Orgy of Lies

2004-06-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

On Tax Cuts

DISTRIBUTIONAL EFFECTS OF THE 2001 AND 2003 TAX CUTS AND THEIR FINANCING

William G. Gale, Peter Orszag and Isaac Shapiro
June 3, 2004

"Tax cuts are not free; they must be financed with some combination of tax increases or spending cuts. The central goal of this paper is to apply this standard insight from public finance to the analysis of the distributional effects of making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. We estimate not only who benefits directly from the tax cuts, but also who benefits and who loses once the financing of the tax cuts is considered. We consider two scenarios: one in which each household pays an equal dollar amount to finance the tax cuts and one where each household pays the same share of income. In both cases, more than three-quarters of households end up worse off if the tax cuts are made permanent and financed. In addition, there are large aggregate transfers from the majority of low- and middle-income households to an affluent minority. These results show that, far from simply "giving people their money back," making the tax cuts permanent would impose significant losses on tens of millions of American households."

Funny thing is, most Americans figure that they will be rich someday, so they don't mind the benefits rich folks get- of course they're dead wrong, which is why they should hire me as their financial planner the second I get credentialed, but there you go.

2004-06-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Wolfowitz Testifies

Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, the committee's ranking Democrat, who read aloud the administration's goals for Iraq as stated last July, and said they had still not been met.

"The four pillars of this plan were establishing security, restoring essential services, creating conditions for economic development, and enabling the transition to democratic governance," Mr. Skelton said. "It's clear that these goals have not been achieved, at least not to the extent we had hoped, largely because we haven't established security."

Mr. Skelton asked Mr. Wolfowitz whether American forces might be required to remain in Iraq for "a good number of years."

"I think it's entirely possible," Mr. Wolfowitz replied. "But what I think is also nearly certain is the more they step up, and they will be doing so more and more each month, the less and less we will have to do."

> So the people who make a life out of imagining worse-than-worst-case-I'm-talkin'-apocalyptic-scenarios as the basis for preparation get post-war plans WILDLY wrong in the face of people who knew better saying so, ands all Wolfy can say is that the more we do, the less there is to be done ?!

It gets better:

Mr. Hussein's Iraq was "a state that had contacts of a murky but ominous sort with Al Qaeda," Mr. Wolfowitz said. "The mere fact of contact is disturbing."

> Please note: When Osama was fighting Russia, the US helped fund him. That also sounds murky and disturbing, but I guess he didn't think to mention it.

This man is as worthy of your disgust and rage as any in DC right now- save perhaps Asscroft...

2004-06-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

Firm With Bush-Saudi Ties Buys Loews Movie Theaters

"The Carlyle buy up of Loews probably won't affect the screening of Moore's movies at Loews theaters...but it raises troubling concerns that such a wealthy and powerful company with connections to both the Bush and Saudi royal family is making aggressive efforts to control more of what we see and hear - right on the eve of a movie critical of the Bush-Saudi relationship, and just as the mainstream media begins focusing more scrutiny of that relationship. Coincidence?"

2004-06-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

You Do Not Have the Right to Remain Silent

So the Supreme Court has ruled that you must provide your name to a police officer who asks for it "under circumstances which reasonably indicate that the person has committed... a crime." I guess you could always go to court and argue that you could not have been "reasonably" suspected of any crime whatsoever, but it's a lot to ask, to say the least. Your right to remain silent is severly compromised. Your leverage to stand up for your rights by remaining anonymous is crippled. As the Chinese say, "May you live in interesting times." These times feel a little too interesting lately...

2004-06-22T09:26:00.001-07:00

Affleck Wins

I am sorry to see this, as we'll probably end up seeing his bile-inducing mug more often, but Ben Affleck has won the Commerce Casino's California State Poker Championship and a seat at the World Poker Tour Championship.

2004-06-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

Bush Approval/ Disapproval Ratings

Neat graphic, even if you love the guy. Worm may have turned, tho, so very many reasons to wonder who's driving this thing.

2004-06-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

Calmer Attitude

Won my second $5 Omaha SNG, having now played three. I feel very good that I bobbed
and weaved well enough to outplay two opponents whose play I respected, sending me
into the weekend extra chipper. I have determined that a fundamental basis of my game that requires immediate and particular attention is my sense of calm. To that end, I log on accepting of a much slower pace- I'll play a hand now again again, but mostly swim around like a whale- slowly, out of the way, generally unnoticed, surfacing only occasionally when solid cards allow to win a pot and move back into the deep. I have determined that this approach does not mesh well with the habit of logging in, say in between the Simpsons and whenever Fox decides, TV Guide listing notwithstanding, to actually air Arrested Development. My desire to get a few hands in clashes with my need to wait for the right time to make a move. I suspect I will have my best results when I clear my calendar out and dedicate a couplethree hours to focusing on a game. One tack I am playing with beyond the visual image of that unhurried sea creature is having a very slow song in mind, something I can hum to myself as a reminder to play slowly, something to replace "Appetite for Desctruction" that currently compels me to click Re-raise like Crispin Glover on a Red Bull bender. This most certainly applies to live games- if I go in knowing I'm there for the long term, it becomes simpler to maintain a look of indifference on my face, i.e., I'll get my action sooner or later without needing to force it. The song especially should serve as a magnet to a more measured style of play. Alas, I will miss the chance to implement this attitude in my regular Tuesday game, as my wife has indicated that a 2nd anniversary trumps a card game.

2004-06-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

Cheney Lies

Not him too! :(

Exhibit A: Vice President Cheney talking to CNBC's Gloria Borger, June 17, 2004.

Borger: "Well, let's go to Mohamed Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, 'pretty well confirmed.'"

Cheney: "No, I never said that."

Borger: "Okay."

Cheney: "Never said that."

Borger: "I think that is..."

Cheney: "Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down."

Exhibit B: Cheney talking to NBC's Tim Russert on Dec. 9, 2001.

Cheney: "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that -- it's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don't know at this point, but that's clearly an avenue that we want to pursue."

UPDATE:

"The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."
~ Bush, 9/25/02

- - -

RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.

RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

CHENEY: We don’t know.

~ "Meet the Press", 9/17/03

> People didn't make the connection- it was manufactured for them. We don't want the "smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud," after all.

2004-06-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

BushCo Lies, Part MMMDDCLXXXVII

"The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."
~Bush, 9/9/2002

"The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11."
~Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

"Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002... acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."
~ Bush, in a letter to Congress still posted on the White House web site

"President Bush has made it very clear that there was not direct evidence linking to the 9/11 plot, and never did he make that suggestion."
~ White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, yesterday on CNN

> Sigh... another day, another lie, another rationale for war shot down.

2004-06-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

Magna Carta?

Magna Carta MY ASS!

"And thereupon the said lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, pursuant to their respective letters and elections, being now assembled in a full and free representative of this nation, taking into their most serious consideration the best means for attaining the ends aforesaid; do in the first place (as their ancestors in like cases have usually done) for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties, declare:

"That the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal.

"That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, or the executions of laws, by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal."

> It goes on...

2004-06-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

Friendly Game Too Friendly

We had a couple new guys over last inght for our home game, gents who it turns out play 4/8 hold'em in the casino. We chatted, joked, gabbed, bet, and lost. They sipped water quietly, raised, and mauled us.

I wanted to tighten up and did so, but not enough to win, although I lost a mere $1. I won two big pots, lost a bunch on silly calls only to inevitably fold shortly thereafter. These guys, however, provided an excellent model: no chatter, no swagger, no fancy moves, no overt emotion (sighs, groans), no brilliant, fancy plays (wise, given a few folks' inability to fold a mediocre hand), just solid, basic play.

I really want to play in another game, one with no friends, one where I can go to my "happy place" and calmly bet when the cards warrant. I did notice that my urgent desire to play is very much like my old desire to smoke a bowl when I had something to smoke, whether or not I actually wanted to smoke it- that is, the strings of addicition were being plucked. This is an excellent opportunity to listen to those dulcet tones- and let them dissolve- and let patience be my guide. This is a major benefit of poker: the lessons I seek to learn I imagine to help me well beyond the table.

2004-06-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

Bush Redux

Didn’t want to go to war?
Willing to go to war but didn’t like the timing?
Didn’t understand the urgency?
Didn’t appreciate the changing rationale for war?
Resent the continuing emphasis on Iraq-al Qaeda relationships that the 9/11 Commission has just reaffirmed never existed?
Wondering about the lack of WMD?
Disgusted by events at Abu Ghraib?
Baffled by the underfunding, underequipping, and undermanning of this war of choice?
Wondering how BushCo could have gotten so much so wrong without one shred of reflection about how it might have happened?
Wondering if any accountability whatsoever exists in Bush's universe?

“'I look forward to the debates where people are saying, 'Oh gosh, the world would be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power,' " Bush said.

2004-06-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

Don't Be Like Laak

I haven't commeneted on this yet, but I do agree with Jay Lovinger on how Phil Laak's abominable behavior during his WPT win was bad for the game. Shadow-boxing, crunchs, running around the room like a pre-schooler on a bugjuice binge and peeking at cards from behind the dealer, he not only looked as immature as they get but also imposed himself on other players, AKA "opponents." My opponent tries to hug me after sucking out and he's just as likely to get a knee to the nuts as a handshake. That his play was awful only accentuates my scoff. That said, I have read that he's generally a nice guy, for what it's worth...

2004-06-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

Reagan Revisited

Remember how Reagan tried to treat ketchup a vegetable in school lunches? This just in...

Based on a little-noticed change to obscure federal rules, the USDA defines frozen french fries as "fresh vegetables."

One pundit asks the obvious question: By this logic, is a plate of ketchup and fries considered a "salad?"

2004-06-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

If Reagan Did Not Exist, Conservatives Would
Invent Him

This past week during the first state funeral in the past 30 years homages to the late President Reagan were ubiquitous and disappointingly uniform. Reagan was by no means universally loved- he was vocally reviled by several constituencies- but you’d be hard pressed to notice that in the face of so much fawning coverage, including such quotes as these from National Review Online:

* "We are living in his world."
* "He made principles easily accessible."
* "He linked economic growth with strength overseas."
* "He changed our aspirations."
* "He knew who he was and what the world could be."
* "He would have been the right man at any time."
* "He illuminated what was good about America."

Greg Palast notes a few other aspects of Reagan’s two terms:

* Iran/ Contra scandal; paraphrased: “My heart tells me I did the right thing but the facts do not.”
* 29 felons in his administration (many of whom have now darkened the door of Bush Jr.’s White House)
* He refused to implement any sanctions against the police state of South Africa as the government went on a murder spree to insure that Black folks would never vote, despite the pleas of Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu.
* His Secretary of Interior, James Watt, launched a biological pogrom against trees (which, don’cha know, “cause pollution”).
* AIDS was identified in 1981. Reagan's official policy was to hit the research snooze button. Our president did not mention nor act on the epidemic until 1987- 30,000 funerals too late.
But let’s cut to the chase. Contemporary Republicans (I won’t sully the intellectual legacy of conservatism to associate it with the political thugs who run the country right now) have a single principle: CUT TAXES. Actually, that principle is subservient to eliminating all regulation that “ties the hands” of business, but basically we’re talking about severely crippling the delicate balance between a political system, Democracy, and an economic one, capitalism. Books can and have been written on that balance, I won’t go into it now except to suggest that their co-existence requires constant TLC. Public good and private enterprise can both overwhelm the other without a light touch on the levers of power.

So Reagan is championed from here to forever for being a huge tax cutter. I refer you now to a reassessment of "Reagan’s Liberal Legacy." Sure, he cut taxes, in a big way- then he raised them back up when he saw what he’d done, a couple times. Why don’t the Republicans of today mention this? Why do they cheer when Bush enacts massive tax cuts for the people who least need them at the expense of soldiers, sick people, the poor, small businesses, Democrats and even Republicans who neglected to donate to his last campaign? The hagiographic accolades have nothing to do with Reagan- he was a daft but charasmatic actor who wandered through the halls of power but he TALKED about tax cuts and SOLD them as a solution to any problem, making the idea of the government as problem instead of solution publicly palatable. On its face, it sounds moronic- it utterly ignores any discussion of the public good! Yet as a Big Lie, it shuffled off the stigma that had kept it chained in the basement, and now tax-cuts-at-all-costs zealot Grover Norquist can unabashedly advocate strangling government in a bathtub, presumably leaving warm fuzzy big businesses to look after your interests and mine (for the right price).

Reagan, for all his many warts, had a liberal legacy as well as a conservative one. But you will never hear a Republican be honest about it, lest their powermongering agenda be exposed.

2004-06-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

Alterman wonders...

It’s hard to say which is the best representation of what this war is doing to and has done to this country. Is it the lies that were told to get us into it? Is the fact that we are picking up innocent people off the street and torturing them? Is it that we have suspended the most basic civil liberties in our own country? Is it that the work of professional intelligence agencies has been corrupted? Is it that we have drawn resources away from the fight against Al Qaida which has completely regrouped? Is it that we are creating more terrorists? Is it that more than seven hundred Americans have been killed and thousands have been seriously injured? Is it that thousands of Iraqis have been killed but nobody is keeping an account of the numbers of their deaths? Is it that we are now more hated around the world than we have ever been? Is it that we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars while actually decreasing our security? Is it that we are doing all this while starving the most crucial homeland security programs? Is it that everyone who told the truth about what was being planned has been dismissed and seen their characters attacked? The usually soft-spoken and moderate intelligence analyst and author Thomas Powers does not exaggerate when he notes that Bush and the neocons have "caused the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in modern U.S. history."

2004-06-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

(My) Last Word on Fish

When you toss the word "fish" around, you begin to let yourself stop thinking about
a given player (or set thereof) and stop paying attention to their play because you have reduced your analysis to a catch-all label. If they do something unfishy, it catches you off-guard, needlessly so- there's the rub. If a player persists in sketchy moves, withhold respect for raises by calling or re-raising more often. All name-calling does is truncate your perceptions.

