Tinfoil Hat Time --- Redskins Style

And here I thought the cuckoo Redskins fans were the ones in the 'Pigs' cheering section....

Here's one of the best "online poker is rigged" posts ever. It appears on a football forum site called ExtremeSkins, and is just funny as hell. While I'm sure you'll want to read it in its entirety, all you really need to know is contained in the first few sentences:

I am a good poker player who does very well in live games. In online poker though, I have lost money and suffered bad beats where the odds must have been over 500:1. This has happend numberous times.

Found this doing some research and it makes sense.

I know a programmer who helped create the Pokerstars shuffle. According to him it is rigged as its a necessary evil from a business standpoint....

As Andy Griffith once said, "Go-o-o-o-o-d cracker." What I find most amazing about the thread is that all the respondents agree with this person in some form or another, though the original poster's accuracy was suspect from the very first words: "I am a good poker player." Yeah, and I should emigrate to the D.C. area and find the games that this guy can make money in.

As for the collective group of ExtremeSkins posters who chimed in, I recommend this:


But thanks for the laugh, regardless.

MTV Thinks Online Poker Players are Exciting

Wanna take part in a breathtaking new documentary showing the exciting lives of online poker players? Yes, you too, can be a television star on an MTV series planned about people who live 'alternative lives' online. (Sounds like this is really someone searching for a Duplicate Poker player, but that's another story.)

The series, called "True Life," focuses on... well... we'll just reprint the True Life producer's pitch as posted on 2+2:

I'm producing a documentary for MTV about people who lead "alternative lives" online. We're reaching out to a number of different online groups and cultures, and we thought it could be fascinating to profile someone who gambles online. The key thing we’re looking for is that our subject leads a life that is very distinct/unique/interesting when juxtaposed to his or her online gambling activities. You must be in the age range of 18-28.

This would be part of the documentary series “True Life” which has won numerous journalism awards. I anticipate some eye-rolling when folks see everybody’s favorite whipping-boy network, MTV. The “True Life” series really does stand out from your typical MTV programming, as it is far less “reality tv” and more objective documentary. The series is always told POV the characters we choose, so there is no editorializing or commenting-on that we engage in. The effort, simply, is to tell the subject’s story in as objective a way as possible.

Please email your story, age, and a photo to: brosen@leftright.tv (Left Right is a NYC-based production company hired by MTV to produce this show)

Thanks!

Let's add a thought or two. First, they could've just hired Dutch Boyd. Not only was he wanting to reunite the 'Crew' a few months ago and trying to sell a series of his own based on online poker players sitting around a large apartment or house and staring at computer screens and farting, but with Dutch, you'd get the whole "alternative lives" thing and then some. Besides, whipping boys love company, too.

Whoever's selected, though, gets the hidden bonus: a return role on "Surreal Life 26" a decade down the road. We could get PlayersOnly.com to be a sponsor and this could be a huge hit, don't you think?

Yang a No-Go to APPT Macau

What's a WSOP Main Event winner to do these days? Seems as though for Jerry Yang, the answer is to be a stay-at-home poker champ. Yang couldn't fulfill his commitment to travel to Macau and take part in the Asian Pacific Poker Tour event that was just held there.

The reason was that Yang, as a naturalized refugee, needed a special visa to enter Hong Kong, the gateway to Macau and Mainland China. Yang found about the special requirement for his travel far too late to get the paperwork handled. Yang, a Laotian Hmong who spent four years in a Thai refugee camp, illustrates in this unfortunate incident that being a displaced citizen from a turbulent region brings about effects that are permanent and long-lasting.

As for the APPT Macau event, it had a good crew of stars on hand, Yang or not. Joe Hachem was one of three WSOP Main Event winners who did make the trip, and he and Liz Lieu were among several well-known names at the final table.

Little Rock Poker League Raided

One of the more curious poker news items in recent days was the raid last Sunday night on the Little Rock, Arkansas, location of the National Poker Challenge. The raid took place at about 9 pm and seems to have been done at the behest of the president of the Little Rock-based Family Council, Jerry Cox. Yes, that's another one of those Focus on the Family, "Any fun that we don't approve of must be abolished", wacko-right wing organizations.

It's of course of special interest because the National Poker Challenge was one of a growing swarm of "free poker" outlets nationwide. The NPC also has operations in Oregon and in Memphis, where it is headquarted, and went ahead with opening up in Little Rock despite receiving warnings from the city attorney there that the planned operation was likely going to be perceived as illegal. The NPC responded that it had received several legal opinions that it was on solid legal ground, and went ahead and opened anyway.

