StudioGlyphic

Rules? No. Not exactly rules. More like good advices.

1. Play on Party and its affiliates.

2. Use PokerTracker

3. Get the PokerTracker Guide

I thought about writing a little something about each of these three things, but really, why bother? I'm pretty certain all of you already have an account at Party and at least two or three of its affiliates. I'm also pretty sure you have PokerTracker and that you'll agree with me that it's the best $55 you ever spent. Odds are also pretty high that you already know about Hank and Iggy's Excellent PokerTracker Guide. No, wait, it's just called PokerTracker Guide. My bad.

However, you may not necessarily have read it. So I'm here to say that if you follow good advices 1 and 2, and you play limit hold'em, you should send the good folks at PokerTracker Guide $20 for their book. Here are the first two things that come to mind when I think of reasons to buy the Guide:

1. Finding leaks. They give you easy-to-follow advice on finding the leaks in your game. Even at .50/1, these leaks can cost you $5 on a single hand. Stop doing this four times and you've saved yourself the price of the book.

2. Evaluating your opponents. They also give you guidelines on how to analyze your opponents. In addition to the usual Loose-Tight and Passive-Aggressive axes, they add a third axis of player evaluation, which I don't think I've seen anywhere before (but I don't go surfing for this stuff anyway--I need to be spoon fed). This can be very helpful in calculating implied odds and knowing when making your hand will result in the kind of returns necessary to make those loose calls. Backing up this advice is hours of research and analysis on what makes a winning player in limit hold'em. Again, if this works for you just four times, you've paid for the book.

Think of it this way: you were smart enough to pay $55 for a great tool (PokerTracker), but now you're not going to be smart to pay $20 to learn how to use it? Not only are you going to make less money than you could, but you've wasted part of the $55 you paid for PokerTracker in the first place.

No, think of it this way: Hank and Iggy command high prices as consultants to big companies. Get their advice for cheap. Buy the book.

No, really, think of it this way: Hank's a great guy, and they say Iggy's okay, too. They've put out a lot of good advice and information out there for people in the past and they'll keep on putting in the hours to help out their readers. The way I see it, you already owe them $150 (not me, I signed up for EmpirePoker using BONUS CODE IGGY1). This little book probably took as much time as a year of weekly blogging. Now, through the miracle of Internet technology, you can buy the book and sleep better than you have in years now that you've settled your debts and atoned for your sins.

Domo Kun meets Donnie Darko. Domo Darko. (Real Video).

More stuff at FNord HQ. More sounds at Gary Jules. More images at pixelgirl.

NPR has the stream: 'All Songs Considered' Presents Wilco in Concert.

More here and here.

I got some of my work done and decided to play an hour on Party to try out 3-tabling on my new LCD and clear some bonus hands.

I haven't recorded the monitor on my bankroll spreadsheet yet, but once I do, conventional wisdom dictates that I stick to .50/1 while multi-tabling. Something about 300BB/table or something. Not to mention the fact that I'm actually pretty bad at this Texas Hold'Em thingy and am probably better off playing against people like myself who look at the turn and river as bonus rounds where you get a chance to make a hand after missing the flop.

After playing on some tables that broke up after I won a pot or two (those cowards), I finally got myself on three stable tables when this happened:

When you get the same hand on two tables in the same position at the same time, you might get confused.

"Have I 3-bet? Or have I yet to 3-bet?"

Won one, lost one.

I love having a second monitor. I love 1600x1200. I love it for reasons other than poker. I was working all day with Photoshop and FormZ, and it was great being able to maximize my work window, shove the palettes off to the side, and keep a browser in view at all times. I was uberproductive and even managed to read part 9 of the loser story.

That's not Spaulding. I don't know who it is, but you should check out Numa Numa. Thanks to Film Geek for the link.

Rain in LA is always treated like a seismic event by the media. I think I first noticed this when we had that El Nino in the mid-90's. Ever since then, not a year seems to go by without "Storm Watch YYYY" flooding the local news. That said, the weather this weekend has been pretty intense. I don't think I've seen hail in LA since my primary school days when I lived in the Valley. Hail just doesn't happen on this side of the hills. Or so I thought.

I was working on my third beer of the night when I got a call from The Film Geek.

"Hey you want to go to Commerce tonight?"

"Uh..."

We'd been tentatively planning to go on Sunday because Film Geek had to put in some hours working on Return of Pink Five, but Friday's storm took out his machine, opening up his Saturday night calendar. Of course, I wasn't really thinking about the ramifications of that event when I opened those beers. Let me just say that I don't believe in drinking and driving. Especially in the rain.

