Raymer's Shades

In my never-ending search for a poker edge I've been considering new angles for my appearance. As is the case for CEOs, a disproportionate number of WSOP ME winners are above average height. Because stopping smoking at my age is unlikely to lead to a sudden growth spurt I did what I could in this area and started wearing 2" Cuban heels and a hat.

Greg Raymer, of course, is above average width, and it is not clear to me that this leads to any particularly intimidatory advantage. However, I do find those voluminous cargo shorts that he wears to be unsettling. Somehow they communicate the idea of camping and I do poorly when asked to sleep in the wilderness when I know there's a perfectly good Marriott within twenty miles. Greg also has the worst nickname in the poker world. He gave himself the handle of "Fossilman" and frankly it's so naff that a strange feeling (maybe it's 'sympathy'?) creeps up my neck when I see him, potentially taking my head out of the game.

But when it comes to clothes and accessories, Raymer is best known for the shades he wore when he won the big one. Many of his opponents have stated that the holographic monsters not only made Raymer harder to read but were simply unpleasant to look at. Indeed I suspect the slightly mesmerizing effects of these shades may have inspired some of the avatars used by players at PokerStars. The timing could have been a coincidence, but immediately after Raymer's ME win there was an outbreak of out-of-focus, double exposed, swirly things that could lead to migraines. None are as disturbing as the ever-popular, ever-nauseating baby pictures, of course, but whatever the nastiness presented in the little Stars' circle I have the ability to block the horrid thing. Something that cannot be done live without drawing undue attention to oneself with masks, fans, and so forth.

To simply imitate Raymer and wear holographic shades is clearly not an option here. But this is an angle I want to shoot. So I have been experimenting with high-wattage halogen lamps tucked into the inside pockets of my double-breasted jacket, pointing them upwards in the traditional manner used for telling scary stories around the camp-fire. There are still a few practical issues to iron out in order to use the set up in a casino, but I am pleased with the initial results...

The benefits of (nearly) going broke

Some time last year my poker results started declining. My tournament ROI dropped and I stopped making significant money in cash games. In April of this year I had enough stats to know that unless there was a sudden upswing in my earn I was going to go broke.

I still haven't completely figured out what happened. The number of hands and tournaments is too great to attribute the downswing to variance, although I think it played a part. My current guess is I started playing bad as a result of running bad. Not stupid "let's try and get back a chunk of the roll at once by playing limits I can't afford," but that creeping disease of semi-tilt.

The situation led to considerable reflection and some tough decisions. First, I realized that I didn't quit a well-paying job to "become" a poker player. I was already a poker player and to make my living in any other manner was going to make me unhappy. I also concluded that five winning years provided convincing evidence that fundamentally I am a winning player provided I play my best and keep working on improving my game. This optimism was aided by a former poker student telling me "you're too good to not be making money."

None of this altered the fact that I was a few weeks away from going busto.

So I put a plan together. I got a long-term backer as well as other stakers to make sure that I could stay in the game. This also meant I had to work twice as hard for the same earn, but the alternative was unacceptable. I also started paying more attention to the small edges. Sitting out of a cash game when it got too tight to be profitable; changing my sleep schedule to target easier times of day; focusing on my strongest forms and structures of poker. And perhaps most importantly working my ass off through training sites, forums, books and other resources to make my game stronger.

I still don't know how this story is going to play out because I am still working with a worryingly thin bankroll and my house is falling down. My feeling (supported by steadily-improving results) is that I've turned the corner. One thing I know for sure is that nearly going broke has forced me to greatly improve my game and my approach to playing poker. And those of you who have accused me in the past, rightly, of being arrogant, may be pleased to know that this episode has also given me a little humility. Not a lot. But a little.