So what does a modern, rightest American government do when faced with any sort of sociopolitical legal challenge to its authority?

Yep, S.W.A.T. teams.

Little Rock indeed responded by sending in the heavy hitters and conducting a sweeping raid. It seems like Cox, the aptly named Family Council president, also had his special in, because he just happened to be driving by the place when the raid went down and witnessed the equipment being hauled out and the room's owner and employees being placed under arrest. They were charged with felonies, too, which is of course what you'd expect from such a heavy-handed operation. The raid was intended to get rid of the perceived problem by any means necessary, not to bother with any sort of reasonable legal discourse. And of course, by filing felony charges and keeping the equipment seized and unavailable, the unacceptable behavior is dealt with, legal or not.

I've been to Little Rock. Spent several days there, a few years back. My general impression is that Little Rock sucks.

This just reminded me again, as to why.

Daniel Negreanu the Not-Unhappy Divorcee

[An all-Cal Sunday commences...]

Daniel Negreanu spilled the beans about a major change in his life this week, though in normal Negreanu style, he did so with a bit of build-up for the fans.

Negreanu's postings at his Full Contact Poker blog have been less frequent than normal in recent weeks. Late in a post about the Las Vegas Comedy Festival, Daniel abruptly changed tacks and told his widespread readership that something more serious would soon follow in a separate post. Here's what Daniel wrote on Nov. 20th:

On a totally unrelated note, the next blog I write is going to be very different than anything I’ve ever written before. I considered writing it now, but I wanted to give it some time so I can really think about what it is I’m saying and what the best way to say it is. It’s kind of a good news/bad news blog in a sense, although I prefer to see it as a very good thing and a positive step in my life. I’d explain further but the only way to do that would be to just write the blog now and I’m not going to do that.

As for when the blog will be written? It’ll probably happen within the week.

As one would expect, the rumor mills kicked into high gear. The friendlier posts were on FCP, while the snipier stuff appeared on 2+2 and elsewhere. In no particular order, possibilities for Daniel's upcoming revelation were that:

Daniel was getting a divorce from his wife of two years, Lori Weber;

Daniel was busto, and this was why he was no longer played in the Big Game at the Bellagio;

Daniel was gay, and was going to out himself (feel free to roll your eyes...);

Daniel was relocating back to Canada or to Europe, being burned out on the Las Vegas / American scene;

Daniel was going off to serve a tour as a Christian missionary;

Daniel was resigned to doing a cheeseburger-eating prop bet, a la Howard Lederer.

Yeah, we might have made up one or two of those, but it was getting pretty stupid in the forums. Yesterday, though, Daniel posted the news, and it actually turned out to be one of the most widely speculated things, that he was getting divorced from his wife, Lori. Here's part of what Daniel wrote in the latest post:

So in my last blog I described the news as both good and bad and that’s exactly how I feel about it. It’s bad news, in that, something like this is never a good thing, but it’s good news, because it’s the right decision for me… and Lori....

... Having said that, for quite some time now we both have felt that there was something missing or not quite right. I know for certain that I’m to blame for much of it. I can be a pretty demanding person at times. What I regret most is trying to change Lori into something she wasn’t instead of just loving her for who she was.

She is a great person, someone you could trust with your life and would never turn her back on you. She is a great listener and would do anything for a friend. I think we’ll be really good friends forever.

The decision to split could not have gone any smoother. Seriously, one night we just started talking after a frustrating day for both of us. Not yelling, not blaming each other for anything at all, no crying, just talking like adults....

And on from there. Daniel reported that the two came to a very amicable split, with no lawyers involved or anything of the sort, and that the two would likely remain good friends. They are splitting up the dogs, with Daniel getting Mushu and Lori getting Marley. Daniel and Lori just seemed to have separate lives, and while she was well known within the professional poker scene, she was rather anonymous to the casual poker fan. (If curious, you can see her hair-cutting skills in this Negreanu head-shaving video over at RawVegas.tv)

Divorces are never good news, in that sense, but it's refreshing to see a relationship in the poker world that, if ending, is at least ending in a responsible manner. There have been enough of the other stories in recent times, even without getting into the wretched non-relationship stuff like Mike Matusow's arranged blind date with Kathy Griffin or anything connected with Shawn Sheikhan. Emotional maturity is refreshing.