I didn't have too many options, and the few I had were shut down pretty quickly. Film Geek stated flat out that he wasn't going to pick my ass up. Hank was already at Commerce working the tables. So if I wanted to go, which I did, I'd have to figure out if I could drive.

Well, I must be some kind of alcoholic because I did a quick status check and determined that yes, I could drive to Commerce. I'm so equipped.

The rain was already falling pretty hard as I drove toward the freeway. I hopped on the 405, which turned out to be its usual awful mess, and I hopped off it to take local to the 10.

The 10 was much, much better, but by this time, the rain was coming down in sheets. I had my wipers set to the highest setting and could barely see 20 yards in front of me. Being able to see was pretty important to me since I was going 70 while everyone else was going 40. Luckily, most people were avoiding the far left lane because driving through the standing water could pull your car right into the median. Even with AWD I got a little nervous when the car pulled a few inches sideways, but I figured coping with that was better than coping with 40 mph traffic.

I didn't get killed

Commerce Casino was packed. There were already 30 people on the $100 2/3 NL list. The list for 2/4 probably had 60 people on it. In places where rain is not unusual, people go out in all kinds of weather. In LA, people usually stay home. The feeling is, if you lose one night, or even one weekend, a dry day will be here before you know it, so why bother getting wet? That the casino was packed is a testament to the draw of the World Poker Tour and the poker celebrities who would be in attendance.

I put my name on the list and wandered around to gawk at all the big name champions and professionals that I wouldn't recognize (I don't watch TV). Believe me, it's even less exciting than you'd think. But I knew they were there because when I caught up with the Geek he rattled off a dozen names he'd seen downstairs in the high limit room or upstairs in the WPT tourney.

I found Hank over at what looked like a juicy mid-limit game. He was down over half a rack due to some bad beats, which meant that the table was primed to give him some massive pots. While I watched, Hank folded his pocket pair on the flop after some significant action on the first two streets. The suckers who were still in the hand lost to a guy who had flopped top set and turned the boat to win a massive pot.

"He could buy my car with the money in that pot."

"Yeah."

In case you're wondering, that was me talking about my car.

Let's play some cards

The list was moving fast. To me, that says there are people busting out in a single hand with crap. I just couldn't hit those tables fast enough.

Well, maybe I could.

The obviously tight player in seat 5 folded most of his hands preflop, missed the flop with the rest, and gradually found himself short-stacked after the first 90 minutes or so. You'd be surprised how quickly you can burn through a stack just by limping and folding. I rebought for another $100 to give me some ammo for when I would actually catch a hand, then managed to catch a hand in the next orbit:

AQ: I limp in middle position with AQ and it's raised in late position by a guy from Bluff Magazine to $15. Everyone folds, I call, and we see the flop heads-up. The flop brings A98. I check. The raiser checks behind. Turn is an 8. I bet out $20 and the raiser calls. River is a 7. I bet out another $20 and the raiser calls. I show my AQ and the raiser shows AJ.

I managed to catch a few more hands like this over the next couple hours to turn my down session into an up session.

AK: It's raised in middle position to $15 by the owner of Bluff Magazine and I call on the button. It's called by an Asian guy in early position who would ask for three new setups over the course of the night. Flop brings AKX with two hearts. Asian Setup checks. Bluff magazine bets $30. I call. Setup calls. Turn brings the 10 of hearts. Setup and Bluff check to me. I think about where I am, begin to take too long, get nervous as hell about taking too long, and figure I've blown my other options: "I'm all in." There $135 in the pot, and it's $120 for my opponents to call.

Setup must have a heart, since he's fairly conflicted about his decision, but he was probably thinking about how much of his stack would be left if he called. This goes on forever. I want him to fold. I think I've got Bluff beat pretty well (he probably has 4 outs with AQ or AJ), but Setup can possibly outdraw me, and I'm pretty satisfied with the pot as is. Ultimately he folds and accidentally flips one of his cards up. A king.

Bluff stares at me. Actually he stares at everyone in heads-up situations. I try to stare back, end up smiling, then look away as I feel the sweat start to flow and my skin start to buzz. I want him to call, but I think I've missed my opportunity to double up through him. He takes a long time and says I don't have the flush. He then mucks his hand and says he has kicker trouble. I guess he had AJ.

62: After a cigarette break, I find that I've missed my blinds. I decide to post the blinds in the cutoff, and look down to find 62. What a shitty hand. I figure I've just lost $5 for nothing. The flop is 5- or 6-way, and contains a 6 as well as two overcards. It's checked all around and I check. Another overcard falls on the turn. Checks all around. Something else on the river. Checks all around. Lots of ace high and other unpaired hands are shown, and my lowly sixes are good.