Sympathy for Myself

I’ve never understood all the fuss
About my disguises
The word now carries a sense of deceit
But the fake fur and eyelashes
Came from a sense of fun
The same with the clues
Muddle metaphysicians
And find mystics in a heap
A wizard who lives backwards
And doesn’t sleep?
Invert nil REM
It’s easy
Mallory got that one anachronistically
Give him a hint and he’ll create a novel
And thus a world

Ours is dying
We’re promised a technological cure
And told that the medicine
Is a dose of Vitamin C and not clap sans frontieres
Similar promises accompanied pox-filled blankets
Terra Incognita became terror known
To those who saw the New World as old
Age provides perspective.
Four hundred years for Rome
Less here I think.
Caligula may have looked impassively at the decapitated head of his nephew
(Will that child not stop coughing?)
But he would blush today.

According to an ex-colleague of mine
It was people who screwed up the deal from the get-go.
He forgets that I was there and saw
Eve's alleged mistake
She wanted to exile ignorance.
But the snake
(When straight, the perpendicular pronoun, wink wink)
Was a liberator
A facilitator of education.
The one thing that He despises most.
Knowledge is the antithesis of faith.
And what’s the price for suppressing it?
Hope and Charity locked out of the house.
Silly girls asked questions.
Original thought is original sin

So with snakes out of favor it was time for geometry
Got Descartes thinking
Produced axes and soon thereafter
Died in Sweden thanks to the negligence of Queen Christina
(There's that name again, feminized)
He says, 'thou shalt not know,' and strikes down one of the Enlightened.
But the first half of the secret slipped out.
I think, therefore I am.
A good start
And yet the species is reluctant to end its childhood
And accept that the Cartesian axiom for an individual also applies to a society, planetwide.

He’s the master of confusion
His lawyers successfully turned the World upside down.
War, they claim, is the domain of the Dark Angel, for our Lord is Light
(Blitzkrieg almost gave the game away, but they got the Big Lie guy on board)
The Lightning strike of the Stukas was His idea, not mine.
The Crusades didn’t end.
The theocratic clash echoes down the centuries and Force Majeure still rules
But knightly armor is now Armani and an alligator smile.

Funny thing.
We’re told, by the latest lead attorney
As he stuffs his old clothes in the closet
And puts on a funny hat
That the one without toes is behind all this
(The only inconvenience concerning the toes, incidentally, being a slight numbness in the feet, but an aspirin a day works wonders)
I’ve also been implicated in famine
But have you once heard me say ‘go forth and multiply.’
No. That was one of His.
And don’t worry about the consequences for He will provide… Starvation?
And if all this gets you down remember
Death ain’t so bad.
Heaven on Earth is a blink away.

But a cat has two eyelids, blinks twice.
The second one a Darwinian marvel evolved to block His Light.
It’s why felines need nine lives
They’ve used those eyes to peek behind the curtain and so He keeps trying to bump them off.
Exterminated by the Inquisition in millions.
Know why?
The cats were killing the rats.
Slowed the spread of the Black Death.
He got pissed.
Plague fills the churches faster than plenty.
Fear populates the pews.

I'll give Him this, He has a certain ingenuity.
But even He can’t suppress the curiosity characteristic of cats and sometimes seen in people.
He’d like to because you are (He claims) His children.
(Technically adopted; He bends the truth.)
He tried to head-off the desire for knowledge through his Killing Joke
Claiming the Son was a teacher
Teacher? A teacher of blind obedience.
Follow me for I am the path and through me, The One
(The cats call him the One Third)
You will learn not to think.
Here endeth the lesson.
Well, with the Father's pitiful bill of goods, what other lesson could there be?
The three of them, you see, they don't want to let you go.
They like having kids, whereas I’ve never been comfortable around children.
That's why they threw me out.
And why, eventually
(I have to confess, it's taking a while)
I will bring Childhood's End.

The Interwebz

One of the problems presented by online poker that is not an issue when playing live is losing internet connection to the poker site. If a casino unexpectedly bursts into flames all players in the card room are affected equally and an equitable resolution to the problem can be easily found. I guess it's conceivable that one of the geriatric cocktail waitresses at Bally's might drop a gin and tonic in my lap and that I'd be forced to leave, but that has not yet happened. If, on the other hand, I am sitting in a PLO8 tourney at Stars looking with joy at AA23 single-suited and my internet goes down I am both screwed and apoplectic. This happened last night. For real. AA23.