Nor is Negreanu likely to lose any fans over something as well handled as this. It should, in the long run, make him even more valuable as a poker commodity/spokesperson.

Bets of luck to Daniel, and Lori, as they move forward in their lives.

No Deportation for Sheiky

[Cal here, rollin' on...]

Shawn Sheikhan had a bright moment in a fall full of controversy when a judge ruled against a deportation motion brought by the Department of Immigration. The result is that Sheiky gets to stay, pending a possible appeal by the immigration people; had it gone the other way, he could packing his tattoo-parlor fixings and looking to open up a new chain of shops in Tehran. Sheikhan was born in Iran and is a U.S. resident alien.

For those of you not familiar with the longer part of the tale, the trouble came about when Sheikhan's name turned up on a list of old criminals being cross-checked by Department of Immigration, who uses such things to look for people to deport. Sheikhan had a bit of a mess in his past, in a matter concerning with an underage girl in California, back in 1995. Sheikhan served nine months in prison and received five years of probation in that matter, though it was officially booked as a misdemeanor. (Nine months jail time and five years probation is on the healthy side of misdemeanor offenses, one would think.)

But whatever happened, it's mostly forgotten now. That's meant literally. Contra Costa County, where the infraction/s took place, tosses out the details of their misdemeanor convictions after ten years. More than that much time had elapsed when the immigration people tried to make their case, so their motion was empty --- it had no facts from the trial to present, and that's why it was tossed.

So Sheikhan likely dodged a big bullet here, even if the allegations were as overblown as his attorney alleges. Sheikhan remains one of the most colorful and controversial presences on the Vegas 'TV pro' scene, and this episode isn't likely to change that at all.

Annie Duke Stars in Congressional Hearing about Online Poker

[Cal here, chiping away at a long weekend---]

Did you hear that there was a hearing in Congress this past week about Internet gambling? The hearing was called by the head of the Judiciary Committee, John Conyers (D-MI), and its intent was to look into allegations that last year's UIGEA was an example, more or less, of bad law. Despite the fact that the hearing received very little advance press, both sides brought out an array of their heavy hitters in an attempt to get their thoughts on the matter before Congress.

When all was said and done, the hearing provided several signature moments. Department of Justice official Katherine Hanaway was forced to place herself in a verbal Catch-22 regarding the legality of online poker (short version: it is); a representative of the Family Research Council was more or less outed as being a fringe element, and out of a strong lineup of prominent voices testifying on behalf of online gambling, it was Annie Duke who received some of the highest marks. While often a lightning rod for comments from other players and fans, the outspoken Duke has been one of the loudest public voices in efforts made against the UIGEA. Duke spoke as a representative of the Poker Players Alliance and is a true Poker Star.

Duke cited, among other arguments, the concern over civil-liberties violations: "Having the right to continue to pursue my profession, wherever I might choose to pursue it, is very important to me from both a financial standpoint, but also from the broader perspective of freedom, personal responsibility and civil liberties."

Duke had plenty of support on her side of the argument, of course. Among those also testifying from a general "pro-gambling" viewpoint were Congressman Shelley Berkley (D-NV), who as a legislator from a pro-gambling state railed against the hypocritical, discriminatory nature of the UIGEA, and Michael Colopy of Aristotle, Inc., a leading designer of software algorithms designed, among other things, to prevent underage play. Colopy testified about the capabilities of modern identity-verification software, indirectly contradicting the lines often peddled by anti-gambling fanatics about underage players running rampant with their parents' credit cards were likely unfounded. (Again, the short version: The technology to effectively block the vast majority of underage players not only already exists, but if sites were properly regulated, it would most certainly be used.)

In a similar way, Joseph Heiler, from New York University's Hauser Global Law School, gave expert testimony on how badly the UIGEA serves the U.S.'s international trade responsibilities; not only is the U.S. already in violation, as was determined in the WTO decision with Antigua, the UIGEA flagrantly compounds the problem. He noted that the U.S.'s announced plan to withdraw its WTO commitments regarding the gambling sector was a dangerous precedent, in that it gave all other countries (notably China) good cause to similarly ignore international trade judgments.