UPDATE: Alan Schoonmaker discusses First Impressions:

"Poker is a macho game, and self-confidence is essential for success. If you don't have confidence in your judgment, you can't win. Unfortunately, most players have too much confidence in their judgment; they don't read players or cards nearly as well as they think they do.... research clearly proves that most people overestimate their abilities... Once you put someone on a hand or decide he is a certain kind of player, you will overemphasize supporting evidence and minimize or ignore conflicting data."

Folks, this is why when I play Iggy live he'll stumble away feeling like he's been jumped, humped, and dumped. Don't let it happen to you!

2004-06-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

Military Commanders Against Bush

From LA Times, no link:

"A group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials, several appointed to key positions by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, plans to issue a joint statement this week arguing that President George W. Bush has damaged America's national security and should be defeated in November.

"The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, will explicitly condemn Bush's foreign policy, according to several of those who signed the document. . . . Those signing the document, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, include 20 former U.S. ambassadors, appointed by presidents of both parties, to countries including Israel, the former Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia.

"Others are senior State Department officials from the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations and former military leaders, including retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East under President Bush's father. Hoar is a prominent critic of the war in Iraq."

2004-06-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

More on Moron

Ashcroft told the Congressional Judiciary panel:

“The president has a right to receive advice from his attorney general in confidence and from other executive agencies, and this doesn’t mean that there can’t be debate on such topics. It just means that the private advice that the president receives from his attorney general doesn’t have to be part of the debate." [Since when are matters between a President and an Attorney General "private" ? Ludicrous.]

...

“The law is very clear,” said Durbin. “You have two options when you [ignore] this committee. Either the executive claims privilege and refuses to disclose or you site a statutory provision whereby Congress has limited its constitutional right to information.”

Democrats said Ashcroft’s advice to President Bush and other administration officials was not given at a personal meeting but in an extensive legal memo — one so comprehensive that it was more akin to a policy than to advice.

A Democratic Senate aide said that a U.S. attorney could file a contempt-of-Congress complaint against Ashcroft. But that would be extremely unlikely, as all federal attorneys general answer to Ashcroft.

The aide said Democrats would exhaust all options to extract the information from the Department of Justice, including voting to subpoena Ashcroft, before attempting to hold him in contempt.

“That’s a very serious step, to hold a Cabinet official in contempt,” said the aide. “There would be an attempt to subpoena [first].”

2004-06-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Omaha Party

...AKA Oma-hate, but mostly Oma-hee-haw.

Won a $5 Party Omaha SNG, feeling very good about that. Hold'em is so much the rage that I really feel that by practicing a game in which so many mistakes are possible means I'm developing a hedge against tough runs in the more popular game. By the time regular hold'em players start playing Omaha in serious numbers, my line will be ever so baited.

2004-06-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

Pot Odds: A Mild Simplification

Before the flop, there are 50 unknown cards; by the time you see the river, there are 45. Do you honestly want to be dividing 8 into 47, 7 into 46, etc, let alone as the first of two calculations? Hell, no! I can do basic math as fast as anyone I know, and I see no reason to put myself through such shenanigans.

Do this: assume the number of unknowns is always 48. 48 divides evenly by 2,3,4,6,8, and 12. This should get you pretty close, certainly close enough to then check in with your empirical observations, memory of past events, and gut instinct to make a defensible decision. Your alternative is to break out a calculator and ignore what's happening around you for the sake of one factor in handling action.

Good luck.

2004-06-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

A Despicable Man

This man is our Attorney General??? Jon Stewart rip-roaringly skewers Ashcroft's testimony to a Congressional panel (click "Finding Memo"). Ashcroft tells the panel that he won't reveal information because, well, he won't. The disrespect for Congress and the Constitution continues apace, and the humiliation of America should be complete in no time. I am truly at pains to imagine what else they'd destroy given another four years to meddle.

2004-06-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

Great (if you're white) Communicator

A letter to Eric Alterman:

Eric, would you be kind enough to take a little time out of your terrorist-loving, anti-semitic, blame-america-first douche-bag day, and take a look at the tv pictures of those 200,000 americans filing past mr reagan's casket, and tell me how many black americans you see waiting in line?

i thought so. i couldn't find any, either.

2004-06-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

Brother Ray

It's not much, but a sincere moment of silence is due the man they called "The Genius," quite possibly the most talented, wide-ranging musician we'll see for a long, long time.

2004-06-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

Abu Ghraib- The Noose Tightens

The General heading up an investigation into abuses at Abu Ghraib is asking te be removed from duty because his rank of two stars prevents him from confronting peopel all the way up the chain of command (but I thought this
was a few bad apples blowing off steam...?)

Yeah, Bush sure did change the tone is Washington- no one was debating when it was OK to brush off international stadards of conduct during a war of choice to let dogs chew on random people picked up off the streets in a country we were supposedly liberating while establishing the kind of Democracy not practiced at home. Thanks, Dubya, you insipid God-drunk empty suit.

This, however, is good news:

"Within the last several days, an important figure in the inquiry who had previously refused to cooperate with Army investigators suddenly reversed his position and agreed to work much more closely with investigators, a senior Senate aide and a senior Pentagon official said.

"That important development prompted General Fay to send some of his 29-person team back into the field to conduct more interviews, the officials said. 'A key witness, a key person who'd pled the military equivalent of the Fifth has changed his attitude, and Fay is reopening the investigation,' the Senate official said.

"The officials said they did not know the identity of the witness."

I almost don't like discussing politics these days- Bush has absolutely zero credibility, and
I don't even want to acknowledge him by taking his lies and excuses seriously enough to shoot them down.

2004-06-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

Deposit...?

So now Party- and Empire, both of which seem to be experiencing some difficulties- are back to not letting me deopsit via credit card. I tried five times a while back, only to see the sixth attempt work for no discernible reason. I am left to lurk in play money Omaha tourneys. That's no way to blog.

2004-06-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

To Be Serious

This past Tuesday I found myself alarmed at how many stupid hands I was playing, I was chasing like a dog after a car. My stack got so low, lower than ever before, that I had to lash out in a couple small bluffs, each of which mercifully succeeded but that left me feeling desparate. We had a new player, one with some solid experience, so one would have hoped I'd tighten up (at least I managed to read him pretty well). Oddly, four of us experienced the same thing: poor play, a significant dip in fortune, only to realize a late boost. The (dare I say it) fishy player whose inexplicably great wins plagued us for weeks has now had a large loss for the third week running, with no real clue about how to stem the bleeding, so perhaps it just took us a bit to trap him right and proper. I hope he doesn't flee with his easy money, but he needs help. Another new player is joining us next week, and I am left to assess: How can I best enter what is very much a social situation where people are having fun and knuckle down to win? It's the same in a casino, where being moody and analytical marks you like the guy at a party who sulks in a corner. No ne wants to mix it up with that person, but throwing money in the pot because everyone else is doing it is a damn stupid way to improve my card game. I may just start counting the number of hands I play and set a benchmark for myself... I think my goal is to play a tight but unusually aggressive style, perhaps invest in being caught in a bluff for a few bucks, and punish people who overestimate how often that happens.

2004-06-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

King Bush

No link available, soory, but the info will be widespread soon enough. Bushies are claiming that he is above the law and can do what he wants (e.g., torture) when he decides that, well, he wants to. This administration's disrespect for the rule of law has shot straight through the frigid airs of the upper troposphere. He must be stopped.

"The legal memo, written last year for the Defense Department and disclosed this week, did not speak for President Bush, but it claimed an extraordinary power for him. It said that as the commander in chief, he had a 'constitutionally superior position' to Congress and an 'inherent authority' to prosecute the war, even if it meant defying the will of Congress....

"A broad range of legal experts, including specialists in military law, say they were taken aback by this bald assertion of presidential supremacy.

" 'It is an extraordinary claim. It is as broad an assertion of presidential authority as I have ever seen,' said Michael Glennon, a war law expert at Tufts University. 'This is a claim of unlimited executive power. There is no reason to read the commander-in-chief power as trumping the clear power of Congress.' "

2004-06-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

Iggy Speaks (Grunts?)

Ah, how my heart soared to notice that three- three!- comments were made in response to my most recent post. But nay, the trills rippling through my heart were not meant to endure, as all comments are from one guy, Iggy, and he's basically telling me I'm an asshat.

I imagine that most of his ranting is fueled less by my post than by my comment on Cards Speak wherein I seconded the advice of one Coach who said the term "fish" is bandied about too often by beginning players and belies a certain impetuousity. Coach was right and I was absolutely correct in supporting him, although a few commenters got a wee defensive and defended Hank instead of addressing the issue at hand (including, laughably and inevitably, The Republican {shudder} Fat Guy, who finds a way to get on the wrong side of pritnear every issue, poker brilliance (or lack thereof? I dunno) notwithstanding, but I digress).

Anyhoo, I will subtly point out that Iggy's writing is every inch symptomatic of what Coach diagnosed- self-aggrandizement, *regardless* of skill level- and return now to this particular blather:

1) He notes that my comment "relative to many other players including most we all play against we are all somewhat fishy" is "one of the dumbest things i've ever read from a poker blogger." Well, it's among the dumber things I've written. So there. Iggy 1, me 0. But he then goes on suggest that "it may be true for you, but certainly not for long-term winning players." Yo, Ig, who's talking about "long-term winning players" ? Pokerblogging itself doesn't even warrant long-term status, and Hank says he's been playing a year. Face! Tie score. BTW, I'm a fish and I know it, altho in my home game I am ahead 7 weeks running, so I'm not a *complete* idiot. I think I made it clear from the beginning that my blog was not about hand analysis, but about the more fundamental qualities a skilled player develops, and that brings us to...

2) Iggy saying my comment that adaptation is the #1 skill a poker player requires "is the SECOND dumbest thing" I've written. Dude, address the specifics. Spell out why I'm wrong; follow up by presenting a better assessment; top it off by backing up your alternative. Can't do it? I'm not surprised, because my logic is freakin' awesome!

3) "For what it's worth, i do enjoy your blog." Yeah, I enjoy yours, too. I know I'm a beginner (that's what makes me so perectly modest) and that I've got a long way to go to earn the legitimate confidence that's only on loan these early days. To bolster my case, tho, I refer you to images of Howard Lederer after winning the limit hold'em cruise in WPT season 1 (I think?)- he won it all and stood there as if he was waiting for the bus. Winning did not ascertain his brilliance or dominance, his value as a person, his personal charm or dick size- all those are a function of self-evaluation. He knew he was good enough to do it, and if he didn't he wouldn't crumble- he's HUMBLE enough to know that bad suckouts happen to good people and that calm will get him- has gotten him- through travails you and I may never have to see. When Phil Hellmuth loses, people rush over to kick him while he's down. Howard has more endurance, and my bet is absolutely on him to make more over a lifetime.

On that note, I do look forward to more engaging convo, and hopefully I won't alienate too many more people I've never met with more such blinding insights.

UPDATE: Upon learning that Iggy is every bit the animal lover I am- we house and feed a dog, 5 cats, plus an off-site horse- and that his dog is in trouble, to say nothing of wanting someone to benefit from my Empire account creation, I am letting the world know that besides being obnoxious I am also periodically thoughtful and have used IGGY1 as a bonus code- may Iggy and his menagerie benefit wildly from whatever boost he derives.

2004-06-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

Licking Wounds

I did something I wanted to do this weekend, and something I did not. I found the gumption to try out the $25 buy-in NL games on Party (good), and promptly found myself in choppy waters indeed, losing $50, I am embarrassed to say, very quickly (bad).

I then blew the remaining $10 of my original stake, meaning that I stretched $100 from 03/28/04... I can't be too bitter about that, seeing as I'd be at $50 right now if I'd avoided the NL games, and the entertainment-per-hour rate was quite good. I also have time to lick my wounds and study Poker Tracker before a next deposit, which, against my gentle nature, may wait until a decent bonus comes along... or tomorrow night, whichever comes sooner.

I am happy to say that certain considerations I knew in my head I now know in my gut:

~ I will no longer sign on in expectations of playing more than one hand out of every six or eight. With my breathless anticipation thus moderated, I am in no hurry to get action- I'll get it only when my cards are ready to weather a raise. This does mean I have to find something useful, interesting, and/or productive to do between hands.

~ Position truly is of massive importance- moreso in NL, of course, but taking a proverbial tire iron to the skull tends to leave a lasting impression across games. I have new respect for the button. I will play NL again, but only with a much more robust buffer in my bankroll. I feel like I peeked outside to gauge the wind and watched a tornado drop a couch on me. But then, everyone starts somewhere. I am a beginner and I know it. I pay attention and will improve over time. I have seen what I'm up against. I am capable of rising to the challenge. It will not be easy...

Thinking about the #1 skill of a poker player, I have to believe that it is this: adaptation. Today I play limit hold'em, tomorrow Omaha hi/lo, the next day a short-handed home game, and then no limit hold 'em, perhaps some stud after that, and finally a visit to a second home game with all new players. Nothing will get you through that gauntlet without knowledge of, or better, an instinct for, when to switch gears and observations of who plays how, and under what circumstances. This is why on-line play suffers so harshly compared to the live alternative, but so be it.

UPDATE: Another way of looking at this is to say that I may be waiting for a card so high and mighty I never deal another, to reference Leonard Cohen, like any player- but that I don't count on it showing before, say 2012, so waiting to grind until I start crushing is like waiting under the basket for God to toss me an alley oop. Profit will come but not today, and not tomorrow, either. Bitching about a string of maddening hands won't help, either, altho of course I will now indulge- A23x in Omaha8, and sure as shama-lama-ding-dong all 3 cards come down the pike. GAAHHH!!! Still, if indeed I am in it for the long term, then I might as well start acting like it now and take my time to do it right.

2004-06-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

Reading Caro

I've been finding that with all the poker writing out there it can be challenging indeed to separate the wheat from the chaff- CardPlayer Mag, for instance, sure does print some nonsense in pursuit of ad dollars, filling up pages with stuff that is frankly not very productive. Of course, I commit the same sin by writing this blog that drains precious seconds from your otherwise useful surfing experience, but I don't charge for the honor.