AA: I'm in early position and decide to limp-reraise. This isn't the kind of table that will see a 6-way flop after a raise to $20. I'm not sure this is the kind of table that will let me limp-reraise, but I figure I want to make the aces pay, so I take the risk. The new guy who lost 60% of his stack on his first hand overplaying top pair good kicker (QJ vs J8 on J8X flop after a raise to $15) raises behind me to $15. There's a call from an old Persian guy in middle position and everyone folds to me. New guy has just another $25 or so left, so I raise to $45 hoping to isolate. Now that I think about it, this would have been unlikely to happen with all the money in the pot. New guy gets flustered, but calls anyway. The old Persian guy quickly puts all his chips in (about $10-15 more). I call and we watch the flop come out T98. Fuck. There is a distinct straight possibility here. The turn is a K, the river a rag. I show AA, new guy shows JJ, and old Persian guy shows QQ. Wow. New guy leaves, completely disgusted. I wish he hadn't lost so much of his money with QJ.

KT: It's towards the end of the night. I've got KT in the big blind and another new guy to my left raises to $10 preflop. Surprisingly, he gets four callers, and I decide to call along. Flop comes KQJ. I check to the raiser and he bets out $20. Surprisingly, he gets no callers, and I decide to call with my top pair/OESD. Turn is a rag, I check, and the raiser goes all-in for $35. I hadn't realized he was so short-stacked. If I had, I probably would have put him all in on the flop. I call. River is another rag, and I wonder if I'm outkicked. I flip up top pair and he flips up second pair, ace kicker.

Not my hand

The one person who made multiple buy-ins seemed to be a truly bad player. If he limped and it was raised, it didn't seem to matter how big the raise was, he wasn't putting his hand down. In fact, once he put any chips in the pot, he seemed to be committed to seeing a showdown almost every hand. I never got heads-up with him, which was a shame.

The most notable beat he put on a guy went like this: Bluff Magazine raised pre-flop to $15, MultiBuy called, and an early limper wearing a fedora re-raised over the top. Bluff stared him down, decided his Jacks were no good, and mucked. MultiBuy re-raised to put the limper all-in. Fedora had AA vs. MultiBuy's 52 suited. MultiBuy flopped a pair and turned two pair. We were stunned.

Aphorism 1: It takes a better hand to raise than to call. Aphorism 2: The cards have no memory. Neither, apparently, does the Film Geek. Later in the evening, Fedora raised it up with AK, and Film Geek re-raised all-in with T9 suited. Flop came down Q86, giving the Geek a double-gut. The turn was a rag, I think. The Geek started chanting "Jack! Seven! Jack! Seven!" The river? A Jack, giving the Geek the nut straight. So rigged.

Getting paid more than minimum wage to play poker is always a good thing.

I cashed in my chips up $156 and felt fairly lucky. On the whole the players were playing decent cards, if somewhat passively. There wasn't a lot of money outside of the blinds to be won with a bluff, and the pots were generally small compared to the ones I'd seen at San Pablo. Besides MultiBuy, the players generally limited themselves to one rebuy throughout the night. Enough players would bust or get tapped by their spouses to cycle new players in, but the action was definitely not what I'd expect on a Saturday night at Commerce during the WPT.

There's still a few days left to the LA Poker Classic, but I think I've shirked my other responsibilities long enough. It's time to get back on track and put poker on the back burner.

You cable TV watching types can catch Mr. Wil Wheaton on the World Poker Tour tomorrow:

I've been waiting for this deal for a long time:

Best Price: Dell UltraSharp 2001FP 20.1" Digital LCD $507 at Dell Home

I'm currently using my notebook to play poker; with a maximum resolution of 1024x768, multi-tabling just isn't a viable option, but several authorities have stated that it's the most effective way to increase your hourly and reduce variance.

I decided against getting a CRT for a few reasons:

1) CRTs take up lots of desk space.
2) LCDs are much easier on the eyes, especially for long periods of use.
3) CRTs are heavy.

So I've been on the lookout for a price break on 1600x1200 LCD monitors. Not only can you fit four Party tables with no overlap, but I also believe that when you purchase a monitor, you should buy the best one you can afford and use it for years and years.

The LCD monitors that feature 1600x1200 native usually go for about $675-700 (not including tax and shipping), so this is a very good deal. If you live in a state with no sales tax and no environmental fee, you can actually get it for $507 shipped; Californians end up paying $556.56 shipped.

Hopefully I'll be able to adjust well to multi-tabling and make this purchase pay for itself within 15,000 hands.

