run, I'm guaranteed to do well against these players, but this tournament ain't the long run.

0403: 400 chips lost on a dead BB. (CT: 1,510)

0406: And all-in on a final 9-9 that gets neatly ironed out by a flopped king; with big slick on the button he'd re-raised me, and I'd capped the pre-flop 3-bet with damned little to lose. (What I had, I lost.) In summary, I was utterly doomed by my 0-for-10 on pocket pairs, including four that were still overpairs post-flop. I placed 82nd of 195... my worst finish ever in this event. I really hate poker right now.

SITE REVIEW - TITAN POKER

Titan Poker is, I believe, the second largest of the iPoker skins, following Noble Poker. This review is as much a review of the iPoker gaming engine as of Titan itself, but since I don't plan on visiting Noble again, and Noble is very similar to Titan, this is what you get. Deal with it.

Titan is one of those sites that I'm happy to have tried, but cannot wait to leave. "Why not leave now?" you might ask. Well, heh. That's one of the problems. Caveat emptor, gentle reader, caveat emptor. That's "Let the buyer beware," in case you weren't in a remembering state of mind right now. The iPoker skins are known for their generous sign-up bonuses, but these bonuses can be misleading in ways different than you might think. Speaking of thinking, think this will be a less-than-gushing review? You think right, Grasshoppah --- now go snatch a dime from someone else's palm.

Let's cut to the chase. If you are seduced by those overly large bonuses, tread carefully: You'll find them much harder to obtain than the published table-rate figures might lead you to believe. The reason for this is that iPoker lacks the table traffic to support the number of tables you'd like to play at the stakes you find comfortable. Suppose you're a hacker like me, typically playing anything from .50/1 to 2/4 fixed-limit. At off hours, you might not find a full-ring game, or at most find one or two, among the various levels. There might be a couple of short-handed games going, and perhaps something at no-limit as well. But you're not going to get the volume that you need to make those hefty bonus rates pay off; you're not even going to come close.

Toss in software that's clunky, slow and brutal, plus a couple of other lovely little treats I'll return to in a bit, and this one's a dog. Stay away. Yes, the competition is softer here than at other sites, but it's like Pacific --- the competition is softer because the site is poor, and most of the more competent players have fled for saner pastures.

I've seen a commercial or two for iPoker skins, and they invariably try to sell the high bonuses and slick software... "state of the art graphics" is a phrase you'll hear accompanied by a 3-D rendition showing some of the site's table avatars. Well, get it straight: the avatars ain't numerous and they ain't great --- FullTilt plays that tune a whole heap better.

Could we hope that the software then excels in functionality? Well, we could hope that, yes we could. But our hopes would be false. The software is clunky and slow, and multi-table switching ranges from hesitant and sluggish on newer computers to FuggidAbouDit-UBeenTimedOut on older clunkers. Another huge flaw occurs in the no-limit betting choices, but this one will take a bit more explaining:

When one begins to learn no-limit, one of the first things one learns is the concept of the Standard Raise. It's three times (3x) the big blind or the most recent bet. It's evolved over time as the optimal balance between smaller raises that encourage unwanted action from speculative hands hoping to see a cheap flop, and overbets that freeze out the type of second-best opponents one would rather keep around. Understand that one doesn't always make a standard raise, but it's frequently the best option, right?

Well, iPoker's software designers, demonstrating their deep understanding of the game (and yes, I'm being sarcastic), set up their sliding-scale bet programming so it jumps from 1x to 2x to 4x, 6x and beyond, skipping the classic standard raise. The only way to do a standard raise is to do the math, then manually type in the number into the raise field, then tab that bet into play. Other bet rheostats occasionally have problems, particularly when one acquires a large stack early, relative to the size of the blinds. But none of the others I've tried are as badly designed as iPoker's.

Another oddity --- and to my way of thinking, a large negative --- occurs in R&A ("Rebuy and Add-On) tourneys. All other sites I've played allow a rebuy to take place as soon one's chip level falls below the tourney starting point, which could typically be 1,500 chips. But on iPoker, one can't rebuy until that player's chip stack reaches zero. What a disincentive! If a player takes a big loss that reduces the size of his chip stack to, say, 400 chips, that player has to consider dumping those 400 chips and starting over, particularly if the blinds are due to go up in another couple of minutes. That's flat-out dumb, and it might even promote collusion under a perfect set of circumstances.

The litany goes on, of course, but it all boils down to a basic truth: iPoker's designers and financiers care a lot more about enabling themselves to snare some online gambling commerce then they are in taking care of their customers' needs. That's damning indeed. So it doesn't matter if it's as important as a woefully inadequate note-taking function that provides space barely large enough to hold a phone number, much less info on how one's opponents play, or as frivolous as the oversized chat ballons that obscure and distract from the table action. It's all just symptoms of the same disease.

But I'm used to seeing things like this, particularly in an era when new sites are springing up by the week. What finally galled me, though, was the discovery that the money I'd deposited --- in terms of the original amount --- was non-withdrawable until I'd played the amount of hands neede to clear the related bonus. In other words, given the lack of table action and software so balky that the entire site has shut down for unscheduled maintenance on multiple occasions, I'll get my money back when hell freezeth over. So let my misfortune be your fair warning: Stay away from iPoker and any of its skins. They offer oversixed bonuses that are made from smoke and mirrors, and they have no intention of letting you get out of their system with your bankroll whole and hearty. Caveat emptor, indeed.

---

"We Didn't Say Those Numbers Actually Mean Anything..."

There I was, playing a handful of Maui Sit-'N'-Go's, hoping to win five straight and capture the $50,000 (or whatever) jackpot prize for doing so. And winning a couple, here and there, and doing the same with a few Dirty Dozen and Rio jackpot games as well.

Funny thing... all the games and hand numbers on iPoker sites always end in "0." There's nothing wrong with this, per se, unless you believe that the hand and game numbers are an accurate measure of a site's history and size. That's right, friends and neighbors: By adding a simple "0" to all such numbers, iPoker gives the impression that they've dealt ten times as many games as they actually have.

Dishonest? Aye, that's a hair that needs splitting. Just because it's a "hand number" doesn't necessarily mean that it's a "hand count." As you can tell, my impressions of this site are largely negative, so for me it's just one more small reason to flee elsewhere at the earliest opportunity. There's something about iPoker that leaves me feeling uneasy. On that I'll say no more.