That said, I am seeing my day-to-every-three-days-or-so play honestly affected by one writer lately, and that is Mike Caro. There are several reasons for this:

1) He is very much a "Play the Player" kinda guy. I could spend more time on memorizing the odds of overcards beating top pair, but that's an answer to a question I don't (yet) have. What I wanna know is, Is the guy in Seat 3 full of it?

2) On a similar note, he (and more now, I) use chitchat as a tool for gathering information. On one hand, I want people to feel comfortable around me as we play- if they like me, they don't resent paying me off. Also, the more we chat, the more I can observe baselines of behavior against which I can compare their adjustments under action. I can make a timely joke to disrupt their thought processes without explicitly seeming to be doing just that; I can appear unaware and vulnerable when I am not; I can encourage a fun (i.e., loose) atmosphere; etc etc. A rock would say, sit back and observe all- to which I say, that is not only not a way to enjoy the game, but also, passivity is only half of the challenge- *engaging* the competetion on MY terms- asserting control over the table dynamic- is critical. The trick is not to come off as a rip-roaring jackhole, so I save a few jokes week to week, cheerily greet everyone as they arrive, and thrill with them to the mysterious slow drain of their stacks.

3) He harps on avoiding "Fancy Play Syndrome" (FPS). I am *still* getting mileage off a rep for bluffing at my home game despite not trying more than a reasonable semi-bluff for a month. People (i.e., fish) love to think that bluffing is a huge element of poker, but good cards sure do help. I bet them when I get them, and it's a steady profit for me.

4) He de-epmhasizes tells- yes, this is an absurd thing to say about a guy who wrote "Mike Caro's Book of Tells," but at the low limits I play (let alone the uselessness of the book for on-line play), Johnny scratching his ass might not be the explosive indication of a flush draw I want to believe it is. I pay attention to betting patterns first, never, of course, ignoring tics n' such, but not trusting my opponents to be particularly good at reading tells, let alone at seeing through my halo-sporting veneer of bullpucky. I relax (tension can well magnify quirks when they appear), subtly encouraging their own imaginations to tear them apart, and then read them slightly better than they read me.

I kicked some serious ass at Omaha8 last night, returning to my comfort zone after a dalliance with ruin, and have enough to fund an exploration into $25NL Party tables that a series of humiliating buggeries pre-empted last week. My plan: Dn't sit down when I'm distracted by the dog's ambulance-imitating wails or the wife's intimations that I should be listening to Tales From the Garden, or even when I've got a book I want to read. Play When I Want to PLAY. That is how to focus, and subsequently, how to win.

UPDATE: Reading Steve Badger is leading me to appreciate a little, too, about acting. Bluffing in a game where people are on the lookout for such antics has to be done with finesse to have any chance of *enduring* success. Therefore, when he sits down at a table, the winning player is climbing into an ape suit, assuming a character.

When I was taking pool lessons, my teacher pointed out that in pursuing excellence- and it goes for any activity- one must eventually move past the social aspects, i.e., stop playing a "friendly" game. I like my friends, and our Tuesday game is fun- but I want to rob them blind, if only to prove I can. When I can stop joking, stay quiet for long stretches and not let the grind unsettle me, and use the knowledge that my demeanor and style increasingly make opponents nervous, that will be a legitimate, and somewhat profound, hallmark of improvement. Anyone can lurch into a few bucks hangin' out with the guys- crushing them at a game that seems simple enough on its face means they'd better be paying attention, because I certainly am.

2004-06-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

Hammertime

Table Hippies Joint (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: MP1 ( $11.25 )
Seat 2: MP2 ( $2.25 )
Seat 3: LP1 ( $5.5 )
Seat 4: LP2 ( $19.75 )
Seat 6: SB ( $26 )
Seat 7: BB ( $24.12 )
Seat 8: EP1 ( $73.75 )
Seat 10: EP2 ( $33.25 )
Seat 5: kuboa ( $24 )
kuboa posts small blind [$0.25].
SB posts big blind [$0.5].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to kuboa [ 2h 7s ]

LP2: phew. I just knew you were sitting on a 10 8 lol
BB folds.
EP1 folds.
EP2 folds.
MP1 folds.
MP2 calls [$0.5].
LP1 folds.
LP2 folds.
kuboa calls [$0.25].
SB checks.

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9h, 2d, 5d ]

kuboa checks.
MP2 checks.

** Dealing Turn ** [ 2c ]

kuboa bets [$1].
SB folds.
MP2 folds.
kuboa does not show cards.
kuboa wins $2.50

2004-05-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

Bankroll and Other Basics

I just realized that I haven't discussed my bankroll at all... here are some factoids about that detail and some others vis a vis my play:

I've been playing only the lower limits, $.50/$1, in Hold'Em and Omaha Hi/Lo, plus $5 SNGs, in which I've been doing OK, winning outright almost as often as not. I've tried the $10 level twice and done less well, but am of a mind to concentrate on and rapidly elevate my NL skills, as my weekly home game is NL (albeit not solely HE), and I'm looking to get more comfortable with properly aggressive play. Three months or so ago I deposited $100 at Party, rose to $210, dropped to $70, and am now at... $100. A guy at my home game also started with a $100 stake, which he sad he'd just burned through, so I feel capable. I can't play more than few hours per week, which I try to concentrate on weekends, the fishiest time- I play for profit and devour poker articles and blog entries, picking up tips on improvement as I can. I've read Lee Jones, Sklansky's TOP, and much of SuperSystem, which is like a baby trying to pilot a plane, so of course I suffer from what Mike Caro (who writes extremely accessible articles, BTW and is my favorite writer right now) call "Fancy Play Syndrome" (FSP).

I don't drink while I play, I don't do a lot of math at the table despite having what I can honestly say are exceptional basic math skills, because I want to get a feel for the game and play a lot to develop a sensitivity to what questions are worth asking, and I'm thinking of jumping into a lower-stakes NL ring game for giggles (I do so love giggles). I figure, education comes at some cost, so I may just start throwing my bankroll around a little more freely- at this point, if I'm ever going to win something meaningful, I can't be afraid to lose a limp l'il C-note (I don't mean play looser, I mean put more money in the pots). My hope and expectaion is to make useful money at this someday. I'm competetive- I used to hold my own in pool tourneys- and beyond my math skills, I have ample capacity for ambiguity in my inner life- to say nothing of the ability to f*nk with peoples' minds. I have the tools with which to build a solid game, all I have to do... is do it.

2004-05-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

Practice Tools

Found a mucho coolo Pre-flop practice tool. I plan to test it toute de suite and for better or worse, exhaust it as a resource. I'll probably learn something, however small, and that's good.

I keep thinking I need practice and then going home and playing. Bad call- that habit disrespects the need for periods of non-competitive analysis. I bought PokerTracker but it's so frickin' unwieldy I'm intimidated, can't quite figure out how to derive honestly useful info from it yet. I'm rationalizing that I haven't played so many hands that much in the way of pattersn will have been established so far, but mostly I'm plain freaked out. Advice on how to unfreak is most welcome.

I'd like to get Texas Turbo Hold'Em, but I'd have to do it when my wife wasn't looking lest she justifiably ask who the hell I think I am dropping more cash on tools when I don't make good use of the one I have. But hey, I'm studying, and time in the classroom ain't free- surely that blistering logic will smooth my path to spending bliss... surely...

I definitely like the idea of practicing in non-reading form. Lounging on my couch is a mediocre way to prepare for face-to-face booty-bootin'.

UPDATE: This damn simulation seems to run the limited number of test hands in the same order every time, instead of using a randomizer of any sort. See, that's not cool...

2004-05-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

What Makes a Pro?

Paul Philips discusses a recent game:

“Play a single table satellite for the main event. Go from 5000 to 15000 in the first twenty minutes thanks to an insane run of big pairs. Then through the normal course of events it's six-handed and you have 10000 left. Blinds 200-400, Hoyt Corkins raises to 1000 on the button, you call in the big blind with KhQd.

”Flop is: QhTd9h. You fire in your entire stack, 9400. Hoyt burns the skin off his arms beating you into the pot with his remaining 8000. Must have KJ or a set, right? Oops, guess I got what I deserved for overbetting 8000 into a 2200 pot. Except that Hoyt only has Ah4h. Rivers the flush. Go out next hand with an ace against the button's AK.”

My issue here is: Hoyt doesn’t have pot odds to call. Let’s do the math and ask why Hoyt was so psyched.

SB: T200
BB: T400
Hoyt’s raise: T600
Paul’s call: T600
Pre-Flop pot: T1800

Paul’s bet: T9400

Pot total: T11200
Hoy’s call: T8000

Hoyt threw 8000 chips at an 11200 pot (call it 12000), getting 1.5 odds for his money, no? I may be misunderstanding, but even so why would he be overtly anxious about his call, as if he were getting a great deal? He has 9 outs with 47 unknown cards, slightly worse than 5:1 odds- but his 8000 bet was NOT getting him a 40000 payday. Obviously he was playing the player, but even so it strikes me as curious, and also makes me think that studying numbers- and this is coming from a guy who once memorized 400 digits of pi- is not the best use of one’s poker study time. Folks, find a style that works for you, develop a massive and implacable tolerance for ambiguity (key!) and let railbirds wonder how you vary from by-the-book play and get away with it. Remember, contemporary tournaments render much of Sklansky of freshly compromised value.

2004-05-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

Fish Tank

Had a couple extra players at the ol’ Tuesday home last night. We had one guy who has lost big before and did so quickly again, inattentively throwing raise after raise into a paird, high-carded board in Omaha8 with a low flush. We had a guy who, Bold as Love™, jacked up the pot by a nickle on several occasions and left with a couple bucks but only because he left early after winning a huge hand- with a boat he had to be told he had. The third guy, two hours in, folded a brilliant low hand because he had no idea whatsoever what constituted a low hand. We had the worm-has-turn gent who is finally losing as he so richly deserves to do and who dropped another lode. We had the guy who isn’t bad, per se, but isn’t as good as I think he thinks he is- he certainly doesn’t intimidate me, for what it’s worth- who also dropped a healthy chunk of change- his thing is tells, which I maintain are over-rated, especially at lower limits- he will suffer for his unnecessarily sophisticated observations! We had me, who was determined to think harder about what was happening around me (and is thus intermittently frustrated by how social our games are when I get a mind to go down n’ dirty), winning, partly thanks to yet another late-game rally a decent $18. Finally, we had the host, to whom all meaningful pots were lost. In a $10 buy-in game, he changed $20 bills twice and held onto a full freakin’ US$80. ‘Twas the best night ever for anyone. He didn’t make much in the way of mistakes, one has to give him credit. He nearly got a cramp in his chip-staking hand. Alas, he could stand to be a better winner and not marvel at his stack when people around him are losing- and perhaps inclined to lose less to people like me because they feel self-conscious.

Mistakes? I called a turn raise knowing I was beat, only to fold on the river when I finally noticed I was drawing dead: Stupid! I avoided something similar when I realized a guy incurring heavy losses wasn’t likely to be indulging himself a bluff. I had good hands I wanted to get more value from, and I kept driving people out, but at least I picked up small profit… still, I need to make the most of my good cards when they come. On several early occasions I bet good hands only to see people “let” me buy the pot when I was earnestly pining for a call. I have a reputation for frequent bluffs that seems to be dying hard as I have tightened up lately and no one seems to have acknowledged the fact, much to my delight, all the moreso because others are picking up the slack. I will bluff again, but will be muy judicious, what with suspicions so aroused. Until then, I’ll work on betting good hands as if they were bluffs… I should devote no small amount of time to thinking how to do so.

2004-05-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Principle, Meet Reality

David Brooks: "It's a huge gamble to think that the solution to chaos is liberty. But it's fitting that during the gravest crisis of his presidency, President Bush reverted to his most fundamental political belief. He began this war in Iraq repeating the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, that our creator has endowed all human beings with the right to liberty, and the ability to function as democratic citizens. He said last night with absolute confidence that the Iraqis are democrats at heart."

Sir Isaiah Berlin: "Liberty for wolves is death for the lambs."

2004-05-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

Humility

A funny thing happened this weekend. A player in a $5 SNG was extremely rude to me in chat- his perogative, of course, and successful in the sense that it put me on tilt. But I felt like a rug of sorts had been pulled out from underneath me, and I’ve been somewhat moody since it happened. To make matters worse, the same thing happened in another SNG- a player advised me that a certain bet was fooling no one and I really needed to work on my game. I wish he hadn’t busted out in 8th so he’d know I won it, but still. In the end, it’s not the insult that lingers, it’s the fact that I believe it. I do need to work on my game.

Of course, I play in the lowest limits offered- where the F* else am I supposed to practice? But then, common sense would have bounced off these peoples’ skulls like so much nerf. Although I most certainly do not play poker because the people are courteous and charming- I play in spite of peoples’ lesser qualities so enthusiastically displayed- it is never fun to encounter such childish antics. Layne Flack pointed out that you don’t even need to be able to spell your name to be a good poker player, it’s kind of like Mozart knowing nothing at age 4 but how to write a symphony. But still, the upshot is that I was not in much mood to play. I did- I reread some of my Lee Jones and won another $5 SNG- but my heart wasn’t quite in it. Do I really want to spend my free time amidst rampant jackassery?