By the way, Ben's Bargains is a pretty good place to go to look for deals. Not to mention the insightful (inciteful?) comments:

I'm on PokerNow with a new screenname and a rake rebate plan, courtesy of PokerSourceOnline. They seem to have some crazy overlay tourneys ($200k and $250k guaranteed) with $200+15 entry fees, so for those of you with the bankroll for those kinds of tourneys, it might be worth checking out before PokerNow thinks better of offering these prizes.

I'm only about 28% done with the signup bonus clearing, so I can't report on how well the rebate program works, but I'm sure it's fine. On the positive side I've actually had multiple winning sessions, which I attribute to good cards, bad players, and a better attitude about my game after last weekend's trip to the Oaks. Actually I think I have a better attitude about life after last weekend, even though things are more or less where they were before I left. It's good to get away.

This weekend marks the final weekend of the LA Poker Classic and the start of the WPT final tourney. I haven't had a chance to find out from the other LA-area players about how this past weekend went, but I'm itching to hit the NL tables again, and with the WPT event going on, there's sure to be some crazy money sitting on all those tables. Plus I'd like the chance to size up the Film Geek after his phenomenal success last week and see if he hasn't added a couple inches to his height or a few more teeth to his smile as a result.

So... anyone up for another Commerce run?

Playing poker online has numerous advantages, two of which are rakeback programs and bonuses. If you're like me, you play too much poker. Until you fix whatever psychological ailment you may have, you might as well maximize your net by taking advantage of rake rebates and bonuses.

Rake rebates

My recent bonus whoring stint at Paradise Poker generated as much rake as profits. Okay, so it was a damn lousy run, and the fact that I was clearing a bonus would have made me ineligible for a rake rebate anyway, but it still illustrates how much better your bottom line would be with a rakeback of even 10%.

DuggleBogey has the scoop on rake rebates: "Everything you wanted to know about Rake Rebates and weren't afraid to ask over and over and over and over and over."

Bonuses

Before the mediocre run at Paradise, I had an even worse run at Empire. From what I've read, some of my fellow bonus chasers had the same lousy run, but not all. Maybe taking heed of their advice would have helped me get more out of the bonus. Sure, I'd still be clearing those bonuses, but that's the point, right?

Sean has this to say on clearing bonuses: "I can sympathize with all of you that are having problems clearing the bonus, or where the bonus does not even make up for the money you lost trying to clear it. I used to be in that boat."

ScurvyDog has a take on bonus whoring, too: "There are a few considerations to keep in mind in order to maximize the value of the bonus."

Now I just need to find a clean computer to sign up for PokerNow via FrequentFlopper and start working on that new account bonus.

Usually rhymes with "junkie," as in the case of the prolific use of the word "monkey" in Sound of a Suckout. If for whatever reason you read me and don't read ScurvyDog's ramblings, there's something wrong with you, but happily, it's treatable. Sorry, but there's nothing I can do about your chlamydia.

Like most of the bloggers I enjoy reading, ScurvyDog's style is full of personality and animation. He gets extra points for using the phrase "getting kicked in the junk" from time to time, which as you know, is particularly painful when you have chlamydia. Poor you.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This past weekend I spent some time with my good friend J who once expressed great surprise to learn that I was playing with Other People's Money:

"From what I've read on your blog I thought you were losing tons of money!"

J has a habit of blowing things out of proportion, so now that he knows I've managed to grind out some wins here and there, he thinks I'm a great player. I asked him about a couple of his friends who also play poker at Party, and he said:

"Oh, so-and-so is pretty good, but nothing like you. They're up and down in the red and black."

I've been there. A few times. And while I take the game pretty seriously and think I know more than the average player, let me just say on the record that I am a very small-time beginning poker player who will never announce in this space that he is going pro.

Of course, what prompts this whole post is G-Rob's musings at Up4Poker. I haven't always shown a positive number (however small it may be) on the balance sheet, but until now I haven't actually taken the time to line up all the rows and columns in my spreadsheet to figure out how low I sank, and when it all turned around.

Let's do the numbers:

Months of playing online: 19

First online site: PokerStars

First online site where I made money: PartyPoker

Months it took to go from my first deposit into the black: 8

Number of $50 deposits before this occurred: 6

Months it took to go from the black into the red and into the black again: 3

Ditto that last one: 2

Months in the black since the last time I was stuck: 6

Lowest point: -$355

Highest point: $1078

Biggest 7 day gain: $410 to $1060 (early December)

Biggest 7 day loss: $1041 to $315 (late December)

Slope if you add a linear trendline to my ups and downs (total bullshit and uninterpretable, but fun!): 2.643

Current status: $809

Just a few additional notes on the bankroll numbers:

Weekly home game and similar situations are not counted in these numbers, since the stakes are usually super-low. Poker-related purchases such as poker chips and books are included, but lodging, food, and drink are not. I'm thinking of paying for the airfare this past weekend out of poker money, though the trip was not really a poker trip. I guess I just want to feel better about paying Southwest's full price to and from by using OPM to cover it.