Perhaps the best moments, though, were those offered from the other side. Rep. Bob Goodlatte was on hand for another of his surreal outbursts. As picked up by several outlets, Goodlatte declared that there was no wagering in fantasy sports and that's why America's youths are allowed to participate in it. In what, fantasy sports? Sports in general? Another great Goodlatte moment occurred when he stated that the U.S. never intended to included online gambling as part of its WTO obligations, despite ample evidence to the contrary. This revisionist history is the party line that's been spouted by the U.S. Trade Representative throughout the entire WTO process.

Hands down, though, the best moments went to Bob McClusky, the Family Research Council's vice president of governmental affairs. A solid piece of Salon.com replayed this exchange between McClusky and Rep. Steve Cohen:


COHEN: Do you think that horse racing and dog racing and lotteries should be legal in the United States?

MCCLUSKY: Are you asking me?

COHEN: Yes, you personally.

MCCLUSKY: The Family Research Council does believe that such things should be illegal.

COHEN: So it is really not the Internet you are against. It is gambling in general. Is that right?

MCCLUSKY: Yes, that would be true, or at least unrestricted gambling such as we have with the Internet or other.

COHEN: But the lottery is restricted. You can't play if you are a child. Same thing with horse racing. But you are against that, are you not?

MCCLUSKY: Yes.

COHEN: So restricted or unrestricted, you are against it?

MCCLUSKY: Yes.

COHEN: Is there any fun that you are for?

That says it all, doesn't it?

New York City Poker Murder

[Cal here, checking in---]

The latest from the New York City poker murder was an arrest and arraignment, followed quickly by a release. NYC police arrested William Delvalle, 35, as part of the heist and presumably accidental murder of player Frank DeSena at the newly opened underground poker club within walking distance of the Empire State Building. Delvalle was believed to be involved but was not suspected of being the shooter, though police did not release information as to why this was so. Delvalle also had a rap sheet with serious crimes in his past, including serving eight years for manslaughter after firing into a crowd of people, killing a 21-year-old woman.

However, Delvalle could not be bound over for trial because of a legal technicality that states that a 144-hour window must be adhered to for initial hearings. For whatever reason, Delvalle's hearing went just outside that, and so the judge ordered him released on his own recognizance, pending trial at a later date. It did not mean that the charges were dropped; rather, Delvalle could not be held pending bail until the trial, now scheduled for January.

DeSena's relatives were pleased at Delvalle's arrest, but obviously dismayed at his subsequent release, according to several reports in New York and New Jersey newspapers.

The search continues for the others -- either two or three -- believed to be involved in the heist.

Jean-Robert Bellande Booted from Survivor: China

I seldom watch much network TV these days, but was relaxing at the club Thursday night after a workout, pedaling away on a exercise bike for a few minutes. I looked up at the three TVs on the front wall, one of which was tuned to "Survivor: China". There were just 15 minutes left in the show, and I wondered, "Was this the week that Bellande gets kicked from the show?"

It turned out that it was. The nine votes that were cast at the tribal gathering or whatever they call it went 5-3-1, with Bellande gathering the five, and thus exiting stage right. His tiki torch was extinguished (in grand "Survivor" tradition), and the last shot before the closing credits was of his back side trotting down the steps and off to the debriefing station for a reunion with his luggage.

His chances seemed slim from the outset, and reports on the early shows said that he played the laggard for the first week or so, then tried to improve his image later on. Unfortunately, a couple of the female contestants hated him, and lobbied week after week for his release.

That's what happened this past week, though Bellande made at least one or two other boneheaded political maneuvers in the days prior to his departure, according to stories printed in the last day or two. He was a day late and two immunity idols short in figuring out who held what and who was really aligned with who, and that sealed his fate. All the stories about it use some lame poker metaphor like, "He pushed all in and was caught bluffing." Here, we just note that he busted short of the money.

Your Weekly Absolute Update

Haley here, checking in for just a couple of minutes on a Sunday night while Cal mans the regular boats, wanting to fill you all in on the latest in the Absolute situation.

Really, there wasn't all that much new. Over at PokerNews, we ran the first part of our lengthy Q&A session with Nat Arem, who traveled to Absolute's Costa Rica offices.

At almost the same time as we preparing this Part 1 to go live, Absolute released another one of its unofficial statements through the same conduits it had used previously. Here's the meat of that statement:

First and foremost, we would like to assure our players, once again, that the security breach, which resulted in unfair play, was resolved immediately after it was discovered and confirmed, and AP's sites are absolutely secure.