Iggy recently wrote about the simple need for confidence in a winner’s game. That is no doubt true. But to go one deeper, I think you need a modicum of humility. One reason is, you must have a clear vision of your ability. You can’t improve if fear of an honest appraisal inhibits you from admitting that yes, you have been known to play a foolish style from time to time, especially if you’re a relative beginner. But humility also allows you to practice, to try things even if they are almost certain to fail so that you don’t do them again once the knowledge of likelihoods is in your blood, not between pages of this book or that one. If the latters’ the case, you’re left, in the heat of a moment to remember what to do instead of listen to the echoes of personal experience (Mike Sexton: “Think long, think wrong.”) This freedom derives from a willingness to forgive yourself. I called a raise on the flop with only two overcards- a crime? Of course not. Wise? Probably not, especially under the circumstances. The price- quickly bounced out of a SNG leaving some lucky bastard to splurge with my $5 at Dairy Queen. Somehow I think I’ll recover. But the enduring truth of this is that I will be slower to act because I take time to think about what’s happening in front of me- routinely my biggest errors come from blasting away at the Call button when I should be wondering what Mr. X might be doing, and I find myself looking upward from the trap I’ve so deftly, gazelle-like, leapt into. Slow down, Checkers- think, weigh evidence, take calculated risks. I avoided a couple traps, I won a few dollars, and I got kicked in the junk with, I’m sorry to say, legitimate criticism. But if I don’t saunter into a game with bold and blind expectations of grand profit, I will only be more dangerous. I will work harder for my money, and my opponents will be worse off for it.

UPDATE: Again with this theme of balance, it seems the real trick is to weigh receptivity with assertion. Now I'm listening to you, picking up clues... now I'm betting heavily, forcing you to react. These are different impulses, impossible to express simultaneously; therefore the expert knows how to move between them, and how to use that movement to the degree that it is beyond control.

UPDATE 2: Post changed to reflect fact that Iggy, not Mean Gene, was the blogger who recently addressed the topic of confidence.

UPDATE 3: A Slave to Variance agrees that the rake in a poker game is partly the money and partly those G*dd@mn other poker players: "No matter how you slice it gamblers in general, and poker player in particular, can be very grating people to hang out with. Most everyone gets a bit nasty when they lose money, and at any given table, at least half the people are losing. And just like people in general, some of them are truly difficult to be around. The combination of the two means that you will be forced to interact with unpleasant people all day long." (PS Check out Andrew's cool hand analyzer Poker Stove!)

2004-05-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

Loser, Losing

Dan Froomkin of the WaPo comments on what went unsaid during Bush’s unpeppy "pep talk" to House ‘Pubs:

• He didn't provide any new details about the June 30 transition of sovereignty in Iraq.
• He didn't persuade a handful of balking Senate Republicans to go along with his tax plans.
• He didn't dissuade House Republicans from approving provisions in the defense bill he has threatened to veto.
• He didn't talk about embattled Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld or Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi.
• He didn't comment on the prison-abuse scandal.
• He didn't come up with a new speech.
• He didn't take any questions.
• He didn't say anything new.
Oh, and of course:
• He didn't meet with Democrats at all.
and
• He didn't talk to reporters.

I'll add one thing: He didn't mention that Kerry has outfundraised him for two months running. Darkness? Falling.

2004-05-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

Two Thoughts on Bush

1) He does not make mistakes. Nothing is worth thinking through, because he acts on gut instinct, probably from a deliberately undeveloped inability to think critically lest it intrude on perfect faith. Nor do his loyal subjects, because they are loyal, and so his insular world has little place for accountability. No real revelation, but a simple assessment. Onward…

2) He will not win in November. My friends are cautiously optimistic, I am not even cautious, especially after the shark-jumping Abu Ghraib meltdown, and here’s my simple reason why: While some conservatives are jumping ship (George Will, Bill O’Reilly, and others have expressed concerns), NO BODY IS JUMPING *ON* BOARD with Busho. He is unable to make friends, although of course he retains a few power-mad apologists who may well go down with the captain. But you can lose only so many friends without making a single one before the Shi’ite hits the fan. Amen.

2004-05-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

Sly Ivey

From Howard Lederer's 2003 WSOP Report from day four:

Ivey opened in early position and Deeb called in the BB. The flop came K99 and Deeb checked. Ivey bet about 30,000 and Deeb called. On the turn the board came (K99) 4 and Deeb checked. Ivey bet about 50,000 and Deeb called. The river came (K99) 4 7. Deeb checked again, and Ivey moved in for about 150,000 more. Deeb went deep into the tank. I have played quite a bit with Phil this year, and I felt pretty sure he was bluffing. After about two minutes, Freddy folded. I flashed Phil a look like I knew he just got away with murder. The sheepish grin he returned to me confirmed my suspicions. What a great play by Phil there. Later, on the break, I warned him to not try any of that stuff with me. He just laughed and said, "You get your chips your way, and I'll get my chips my way.". No truer words have ever been spoken about NLHE. You have to find your own style and make it work for you. Trying to blindly copy what other good players do is a sure recipe for disaster.

2004-05-19T16:19:00.000-07:00

Everything You Know is Wrong (Possibly Unless You're Young)

Jesse May takes a look at The State of the Game and says "Geeyawd Damn, things ain't what they wuz, and frankly, no one knows what they is." Here's a few of the tastier observations:

~ The game of poker today is large field tournament poker. This game is less than three years old, and it bears little or no relation to the poker that has come before.

~ Daniel Negreanu makes twenty-seven rebuys in a No Limit Hold’em event and comes third. When making his twenty-fifth rebuy, he had no chips... when I asked him about the tournament, his only response was, “I was very happy about the way I played.” Is he smart, or an idiot?

~ David Sklansky has long been considered a leader in a field entitled game theory, theories based mostly on numbers and his cards, yet his tournament results over the past few years indicate that he has absolutely no chance whatsoever to win a large field event.

~ Everyone says that televised poker is making the game easier to learn, but as long as televised tournaments are aired on an edited basis, viewers are getting only one half of a champion’s story. You see the hands that they play, but rarely the hands that they fold.

~ If you’ve been playing poker successfully for the last fifteen years, the hardest thing to do is to accept you know nothing. Many successful cash game players enter tournaments with the idea that they should sit down and just play cards. All evidence points to the fact that nothing could be farther from the truth.

2004-05-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Home Game: Breakthrough!

A very positive development occurred last night. No, I didn’t play like a master, although I was up $9, a decent if modest showing. The gentleman longtime readers remember as the routinely-big-winner-despite-general-cluelessness finally lost- and lost big. In fact, he was the only player who lost at all. There were a mere 4 of us, and we all divvied up his stake, including the extra he dipped into his wallet for. Delicious indeed. It is my hope and desire that he will be cowed into a “Once Bitten Twice Shy” mode where he actually starts thinking about what’s happening, and as such becomes more readable, predicable, and manipulatable (sp?). The odds finally caught up with him, and the long shots he took weren’t there for him this time. As it happens, I had begridgingly admitted that he couldn’t be bluffed, and with a small group decided to play it pretty straight, which was wise given my previous indulgent overemphasis on fancy plays. A good call on the last pot of the night got me a boost from the chip leader, and I now have 4 consecutive winning weeks on record. Again, Omaha8 was good to me given peoples’ unawareness of how fast things can change. And sure enough, three pots of 60 or so made all the difference…

2004-05-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

No Tourney, but Profit Nonetheless

Well, Friday afternoon I got a call saying that the host of the Saturday tournament had just gotten her biospy back… let’s just say the tourney did not go forward as planned. Major drag- sucks to see happen to someone you know, and of course I don’t know what to say, not that that should prevent me from coming up with something. I just know her from a few Tuesday home games, which I doubt she’ll be joining more of anytime soon (another drag), but the invite to her major event had broken some ice between us..

I did sit down for a few hands anyway, though, winning an afternoon $5 NL SNG coming from behind, a nice l’il rush. I followed up later that night in a full table of Omaha’ers, including a punchfest that saw 5 players cap the betting pre-flop. I then flopped the nuts, K99 to my king kong, and it was a massive $29 pot, all for me. I later won a $20 pot solo, leaving me up $45 for the session and $65 for the day, quite possibly my best day ever live or otherwise.

Been reading “Theory of Poker,” and am not altogether impressed by the psychology or “reading hands” sections. Still, the more I play the more I can tease out of the books, stuff that didn’t make much sense makes more, and I plan to cruise through the less technical stuff before hitting Lee Jones again.

2004-05-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

Useful Numbers

Decker provides a baseline I can really learn from:

"I win when my seeing flop % is in the high 20’s. I win more when it is in the mid to lower 20’s. Now, as I tear into the stats of players who appear to be bigger winners, then I, they all share several things in common. Their flop seeing percentage is low 20’s sometimes upper teens. Their VP$IP% (voluntarily put $ in the pot) is 20 or lower. They are trashing loser hands. We all say we trash loser hands, but define loser hands? I have found it nearly impossible to fold KJo, even in the face of a raise and regardless of my position. But the fact is, in the face of a raise, KJo is a loser. Throw it away. See, I know this, but in the fairly recent past, I’d play it every time. QTo is a no brainer in almost every situation. Throw it away."

He goes on to make the obvious point that many people- including him- play dominated hands anyway In Search Of... an emotional high. Lo, fickle discipline, yer a bee-yotch.

Speaking of comments, which no one was, here's a piece of the thread around the abovementioned post:

"Say that you are in with KJo and the flop comes Kxx, giving you top pair. You bet and a solid player raises. Maybe they have a higher kicker (AK?), or two pair, or even a set. That might be a hard laydown, for some, but a correct one."

Part of me thinks, Hey, poker is SITUATIONAL. If all a solid player has to do is raise a K-high flop to get KJo to fold, then party on, Wayne. That could easily be leveraging position. But maybe I'm just bitter because I know I'd want to play what these guys say is an "easy" laydown. In any case, at $.50 Party fish games, the stuff above starts sounding quite irrelevant...

2004-05-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

I Hate 3-Card Monte

Spent three of four hours last night at my home game crushing people- dealer's choice, and I kept calling Omaha8 on the very correct assumption that my recent practice would translate into me setting and not falling into traps other didn't recognize. Ahh, life was good. Scooping with a wheel is a beautiful thing.

Then.... got into a game of 3-card monte- three cards, two draws, the first of two cards max, the next of one max- I started with a 642 and stood pat against one opponent. He drew two, then one, calling heavy bets, then raised my $5 on the last round to the biggest bet we'd ever seen, throwing a $20 dollar bill into the pot. I smelled a bluff, peeled off three fives and lost to a 321, the best hand possible.

It bugs me when people apologize for winning, but I'll live. What also bugs me- not that I wouldn't have drawn one to a K21, too- is that this guy says he doesn't understand the principles of good play (good starting hands, pot odds, etc), and yet wins every week, and wins big. He is very hard to read, a skill I need to apply myself to with determination, which is hard because the game is fun and it's easy to want to tell jokes if you're an incorrigible wiseass. But at a certain point, doesn't the math take over and his stack go down? Or maybe I don't actually understand odds, either. This is the same guy with two pair who, with three, then four, then five hearts on the board called every bet I made. Sure, I had 82o, neither a heart nor paired, but he realized after we split that any heart would have made a higher flush- how do you beat someone who doesn't know what he has? I looked into his soul and saw a donkey chewing a can (image courtesy Ralph Wiggum). Still, to play 82o aggressively and then disgusting all the other players WHILE I STACKED CHIPS, was a veritable bath of frothy goodness.

Anyway, the real lesson for me here- and I remember Mike Sexton say admiringly of Phil Ivey- is to "think about every bet." A raise is information, CONSIDER WHAT IT MEANS. I threw my cash in on a hunch, and I could have taken all the time I needed- for a $15 raise, I would have felt fine walking around the goddamn block- but I made a decision when even if I thought I had the best hand I could have saved the dough. I didn't want anyone to think I was scared of big money. I still ended up $15 up after losing my $25 stake in one hand, though. With that one call, plus betting 82o like Frankenstein on a robitussin binge, I think I have at least established myself with an outstanding image: unpredictable and unafraid. I'll tighten up next week and should see money waltzing into my stack.

2004-05-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

To Buy (a Poker Table) or Not to Buy...

A guy who runs a bunch of local tournaments (into which I'm so far hesitant to jump) is building 8'x4', rounded-end hold'em-style poker tables. If I help with the staple gun he'll let one go for $150.

I don't need one, per se- I don't host a home game. For that matter, I was also saving up for the custom chips for that same non-existent home game. But it seems like a good deal, a cool thing to have, in part because of the personal sweat equity, the atypical blue felt, the fancy embedded dealer's chip rack, and the possibility of, if not using at my own home for a spell, perhaps leaving it at the weekly home game I do play in.

Any thoughts/ advice/ words of wisdom are most welcome. Man, personal chips on a real table, Slick New Me would have to start hosting my own tournaments. The drag is that with five cats and a new dog, allergics can't play, and that's just annoying.

UPDATE: I bailed on the table. I went to see it- it was nice enough, but basically a slab of so-so wood with folding legs screwed on and some decent felt stapled on- no place to put drinks, no place to rack chips, no nothing on the felt itself, and no rim around the edge to keep cards from flying off, and ultimately easy enough to make on my own if I get use of a jigsaw. So I saved my pennies and returned to my dream of reworking my wedding ring design (my own creation) for the face of a set of chips. This could get awfully expensive. The Chip Store has good customer service but looks like $700+ (!!!) for this 500-chip set of my dreams. PokerChips.com could be cheaper but their CS does not impress. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

2004-05-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

Omaha Made Me Its Bitch

Well, I read up a few tidbitds of Omaha8 strategy and gave it another shot on Party last night. Ended up $8 on a $.50/$1 game after experiencing a couple good scoops and weathering some serious bodyslams- that game will have you muttering under your breath like no other. Really, tho, having someone sneak a pot out from underneath a solid, well-played hand (twice) is OK, given that I was playing solid hands (for the most part). But being ruthless- and that is the right word- in choosing what hands to play, i.e., playing only hands worth raising with, is primary, as is not letting a loss or two get to you. I could lose three or four hands and win it all back in one win. Playing only to scoop (win both hi and lo) is a wise path. Interestingly, one of my most troublesome spots was playing around people who would never bet a good hand, having let their imagination take control. I'll bet if a better hand refuses to assert itself- that fear will become my profit, sooner or later. Letting swings happen is part of ignoring tilt. That said, getting A245 with a QJT flop is enough to make you wanna kill a few people.