Why go back?

I think the answer to G-Rob's question is pretty simple: I'm an obsessive compulsive with a gambling problem. But on top of that I also happened to figure that I could learn to become a better player if I kept playing, so that's what I did. Will I ever become great? I doubt it. I think it's a combination of lacking intuition and heart, which more or less makes me a bot. Beep!

Last night I had the option of paying $20 to see a friend of a friend of a friend's independent 12 minute short or being dropped off at The Oaks for a chance to redeem myself for Thursday's poor results. Not to be too results-oriented or anything, of course, but I figured if the game was that good at San Pablo (results notwithstanding), the game at the Oaks was sure to be as good or better. I was looking forward to playing some no limit at "One of Northern California's oldest and largest card clubs."

Sadly, there is no no limit hold'em at the Oaks.

An old Emeryville law regulating poker prohibits bets in excess of $200, which makes no limit poker games illegal, but allows bets in excess of $200 for games like Super Pan 9. Yeah, I've never heard of Super Pan 9 either, but I guess I'm not much of an Asian gambler.

With a couple hundred in my pocket and no chance to stack off against the denizens of the Oaks, I signed up for their 3/6 game, which combined the virtues of having a short waiting list, being somewhat affordable, and being less vulnerable to the effect of the drop. I really gotta get my bankroll up to a working level.

Over the course of four hours, I managed to keep the river beats down to an acceptable three, my calling down with a dominated hand down to a semi-acceptable one, and take down enough pots with the best hand to end the night with an extra 17.5 big bets in my pocket, making for an hourly rate of 4.4. Go me.

Spade flushes seemed to be the hand of the night, with no fewer than eight pots taken down by those pointy black devils. Happily, I managed to take more than my share of these large pots, with an ace high backdoor flush and a king high turned flush (an A or 9 would have given me the straight flush).

I also managed to get two big pocket pairs that held up. Kings unimproved in the first one or two orbits, and Jacks toward the end of the evening that flopped top set (a four straight on the river made me check behind, but still drag a large pot).

Actually, I take it back, the suited hammer was the hand of the night. One managed to get a full house on the river, one (which I folded) would have been the winning flush, and another was the winning flush. Needless to say, I folded the real hammer three times over the course of the night. No offense to Grubby, but that's just a shitty hand. There was no real reason to raise with the hammer, win with it, and put the table on tilt; they were giving away plenty of money as it was. I think if I were to have stayed another couple hours, some pure bluffs with the hammer or other terrible hands probably would have been in order, since the last pot I won I dragged after betting the flop. If the phrase "even fish have eyes" hasn't been copyrighted by anyone, I'm laying claim to it right here and now.

I'm still surprised at how often people will go to the showdown with nothing but Ace high or second pair or busted draws, but I'm still a relative newbie to live poker. Even the worst online tables don't have this many calling stations. Those "short-handed" tables don't count.

Afterwards, my friends told me the short was a terrible waste of time and money; knowing that makes tonight's win even sweeter.

...but that's been the state of Poker@Studioglyphic this past week. One would think that a change of scenery might mix things up enough to take a bit of the grind out of bonus-whoring, but no, clearing a Paradise bonus is as excruciating in Oakland as it is in LA. So far I've managed to keep my head above water, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say about my last bonus-whoring experience at Empire, but there's just no joy at the virtual tables.

I made my way out to Casino San Pablo Thursday night to check out the local action and try to win enough money to cover my airfare. San Pablo's run by a landless Indian gaming tribe, and I wasn't sure what to expect. I know that tribal casinos aren't necessarily subject to the same gaming laws as the card rooms, though they aren't quite able to do the full Vegas-style casino either.

Sadly, there's no roulette.

In fact, the only real difference I noticed was the fact that one could smoke anywhere inside the casino with the exception of the poker room. I grabbed a mug of coffee, had a cigarette, and put myself on the list for no limit.

San Pablo's a pretty small place compared to the LA casinos, so they only had a regular table and a must-move table going. The main table had some pretty big stacks sitting in front of some of the guys. At first I thought this might be a problem. I imagined a table with 6 or 7 sharks devouring the buyins of the Moneymaker wannabes one at a time, but as I settled down at the must-move, I realized that all I needed to do was get a hand and someone would pay me off. Easier said than done:

glyphic: Couldn't catch a damn flop on a seriously juicy table.
glyphic: How juicy? I raise to $20 and get four callers.
glyphic: Pots are regularly $80-100 on the flop
glyphic: People pushing whole trays of chips at each other.
HDouble: lol
glyphic: Damn. I hate being a bystander.

