White Belt Poker

Given the current controversy over the WPT release form that several prominent pros (including Paul Phillips, Andy Bloch and Chris Ferguson) have declined to sign, thus ruling themselves out of playing in future WPT events, I was reminded of this post that I forgot to mention here at the time by Barny Boatman on the Hendon Mob website where he describes how a film crew actually interrupted a crucial hand he was playing at the EPT event in Dublin back in October:

It was early in the tournament and we still had around three quarters of the field, but I had got off to a flyer and with over 40K was probably chip leader. It seemed that all the big stacks were on my table with me. Perfect.

I was on the button in a re-raised pot holding AQ clubs and the flop came three rag clubs. The re-raiser led out rapidly for five thousand, a pot sized bet. I was obviously hoping he had a big hand, possibly kings. It’s normal to slow-play in this situation but I felt that if I moved in instantly his momentum would carry him forward, and, perhaps reading me for the bare Ace he might call quickly. I shoved my stack across the line and he sat forward. I can’t be sure but I, and others watching, felt I was about to get called. We’ll never know because as that moment one of the TV crew who was watching and obviously believed he was about to shove his chips in, said ‘ Stop! Don’t do anything yet. We’ll get the camera.’ The player froze and waited.

A minute or two later, with the camera in his face and the adrenaline replaced by the cold dread of defeat, he sat back and calmly tried to put me on a hand. A call would cost him his remaining twenty grand. ‘I don’t think you’d do that with the Ace of clubs’. He said. ‘You could have trips.’

After a long time, he mucked his overpair and the disappointed film crew shuffled off to get yet more footage that will never be aired.

Further illustrating his point that TV crews also have a responsibility to the game, Barny goes on to detail a conversation he once had with Barry Hearn (the well-known British sports promoter):

Years ago I was talking to Barry Hearn and he told me that he was thinking of filming the final of the Poker Million in the Isle of Mann, including hole cards, and broadcasting it live. I offered the opinion that players should be told of this before the event began as some might not want to enter if they knew their hole cards would be shown in the final. ‘Barny’ he said. ‘This is television. If I ask them to roller skate naked across the poker table, they’ll do it!’

Here’s an amusing (if slightly juvenile) post from RGP from a few days ago. It’s about what happens if you type the following into a chat box while playing online:

“execute command show_players_hole_cards.scr -private -me -p107″

Google Groups : rec.gambling.poker – Hilarious way to put the fish on tilt

The geek in me finds this quite amusing because I know it’s ridiculous, but I can see how less tech-savvy players could potentially freak out big time. Kind of cruel really I suppose. Guaranteed to clear the table in a small stakes cash game too, I should think.

I try to categorise each post I make on this site, but I almost feel like I need to create a new one for this – perhaps “general stupidity”, or “reasons not to rob a bank (#372)”.

You may or may not be familiar with the story of this Pennsylvania college student Greg Hogan who decided to rob a local bank in order to pay off online poker debts that he’d run up. This is why you don’t use a credit card to play online poker outside your bankroll (and above your skill level):

University Class President Accused Of Robbing Bank

Obviously the kid’s lawyer is going to try to blame the greedy online casinos for luring poor young Greg into the kind of massive debt that would drive an otherwise upstanding young man to do something utterly insane like robbing a bank at gunpoint.

Here’s my view: fuck him. Nobody held a gun to his head and made him deposit money into an online casino. Now he has to take responsibility for his actions. And I mean, how stupid do you have to be to rob a bank these days, especially in broad daylight!!?!? It’s very likely that you’re going to get caught and locked up.

Plus, (from more of a poker playing angle) there are hundreds of great poker books and thousands of great poker websites out there that he could’ve read to become a better player before he used daddy’s credit card to play with money he didn’t have. He could’ve read Harrington on Holdem, Small Stakes Hold’em and Winning Low-Limit Hold’em over a weekend, then he would’ve known not to start off playing $10-$20 limit or whatever he tried to do. (Actually, I bet it was medium stakes no-limit cash games just like he’d played with his college pals.)

I did a little bit more digging and there’s an article from his own college newsletter (no less) which reveals a culture of gambling among the students there. It’s been over-dramatised a little, but it gives you a flavour of what these little scamps get up to:

High-stakes gambling at Lehigh: big risks, big rewards

These are really just big pissing contest games overflowing with testosterone, played by rich kids for whom macho posturing is still obligatory. I have a hard time feeling sorry for any of them (as long as the games are fair). Here’s a sample:

Okay, enough of this stupidity. Pretty soon I’m actually going to go back to writing about the game again.

Update: And what’s more, Wil Wheaton agrees with me too, dammit!