Meanwhile, I got invited to another tournament for this Saturday- should be interesting, as each round toggles between a pair of games, two different games per round (e.g., 5-stud razz, then 5-draw/ 7-stud, etc)... confusion should run absolutely rampant, for better (?) or worse. The buy-in is nothing, $10, but the cash game is where things happen, and I have been duly warned that a couple guys have been shuffling around for, oh, four decades or so. I may be a fish, but there will definitely be sharks in attendance...

2004-05-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

Hammertime, Small Blind-Style!

Total number of players : 7
Seat 2: MP1( $21)
Seat 3: LP( $4.50)
Seat 4: Button( $33)
Seat 5: kuboa ( $19.50)
Seat 6: BB ( $21.50)
Seat 8: UTG ( $17.75)
Seat 10: UTG+1 ( $7.62)

kuboa posts small blind (0.25)
BB posts big blind (0.50)

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to kuboa [ 2s, 7h ]
UTG calls (0.50)
UTG+1 calls (0.50)
LP folds.
Button calls (0.50)
kuboa calls (0.25)
BB checks.

** Dealing Flop ** : [ Ah, 7d, 8d ]

kuboa checks.
BB checks.
UTG folds.
UTG+1 checks.
Button bets (0.50)
kuboa calls (0.50)
BB calls (0.50)
UTG+1 calls (0.50)**

Dealing Turn ** : [ 9c ]
kuboa checks.
BB checks.
UTG+1 checks.
Button checks.

** Dealing River ** : [ 7s ]

kuboa bets (1)
BB calls (1)
UTG+1 calls (1)
Button folds.

Result:
kuboa [ 2s 7h ] – 3 of a kind, wins $7 (how a propos!)
BB [ 9h 5c ]
UTG+1 [ 5h As ]

2004-05-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

A Most Vicious Mistress

First of all, that title will be my band's first album name, once I get a band and album together.

Secondly, I played a few orbits of Omaha hi-lo last night, and ended up even, but criminy, it was like riding on a brontosaurus tail. Up, down, down, sideways, shoulda won that pot, shoulda folded but won anyway, shoulda coudla woulda flopped the nut flush if I'd had the sense to re-reaise, but alas.... It was even more disorienting playing at a table with 4 people, all of whom busted until it was me and one guy, splitting every pot of our own money. It's hard to practice being tight at Omaha in the first place, let alone short-handed when you want to let aggression out of the cage a little more.

The "good grinding is boring" crowd would have seen I was having to much fun to make money.

2004-05-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

Just Apologize! If you even can...

"Q Okay, a simple question. The President had two interviews today the White House set up for Arabic TV networks. In neither did the President apologize. Why was that?

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we've already said that we're sorry for what occurred, and we're deeply sorry to the families and what they must be feeling and going through, as well. The President is sorry for what occurred and the pain that it has caused. It does not represent what America stands for. America stands for much better than what happened.

"Q He didn't think that was necessary to say in his own voice, with his own words?

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again, he was -- he was addressing the questions that were asked, but we've made it very clear that we are deeply sorry for what occurred."

...

"Q Scott, getting back to the apology issue that Mark raised, did you mean to say that the President didn't apologize because -- he didn't address that issue because no one brought it up in either interview?

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we've already said that we are deeply sorry for what occurred. The White House has already said that, on behalf of the President.

"Q There seems to be a sense, among some Arab scholars and Arab diplomats today that from, at the very least, a cultural standpoint, that it would have gone a long way had the President himself apologized. It's, with all due respect, a little bit different than you or Condoleezza Rice or someone else. If the Arab world had heard him -- heard the President personally apologize, it would have gone a long way. Why did he choose not to use those words?

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I just told you, the President is deeply sorry for what occurred, and the pain that it has caused.

"Q Why didn't he say so himself?

"MR. McCLELLAN: The President is deeply sorry for it. And he was pleased to sit down and do these interviews and address the questions that were asked of him.

"Q Why didn't he say so himself?

"MR. McCLELLAN: I'm saying it for him right now, Peter. And Condi Rice said it yesterday. We've already made -- the President --

"Q -- wasn't what was --

"MR. McCLELLAN: No, but go back to the interview. The President made it very clear that what occurred was wrong, and that it does not represent what America stands for. So he made it very clear in those interviews that it was wrong, that we do not stand for that, and that when we -- when that kind of activity comes to our attention, we take action to address it, and make sure that it doesn't happen again.

"Q There's a distinction, Scott.

"Q Shouldn't an apology be at the President's forethought, not you saying it?"

2004-05-05T16:01:00.000-07:00

Ross

"As far as I’m concerned, varying your play and adjusting to the table conditions are unbelievably important."
~David Ross, School of Hard Knocks

> This is something I might as well learn at lower limits...

"I’m at a loss to explain the huge losses I’m having."
~ Ibid.

> Thank God this feeling isn't reserved for the halfwits (Ross plays mostly 5/10 and sometimes 8/16), although I guess I should expect oddle upon oodle of frustration if this is what players all go through... one must ask, sooner or later, if it's worth the headache, and I imagine poker will return to its status as
repscted but ignored when lots of wanna-bes fade from the boredom of expensive monotony, punctuated by too-brief, tortured moments of anxiety about what cards may fall, wafting feltward buffeted only by a slight breeze of fate.

Maybe I'll give up poker for poetry.

2004-05-05T11:07:00.000-07:00

Ah, to Plummet

Well, wife went to “Pearl Earring” last night so I got a night of guilt-free cards (no struggling between listening to her and debating a re-raise) and babysitting the dog who, because she is at home all day while job-searching, has developed a freaky dog-like attachment to her.

I followed up on my earlier threat to try a few hands of Omaha. I lost quickly. I actually won a few hands early but could not maintain- man, alive do people like to call in that game. OK, lesson learned: DO. NOT. PLAY. WITH. MARGINAL. HANDS. Oh, and a decent hand is marginal, only a good hand is good. Bullets in the Hole says he plays tighter than just any three wheel cards (A->5): “I like to tighten that up a bit to any three from Ace to Four, plus A-2-5 or A-3-5.” Well, not only did I get my ass handed to me, but anytime I lost touch, someone would tap my shoulder and say “Excuse me, sir, I believe this is yours.” But what outright pissed me off is that things moved so quickly that I couldn’t always discern what was happening, and why I didn’t win when I felt sure that with a wheel on the board, my 6 earned me some moola. I might take some heart in reflecting that I was having too much fun to be winning… Alas, trying to make a mix tape affected my transfer to the hold’em tables, and a 10th place finish in a $5 SNG pretty much summed up this post’s title. The difference between weekday and weekend play is pretty striking. I really have to learn to focus, that’s all there is to it- it’s freakin’ limit!

2004-05-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone else is doin' it

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post it in your journal along with these instructions.

"SQL Server Desktop Edition has scalability limits built in to prevent it from being used in unsuitable situations."

SNORE!

2004-05-04T16:28:00.000-07:00

Ain't No Bonus Ho, Yo

I seem to be one of the few fish, uhhhh, contributors in a one-to-many cash flow who doesn’t throw shekels at Party whenever they throw in a bonus for deposits. Seems to me, I’m playing to improve, which the bonus helps not at all- in fact, a bonus could confuse me as to whether a boost was earned or not. For that matter, it seems unwise to deposit cash on someone else’s schedule. Third, there’s the niggling issue of if you’ve hit the minimum number of raked hands or uncertainty as to when you will. Finally, there’s that sense that chasing a few bucks really is somewhat unseemly (I’m old money at heart), and a more measured pace of inputs and outputs is the sound course vis a vis money management.

Word, foo'.

2004-05-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

Yeah, It's That Bad

TalkingPointsMemo lays it out:

"One of the things I've found difficult about writing about Iraq in recent days is imputing some level of seriousness to the arguments of the president and his retainers who continue to press an optimistic view of what's happening in Iraq. From them, on any given day, you can still hear the argument that, notwithstanding some tough days, things are still getting better in Iraq and the key to success is sticking with it.

"At the same time, I talk to, or have conversations related to me with, various foreign policy, intelligence and military experts, all of whom --- across the political spectrum --- seem to believe that things are about as bleak as they can be. On top of this, they seem uniform in the belief -- sometimes based on inference, other times based on direct knowledge -- that the White House is fresh out of ideas about what to do, and basically hasn't any idea how to proceed.

"Either the president knows the situation is that bad or he (and perhaps his advisors too) is just too out of touch to have any idea what's happening. Increasingly, I think that the president is just too small-minded and vainglorious a man to come to grips with the situation.

"A strong president, a good president, would put his country before his pride and throw himself into saving the situation even if it meant admitting previous mistakes and ditching past policies and advisors. But I don't think this president has the character to do that.

"Making a clean sweep, firing some of his most compromised advisors, admitting some past mistakes -- not for effect, but so that those mistakes could be more thoroughly and rapidly overcome -- might well doom the president politically. But I doubt there's any question they'd be in the best interests of the country.

"This president seems either disinclined to or unable to do more than preside over a drift into disaster while putting on a game face."

>> Bush: Your One Stop Shopping Destination for Empty Bromides and Flailing. I'm glad I just spent two weeks in Thailand, because wanderlust notwithstanding, I like the idea of international travel less and less lately.

2004-05-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

Push Hands

One of the “pillars” of tai chi is called push hands (the others, for the record, are standing meditation, which is what it sounds like, and the form, that slow dance that looks cool but makes non-practioners wonder who tai chi players think they are, given that it’s tricky to kick ass lurching around like a moribund granny). There are, as I understand it (which is not well), (at least) two fundamental dimensions to the exercise, which involves two people facing each other trying to push the other off balance.

First of all, tai chi demands rooting, i.e., a solid basis from which to absorb and/or express energy. One stands with knees and feet aligned in a position so stable that it’s hard to tip him over from any direction. Secondly, there is “sticking,” which means that as you push forward, while of course you maintain contact with your opponent, you continue to maintain that contact as he rotates out of your way and also as he pushes back (and you rotate out of his way). At no point do you let go, given that you could easily lose track of where he is, how well he is rooted (and when he is not), and so on. When you see your opportunity, you “leave second but arrive first” and bust some serious kung fu on his imbalanced ass, using, as the ancients say, 4oz of energy to move 1000 pounds. You “listen” to your opponent move, pick your moment and assert yourself modestly and pointedly for maximum return on investment. Then you tear your shirt to shreds and cut loose your best Bruce Lee scream

I guess my point is that in poker as in tai chi, the heart is listening. Chix dig it, too.

2004-05-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

Weekend Windfall

Well, went from good to great to bad this weekend. The way bloggers sing to the skies about fishy weekends I wanted to devote some time to researching this investment opportunity. Signed on Friday evening and start bossing people around like a table captain should, decoder ring firmly in hand, bluffing when a scare card came to pick up a smattering of small pots plus bigger ones when cards actually hit, for a cool $30, my best session yet. Inspired, I returned Saturday afternoon, and it was Happy Days all over again, starring kuboa as Fonzie. I had to write my brothers about “free money” because if it was gonna be this easy I would just write a resignation letter between hands, and I made $50! I promptly dropped my profit on a registration code for PokerTracker, which I will somehow have to learn how to use. What’s my best source for interpretive clues?

Needless to say, my strategy didn’t suddenly become much better- my Fonzie was Ralph Malph in Goodwill pleather. Profit’s charm notwithstanding, it helped immensely to be playing dead money. Sunday evening, not exactly at my A-game level, I lurched from my couch drunk on eggplant in garlic sauce and Simpsons reruns to the tables wherein I handed out bets like political flyers- “Vote kuboa for sucker in 2004!” Quickly bored of such profit-squandering, I tried a $10 SNG to limit any potential losses (great attitude, eh?), and met a guy who could do no wrong. Actually, I take that back- he did wrong time and time again, but accepted no punishment. Call a few raises with 97o? Well, it is possible to turn a straight- and he did, several freakin’ times. Most people had 600 chips by the time he hit 3000. He was a werewolf and I was a Hostess dingdong- I got mauled, whipped lard everywhere. By great good fortune my wife and I had caught a few hands of the terminally dull graveyard of reruns WSOP, including Doyle Brunson himself going home on the first day- “Poker is a fickle mistress, baby,” I philosophized. She indicated I could damn well let poker service me. Anyhoo, I soldier on. When in doubt, play on weekends, and for God's sake learn to freakin’ tighten up on demand when people get wise to my flamboyant ways! Seems I can play tight or loose, but am still clumsy moving between styles. Advice on how to manage…?

2004-04-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Powell Sucks

"Because a large military presence will still be required under U.S. command, some would say 'Well you are not giving full sovereignty'. But we are giving sovereignty so that sovereignty can be used to say, 'We invite you to remain'. That is a sovereign decision." ~ Colin Powell

2004-04-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Claim vs. Fact

Wondering if what some politico said was true or not? Click here to get the skinny.

2004-04-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

New Blog

Be sure to check out John-Paul Costales if stories of a new player making big money very fast doesn't cause your blood pressure to skyrocket.

JP, please do share some-a them secrets. Surely you don't just wait for Aces?

2004-04-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

Cashier weirdness

So I jump on-line for some practice and after 90 minutes or so am back where I began, still playing too loose, but not down. I know what to do, I just don't do it. I did try playing two tables at once, but perhaps since one was short-handed I nearly went insane trying to keep track of goings-on. Anyhoo, after losing $4 I signed off, checking the cashier before I did, only to see a $10 profit. I'm happy the oddity is in mmy favor, of course, but am I missing some detail of Party accounting?

2004-04-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

Cordial

Everyone can relax now- lack of accountability and monumental errors of judgment notwithstanding, BushCheney's meeting with the 9/11 Commission was "cordial."

Also, Bush answered every question he was asked, a statement that makes him sound yet more like a child- "Mommy, I ate ALL my cauliflower!" Hey Chachi, you're *supposed* to answer the questions. This pathological devotion to secrecy is anti-Democratic. Of course national security is paramount, but these chimps have long since burned through every bit of the benefit of the doubt a reasonable person might have accorded them. They want us to think they know something superseceret that would make it all clear if only they could share, but alas. That attitude is too convenient to accept.

