Poker
stcynic | September 14, 2004The New York Daily News has assigned a writer, Rick Pienciak, to cover the world of poker every week. His latest column has some interesting insights in it about the high stakes poker world, including a revelation, based upon the word spreading in the Vegas poker rooms, that Annie Duke won ESPN's Tournament of Champions. That event has taken place, but won't air until next week, and the participants, 10 of the top players in the world, are sworn to secrecy. If that report is correct, it would be a big feather in Duke's cap.
The article also discusses an occasional game that has gone on at…
stcynic | August 25, 2004Last night's showing of this year's World Series of Poker on ESPN was quite amusing to watch for two reasons - to see Phil Hellmuth whine and to see Mike Matusow being an obnoxious ass to the guy who pays him back by knocking him out and winning $5 million. Hellmuth is, of course, the ultimate crybaby and it's always fun to watch him whine when he gets knocked out of a tournament. Last night, he was saying how unfair it was that he was knocked out because he was playing so well, and he even said, "I made laydowns that no one else in the world would make" but still got knocked out. Uh, yeah.…
stcynic | July 29, 2004In a thread below, Tim asks this question:I wonder if you could explain the allure of gambling, in general. I have no religious, moral qualms against it, but I just don't understand the attraction (or is it a psychological compulsion?). I guess I can see that poker has some aspects of skill involved, blunting the razor-sharp edge of absurd, irrational chance; otherwise, the whole staking of money on hopes of somehow outfoxing blind chance (being lucky) strikes me as a pasttime more fitting for the asylum recreation room (no personal insult intended -- just wondering out loud).
I thought I…
stcynic | July 8, 2004Last night we were back to our normal game of 1/2 pot limit holdem, and boy am I glad. But it was a very odd night all the way around. Out of 8 players, only two finished with any money left at all, 6 had busted out completely. Thankfully, I was one of those two, the other being Jeff, who got run over by the deck as completely as I have ever witnessed. He simply could not lose, and if you know Jeff, you know he tried his damnedest to do so. He was staying on crap hand after crap hand and hitting the cards. He'd stay on 3 9 offsuit and hit two 9's on the flop. It was simply unreal to watch. He…
stcynic | July 6, 2004The poker world is in a state of shock this morning after the unexpected death of Andy Glazer from complications with a blood clot. Andy is widely considered the best poker writer in the world. He wrote a weekly column, Wednesday Night Poker, that focused on both the personalities and the strategy of the game. For the past several years, he wrote a daily column from the World Series of Poker. It must have been a relatively grueling process, churning out a few thousand words every day for 4 or 5 weeks, but he always managed to capture the events of each day well enough that you felt like you…
stcynic | June 30, 2004The guys have decided, for the time being at least, to change the format of our weekly game. Instead of a cash game, they want to have a series of single table tournaments for $20 each. They figure we can do 3 a week, that way no one can lose more than $60 and it will attract more people. The reasoning is astonishingly stupid. They say the game has "gotten out of hand" because there are 2 or 3 players who come to the game with hundreds of dollars and they bet like crazy, so you can lose too much money. They say that by doing a tournament format, everyone starts the same so it's more fair.…
stcynic | June 21, 2004Ben Affleck has won the California State Poker Championship, held at Commerce Casino. This is a major poker tournament, not a little local event, with a $10,000 buyin and a field that includes some of the best pros in the world. He's been playing serious poker for several years now, and has been tutored by the likes of Annie Duke and Antonio Esfandiari, so this is not a fluke. I think it's safe to say that he's the only person in the world to have both an academy award and a major poker championship. Perhaps that will change when Phil Hellmuth makes his film debut in Crybaby 2: Return of the…
stcynic | June 17, 2004In my earlier post, I mentioned Perry Friedman as a member of the infamous Tiltboys and it reminded me that I should write something about them and get the word out about some hilarious reading you can do. If you have any interest in poker at all, I guarantee that you will enjoy reading about this group of guys. Even casual poker fans may recognize Phil Gordon, the ring leader of the bunch, as the expert commentator on Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown (it's a very bad show, actually, amusing only for the behavior of the celebrities once in a while). Phil has also finished 4th in the World…
stcynic | June 17, 2004Two words sum up last night's poker: high variance. It was truly feast or famine night. I think there were more showdowns that ended with "Holy shit!" than ever before, as good hands got beat by great hands that were slow played time and time again. It started for me almost immediately with pocket kings on a flop of K99. I bet, everyone folds but one. Turn is a blank, I bet and get called. River is another blank, I bet and get raised. I call and he turns over 99 for four of a kind. Ouch. Huge hit that early in the night and I was down about $100.