At this point, all players known to have been adversely impacted by the security breach have been fully reimbursed with interest. The amount that was illicitly 'won' by the illegitimate accounts was approximately US$800,000. The amount reimbursed to players by AP as a result of the security breach was approximately US$1,600,000.

Thus far, our internal audit has uncovered the following additional information:

The known period of unfair playing was approximately 40 days in length, beginning on 14 August 2007.

A known perpetrator was immediately terminated upon discovery of the scheme and no longer has access to AP. AP's internal investigation continues.

The system breach was the result of a recent internal software release impacting internal reporting. The breach was exploitable only by an authorized AP person that manipulated the internal reporting software, together with the AP gaming software. The security breach was not, therefore, the result of an external action, and no individual outside AP could exploit the breach.

There is no evidence of the current or past existence of a "super-user" account. There is no player account in the AP system with the ability to see other players' hole cards.

The names of the accounts known to have cheated are: potripper, graycat, steamroller, doubledrag, payup, supercard55, and romnaldo. These accounts have been closed. All players that played hands and lost funds during the period in question, against these accounts have received refunds, plus interest, for the net amounts lost.

All accounts associated with the perpetrating accounts are under investigation. If any other accounts are deemed to have engaged in illicit activities, AP will refund all affected players in the same manner.

AP can confirm that not every hand played by the perpetrating accounts during the said period was compromised by the tool enabling the unfair advantage. Nonetheless, AP has refunded players for the net loss resulting from every hand played against the perpetrating accounts during the affected period.

All hand histories with respect to the affected period were retained by AP and were made available to both the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and the internal auditor for detailed review.

There was more to the statement, both before and after, but that's most of the important stuff.

Beyond that, I haven't seen much else this week on the topic.

A Freak-y Note for Gobbo

The tale of the bedbug letter dates back to the 19th century and the era of the railroad magnates. More specifically, it was back in 1889, and in an era when bedbugs were far more commonplace, that an oft-bitten train traveler named Phineas Jenkins sent a letter of complaint to the Pullman Company, operator of the Pullman Coaches, whose overnight bunks were infested with the critters.

The complaint went all the way up to Pullman president George M. Pullman, from whose hand a long and seemingly sincere apology was sent back to Mr. Jenkins. (Snopes.com details the story fairly accurately, though they detail it as an 'urban legend.') Anyhow, as the legend goes, attached to the voluminous apology was a brief note from Pullman to an underling: "Send this SOB the bedbug letter."

Since then, the concept of the bedbug letter has grown to refer to either of two related things, whether the actual faux apology itself, as in a wonderfully long but insincere note, or to the act of inclusion --- accidental or intentional --- of another note or information that shows some original item to be a pile of poo.

One of those bedbug letter situations occurred recently when Jimmy 'gobboboy' Fricke made a lengthy post on 2+2, called 'Beat: Am a freak and a very weird dude.'

Fricke made his post after approaching Full Tilt about possible sponsorship in future events, and received what's very likely a common, form-letter response to many similar inquiries:

Thank you for your interest in becoming a member of Full Tilt Poker.
Unfortunately FTP does not take open solicitations from players wishing to
join the team. It is an invite only process that does not have set
standards or qualifications. In the future, if we are interested in
adding you as a FTP representative we will contact you directly. We wish
you the best of luck and we hope to see you at a final table soon.

JD

However, later in the e-mail, in the form of text that came from an earlier e-mail that was also included, was the following:

From: Howard Lederer
Sent: Sat 11/3/2007 7:21 PM
To: Robert H. Wolf; Ray Bitar
Cc: Jason Newitt
Subject: RE: Aussie Millions. (KMM4237266I19928L0KM)

The guy's a freak and a very weird dude. He is also quite young. I think we should stay away.


Oooops. That's a classic "bedbug" situation, in a very poker-y sense. Needless to say, the post by Fricke led to hundreds of followup posts pilloring Lederer for his sharp comment, others getting on Fricke for a number of reasons, and others piling on others just because... in other words, it degenerated into a flame war almost immediately and wandered off into a half dozen nonsensical directions.

This post isn't pro- or anti-anyone, by the way. It's just an acknowledgment of how human nature works: we so often say things about others that we really don't intend them to hear, as Lederer did here, yet once in a while those private comments don't stay private for long. I know from my own experience I've fired off nasty comments about people on many, many occasions, although my own failing tends to be when I let the person have it directly. Nor do most of ever outgrow it entirely, even if we do learn to rein it in as the years advance.