Finally, what is with this "We thought the warnings were about overseas attacks" bullpucky? First, everyone on the planet knows the title of the Aug. 6 PDB, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Second, what about his response to that- as if it's not in my backyard so let 'em do what they're gonna do?

2004-04-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

Gaggle

Via TalkingPointsMemo, here's a taste of just how hapless is the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, to say nothing of today's embarrassing joint "conversation" about how BushCo did so little before or after 9/11.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Okay, the President had his usual briefings this morning. And the meeting with the 9/11 Commission started right on time, at 9:30 a.m. this morning. And they are continuing to meet right now.

QUESTION: Who is in the meeting, for your side?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Hang on. I'll come to questions. I'll go through my routine here. Other than that, all I have is that I'm briefing at 1:15 p.m. and State Department is briefing at 12:30 p.m. That's all I've got. Now, go ahead.

QUESTION: So who is in the meeting, from your side?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Well, I'll go over everybody that's in there. You have all 10 commission members, you have one member of the commission staff present. Then you have the President and Vice President; Judge Gonzales is there, and two staff members from the Counsel's Office are there as well.

QUESTION: Who are the staff members?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I'm not going to get into the names of the staff that's present.

QUESTION: Why?

QUESTION: Why?

QUESTION: Why?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Just, Judge Gonzales. They're lawyers on the White House Counsel staff. I know you all want to call them and talk to them afterwards, but I'll just say, two members of the White House Counsel staff.

QUESTION: No, that's not why, we just want their names.

QUESTION: For God's sake, this is a matter of historical record.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: It's a private meeting, Helen.

QUESTION: It's not a private meeting, it's a public meeting.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I just told you who is present.

QUESTION: It's doing the nation's business.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: These are two members of the Counsel's Office that have been working closely with the September 11th Commission.

QUESTION: Why the secrecy?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I don't look at it that way.

QUESTION: But we do.

QUESTION: It is a good question. It is an historic moment. This is -- in a public event.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I'll talk back with these individuals and see if -- but --

QUESTION: Just for the record, really, just for the record.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I'll talk back with these individuals, but I'm not in the habit of just going and naming every staff members that attend all these meetings.

QUESTION: But this isn't just another meeting.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I understand.

QUESTION: You're the spokesman for this White House, and you should give us the basics.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I'll check with those individuals, but I'm not going to get into naming staff members without their --

QUESTION: Why did the White House feel there was a need for three staff members --

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: -- without talking to them about it.

QUESTION: -- versus one for the commission of 10 members?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Well, you have 10 commission members there, too. So you have a lot of members of the commission. These are two staff members that have been very involved in working on these efforts.

QUESTION: What is their purpose, Scott? Are they there to record what takes place?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: No.

QUESTION: Are they there to advise the President --

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: No, I'm sure they'll be taking notes.

QUESTION: -- or Judge Gonzales --

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: No.

QUESTION: What is the purpose? What is their purpose?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Because they're two members of the Counsel's Office that have been very involved in working on these issues with the September 11th Commission. And they'll be there taking notes, just like a member of the commission staff will be there taking notes.

QUESTION: So they're actually there more to record what happens.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Well, take notes, yes.

QUESTION: Are there two note takers?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Yes, I expect both of them will be taking notes. I expect members of the commission will be writing information down, as well.
QUESTION: You said there was one note taker. Is there an official note taker or are these both --

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I said there would be at least one member yesterday, and then yesterday afternoon when I was updated, I said that there would be two members of the Counsel's Office present.

QUESTION: Who are they?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Helen, I'll check with them. And I don't want to go and just name them without talking to them first.

QUESTION: Where are they all sitting? Is the President at his desk? Where is the Vice President?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: The President and Vice President are sitting in the chairs in front of the fireplace. And the commission members are sitting on the couches and in chairs in the Oval Office.

QUESTION: Who got the couches? How did they decide who got the couches? What, did they run in, and -- (laughter.)

QUESTION: Why in the Oval Office? Why not in a place where all of them could sit at a table?

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Well, the President has lots of meetings in the Oval Office. He meets with world leaders there on a regular basis --

QUESTION: There's 10 members of the commission.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: -- and this is a similar setup. Well, it's like yesterday, when we met with -- when the President met with Prime Minister Persson of Sweden. You have several members of the staff -- of each other's staff in there. You have the ambassadors and you have other members of staff in there. And they all sit around on the couches and chairs. That's where we sit when those meetings take place. It's a similar setup to that.

>> So the meeting is located such that Bush's status is most obvious- as clear a symhol of insecurity as you're ever likely to find- and Commission members don't get a table on which to place notes. Pathetic! Jay Leno, I call upon you to make mainstream the knowledge of how lame this is.

2004-04-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

WPT Los Angeles

Antonio Esfandiari came to play. A healthy chip lead and itching to get some action, it obviously pained him to throw any two cards away. He couldn't be bothered to wait for a decent hand that might grant his bets a measure of gravitas, but he got exactly what he wanted on the last hand of the night when Vinny Vinh made an egregiously ill-advised all-in bet (Q4o???) against a well-hidden AA. So once again, the chip leader coming in is the chip leader going out. Makes me think I shoud maintain a larger stack of bills by me in my home game, just for show. He sure was a chatty Cathy, though- a bit of a maniac- I am going to start paying more atention to how often these guys upset the rocks.

I didn't find too much to get excited about last night- one guy said "raise" in response to Antonio's bet but took so long in declaring how much he was raising that Antonio had to call time on him; the same guy later wandered around the room until Antonio asked him if he was aware that it was his turn to act. Vinny made an ass out of himself pretty good by asking to go to the bathroom during a hand in which he was playing. The other guys seemed decent enough, but not particularly charismatic, except for David Benyamine, winner of the Aviation Club tournament, and he got drowned on the river against an amateur, never quite drying himself off.

All in all, a relatively inconsequential event for me as a student. I do notice they're putting on a special "Bad Boys of Poker" game akin to the Women's game, a very interesting match rerunning next week- Antonio, Phil Laak (he's a bad boy?), Gus Hansen, Phil Darden (again: bad boy?) Phil won a WPT event in season 1 during which Antonio asked Phil why he was "doing this to me" and Phil's snort of derision was subdued and devastating. Look for Gus to kick badboy ass. Me, if I were going to do a bad boy game I'd have to include Phil Hellmuth to be sure, he's a gross exclusion, the first among many, and also a few of the more annoying players like the Polish guy from Australia who nearly got his neck wrung at last season's Aviation Club game. I'd love to see these human stains infect each other- Mmmmm, that's good TV!

2004-04-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Home Game

I came in with the plan to a) be very attentive and b) to buy some pots, i.e., to bump up the bet amounts to catch people off guard. I ended up $9 with a $10 buy-in, so I can't complain, although one guy I thought was not very good (other players fell the same way) has had truly exceptional success from Day One, and either his cards are as good as they look, he has incredible skills and an ability to mask them- awkward to consider that I could be so wrong but I'm still not quite ready to buy it- or my imagination is overemphasizing the fact that he is tricky to read and I let myself believe the worst.

The most amazing hand of the night was the first. I hadn't gotten cash on the table, so only had my $10 in chips for a game of 7-stud. I look down at [4 7] 4, and stick around for a low bet. I then get a 7 and I come out swinging, making a large bet, especially for one so early. One guy calls me. I get a rag, but bet big again, caring almost not at all about what he has, and am called, then get a third 7 and push everything in, bitter indeed that table stakes prevented me from truly cashing in. Called, and I snap off half this guy's stake before my first sip of Dr Pepper. To his enduring credit, he took it better than I did when he mauled me in a big hand a few weeks ago.

Played pineapple for the first time- seems like Hold'Em Lite, for the Beginning Cardsharp- can someone explain what value this game has over hold'em, especially when Omaha is already a reasonable alternative?

Anyhoo, I got up, stayed up, played conscientiously, remained assertive if not aggressive, per se-
no more upturning tables in a blind rage for me!- and am ready to go again. Interestingly, after the past few weeks of people loudly complaining that I try to buy too many pots, the one guy got in my way at the wrong time only to be eaten alive, and then no one called my big bets later when I had cards- so they seem to respect my raises again (or for the first time) so I guess I'm back to buying a few pots again. It'll be nice to abuse them for the crime of respecting me. Ah, poker does bring out the best in a guy!

2004-04-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

Bush: Assclown?

Via Road to Surfdom, here's a nice recap of the twists and turns that El Busho's relationship with the 9/11 Commission have taken:

He tried to block the formation of the commission;

Failing, he then appointed a patsy chairman, Henry Kissinger;

Then he refused to testify;

And he blocked them from getting key documents;

Then he agreed to talk with them;

But not under oath;

And only for an hour;

And only with the chair and deputy chair;

And then he insisted on having Cheney go with him;

And agreed to a single notetaker;

Then he refused to grant the commission a time extension;

Then he tried to stop Rice testifying;

And he blocked the release of papers from the Clinton era;

Then tried to stop the August 6, 2001 PDB being released;

Then he flip-flopped on the extension, Rice testifying, the Clinton papers and the PDB;

Then he ran ads saying Kerry was a flip-flopper;

Then he changed his mind about the notetaker;

And then he decided to have his legal counsel along;

And then, funniest all, his spokesman can say this with a straight face: Bush "appreciates the job the commission is doing. He strongly supports the commission's important work [...and...] very much looks forward to sitting down with the commission and answering whatever questions they may have."

Folks, laughter is perhaps THE most powerful weapon you can have. And when it comes to Bush and Cheney appearing together, it is truly, truly laughable. Jay Leno will be mocking these assclowns until long after Bush is demoted to fry cook, and even staunch supporters won't have a thing to say when they're reminded of such a stupid, transparent attempt to evade accountability. I repeat my challenge that no one- including The Fat Guy- can defend such a childish scheme. Ventriloquist jokes aren't even that funny, but they are incredibly apt. Bush has guaranteed that the questions the Commission has for him will linger for months like a stagnant pool of asparagus urine.

2004-04-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

When the Pot Gets Big, the Grinder Calls?

Well, I took the advice of MajorKong, the recent 2+2 poster who addressed the issue of people not crushing microlimit games when they thought they should be. He said we would-be crushers fold too much. PLAY middle or bottom pair. PLAY more flush and straight draws. Most importantly, save little bets at the beginning, but when the pot gets big, stick around.

So I did- and on my first attempt at implementing this strategy, I got my boo-tay boo-ted. I was right every time I thought I was beat- but one more bet, and a lot on the line... I clearly need to balance my trust in myself with a more lenient eye towards pot odds, but I'd be interested to hear if other people have had a chance to push their luck in such a manner.

UPDATE: You really do need to read that thread if you want to get ahead playing no fold'em hold'em.

2004-04-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

Barry on Money

I've been thinking about something Barry Greenstein said in his profile during his recent pimpslapping of Randy Berger on the WPT. He is a hugely successful player, Mike Sexton was right in saying it was a treat to see him at work; about his charititable giving, he said that when you play in daily games where hundreds of thousands of dollars change hands, "money becomes meaningless." He donates that money to where it can do some good.

I'm not sure if I should attempt to adopt that attitude, because while it makes great sense- poker using money merely to keep score- money also happens to buy things. I do want to de-emphasize money and focus on the player, constantly asking Why did he bet and Why that amount, but until I become ridiculously wealthy, I suspect money won't become meaningless for a while.

That said, the notion does remind me of what my junior high French teacher said, which is that your first guess is usually your best guess- if someone looks like he's full of it, so just because you can't immediately articulate an explanation for why that is doesn't mean it isn't.

2004-04-26T08:34:00.000-07:00

Fish

I've read other bloggers complain about fish catching their dream card on the river so many times, criminy it gets old. But this weekend I got an excellent taste of that frustration. With 77 and two overcards on the flop I sense weakness and jam it. Some knuckledragger hangs on for three betting rounds to catch an 8 on the river- he had 86o. I ask you: WTF?! I lost a few shekels on that one. In fact, I had a grim session, knocking me down $20 or so in a short time, such that I had to turn off the monitor and have a little talk with myself: Do I in fact suck at this game? What did I do wrong or what could I have done differently? Good questions to ask- I am at the initial stages of a steep learning curve, I appreciate that, and there will be luck-drunk assclowns at every turn no matter how good I get.

A critical lesson for me this weekend came after I enjoyed a round of slumber and logged back on for some fresh play. This time I did extremely well, in one case my pocket pair flopping a set when the other guy had big slick and both an A and K fell. I won three pots, but they were $13, $13, and $19, so Shazam! I had more than doubled my stack in a flash. Moral: Profit or lack thereof can usually be traced to a select few hands.

One thing I have realized is that it's maniacs who bedevil me most. One guy raised everything in sight, it was absurd, I had no idea where to turn, I nearly left a fist-shaped hole in my drywall. I am happy to report that I got some ludicrous revenge, catching AA and watching him re-raise my pre-flop re-raise, with several others coming along for the ride! I couldn't believe it- better yet when they held up for a massive $20 pot. I wanted to e-mail him a WAV of Nelson Muntz: "ha ha!" In spirit, I do so here.

So, Saturday was grim, Sunday was awesome. I told Andrea I wanted to buy PokerTracker but she insists I win the money for it. I tried to argue that buying it would *help* me win the cost and more, but she saw me buy, and since ignore, Fritz during my chess frenzy and is tired of my gaming shenanigans, not unreasonably so. But I also gotta buy Turbo Texas Hold'Em... and custom chips... and build a table... oy.

2004-04-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

Howard Speaks- To Me!

It took him a while, but Howard Lederer finally got his web page up. Included was a link to ask him a question, which I did, and he got back to me toute de suite. Following are my question and Howard's Words of Wisdom (HWW):

Mr. Lederer,

My question involves the odds of a pair vs. two overcards. I am confused as to why there would be all that much variation between any two scenarioes of that description- either an overcard pairs up or it doesn't, six outs regardless of the gap. Of course, there is a straight or maybe even flush possibility, but my intuition suggests that the chances of such are small.