I treaded water, a little gun shy at that…
stcynic | June 10, 2004Good game this week, I won $85. That's a bit below my average in this game, but a win is a win. And most of the winnings came on 3 big hands. I had the nut flush twice, slow played it both times, got bet into both times, and had my large check-raise called both times, once by a small straight and once by trips. Also had pocket 4s turn into a full house, 4s over 2s with someone else holding trip 2s. The rest of the night was spent folding, either before or after the flop. I did make one bad bluff attempt that got picked off. All in all, a pretty good night.
My brother continued his 3 week…
stcynic | June 3, 2004Remember last week, when I said I hated poker after the most frustrating session I'd ever played? Well I love it again. Last night made up for last week. It was unreal. I got absolutely run over by the deck all night long. I lost count of how many straights I flopped, but it was at least 15 or 20. Every bluff attempt worked, every laydown was the correct one and the right card fell on every close call for me. I was actually the only player in the game that finished in the money. With 8 people playing, including me, I won $360.
By the way, congratulations to Greg Raymer for winning the 2004…
stcynic | May 27, 2004Okay, so I love poker. But last night was the most frustrating night of poker I think I've ever had. We had a new guy at the game, Joe. He works near us and my brother invited him to the game. Joe was simply the worst poker player I've ever seen in my life. He lost at least $250 in less than an hour and a half by calling down every single hand, no matter what he had or what others potentially had. He'd stay on a 5 9 and the flop would come AK9 or AK5 and he would call big bets all the way to the showdown, turn over his bottom pair and be shocked that he didn't win. He was a total moron, and…
stcynic | May 16, 2004Went to Soaring Eagle last night to play some poker for the first time since they reopened the poker room. I arrived about 4, but there were already fairly substantial lists going for most of the games. I put myself on the lists for 3/6 and 6/12 holdem and went to the buffet for some dinner. Came back in perfect time to get called for a 3/6 game, but was still well down the list for 6/12. I buy a rack of chips and as I'm walking to the table I hear my name. I turn around to see an old friend of mine that I haven't seen in probably a decade sitting in a 10/20 game. I've known Will since he was…
stcynic | May 7, 2004Sean Carroll, the UChicago physicist behind the delightful Preposterous Universe blog, linked to my post on the World Series of Poker and added some thoughts on the nature of poker from a theoretical perspective. It has never occured to me to combine, even in theory, my interests in poker and science, so what he has to say I found very interesting:The secret of the allure (and challenge) of poker is that it's a game of incomplete information, the kind game theorists love to think about. You know the cards you already have, and you (should) know the probabilities of various further cards…
stcynic | May 4, 2004The World Series of Poker is going on right now at Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas. Most people are familiar with it from the replays on ESPN, watching Chris Moneymaker win last year. But if you're not a poker player, you probably don't realize that the event that is televised is only the last of 33 separate tournaments played over about 5 weeks. The events run the gamut of different games played, buy-in amounts, and limits, leading up to the Big One, the championship event, which is a $10,000 entry No Limit Holdem tournament. This year they are expecting something on the order of 1400-1600…
stcynic | February 24, 2004Well how do you like that, there are poker bloggers! And I just had to discover them 2 days too late to participate in the the Grublog Poker Classic, an online tournament for poker bloggers. Oh well, better late than never, right? That's right, in addition to being a heathen infidel who promotes gay marriage and godless EVILution, I'm also a degenerate gambler. Well, a degenerate poker player anyway. Up till now I've not blogged much about poker, other than to congratulate Paul Phillips on winning the Bellagio Five Diamond Classic.
Poker is suddenly the hottest thing on television. The…