Wednesday, November 05, 2014

The Prophet

Just yesterday I posted about Mr. Contemptible earning his title when someone said they saw him spit on the cardroom floor a couple times.  I could hardly believe it, but then I sat next to him recently, and saw it for myself, twice.  

NFC.   No F'ing Class.

So when the cardroom manager said he was getting all new carpet, I jokingly advised him to alert Mr. C, and tell him to clean up his act.

Halloween Night, and there's C at Table 1, Seat 2.  First time I've seen him since the new rug went down.  Busy, busy room, big crowd, and the manager's at the podium, talking to a floorman.  I'm standing 6 feet away, catch his eye, and he gives a nod that says:  "Be with you in a minute."
  
Take your time.  I'm just looking for a laugh, and expect to find one by reminding him to remind C to don't be spitting on the new carpet.

And why do I want to say that?  Why do I want to put the guy down?  I mean, it is what it is:  A PUTDOWN, and I guess the only real reason we ever do that is so we can build ourselves up, at the same time.
   
"Look at that idiot!  Can you believe he's [whatever] ?  He's such a fool!"
  
And along with that there is always the unspoken but implied addendum: 

  "...and I'm NOT!"

I usually try to be better than that.  But damn, a guy like C is such an easy target, it's nearly impossible to always be good.  Especially for me, where making people laugh is just another favorite hobby.

All this is running through my mind while I'm waiting.  Not much traffic in there, so it circles around a few times, unimpeded, and I decide to be good, and pass on the putdown, for now.

Manager's still busy, but I catch his eye again, smile, shake my head, say "Never mind," and walk away.  End of story.

Well, no.  Not two minutes later, I'm still nearby, and bossman is yelling at C:

   "Hey!  If you ever spit on my carpet again, you'll be out of here!"

Yes, believe it or not, the prophecy came true, and the boss happened to look over at the table just in time to see C do his nasty thing.

Later, Mr.  C moved to another game, and got promoted to Mr. G, as in GONE.  Got himself 86'd, again, for cursing the dealer.

For The Record

I also posted yesterday about a confrontation months ago with Mr. C over some blatant non-English dialog during a hand, and Can't Get No Satisfaction when I sought recourse from the floor.  

Well, that floorman departed shortly thereafter, and it sure feels to me like nowadays there remain few, if any, DL players who think of poker as a Team Sport.

In other words, if Game Integrity was ever a problem at DL— and I don't think it ever really was during my years there— but if it was, well, I don't think it is any more.

I also mentioned a couple guys who sometimes like to sneak a peek at another player's hand, after-the-fact.  They've pretty much put a stop to that, by imposing 20 minute Time Out for the offense.

Probably my only complaint any more is those few players who, once they decide to fold it, like to expose their starting hand to their neighbors, or maybe to the other end of the table, depending on where they sit, relative to me.  

Seriously, it sometimes seems like a couple guys do that just to annoy me.  So I annoy them right back, point, and call out:

  "Exposed cards, dealer, please show all!"

Bottom Line is that anyone who has been avoiding the DL Games based on an old reputation might want to take another look.  New management seems to me quite serious about game integrity.

MIA Repatriation Week

Dustin, The Kid From Pullman who moved to Dallas last year, was back in town for some kind of event at his WSU Alma Mater recently, and got the MVP Hero's Welcome Back treatment at DL.  Damn shame he was only in town for the weekend.  Nice of him, though, to spend so much of it with us.

Then, I came in the other day to happily find three players who had each been Missing In Action for a couple months or more, all back in town, back in action, and sitting in the game:  Seahawks Jersey # Ox55, Portlandia Baby Huey, and Ms. T.

Sadly, I wasn't in the game.   Sat on the board and on the rail a short while, then a second 20 started, and it was 2 hours before I got to the main game.  By then T was gone, but it was good playing with Tony Mac and Huey, and I was glad to see them back.

This week also marked return of the world's only chronically short-stacked poker pro, when Mookie apparently ended his self-imposed 6 month exile to the Mucks Spread games.

Year-End Superlatives

Fastest Dealer:

LyLy, aka Speedy.  Clocked repeatedly piching 18 cards, to 9 players, in 4.7 seconds, start to finish.

Funniest Thing Heard This Year:

Narcissus Cullus and Winky Tourette in a dustup at Table 1.  Somebody says something, and OMG, you know what happens when one guy disrespects another.  They stand up, but the floor steps in and dissuades anyone from actually swinging, and calm is restored.  I was in the second game, Table 10, missed the words, and only saw the "almost fight."

I get to the main game an hour later, Winky is long gone, and somebody brings up the incident again.  "Yeah," Narcy says, "I woulda kicked that motherfather's ass, if I wasn't still on probation."  And he wasn't kidding.

Funniest Thing Seen This Year:

Late evening, full game, no board, and Leisure Suit Larry comes in.  He's First Up, but wants to gamble RIGHT NOW, so he offers to pay $200 cash to anyone willing to give up their seat.  Ducky takes him upon that right away.

Most Shocking Thing Heard This Year:

Shocking not just for what he said, but also, especially, for who said it.

Hint:  Only one regular DL 20 Player is over 90 years old.