One guy rebought at least six times. He was a loose aggressive player who gave up at least two buyins to another guy who held cowboys at least half a dozen times throughout the evening. These cards held up every time but one.

In contrast, pocket queens was the best pair I had all night, with the rest being fives, fours, or twos. If I had big cards, the flop was coordinated rags or board pairs. If I had suited cards, the flop would be three of another suit. If I had small to medium connectors, the flop would be all broadway. When you keep limping with playable hands hoping to get in on the action, it doesn't take too long to erode your stack.

I basically won three times in 6 hours: pocket queens, QJ on a jack-high flop, and AK on a king-high flop for my last hand of the night (I went all in for $46, chopped with an AK caller).

There was one hand that wiped out my first buy-in:

I flop two pair with A8 on a AJ8 board. The flop is checked all around. The turn is a T, and a guy in EP bets $20. I raise to $40. A guy in LP pushes. EP calls and I call for the rest of my stack, which amounts to $30 or so. EP's A9 vs. my A8 vs. LP's AJ. Oof. I don't necessarily regret this hand, considering the size of my stack and the pot.

There were two hands I did regret:

I folded AQ on a 99X flop to a timid bet by the preflop raiser. I wanted to call, but I was irritated about missing yet another flop and decided to muck. The turn and river were aces.

On another hand, I folded KJ to a 3x raise. On this table, 5x raises were pretty standard and were almost always called by 3-4 people. I would have flopped top pair with a board pair out there to make me nervous. The action was checked to the button who made a small bet to represent trips trying to build the pot. It would have been an easy call and the turn would have given me kings full. Blah.

But these two hands probably would have made up the deficit from all my limping and possibly more. Once again I'm reminded that mistakes, even minor ones, can be very expensive.

Let's put it this way: short of implementing Communist China-style policies of restricting access at the hardware level, Internet gaming by Americans isn't going away.

Given this fact, Americans have a choice: ignore it, or embrace it.

Now if we as a society choose to hold on to our neo-Puritanical notions of morality, well that's fine. This is a republic, after all.

But from a practical standpoint, why not embrace onling gaming? If it's a rapidly growing, billion-dollar industry, legalization would produce several benefits:

1. The economy

   Las Vegas has been one of the fastest growing US cities for over a decade, due in large part to the growing social acceptance of gambling as a legitimate form of entertainment. Dozens of states have allowed the creation of American Indian casinos; even more have state lotteries.

   Gaming is big business, and it would be foolish for the US to forego its share of this growing industry because of some outdated notion of morality. With hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into the stock market and local economies all over the country, the benefits in wealth creation, jobs, and tax revenues are enormous.

2. Retaining US dollars

   Ignoring online gaming not only does not produce any positive benefit for Americans, but actually has a negative effect. The US trade deficit is already staggering, with the consumer preference for imported products, outsourcing of manufacturing to other countries, high rate of federal borrowing, and our huge appetite for and dependence on petroleum.

   With the majority of players residing in the US, online gaming as it exists today results in billions of dollars going to overseas companies.

3. Protecting players

   While online poker sites such as Party Poker have an inherent interest in keeping their games as clean and transparent as possible, smaller operations and online casinos don't necessarily have this same incentive. If online gaming sites licensed by the United States were subject to regulations backed by the full legal power of the federal government, players could feel more confident about the sites and sleep well knowing their deposits aren't going toward the payment of other players' cashouts.
   

Some odd stuff here.

I need a personal assistant to read blogs for me and give me daily summaries, categorized into strategy, personality, humor, drama, and general pokerness. Here's why: all this time has gone by since I started reading poker blogs and I haven't read a damn thing by DoubleAs. I'd seen his comments here and there from time to time, but it wasn't until he bluffed me off a largish pot in $25NL a few nights ago that I actually bothered to look him up. I've got some catching up to do. At the very least I need to figure out why in hell it's called "Hermaphrodites." But hopefully I can also figure out why I suck at poker and how I can improve.

Damn. I've got the flu. I'm going back to bed, which means I'll miss out on winning my first blogger tourney. Good luck to everyone playing tonight.

To tell you the truth, I was dreading going to the Poker Classic meetup. Not because I was afraid of Felicia or Al, though maybe I should have been. No, this was my anal Type A control freak side coming out for some weekend planning:

Other Me: "Dude, you're throwing a party Friday night and then meeting a bunch of bloggers Saturday morning?"