This isn’t a huge amount of use to me because I don’t play live (apart from the odd home game), but it’s an interesting article that suggests a link between eye movement and thought processes – which could be useful for detecting when someone is lying:

Eye Movement and Lying – How to detect lies

The author notes that this technique isn’t 100% reliable (in fact it may be complete bullshit), but I suppose it could potentially be as reliable as some other tells. It’s all about whether we have to visually or auditorily deal with a question that is posed to us.

It’s about time I posted my report on the five $1000 freerolls that Virgin Poker ran to celebrate their re-launch last weekend. Those five nights reminded me just how baffling and frustrating and exhilarating tournament poker can be. In a way, I was kind of glad when the five nights were over so I could go back to what I was doing, which was working hard to improve my limit game, but this was an enjoyable little diversion for a few days. It’ll be interesting to see if Virgin can hang on to a lot of the players who came to these tournaments. I saw a lot of different names from one night to the next, and probably about 99% of them were British too. The number of players involved each night varied from 230 to 295, which isn’t too shabby. I was impressed by the fact that each player started with 2000 chips rather than 1500 (or the 800 you get at some places), so I may stick around and play a few more cheap tournaments there.

Things started really well for me in the first freeroll on Thursday. For the first time ever, I got myself into the late stages of a tournament and into a position where I actually felt that I had as good a chance as anyone to win it. It was very rewarding to see evidence of the work I’ve put into learning to play no-limit tournaments paying off. I comfortably managed to survive that tricky first hour which often trips me up; where the lunatics who call all-in bets with bottom pair get weeded out. I managed to stay just ahead of the average stack by mixing up my play and picking my victims carefully. As the bubble approached I began to steal as much as I could if I could get in first – often asking the medium stacks whether or not they wanted to play for all their chips, particularly the ones who were shopping themselves by chatting about how tense things were getting – the prize money for 11th to 20th place was just $10 for heaven’s sake! I got myself as high as 7th place with 31 players remaining. I was pleased that I didn’t need to come from behind in a hand at any point, but I didn’t have anybody get lucky against me either. Only once did I get involved in a race (with my TT against KQs), otherwise I was always ahead when the cards were on their backs. After two and a half hours of play, I eventually finished 20th out of a field of 242, finishing just in the money after some cold cards and bad position ended my night. As I said, this was the best I had ever done in a field of this size and I felt like I’d proved something to myself. It’s fantastic to see your own good play rewarded with solid results (and cash too, even if it’s only $10) so I was really enthusiastic about the next four nights.

In fact, I gave the Friday freeroll a miss, but I was back on Saturday only to go out after getting appalling cards dealt to me for fifty minutes. There wasn’t a lot I could’ve done about this one. There were too many people willing to call with anything for me to try making any moves. Monday was much the same, although I stayed afloat a little bit longer with some very selective aggression against a half-decent table. Eventually I had to push with an ace and lost a race.

But it was Sunday night’s exit that provided the biggest lesson. I’m conscious of not going into too much detail with hand histories, so I’ll try to just stick to the facts with this one. Anyway, I re-raised with 99 from middle position after the player on my right raised to double the big blind. Everyone else folded. The original raiser called. The flop came a beautiful 953 rainbow and I had a great chance to double through and get myself over that “first sixty minutes” hurdle once again. My opponent bet the minimum 150 into an 1100 pot. I called. The turn brought a 3 to give me a full house. Again there was a minimum bet of 150 into what was now a 1400 pot. Once again, I called, sensing a chance to take all her chips. The river brought a K. This time the bet was 450 into a 1700 pot, leaving her just 400 more. Convinced I had this won against an A9, or a K5, I went all-in for my last 1100, knowing that my opponent was pot-committed, only to be called and shown pocket Ks to lose to a bigger full house. Nooooo!

Okay, so it was a two-outer, but I think a big bet from me on fourth street could’ve ended the hand right there – the pot was big enough at that point to justify doing that and the weak bets coming from my opponent meant that I was unlikely to make significantly more than was already in the pot. Of course, the other possible holding from a weak opponent was a big pair and it’s not out of the question that I would’ve had a big bet called on fourth street with two pair (Ks and 3s) against my full house either, which arguably would’ve been a mistake at that point. Essentially, I got caught trying to extract the maximum from a very strong hand. I took a chance and lost, so no complaints. Next time I’m in a similar situation, I’ll be paying less attention to the “ching ching” noises in my head and thinking instead about how much more I can win from the hand and whether I need to end things quickly and decisively with a big bet.

So that was it – the freerolls were over. What started off very promisingly ended as a bit of a disappointment. Still, I was up $10. Now where did I leave my copy of “Small Stakes Hold’em”??