"I was born very far from where I was supposed to be so I've always been on my way home."
Bob Dylan
No Direction Home is Martin Scorsese's recently released film biography of Bob Dylan. Highly recommended.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
The Playthings of Meaninglessness
I read Crime and Punishment this summer. It's a great book. I mention this because it is not related to poker.
If you don't play for a living it is all new and fun, but professional poker players can find themselves stuck in that movie Groundhog's Day. When they are not reading the same poker book they've been reading forever they sit at the same table with the same people and eat the same meals and drink the same drinks and say the same things while being dealt the same cards, which they play the same exact way, and then they go home and wake up and do it again.
What I don't understand is the people who play every day out of choice and not necessity. There is a group of wealthy retirees who convene in the afternoons and play a Hi/Lo game at a local casino. They have nothing to do so they play poker. They have nothing of interest to talk about, but they talk anyway. Listening to this septuagenarian cluster of dullards is like being tortured with a slow, sporadic assault of ping pong balls. They rarely raise before the flop and after the flop they usually check their hands down without even betting. If one of them happens to bet he will show his cards to ensure his buddy that he was not bluffing him, as if this is the way gentlemen are supposed to play poker. Someone once stood up in disgust and said, "This is like watching old men die," and left.
I read somewhere of a suggestion for a poker doll. You could pull a string for the appropriate situation, such as the time two players end up splitting a pot with the exact same cards and one of them invariably says, "You play that shit?" I've heard this same comment countless times. It would be nice to be able to pull out that doll and yank the cord at the right moment. "You play that shit?"
A wise man once said there are two roads in life. One leads to immediate extinction. The other is excrutiatingly painful and long.
Pray that you choose wisely.
If you don't play for a living it is all new and fun, but professional poker players can find themselves stuck in that movie Groundhog's Day. When they are not reading the same poker book they've been reading forever they sit at the same table with the same people and eat the same meals and drink the same drinks and say the same things while being dealt the same cards, which they play the same exact way, and then they go home and wake up and do it again.
What I don't understand is the people who play every day out of choice and not necessity. There is a group of wealthy retirees who convene in the afternoons and play a Hi/Lo game at a local casino. They have nothing to do so they play poker. They have nothing of interest to talk about, but they talk anyway. Listening to this septuagenarian cluster of dullards is like being tortured with a slow, sporadic assault of ping pong balls. They rarely raise before the flop and after the flop they usually check their hands down without even betting. If one of them happens to bet he will show his cards to ensure his buddy that he was not bluffing him, as if this is the way gentlemen are supposed to play poker. Someone once stood up in disgust and said, "This is like watching old men die," and left.
I read somewhere of a suggestion for a poker doll. You could pull a string for the appropriate situation, such as the time two players end up splitting a pot with the exact same cards and one of them invariably says, "You play that shit?" I've heard this same comment countless times. It would be nice to be able to pull out that doll and yank the cord at the right moment. "You play that shit?"
A wise man once said there are two roads in life. One leads to immediate extinction. The other is excrutiatingly painful and long.
Pray that you choose wisely.
Monday, September 19, 2005
A Battle of Good and Evil
Poker games can often be a battle of good and evil. You will see people do evil things for absolutely no reason at the poker table. My friend related to me the following story yesterday, which I will paraphrase here and change the names to protect the guilty.
Luke is a professional player. He plays at Casino X frequently with a man named Darth. Darth has the annoying habit of always asking to see player's cards after he defeats them. It's generally accepted that if you beat some one you won't humiliate them by forcing them to expose their cards. For one thing, you may cause a weaker player to leave the game or, worse, become aware of how bad he is playing. Secondly, a solid player's holding will rarely surprise and therefore has little to no informational value.
But Darth is a little man with a superior opinion of himself that he continually seeks to validate.
Eventually Luke ends up in a hand with Darth. Luke flops 3 of a kind and he checks and calls Darth on the flop, turn and river. Then Luke tells the dealer not to muck his hand. Darth shows him 2 pair. Luke nods, says, "Good hand," and pushes his cards forward. Darth points to Luke's cards. "Dealer, I'd like to see those cards." The dealer flips up 3 of a kind, a winner. "Oh," Luke says, pretending to be surprised. "I thought I only had one pair."
The dealer starts to push the pot to Luke. Darth hits the roof. "Call the floor! That's bullshit! He mucked his cards!" The floor is called, but the ruling stands. The cards speak, the hand is live and Luke is the winner. Darth is led to believe if he had just kept his mouth shut he'd be $400 richer. His face turns red, smoke comes out of his ears and he proceeds to go on tilt and ends up losing 2k.
One for for the good guys.
Luke is a professional player. He plays at Casino X frequently with a man named Darth. Darth has the annoying habit of always asking to see player's cards after he defeats them. It's generally accepted that if you beat some one you won't humiliate them by forcing them to expose their cards. For one thing, you may cause a weaker player to leave the game or, worse, become aware of how bad he is playing. Secondly, a solid player's holding will rarely surprise and therefore has little to no informational value.