Me: "Dude, it's cool."

Other Me: "Dude, it's not. You're getting shitfaced Friday night, and you'll be in no condition to deal with the AlCan'tHang Experience. What the fuck is SoCo anyway?! And why the hell did you agree to pick up Hank at noon?"

It was true. I had turned thirty and deserved a party. But I also had to prove that in my maturity I could handle three beers, a shot of bourbon, a bourbon and soda, a tequila shot, and three Cosmopolitans, and deal. Well, I could deal. I was this close to yakking that night, but I got in eight hours of sleep and merely woke up with a hangover threatening to knock me on my ass. I gulped down two pints of water and two cups of coffee and drove off to the mall where Hank made his home.

---

En Route

I guess I told Absinthe I was going to be there around noon, but I was still stuck in mall traffic.

Me: "So have you met anyone yet?"

Absinthe: "I think I saw Felicia and Al at the bar, but I'm not sure."

Me: "Bar? That's them. Go say 'hi.'"

---

I Should Soco

We are young, we run green,
Keep our teeth, nice and clean,
See our friends, see the sights, feel alright,
We wake up, we go out, smoke a fag,
Put it out, see our friends,
See the sights, feel alright

It's true what they say. AlCan'tHang is a party in a box. That is, if they made boxes with long hair wearing Eagles jerseys. Which gives me an idea that I think Eva would like: sell the party on eBay. Each lucky eBayer can pay CantHang Industries a few hundred dollars and they'll send a genuine AlCan'tHang within 4-5 business days to make your life better. Shipping costs a few thousand frequent flyer miles, and sorry, but due to the costs involved, insurance is not available.

Having bought my stake in Al, and after bolstering my system with my third (of eight) cup of coffee of the day chased by the full house breakfast--eggs, bacon, and toast, I figured the least I could do was accept his offer of a single Southern. Good lord. I've gone through my entire drinking life thinking that Southern was some kind of whiskey. I can be so wrong sometimes. Whiskey would have been hair of the dog. SoCo would have upended my breakfast onto the poker table. But I could deal.

I wouldn't be the only one to accept the Southern. FHWRDH, PokerProf, and Obituarium all partook (?) of the nectar, and apparently the Prof doesn't even drink! Now I'm pretty sure there were two bottles at the Arena sports bar just before the tourney. By the end of the dinner break, there were none. But get this: Al was in the tourney. Wham!

I'll leave the details of how Al took ownership of the Commerce Casino to him.

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The French Dip Report

The French Dip at the Arena Sports Grill and Bar consists of slices of slightly fatty prime rib in a nicely textured french roll. Unfortunately, the au jus is a super-condensed brine solution, which is too bad, since it was very easy to imagine how good the sandwich could be with the au jus juste. The Prime Directive at the Raffles Cafe and the Texas Beef Dip at Bunboy still take first and second for now.

The french fries were decent, but the real winner was the spicy mayonnaise sauce they served with potato chips as snacks. Unless, of course, you don't like creamy stuff like mayonnaise, thousand island, or ranch dressing.

---

All kinds of gay

If blogs are gay, are bloggers gayer? I don't know, but Felicia outed three of our company to their faces. I don't remember about the other two, but I think she thought Absinthe's glasses were just too styling to be worn by a straight man. Heh. The thing about direct people who also like to deadpan is that you don't know whether to laugh or be offended or laugh and be offended. I lose more friends that way...

But gay or not, all the bloggers I met were good people. Some of them are nuts.

For instance, the LasVegasVegas crew made the four hour drive down, stayed for a few hours covering the NL tourney, had dinner with us, then left a couple hours later for the four hour drive back up to Vegas. Hard core. There's a story behind there somewhere, but we'll have to wait until the details come out in the wash.

Everyone else stuck around, but still, there wasn't enough downtime to spend more facetime with the group, which is really too bad. As with everyone else, our social proclivities compete with our anti-social obsession, and I spent a good 6-7 hours playing poker. Oh? You didn't know there was poker at Commerce?

---

Poker at Commerce

Here's the bottom line: +$21, making for a measly $3-4 per hour win rate. Good for 1/2, terrible for 2/5 $100 max no limit. Especially during the LA Poker Classic.

I swear on all things holy there was money to be made at those tables. My second table had about half a dozen guys who rebought at least 2 or 3 times, putting between $2000 and $3000 on the table. One gambooler called my $20 preflop raise with K4s and mucked it face up after I bet $30 into the ragged flop with rockets. Another gambooler called a $20 preflop raise with ATo and went all in for $35 or so when a ten hit the flop. I called with my Hiltons and they held up. Ace-rag would bet into an ace-high flop and get raised by Ace-slightly-better-rag, then call to the showdown. There was money to be made.