As we all know, the internet is a series of tubes, and I understand that on occasion those tubes can get clogged. So when I phoned my cable company this afternoon to report this ongoing problem I was polite and controlled despite the fact that this is costing me money!!! And I spoke to a very helpful young man named Brandon who confirmed he was seeing packets vanishing for an unknown reason and that a service engineer would be out tomorrow afternoon. Which is really pretty fucking useless given that I need to play off another 1400 Stars' VPPs to maintain my VIP status AND I am supposed to be internet-broadcasting a tournament tonight. Brandon also told me explicitly, because I asked, that no other customer in my area had reported any problems.

Now I know absolutely nothing about the internet (other than the tube thing), hardware, software, computers, electronics, or anything that gets plugged into a wall socket, but undeterred by my boundless ignorance I decided to walk around my estate to see if there were any squirrel teeth marks in the big wire that comes from a pole in the alley to the box on the side of my house. And what did I see in the alley? I saw a man up a ladder fiddling with wires. And beneath him was a white van. And what do you think was written on the side of the van? Hmmm??? Yup. The name of the cable company that provides my fucking internet.

Just Play

National Poker Week is upon us and a drive is underway by organizations such as the Poker Players Alliance to defend The Holy Game from the stupidity of the UIGEA, the DoJ and quite probably the DMV since they are usually involved in making life difficult. This raises a question for professional and recreational online players alike: What can we do to keep online poker legal and help it thrive?

There are petitions that can be signed and form letters that require a couple of mouse clicks to send to members of the House and Senate. The major online sites have been ponying up prize-pools for freeroll tournaments for those signing these petitions and sending letters, thereby providing additional incentive for players to get involved in this process. I strongly encourage everyone who supports the right of citizens and residents of the U.S. to play online poker to take the thirty seconds required to petition and write. However, I am also convinced that the most important weapon we have in our fight against dim, repressive, and flawed legislation is the simplest of all.

Just play.

The fundamental reason that the prohibition of alcohol in the U.S. was repealed is that people continued to manufacture and consume alcohol. Similarly tobacco remains legal despite its health consequences because so many people smoke. The U.S. will eventually follow the worldwide trend of decriminalizing marijuana largely for the same reasons. One does not have to approve of drinking and smoking to recognize that attempts to make them illegal are counter-productive and lead to a lessening of respect by the public of laws in general.

Playing poker online is not currently illegal, of course. Part of the cynicism of lawmakers opposed to online poker is that, recognizing the popularity of the game, they have attempted to cripple it through indirect means such as attacking the flow of money between players and online sites. And this has clearly succeeded in driving away many U.S. players. Particularly the bad ones, unfortunately. We have endured scares over seized funds going back to the Neteller fiasco. I had nearly $10k tied up for several months. I didn't like this at all. Eventually every penny ended up safely in my bank account.

Clearly one can make the decision to cease playing and wait to see how the legal situation pans out. That is exactly what the opponents of our freedom to play The Holy Game want you to do. So be the change you want to see in the world. Just play.

Department of "Justice"

As an Omaha-8 player my life is not exactly stress-free. At least once a day I will flop the nut flush and nut low, lose the low on the turn to a counterfeit, and watch the flush dissolve on the river as the board pairs. I also have to maintain concentration over many hours while sitting at tables with players who have screen-names such as "ilovetoeatpoo." But this is the life that I have chosen and all I really ask is that I be left alone to make my living playing poker.

Apparently in the "land of the free" this is overly optimistic.

It has emerged over the last couple of days that the Department of Justice, acting through the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has frozen $30 million of online poker players' winnings.

Why?