CardPlayer Magazine's Poker Odds Calculator puts KQ vs. 22 at 48.6% to 51.4% (assuming one card of each suit), and 98 vs. 44 at an even 50/50. AK vs. QQ is much different- by harshly limiting the straight odds, you see 57.3% to 42.7%. So It seems that if you have big slick and put your opponent on a pair, it is critical that you estimate just what pair that might be.

Thoughts?

- - -

Straights and flushes matter quite a bit. The best hand against AK is TT. One other factor you may have overlooked is the chances that your pair gets counterfeited. If you have 22 vs. AK and the board comes 2 pair then the AK will win with the better kicker. The higher your pair, the more likely it is that your pair will play on a 2 pair board.

Howard Lederer

- - -

He's got a point: TT jams a straight starting with AK while enabling the most straights (6-10, 7-J, 8-Q, 9-K) in addition to having the lead. But let's do a little math... What are the chances of any two pair showing on a full board?

Card 1 is any card: 52/52
Card 2 is the same rank as Card 1: 12/51
Card 3 is any card not of the same rank as Cards 1 & 2: 48/50
Card 4 is the same rank as Card 3: 12/49
Card 5 is neither rank: 44/48

So the odds appear to be (52 * 12 * 48 * 12 * 44) / (52 * 51 * 50 * 49 * 48) = 15814656/311875200 = 0.05, which I guess means 5%.

I admit I may be miscalculating, but can this possibly be true? 5% of the time two pair do (or would) show up? In such a case, I have to admit, higher cards are better. Whoda thunk? I saw this happen on Party a few times but considered they might be gaming the system for action. It doesn't come up much in my home game.

Please contribute suggestions for smarter math.

2004-04-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

Fantasy League

This is kinda cool: PokerSavvy is putting on a WSOP Fantasy League game wherein you pick nine players and whateer team wins the most collectively gets a prize. I signed up for free- why not?

Following are my picks. I admit, I went with a lot of who've I've seen on the tube.

~ Dewey Tomko: A rock

~ Gus Hansen: a maniac

~ Layne Flack: A great player, if seemingly an annoying guy- ooh, that smirk!

~ Daniel Negreanu: Consistent and good enough to coach Evelyn Ng to good results

~ T.J. Cloutier: Proven tournament winner

~ Howard Lederer: My favorite, an all-around solid player

~ Phil Ivey- respected for being extremely alert and judicious

~ Chip Jett: Very good when on

~ Barry Greenstein: A rock's rock

Thoughts? Or would you care to cede to my intimidating decision-making capacity at this time?

2004-04-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

On Iggy's Radar!

I see that I've received a number of visitors- a miracle unto itself- and also achieved attention from at least one other blogger, which is no small part of my aim here. Beer lover and elder statesman among pokerbloggers, Iggy sez "I don't know how much of it I understand, but I enjoyed reading it." He also sez "Yikes."

Well, I was free-associating at the time I wrote the quote he snips- not that I won't do it again later- but I'll try to keep things accessible. If you enjoy reading it, I guess I can't ask for more, I mean, it ain't supposed to be homework...

My first comment can't be far behind- and how orgasmic it will be!

2004-04-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

Party No Fun, Until It Is

Finding my bankroll a single digital dollar above water- I mean since I opened my Party account, I am almost ashamed to say- I decided to play in a .50/1 ring game until I could scare up a chunk towards the entry fee for a $10 SNG. I jumped in, throwing my weight around, betting on longer shots in hopes of setting myself up for a slam dunk, a dunk that never came. I was comfortably loose, i.e., in control, as it were- purposefully loose- but I wasn't winning and wasn't exactly sure how to reorient, a skill I quite simply must develop. I had the same problem at my home game, trying to jump horses midstream- knowing I wanted to, having a grain of a clue how, and then biffing the implementation like a giraffe learning to knit. Andrea had left me in the house alone, so it wasn't until she returned that I had to fess up about my unfortunate situation, which I couldn't blame on the cards, which were acceptable, all things considered. So: being very focused when the time comes to adjust and adapt is my primary challenge at this juncture.

With this responsible attitude in hand, I then blamed the putt-putt pace of limit games for my losses, as no mere $1 bet can satiate my maniac's lust for ACTION! ACTION! ACTION! I decided to join one of the few tournaments available, but the way seats remained open made me feel like the people already sitting down were patient sharks seeking a kuboa-flavored morsel. Anyhoo, I sit down in a $5 SNG, ignoring PokerNerd's advice this one time in case my play continued as I had every reason to believe it would. Then the cards are dealt, and I promptly realize that I have joined a freakin' limit tournament. My disappoint fades, however, as I begin to kick some serious ass. I double up, and then triple my original stake, within mere minutes. I dare say it got so absurd that someone commented that "Kuboa must be tired of winning by now." Gotta like that. I wrote back: "You'd think..."

The better players started showing themselves, but I played Gibraltar poker (the opposite of which had killed me earlier- hmmmm.....) and raised nearly every big blind. That technique may be the one thing I took from last night, the power of the BB to steer the pre-flop action (which is actually a subset of the power of late position). I lost a big pot to one guy who took a large lead, but heeding the winsome cries of Mike Sexton- be aggressive; you can only win if you bet; make the other guy guess- I never let my chips get too settled, and a field of six decent players was quickly down to four, then three, then two, by which time I'd returned to a comfortable lead. I was keeping the pressure nice and high, and when he went all in and I drew a third deuce on the river it was Goodnight Irene.

This was the second limit tournament I've played in. In neither case did I mean or want to play limit. In both cases I won. Perhaps I could learn something from all that. Or perhaps I should shut my trap and tighten up Archie Drell-style.

In describing my heroic brilliance to Andrea I came to realize that after a month or so of on-line play, I really wasn't even- I was ahead, because I'd paid all those entry fees. So with a little experience and knowledge, I am where I was and not behind one bit. I think it's fair to feel good about that. I am going to use big bets at my next home game to uproot (a tai chi term) my opponents- different bets have different effects on different players, but I will be alert and judicious and I will keep the pressure on.

2004-04-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

Krugman Lays It Out

It's now widely accepted that the administration "failed dismally to prepare for the security and nation-building missions in Iraq," to quote Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies — not heretofore known as a Bush basher. Just as experts on peacekeeping predicted before the war, the invading force was grossly inadequate to maintain postwar security. And this problem was compounded by a chain of blunders: doing nothing to stop the postwar looting, disbanding the Iraqi Army, canceling local elections, appointing an interim council dominated by exiles with no political base and excluding important domestic groups.

...the common view in Iraq is that members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council are using their positions to enrich themselves, and that U.S. companies are doing the same. President Bush's idealistic language may be persuasive to Americans, but many Iraqis see U.S. forces as there to back a corrupt regime, not democracy.

...The mess in Iraq was created by officials who believed what they wanted to believe, and ignored awkward facts. It seems they have learned nothing.

>> Question: Is this dangerous, corrupt, conniving, and inept America the America you know, love, respect, and stand by? How could things have gotten so bad when Bush had all the time in the world to plan? How could no one be held responsible for obvious and massive mistakes?

2004-04-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

Words of Low-Limit Wisdom

Poker Nerd sez "Never, ever play the 5+1 SNG's at Party. Ever. 20% rake is too much. The 10+1's have the same general incompetence and the house doesn't take as much. If you must play $5, go somewhere else, like Stars (5+.5 structure)."

I was thinking of doing this, anyway. I gotta admit, "the same general incompetence" has a nice ring to it.

2004-04-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

Plain to See

I was going to say something obvious, because it needs to be said plainly, but Eric Alterman has already done so; I defer to him: “That said, it is really scary, as Richard Cohen implies, that given everything the country has learned about the Bush administration’s incompetence and mendacity—both with regard to the 9/11 attacks and this historic debacle of an invasion—that John Kerry is not murdering the president in the polls.”

That anyone could apologize for, let alone defend, this President, is a testament to peoples’ willingness to act against their own best interests (see Thomas Frank’s article on Kansas in last month’s Harper’s for more). Bush has one thing going for him, an image, no less, not substance- and unsubstantiated at that. “Red-state” voters would stand by him for being “tough.” A guy who illegally misappropriates nearly $1 billion for a poorly-planned war of choice is celebrated for being tough- and against a guy WHO VOLUNTEERED FOR VIET NAM AND GOT THREE PURPLE HEARTS???

I seem to have fallen through the rabbit hole…

2004-04-22T09:47:00.000-07:00

WPT Mississippi

Last night was a real treat, and keeping to my desire to tease out useful tips rather than just blather on about nothing for whole clauses at a time like I’m doing now, I’ll focus on the lesson from the heads-up scene last night between Randy Jensen, AKA the “Dream Crusher,” and Barry “Charity” Greenstein, who gives all his winnings away. Big tip of the cap to Chip Reese, who tried early to muscle his opponent around with small cards, got no respect, then never found the right cards with which to honestly knock heads. Better cards could easily have sounded the opening of a can of whoopass, but did not.

The reason the heads-up action was so fascinating is because of the personalities involved. Randy is a talker- an obnoxious loudmouth who tries to throw people off balance, get under their skin and take their money with brash bluffs when they get distracted. For people who like to mind their own business, aggressive guys like Randy are a true challenge, wishing as you may that they please shut UP for once in their lives. Of course, when you win a hand against a guy like that and they do quiet down, the satisfaction is savory, indeed.

James Tippin, the “amateur” home player, played a fantastic game, showing no fear, and he attempted a bold response- playing Randy’s game. This is dangerous to be sure. Spending braintime trying to be so clever can mean forgetting that trash talk is a means to a specific end, kicking ass more than taking names. James was a hoot, though, dishing it out and forcing Randy to dream up snappy comebacks. Alas, Barry busted James and poor Chip out in one hand- finally taking a stand, Chip got rolled over as if by a tank. His daily million dollar cash games are all he has to console him.

On to Barry- first, he gives his winnings away to a children’s rescue group, so you know he’s got a heart- nice to know, with all the talk about the wisdom of playing aggressively, that one not need be freakin’ jerk to succeed. Anyway, his style was in almost diametric opposition to Randy’s- they really could not have been much polar. Where Randy was drooling out jibberjabber all night long, Barry said almost nothing at all, a true rock, wooden-faced and letting his bets say all. Randy even conceded at one point that he couldn’t read Barry. Barry had started the night, unlike Chip, sticking to good cards and was able to leverage the respect he’d earned into later betting lower-caliber hands. To make a long story short, the stoic, solid player bitchslapped the chatty cathy. I know WPT edits the game, so we may have missed relevant details (boring as he seemed, I could have watched Barry make decisions all night long), but I suspect that the morale holds true: players with a gimmick can be waited out. But some players are awfully annoying- how long can you wait? Longer with good cards, I suppose….

Another great episode- these are increasingly worth owning on DVD as study guides.

2004-04-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Failure of Imagination

So near as I can tell, Iraq is not becoming a festering swampy quagmire- alas, that’s because it has been a festering swampy quagmire for some time.

I am honest enough to admit that I was an early supporter of the war. I thought we could cut the head off one Arab state, after which the body would fall, and neighbor states woul sit up and notice. Don’t get me wrong, I value the developments in places like Libya, but then, who was particularly scared of Libya? Anyhoo, a few weeks before troops marched on Baghdad, I had the epiphany that, ideals notwithstanding, this person George W. Bush would f*ck things up as he has done with virtually every endeavor he has undertaken. This unusually nuanced scenario- undertaken with a shameless, embarrassing dearth of adult discussion- was so beyond him that he was floundering before he began. Too bad he’s not a “detail guy,” but oh, well, right?

In my days as a war supporter, I accused a friend of mine, who had seen things clearly from Day One, of a failure of imagination- Iraq would be a foothold in the Middle East and our smooth, powerful operations would indeed provoke awe and respectful obedience. Despite some reading, I was (and remain) ignorant of considerable history and culture of the region. One thing I do know is that Arab Muslims seem to share a lot in common as former citizens of the pre-WWI Ottoman Empire; also, Saddam, if not speaking for Iraqis per se, funded Palestinian terrorism. So the potential for severe ugliness was plain: some Iraqis- or imported Arab Muslims(*)- could cause literally explosive disruptions. Turns out the real failure of imagination was courtesy Rumsfeld, for insisting, in the face of common sense and requests of his generals on the ground, that more troops were unnecessary. I think at this point it’s too late- we had a small window to prove that we were sincere, and it’s now painfully obvious that we (by which I mean BushCo) are not. We needed to blanket Iraq in our presence, protecting Mohammed Sixpack and building a civil society. Instead, tanks and armed troops of a foreign occupier patrol the streets, pissing people off. Rumsfeld wants to do this war on the cheap, and you and I are less safe for his indulgence.

We need to pull out, decide who our real enemy is(**), and create a plan to confront that entity. If that means an expensive return to Iraq someday, surely it will be less painful than throwing good money (and blood) after bad in a fantastic miscalculation. And with very different calculators, too.

(*) The New Republic this week documents how Iran in particular is asserting itself and its agenda, and how we haven’t formally acknowledged that fact let alone the proper response.

(**) I think it's safe to say that everyone outside of the Bush administration realizes that it is radical Islam and militant Muslims- not specifically Arabs, as converts can be decidedly violent- who would do us harm. But they seem stuck on this war on "terror" line.

2004-04-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

Comments

Hey, party people, I've added comments. I do look forward to hearing from anyone with world enough and time to bother.

2004-04-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

A Good Laugh

Having looked forward to the game all week, it was fun to see everyone- 7 of us regulars- equally up to play. As the first hand was dealt, Glen smiles and says "Oh, sweet poker," which got a laugh, and I added "Sweet Lady P!" which cracks me up still.