But not for me. When I caught the flop, I didn't get paid. When I caught a big piece of the flop, a scary draw forced me to shut the hand down with a big raise. And in my first session sitting with Absinthe, I made two mistakes that cost me my prior profits and then my stack.

I'm in seat 9.

Hand 1: I'm holding AQ in the SB and there are some limpers until seat 6 raises to $15. I call and seat 2 calls. Flop is A78. It's checked around. Turn is a 9, and I put out a $30 bet. Seat 2 raises all in for $17 more and seat 6 folds. I call the 7:1 and the river is a rag. Seat 2 has A8! I suspected that seat 6 didn't have a good hand, but if that were the case, I think I should have raised to knock seat 2 out. This mistake would soon beget another...

Hand 2: I'm holding 66 on the button. Seat 6 raises all in for $47. I figure my hand is good and call, but I fail to account for the players left to act. Oops. Seat 1 re-raises to put me all in with 50% of my stack in the pot. Glub. I compound the mistake and call. So we're looking at seat 1's KK vs. seat 6's 33 vs. my 66. The flop is AK9. I'm dead. The turn is a 9. I get my stuff since the river can't help and I'm out $100. Ugh.

Then it was time for dinner and I didn't make it back to the tables for another three hours. How I went from $100 to $221, I don't quite remember. Other than the extreme fishiness I noted above, nothing about my wins was that notable. I ground it out and wandered around every so often to check in on Bill and Grubby.

Bill was riding the variance train like you wouldn't believe. Before the dinner break he had something like $800 sitting in front of him at a $100 max no limit table. He was still there when I finally got back to the tables. Then at some point he was down to a buyin or two. Then at some later point he was riding high wtih massive stacks at his seat again. I never got a chance to see him play, but I'm sure it would have been amazing.

What is it about sitting at a table with a blogger that ups the testosterone and makes people make bold, but stupid plays? Well I'd seen it online, but when I walked over to Grubby at 12:30 to check on him, he told me he was down a buyin or two, then flashed me the hammer. Oh no.

Grubby's in seat 3 and puts in a big raise in EP. Seat 4 calls and everyone else folds. Now, there's some dispute about this, but the way I remember it, the flop came AQ9. Grubby bets and seat 3 calls. The turn is a rag and Grubby checks. Seat 4 checks. The river is another rag and this time Grubby puts out a substantial bet. The boy has balls. Seat 4 calls again. Grubby mucks his cards and seat 4 shows K9s. Uh... what? Nevermind the fact that only idiots play the Hammer, what the fuck was seat 4 doing in that pot in the first place, and what the fuck was he doing calling it all the way down with his bottom pair?

Didn't I tell you there was money to be made? I saw shit like that go down all night. I thought about loosening up even more, but all the crap cards I got never hit on the flop. The only hand I wanted to play and didn't due to a momentary loss of manhood was J9. The psychological torment came in the form of a J9xQ9 board where KQ won the hand. Even now I want to let out a primal scream. This was a hand I would normally play in this type of game and for whatever reason I became super weak-tight when facing a modest raise from one of the idiots.

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The last of the degenerates

By the time I cashed out at 4 in the morning, Grubby and I were the only ones left. He was wondering why he had left Vegas, where the alcohol flows all night and the carpet isn't held down with duct tape. But he did point out that Commerce was indeed the world's largest poker room, and the availability of higher-stakes games made it attractive even to Vegas-based degenerates like himself. Yeah. Still, I would rather have been standing with Grubby just outside the poker room at the Aladdin figuring out where to get some cheap food and hard liquor.

Yeah, man. I'm calling you out. Vegas. I got a spring break coming up. If you play roulette with me, I'll play some slots.

All in all I had a good time, but I had three regrets:

1. Not enough time to hang out
2. Never got to see Felicia in a tournament
3. Not enough boozing (damned Los Angeles auto-centric layout!)
4. Didn't get a chance to say a proper goodbye to most people

Shut up. I know.

You have one day left to register for the next stage of the World Poker Blogger Tour:

Feb 2nd, 9pm EST
PokerStars
$20 buyin, NL tournament
Password: thehammer
Listed under the Private Tournaments tab.
Open to bloggers and readers.

So far there are only 56 registered players. Last time there were over 100 players when the tourney started. Now I know for a fact that in the last 4-5 months there's been a veritable explosion in blogs and readers. So get up off your duff and register already.