Apparently it has something to do with the 1961 Wire Fraud Act. My detailed research has revealed that whenever some social-engineering, mindless, bottom-dwelling federal attorney decides they want to make a name for themselves without bothering with the niceties of due process they invoke wire fraud. Which they are compelled to do in the case of online poker because playing poker is not illegal.

In fact why online poker gets certain politicians all riled up baffles me. "Gambling is a disease. It destroys families." I see. Well, first poker is a game of skill it isn't "gambling," and second where are these nanny-state legislators when it comes to state lotteries?

I went to my local gas station the other day to buy a carton of cigarettes. For the reasons given above I, like many Omaha-8 players, smoke heavily. The check-out guy asked me if I wanted to buy a lottery ticket. I peered at him over my shades with my best "wtf do you think" glare. "Sorry," he replied, "we have to ask everyone that this week."

Walking home I mulled this over. The corporation running this gas station instructs its employees to invite customers to engage in gambling. Since the lottery is state run it follows that they do so with the full support of the state. This is essentially solicitation to participate in gambling of a form that would be illegal in any Nevada casino because the house take is so huge. But if I choose to play poker online and by using my skill advantage win money I run the risk of losing my winnings because of "wire fraud."

Genuinely confused by all this I decided it was time to do a little background research into the man apparently behind this madness, Arlo Devlin-Brown, the assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. It seems online poker is the bee in the bonnet of Mr. Devlin-Brown since it was he who went after Neteller and Party Poker for reasons that are baffling to poker players.

Based on my extensive research it is possible that Mr. Devlin-Brown has spent much of his legal career involved in noble causes protecting the innocent and acting as an advocate for the disenfranchised. And that while engaged in these activities he has shunned publicity. Because a thorough googling of Mr. Devlin-Brown returns a remarkably thin curriculum vitae up until the point he got in on this wire fraud scam. Specifically since 1995, when Mr. Devlin-Brown placed 4th in the APDA Speaker of the Year contest, his only notable achievement was the prosecution of a Mount Vernon trash hauler:

Albert Tranquillo III, 30, of Armonk, faces a possible new indictment that will include a charge of bribing a Mount Vernon Department of Public Works official.

"There is a substantial likelihood a superseding indictment will be handed down," Assistant U.S. Attorney Arlo Devlin-Brown said during Tranquillo's hearing before U.S. District Judge Stephen C. Robinson.

Appparently this case was insufficient to catapult Mr. Devlin-Brown into the spotlight and he is looking for bigger fish to fry. Thereby chasing all my fish off the poker sites and back to the state lotteries.

It's WSOP time and I'm in... Kansas?

And I'm not at all happy about it. For the first time since 2004 I'm not in Vegas for the World Series of Poker. My personal recession and the indifference of the Government to my request for a financial bail-out have stranded me in the Heartland when I should be prowling the side action at The Mirage and Caesar's Palace.

So instead of the real deal I am at home playing the "Mini Series of Poker" courtesy of the good folks at Full Tilt. It's great! The events are the same as the WSOP but the buy-ins are 1/100th the size. This naturally means the prizes are somewhat reduced, so despite cutting through a field of 1500 to finish 77th in the LO8 my prize was a mere $36. $20 net. $10 after I split the profit with my backers.

I blew all my winnings on a modest lunch the next day and then got back to work playing the PokerStars 100k Nightly where I busted when someone accidentally called my AQ shove with K3. Flop A3x turn 3. Busted by a misclick. I immediately fired off an e-mail to Stars' support urging them to introduce REALLY HUGE ACTION BUTTONS.

Even though I'm not going to be out for the show I will be following the fortunes of several friends who'll be playing. Good luck today, Marky, in the PLO. And many congrats to Connie/sunfish2 for winning a Main Event seat through a Full Tilt satty. Connie helped me turn my LHE game from a firework display into solid poker. Like many pros over the last couple of years she's been under considerable financial stress so to see her have this big score really made me happy. It was also the best tournament poker I've ever seen her play.