2004-04-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Home Game

Well, three cheers to the host of my regular Tuesday home game, who finally had a winning week, and a big one. We have one player, the most experienced, who has a good night pretty much every night, one guy who I maintain is not good but keeps doing well (surely his doom is nigh, but I wish he'd stop taking my money), and a few others who are decent but not quite profitable in a short-term reference frame. Actually, one good player lost $32, which makes me think I could just as easily go home to the Mrs with tales of such a loss or of a win just as large, based on a great or Wes Craven-esque run of cards. The Mrs, God bless her, is of a mind that my emphasis should be on how I played, not on session results.

So how did I play? Well, I "burst" out of the gate playing good n' tight. I won a pot or two over the first half, maintaining a positive table image and hovering slightly below my buy-in but poised to wreak a l'il ol' fashioned havoc. Taking a moment to "release the yellow demon" I decided that now was the time to enact my Secret Plan(TM), which was to change styles somewhat abruptly. Why not change subtly? Excellent question- I think I just wanted to practice changing on a dime to prove I could- alas, I cannot.

So I zip up and return to the action where I promptly implement my plan as well as your average gorilla can work a loom. I played the same way with less committment to the style, such that my bets were what the kids call "half-assed": not aggressive, no commandeeering of the betting round took place, I became a hapless calling station, and people ignored me with impunity. On one hand I raised big on the river with a pair of 3s having bet through every round and everyone folded (one with the disgusted sigh of "bluffer!"), but there really weren't many standout hands. A2 in a hand of Omaha, which another guy also had, and both cards came along, anyway. No, a somewhat boring evening of watching cards and chips move around. It could be worse- a $4 loss is pretty inconsequential. I did nuture in myself a deeper appreciation of the wisdom of waiting for good cards- when you play, you play for keeps, so if you're going into battle, take something you can use.

One thing I can say is that drinking- or, Heaven forbid, toking- during a game strikes me as madness, pure and simple. It may be as straightforward as forgetting one small detail- and they're all small, aren't they?- but it's a silly and dangerous risk.

2004-04-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

Fund Transfer Illegal

Turns out that when Congress assigns resources for a purpose, the President cannot legally divert them to a pet cause without permission. Bummer, dude. Will someone impeach this ass already?

2004-04-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

Woodward

While "60 Minutes" has long enjoyed a reputation as the dull show my parents watched, I've been catching it now and again because it comes on before "The Simpsons" on Sunday night. The last few weeks have been very interesting indeed- they covered the case of myriad Halliburton shell companies that do illegal business with rogue states, broke the Richard Clarke story (of BushCo inattention to al Qaeda and general post-9/11 incompetence) and followed up with Condi Rice's hapless would-be refutation of same, and have now moved on to interviewing Bob Woodward about his new book. Wonks may remember his book of 2001, "Bush at War," that covered how bold (!) and decisive (!) the White House team was as difficult decisions were made with appropriate gravitas. It was therefore no surprise that they gave him access to the highest officials, 75 of whom he interviewed, including Bush himself twice. But lo, this new book ain't so hagiographic as the last. In fact, the intimations that something is horribly, horribly wrong come disturbingly fast and undeniably furious. To wit:

~ No one got around to telling Powell about the decision to go to war until it had been made. Bush didn't ask for his opinion because he knew what it would be ("No.") Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar was shown the war plan before Powell, and in fact Bandar agreed to manipulate oil prices to assist Bush's campaign.

~ George Tenet called the case for finding WMD in Iraq a "slam dunk."

~ War plans started with Rumsfeld in secret, lest people express angst at the truth of Bush's intentions.

~ Bush couldn't be troubled to ask his father, perhaps the one man with the most germane experience to Bush Jr.'s plans, for his opinion.

It goes on and on. If you support Bush at this point, you are letting fear guide you, a losing proposition every time. You are painting yourself into a corner. Kerry ain't the best candidate we'll ever see, but the scandals have long since become too many to count. I am ashamed at how irresponsible my government has been.

UPDATE: I should also say I'm stunned and utterly disgusted at how the media have been so forgiving. Gore never lied about inventing the Internet, but the charge was repeated ad infinitum. Clinton got a little side action and was positively demonized. Bush casually starts a war and we hear precious little about just how ineptly our leader "leads," as if we are just waiting him out. Democrats, too, have been ineffective, but they do have the excuse of being locked out of the process in the most partisan DC most observers have ever seen.

2004-04-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

Intriguing Development

My wife asked me to install the PartyPoker client on her machine. She's watched the WPT with me for a few minutes at a time now and again, and then got interested in hearing me talk out loud ("You wanna jump in the ring with me, punk?! Take THAT ^pushes Raise button^ !")- uh, I mean, articulate strategies while in the $5 SNGs. So now she's up and running in the play money no fold'em games and liking it. Will she develop mad skillz and switch to real cash, opening a second front against our bank account? Will she nurture a nuanced sense of timing that enables her to bluff my ass out of the room? Will she use this time between jobs not to decompress but to draw to to a flush that's NOT the nuts??? As a competetive individual, whether I like that fact or not, I'm of two minds regarding my life partner wiling away her hours in the same dog-eat-dog pasttime as I.

2004-04-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

#1 Principle

There may well be those who disagree, but there are undoubtedly many more who don’t know if they disagree, because they have yet to articulate an alternative. I may in fact be answering a question they have yet to ask- but fear not, sit here at my feet instead, and drink deep of my funky old skool wisdom.

In the beginning, there was nothing- not a god damn thing! When one thing appears, two things appear- nothing exists outside of relationship, white implies black, no two ways around it. As they rise together, yea verily, one may come to overwhelm the other despite the fact that only together is either complete.

What does this have to do with card games? Put’cher pants on, Chim Chim, we’re going one step at a time. As it happens, this has to do with all pursuits- I’m ferreting out capital-F-Fundamentals! Wish me well...

When the two halves are balanced, one is not aware of a distinction. This just are what they are and generally go unnoticed. An imbalance, however, catches one's (third) eye. Frequently it is perceived as conflict, i.e., things are out of whack. Less abstractly, while it is common sense to say “It’s light out” in the morning instead of “It’s not very dark,” around 2pm you don’t even think about whether it’s light or dark (unless, like me, you live in the Pacific Northwest and every bit of sun is its own little miracle). But at dusk darkness creeps in, upsetting the balance of light and dark and that’s when you become aware of it. This can also be thought of as dual forces, i.e., yin and yang. Darkness asserts itself like a macho guy, timid lightness fades passively like my ex-girlfriend (Oh, how I kid). No longer cooperating, one half moves to dominate and a sense of transition pervades. Attendant to this change is a feeling of insecurity- easy to fear change, am I right?

The useful portion of this spiel- the part you thought may never come- is that upon discerning conflict- noticing, for example, that you've been on tilt for half an hour as some carefree grandma is drowning you in the river with 86 offsuit- you will be well served to consider it primarily as an imbalance. This allows you to do several things:

1) Relax- you will naturally seek balance without effort;

2) Open your mind to what specific imbalance is at play- is your desire to win quickly at odds with your desire to play tightly? Once focused, you can make decisions that most directly affect the dissonance;

3) Begin to recognize patterns in your own play, possibly before everyone in the entire card room has turned your beloved check-raise into a running joke; and

4) Remind yourself not to think your way out of a problem you didn’t think yourself into- analysis is a tool, it can only take you so far, and you need ot be able to let it go when you see it hurt you- remember that WPT tourney when Mel Judah doubled up five times in a row because Paul “Don’t You Love Me Like I Love Me?” Philips talked himself into believing, multiple times, that his good hands weren’t quite good enough. You could see gears turning in his head long after it was time to quiet his interior monologue and listen to what Mel was saying.

To my mind, this notion applies to (nigh) any endeavor- where there is consternation there is conflict, and there is thus imbalance. First rule of holes: When you’re in one, stop digging. Pause. It’s OK to not know what’s eating you. Let it continue, as it will stop soon enough as you slow down to observe it. Shortly thereafter, you’ll anticipate it before it returns and shift your play accordingly. You have worked on your weakness, not your strength. You have not done the right thing so much as stopped doing the wrong thing.

Your bankroll will thank you. Amen.

2004-04-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

Identity

Poker is a game of decisions; as such, it is based on the assumption that players are independent agents making choices, being the source of an analytical algorithm. If all things, identity most certainly included, are temporal, does my success (such that it is) thus come at the expense of spiritual truth? That is, do I play in order to feed the illusion that I Am Somebody, throwing garbage cans at the feet of insecurities suggesting otherwise that chase me through the dark alleys of horrified anticipation? WHERE IS THE NEXT ONE COMING FROM???

Or, rather than fear the future, I play cards, that I might hope instead- hey, any two cards can win....

2004-04-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

Blogger Tourney

I wonder how long a blog has to exist before the blogger qualifies to get his buffed, hairless ass kicked in the blogger tournament?

Update: My ass is actually hairy enough to require a special comb.

2004-04-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

Strategy

Seems to me the best players are, if not maniacs, per se, more than capable of playing like one. Maniacal indifference to odds is a trait that I think we all share from time to time, especially early in our card-playing careers, although masking that dearth of concern can be tricky. But while it would be easy to remain a maniac ("O! I am bold!") and not trouble oneself with odds, the technique is subservient to the need to change one's game from time to time, and as subtly as possible. A maniac, or an addict of jumbo raises, will get called- by another maniac, but someone tired of being pushed around, by someone sick and tired of folding marginal hands- so when the table loosens, on MUST have practiced tight play in order to protect one's chips.

Lesson: Pick your fights or they will be picked for you....

2004-04-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

WPT - Borgata

Interesting WPT show last night, a rerun of the Borgata tournament. Actually, it was one of the best I've seen, and I've seen them all. It was the purest example in a while of how poker doesn't have a whole hell of a lot to do with cards.

I can't find the exact names of the players, but the game started with one of the chip leaders, Carlos, hammering at his friend David with mediocre cards. David busted some poker fu with a wheel to piss Carlos off pretty good, but the pressure didn't let up as Carlos kept laying traps and David danced around, holding up generally well as everyone but everyone got the hell out of the way. Three players couldn't be troubled to play Ax or below until almost the second half of the show.

The Internet player who'd bought in for $12, Randy, played like a banjo-plinkin' yokel, although he clearly knew enough to do so well- still, when he finally got a premium pair, instead of the obvious move, a low bet or checking, to keep people in, he puked up an all-in bet equivalent to machine-gunning the table- people folded in the calm that only an unambiguous decision can bring. An extremely interesting hand developed afterward, when Randy held AJ and Carlos held AT. Torturing himself about whether to call both before the flop and after, Carlos' instincts told him not to push in multiple $75,000 bets but his disrespect for Randy's play demanded he take the chance. Alas, his instinct were spot on and he was dominated when he called Randy's all-in bet, and a real shocker came down the pike when a 10 came on the river. The worst player was gone- good for viewers, but a real drag for Randy who declared it "pretty much the worst way to go out." Bummer, dude.

Carlos' habit of throwing his weight around starting denting his stack, and when Noli, very quiet until now, woke up, he established himself as a force quickly. David is obviously a good player (and seemingly a very friendly guy), but he was crushed in the hand right after his buddy Carlos went out, thanks to a mucho macho all-in ($400,000) move by Noli. From here, it quickly became heads-up between the nigh-unstoppable Noli and the senior citizen Charles who, based on his inattention and later, face-in-hands posture, looked like he'd rather be sleeping. On one hand, Charles called a river bet before Noli had even declared the amount- he then followed up the very next hand by going all-in over Noli before Noli had indicated the amount of his raise. Both times the tournament director had to be called in and viewers were treated to a Twlight Zone-esque image of Noli wondering if Charles had taken too much of his medicine, too little, or was as bad a player as he looked- the guy clearly just wanted to go home, and Noli mercifully sent him there, although after the last hand the two of them just stared at the board for a while, wondering what the hell had just happened. Even Mike Sexton admitted that the last few hands had been "bizarre." It's always weird to see heads-up action with one severly outclassed player (such as when Layne Flack went at it with Jerry the Lakers Owner last season). But an amazing two hours, all things considered, very much worth seeing again. Carlos in particular forces decisions on people and makes decisions that are worth studying.

2004-04-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

Welcome one and all to my second attempt at blogging. In that my two main subjects will be poker and politics, "Orgy of Lies" seemed like a reasonable heading under which to group the two. I may also use this forum to reflect on the lessons of tai chi, which I've been practiciing for a year or so and which has, perhaps oddly, made for a fine counterpoint to my card-playing antics.

Said antics center around an increasingly engaging weekly game with friends ($10 buy-in no-limit) bolstered by on-line explorations into $.50/$1 ring games and $5 sit-n-go tournaments plus the occassional larger ($30) buy-in tournament- everything but the weekly game is strictly hold'em. Hand reviews are fine, but I hope to concentrate more on the principles of smart play. My first two principles, which I will expand on later, are Stick to the Basics, and Play the Player. It is my hope that in discussing principles of one activity, they will inform my practice in another. I also watch the WPT pretty religiously, except when I am as exhausted as I am now or haven't seen my wife in the week since reporting a beating at the ol' friendly game....

With regards to politics, I spend most of my time reading and conversing with folks on the left. I consider President Bush to be a phenomenal failure the likes of which I loathed to consider possible. I have no higher political priority than seeing him and his corrupt, venal and soulless cohorts exit the world stage that the endless complications to which he has introduced us can begin to be resolved. I liked Wesley Clark in the primaries- he certainly seemed like an adult, a fine change- but I'll take Kerry for now. Nader can blow me.

I'll try to divide this stuff up so folks can safely avoid the stuff they don't want to read...

I'll end this introduction by saying that the word/name kuboa comes from a favorite book of mine, "Hunger" by Knut Hamsun (1919). It's about a guy who's starving and going quite insane- actually, he veers between near total delirium and a creative lucidty attainable only by those with nothing left to lose. In a wild-eyed jail cell declaration, he decides that he is perfectly capable of inventing a word to mean anything he wants, and his word is kuboa.