But Darth is a little man with a superior opinion of himself that he continually seeks to validate.
Eventually Luke ends up in a hand with Darth. Luke flops 3 of a kind and he checks and calls Darth on the flop, turn and river. Then Luke tells the dealer not to muck his hand. Darth shows him 2 pair. Luke nods, says, "Good hand," and pushes his cards forward. Darth points to Luke's cards. "Dealer, I'd like to see those cards." The dealer flips up 3 of a kind, a winner. "Oh," Luke says, pretending to be surprised. "I thought I only had one pair."
The dealer starts to push the pot to Luke. Darth hits the roof. "Call the floor! That's bullshit! He mucked his cards!" The floor is called, but the ruling stands. The cards speak, the hand is live and Luke is the winner. Darth is led to believe if he had just kept his mouth shut he'd be $400 richer. His face turns red, smoke comes out of his ears and he proceeds to go on tilt and ends up losing 2k.
One for for the good guys.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
The Drunken Question
OK last night I'm playing at Casino Arizona and a guy skips ahead of someone to get into our game. He said he thought he heard his name called. It's soon apparent that this guy is totally plastered. His eyes are red slits and he reeks of alcohol. The guy who was first in line generously lets him keep playing. The drunk plays every hand. This is Omaha Hi Lo, which is a game he probably wouldn't understand sober. He starts swearing. At one point he falls out of his chair. He is warned by dealers and a floor manager to watch his mouth. He goes through $300 in about 1/2 an hour. At one point I see him muck the nut low. He sees a player across the table as a potential target and threatens him under his breath. "I hate those kind of people," he snarls.
A fat man in a nice suit arrives and he confers with a floor manager a short distance from the table. It seems apparent the drunk will soon be kicked out. They ask the drunk to come talk with them. He talks with them and then walks away. It seems like they have kicked him out without incident, but a short while later he stumbles back to the table with his t-shirt turned inside out. Apparently, the words "Security" were on his shirt and this was against Casino Arizona's rules for anyone besides real Security to be representing themselves as such. So now the belligerent drunk is tossing away his money with his t-shirt inside out.
He tips $8 or $10 or more at a time when he wins, which isn't very often. He tosses me $4 in chips for bringing him luck even though he is well past $400 stuck. I say, "It's OK, don't do that," and wave my hand because I don't want to enter into any kind of bond with the man. However, I don't hand the chips back because he is likely to be terribly wounded by this insult and I might never hear the end of it.
A dealer asks the only lady at the table if the man is offending her. She says she feels sorry for the people who have to sit next to him. In fact, she may be afraid to say anything and it seems very unfair to elect her the person to vote him off the island. It would be more pleasant for everybody if he left, but everybody is making money off of him so nobody says anything.
This is no different than playing poker with a mentally retarded person. He has absolutely no chance of winning. The only difference that tempers my pity significantly is that this man has chosen to put himself in this state. The bottom line though is Casino Arizona should not let someone this drunk play poker. I don't think they should feel responsible about him losing his money, after all guys toss away money at strip joints like it was rice at a wedding and nobody intervenes and questions their stupidity. However, if someone is cursing and threatening and stumbling over himself, the game is going to be unpleasant. If the games are unpleasant many of the weaker players who come for the social aspect will go elsewhere and so in the long run it really is bad for business, mine and the casino's.
A fat man in a nice suit arrives and he confers with a floor manager a short distance from the table. It seems apparent the drunk will soon be kicked out. They ask the drunk to come talk with them. He talks with them and then walks away. It seems like they have kicked him out without incident, but a short while later he stumbles back to the table with his t-shirt turned inside out. Apparently, the words "Security" were on his shirt and this was against Casino Arizona's rules for anyone besides real Security to be representing themselves as such. So now the belligerent drunk is tossing away his money with his t-shirt inside out.
He tips $8 or $10 or more at a time when he wins, which isn't very often. He tosses me $4 in chips for bringing him luck even though he is well past $400 stuck. I say, "It's OK, don't do that," and wave my hand because I don't want to enter into any kind of bond with the man. However, I don't hand the chips back because he is likely to be terribly wounded by this insult and I might never hear the end of it.
A dealer asks the only lady at the table if the man is offending her. She says she feels sorry for the people who have to sit next to him. In fact, she may be afraid to say anything and it seems very unfair to elect her the person to vote him off the island. It would be more pleasant for everybody if he left, but everybody is making money off of him so nobody says anything.
This is no different than playing poker with a mentally retarded person. He has absolutely no chance of winning. The only difference that tempers my pity significantly is that this man has chosen to put himself in this state. The bottom line though is Casino Arizona should not let someone this drunk play poker. I don't think they should feel responsible about him losing his money, after all guys toss away money at strip joints like it was rice at a wedding and nobody intervenes and questions their stupidity. However, if someone is cursing and threatening and stumbling over himself, the game is going to be unpleasant. If the games are unpleasant many of the weaker players who come for the social aspect will go elsewhere and so in the long run it really is bad for business, mine and the casino's.
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