So what of this? Well, late reports say that Lederer wrote a private apology to Fricke, which was certainly the minimum he should have done. The two don't have to be best buds --- nor are they likely to, maybe --- but I'm betting they both learned something here. As poker players grow ever more to be a part of the public scene, it's a great lesson for all of us.

German Casino Cheat Snagged

[Cal here, wrapping up a short week---]

There's a reason why modern casinos have multiple layers of anti-cheating security in place: it works.

A recent story on a German poker site, pokerolymp.de, details the story of a long-time German poker cheat who was recently uncovered. The cheat, referred to as "Mr. X" in the story, but subsequently identified as someone name "Hussan" in one of several 2+2 threads on the matter, was discovered at a casino in Bath doing one of the oldest of all card cheats --- withholding a couple of cards and keeping them tucked up his sleeve, and substituting them in as needed. Card shooters have been around since the 19th century.

According to the tale, the casino not only made infrequent counts of the deck in play, but did so at regular scheduled times, 10pm and midnight, making it that much easier to pull off a cheat like this. The mysterious "Mr. X" insisted on playing only from Seat 1, and was noted as being a radically aggressive pre-flop player... easy enough to do when you've got extra cards from which to make a hand.

Again, per the original tale, the cheat was discovered when the house finally became suspicious and made an unscheduled card count at 11pm, and security cameras caught the guy mucking four cards instead of the normal two. However, this "Mr. X" may have been doing this for up to two years in German and Austrian casinos, and estimates of his take range as high as two million dollars.

Perhaps more facts on this one will emerge in the coming days.

We'd also like to take this opportunity to introduce two pieces of German content translated over on KickAssPoker.com. For a program of the highest regard, consider Poker Stars.de Review and the PokerStars Download-Führer.

Yang Speaks! On 'Keep Flopping Aces'

[Cal here, on Sunday duty---]

One thing you'll have to watch for in the coming days is the posting of the latest episode of Lou Krieger and Amy Calistri's "Keep Flopping Aces" podcast Hold'em Radio.

While we've mentioned the show recently, the Yang episode, which should be available in the archives within a few days, features the better part of an hour's conversation with Yang himself, the 2007 WSOP Main Event champion. While Yang remains a modest and overly polite speaker --- and hence, perhaps not as enervating as many 'in your face' types elsewhere --- there's still a good deal of information in this one that's worth the listen.

There's also one of those "Did he really just say that?" moments tucked inside there somewhere. Sometimes life can be a strange, surreal trip, as evidenced by some of the very unusual moments that Yang chose to share. No, you can't worm it out of us here. You'll just have to wait and listen for yourself if you missed it during its live broadcast.

'Tight Players Don't Win Tournaments'

(Haley here, finishing up a few loose ends on the night and unable to get away from the computer.)

Have you ever heard the expression "Tight Players Don't Win Tournaments"? It's a mantra of modern-day tourney play, and it seems to fly in the face of the "tight is right" theme that's just about the first thing most serious poker players learn. But in poker terms it's live fast, die fast for Obrestad, the same as it is with a Dario Minieri or Alex Jacob or a handful of other young, hyper-aggressive players. It can mean a lot of fast exits when it goes bad early, but given a few good cards and a lucky break or two, these players can amass some deep stacks, and then have the rest of the field chasing them, trying to play their game.

So "tight makes right" isn't always the best, it seems.

The tradeoff, of course, is that the tighter and more judicious the play, the greater the chance of running at least fairly deep and having a sniff at the money. What happens to the tighter players, then, is they end up on in a spot where they need to win a big showdown for all their chips, with the Obrestads and Minieris sitting behind deep stacks, willing to make the call. Perhaps it's a bit of a freeroll for the aggro players at that point... but getting to the top of the board in the first place is the real skill.

It's a skill beyond most players, this one included. I'd like to share personal tales of all the times I dominated the tourney throughout and stomped my opponents into submission, but the truth is, I just don't have many --- maybe any --- tales of that type. On the rare occasions that I've done well in smaller tourneys, it's invariably been a situation where I've won that late showdown (or two of them, or three), and surged to the top very late.

Tight may be right, but tight players make lousy frontrunners.

And tight would still always be right, if it weren't for the skew that most tournaments' graduated payout schedules offer. It's the extreme jumps in pay for the highest few spots that justify the risk/reward ratio of the hyper-aggressive play, even if most of us recognize it but still can't pull it off.

So, we adjust and learn, even as other players are adjusting and learning and the entire concept of optimal tournament poker shifts over time. A decade ago a tighter style of player took home the money, but at the moment the looser aggro types have the upper hand. It may evolve to the point that so many people play the loose aggro style that it becomes generally unprofitable to do so, and play shifts back to the tighter end of the scale. For now, though, having the willingness to donk it up a bit increases both the risk and the potential reward.

Will Obrestad stay as hot as she is at the moment? Of course not. No one is -this- good. I remember watching a few months ago when she took down the big Sunday Guarantee on Full Tilt, and with a nod to the crazed fanboys at the rail, she got lucky there, too. She played great, but she still needed several key suckouts to take it down, particularly in the wild three-way seesaw that decided the thing. Most times, those suckouts don't come.

It's very refreshing to see a young female on the poker scene that's really, really good and not just a parlor trick a la Brandi Hawbaker. There's the added bonus for blog readers in that it gives the Wicked Chops boys fits; just for that and that alone it'd be great to see Obrestad win one every three weeks or so. (*wink!*) Unfortunately, that's not gonna happen, not that it'd slow Snake and Chops down any. Makes good reading, anyway...

Gotta Love Those Poker-Savvy Bureaucrats

Haley again, sneaking in a fun little tale that I just haven't had the chance to write about anywhere. It was several weeks back when I noticed an article in the Chicago Sun-Times, which is one of the two large metro papers here in the greater Chicago area. (The other is the Tribune, which is a curse word for me, but that's a tale for another time.)

Here's how the Sun-Times piece read, in large part:

'Free poker' vets at odds with state Despite sound reasoning, taking on gambling law not a good bet

October 10, 2007
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist

Up until a few weeks ago, Don Signore spent several nights a week playing Texas Hold 'Em poker in a league that rotates among south suburban bars and restaurants.

The poker league was a nice social outlet for Signore, 44, helping him get back in circulation after his wife died two years ago. Signore never lost any money during the games. He never even wagered any.

In an effort to stay within the bounds of Illinois' gambling laws, organizers of the poker league charge no fee to play in their tournaments, ban wagering and offer only nominal prizes to the winners such as gift certificates from the host establishment.

'We're not gambling'

And that's why Signore can't understand why the Illinois Liquor Control Commission has effectively shut down the "free poker" league by cracking down on liquor licenseholders that host the games.

"We should have a right to play as long as we're not gambling," says an angry Signore, who lives in West Beverly and owns a catering business.

State officials don't quite see it that way.

Rather than trying to sort out those playing poker for fun from those playing poker for money, they say it makes more sense to simply prohibit poker tournaments in liquor establishments.

"Usually when you're playing poker, you're gambling," says Ted Penesis, a spokesman for the liquor commission...


I pretty much didn't need to read any more at this point, because it was just another example of some mid-level bureaucratic spokesman spouting off about poker when he didn't really understand the game. Penesis, the liquor commission dude, made some more stupid statements, and if you'd like to read the piece in its entirety, go ahead and click here.

It was a cute piece, if not very newsworthy, because low-level pols making dumb statements, even about poker, are a dime a dozen. Still, on a reeeeeeeeeal slow news day while the big bosses were traveling I found a chance to just toss it in as a minor news item on a larger site I work for. And it went away, as it rightfully should.

Even if it wasn't a big 'news' piece, however, I decided to come back to it a couple of days later. After all, I live in Illinois and this is my stupid bureaucrat, so I decided to do the outraged anonymous citizen routine and write a random letter asking, basically, if the guy quoted in the story was really stupid enough to say the things he said. I didn't identify myself as a poker writer or anything, just as an Illinois resident.

Darned if he didn't respond to me personally... six times over the following week. The first one was a gem of bureaucratic, paralogical thinking, here reprinted in its entirety:

"That's me, and my birthday has been truly special today! People file lots of complaints about the activity in question, specifically stating that gambling occurs at these events. As the regulating agency for liquor establishments, we have a duty to investigate these cases and enforce the law; to do otherwise, would be "bad government."

Which was, of course, the whole point of my pseudo-outraged letter --- busting up free poker tournaments is not "the law," but is rather tilted law enforcement done for other purposes. Because, and this is an important point, there is no law on the books prohibiting free poker in Illinois.

Ted and I went back and forth on this for the next several days, with me pointing out his terrible, dictated-by-job-circumstances logic and him trying to defend --- badly --- an undefendable stance. This assumes, of course, that Mr. Penesis actually had a hand in crafting the policy about threatening Illinois bars that wanted to offer these free tourneys; threatening them, that is, with the loss of their liquor licenses.

In another letter, Penesis tried to blame the Sun-Times writer, claiming that he'd been quoted out of context:

Yes, I knew I would be taken out of context (Mark Brown admitted he was told about the citation from a south suburban friend of his), but it doesn't make it any easier knowing I was gonna be the fall guy. [] And let me add this: I have always liked Mark's columns, so I'll cut him some slack for sticking up for a friend. That's his prerogative, and I think he's earned the right to tilt the story in his favor after his years of solid work.

He also couldn't resist tossing a few barbs back at me, just because I was playing the ol' "outraged citizen" card: "So keep the letters comin'! Your comments bring me the only joy in this sorry situation!"

As with his "birthday" comment, it was again something straight from left field. I took it to mean that he'd taken lots of heat over his stupid comments, and I was almost honored that he'd chosen me to correspond with. And it seemed that I'd pressed this guy's button and was therefore honored with his extended and personal replies.

I was curious, though, as to how he was, exactly, quoted out of context. So I wrote back yet again (evil, me), pressing him on the topic. This time he wrote back as follows, complete and uncut:

"Because you too 'humor me', I will humor you. Here's the context of the comment that bothers you so much: When talking to Mark, I told him, in addition to receiving many complaints, I often get calls from bar owners wanting to know if it's legal for patrons to play poker for free in their establishment. Of course, we all know (yes, even you) people probably aren't playing for free, but I don't suggest otherwise. I don't remember exactly what I told Mark, but it went something like this: "You have cards, chips on the table, and people are playing poker. Appearances count. Even if there is no gambling involved. Is it really worth your time and money to fight the citation?"

If someone hands you a smoking gun and there's a dead guy lying nearby, odds are you'll get arrested if witnesses place you at the scene with the smoking gun in your hand. Sure, you could fight it in court, and maybe you can even win, but is it really worth the risk? Like I said previously, you should spend your energy changing the law instead of wasting your time with me."

Brick wall. Head. There's no law to change, of course. The issue here was that Penesis's commission was creating and enforcing a non-existing law. And Penesis, as evidenced by the above e-mails, was absolutely unable to get his head around the concept that people might have been telling him the truth, in that these events just might really have been free poker events.

I even forwarded to him other information on free poker leagues and legal battles in other states upholding these leagues' right to exist. No response to that stuff. Penesis had set in stone, within his own mind, his image of what was going to go on, and he was damned if he was going to let things such as facts get in is way. Nope, unwarranted threats against business owners was far more legitimate use of governmental powers.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the species bureacraticus stupidus. Unfortunately, it's a proliferating breed.



*ed note - Free Poker should never be illegal, hell regular poker shouldn't either. If you want to learn how to play, learn the basic Texas Hold em Starting Hands and Ranks.

A Week's Worth of Absolute Developments

Haley here, stopping in on a Saturday night, fresh from watching Navy beat Notre Dame for the first time in a Biblical generation. As in previous weeks, this will be a succinct recap of the latest developments in the Absolute Poker situation, though there wasn't as much new this week. That's likely to be the case for the next several weeks, as official developments slow down, pending whatever news comes out of the announced AP audits.

Amid all the hyperbole, over at rawvegas.tv, a war-of-videos erupted between AP figurehead Mark Seif and NeverWinPoker.com co-owner Todd 'Dan Druff' Witteles, one of the many players victimized by the cheating on the AP site. Both videos appear in the 'The Toke' segment of the site, and both players have issued followups of sorts elsewhere. Seif's appears on his Bluff player blog, while Witteles' comments have been on the various poker forums.

There are rumors that several mainstream outlets are planning longer pieces on the situation. Perhaps the one that's most in the minds of the story is a planned piece by Gary Wise of WiseHandPoker and ESPN.com fame; Gary's piece is reported to be at about 6,000 words and was recently sent over to Nat Arem for "fact checking" (this according to Arem himself). It'll show up soon; whether there's any new news in it remains to be seen.

I hinted last week when I talked here about the matter that I'd likely have another piece over at PokerNews. That story appeared mid-week and should provide a solid recap of the latest official developments. There's been nothing new in an official sense, since.

Now, returning you to your regularly scheduled spew...