And I can't use that word even in my no-class blog, so let's just say it's a filthy and horribly misogynistic pejorative that's a little shorter, but way worse, than "bitch."  And it starts with C.  OK?

Afternoon game, Ms. T in Seat 2, Ducky in 8, and Old Dirty Mouth in 9.

T and Ducky heads up, she checkraises the turn, and he folds.

Dirty leans over towards Ducky and puts his hand up to his mouth, as if to speak in confidence, privately.  Yeah, right.  I got headphones on, in Seat 5, and hear him loud and clear.  He asks Ducky:

   "So how do you like having that [Shock Word] run over you?"


The dealer heard it, too, and she gasped too, like me, and looked down, embarrassed.  Ducky didn't react. He's an ESL guy, and I honestly don't think that word is part of his vocabulary.

Random is Random

24 years ago next month, I set out to learn all and everything about Blackjack.  The first book I bought came highly recommended, mostly because it had originally introduced the simple High-Low counting system. 

The book was How to Play Winning Blackjack, by a smart IBM computer guy named Julian Braun.  Turned out that several other books published later were better, but at the time, for a beginner like me, Braun's book seemed pretty good.

Until I got to Chapter 15, Money Management, that is.  There I found discussion of "...the way the cards are running at any given time," and advice like:
"...The secret is your ability to recognize a streak as close to its beginning as possible, and the end of it as soon as possible, so you may retreat quickly."

Wait, what?  That can't be right, I thought.  

Here I've been learning a scientific and mathematically sound system for counting the cards played, evaluating how the probabilities of random events in the game have changed, according to the cards remaining in play, and how to adjust my strategy and bet size accordingly.  Fine.

All that is supposed to nullify the house advantage, and create a player advantage instead.  Awesome!  I'm loving this concept.

But now the author is saying that those random events aren't really random after all?

Even as a newbie, I was starting to understand that random is random, and that streaks happen, but that thinking you can somehow detect, or identify, when a streak is "beginning" or "ending" is, well, ridiculous.  Stupid.  Why? 

Because random is random, that's why.

All that made me question credibility of the entire book.  Unfairly, it turned out.  Years later, stumbling across some biographical material on Julian Braun, I read that it was his EDITOR who thought he knew something, and took it upon himself to re-write that chapter, and insert that "ride the streaks" crap, and how furiously upset Braun had been about it.

More recently I came across some more questionable material in an otherwise pretty good poker book that I've mentioned in a couple recent posts.  At one point the "Anonymous" author makes a claim, and invites you to try it for yourself if you don't believe him.

Well I don't believe it, but neither have I tried it.  Sounds too crazy to me to even bother.  What do you think?

Mr. Anonymous tells you to deal draw poker just like you always did; deal seven five-card hands clockwise around the table, then look to see how many of those hands contain pairs.  

Then he tells you to shuffle up and deal seven hands by dealing five cards in sequence for the first hand, then five for the second hand, and so on.

Then he says that:
"You're going to be amazed at the difference between the hands dealt sequentially, and the hands dealt clockwise.
"About 40 percent of the hands dealt clockwise will contain pairs, while about 60 percent of the hands dealt sequentially will have pairs in them."
Then he goes on to recommend that if you don't believe this, you should try it a hundred times.

So far, I've tried this test zero times, and I still don't believe it.  Do you?  Do you think it should make any difference how you deal out seven five-card poker hands?  Or do you agree with me, that Random is Random?

I mean, I don't see how it could make any difference even if you ——

  • Deal the first card to each hand clockwise, then switch and deal the second counter-clockwise, and keep switching.  Or not.
  • Cut the deck any time you hear a dog bark, baby cry, toilet flush, car horn, train whistle, burp or fart.
  • Interrupt dealing, shuffle up, then continue, after every card, or every fifth card, or any time you hear a dog bark, etc.
  • Any combination of the above, or anything at all that is trying to "exchange one randomness for another randomness."

It seemed to me kind of unfair, or maybe call it narrow-minded, to just reject Mr. Anonymous' claim without even giving it a try.  But I'm not going to deal out however many hands it would take to prove or disprove some cockamamie theory.

Still, it bothered me.  I kept wondering if maybe I'm missing something, or am just too dumb to recognize some hidden truth in the claim that seems like such bullshit to me.

So I decided to take it to the street, and brought it up at the table a few times, explained Mr. Anonymous' hypothesis, and ran it by some smart guys who might offer a fresh idea or new perspective, maybe help me get a better handle on this mystery.  

First couple times I got nothing.  But then T.T., aka The Engineer, hit the ball right out of the park, with this answer (I'm paraphrasing here):


"Maybe Mr. Anonymous did try it 20 times, or 100 times.  And maybe his trials actually did produce the 'amazing' 60/40 difference that he describes.  So what?  
"That's not amazing at all. 100 trials would not be a statistically meaningful sample size, and proves nothing."
Bingo.  I still like Mr. Anonymous' often insightful and always entertaining books, even if he seems to not quite get the randomness and standard deviation thing.

I also suspect we may have even played with this guy at Mirage and/or Bellagio a time or three.


Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Hand After Hand



After we got home from that 6 week Commerce trip last July, I just laid low at home for over a week, catching up on all that self-imposed sleep deprivation.

Then I finally hit Lil's, and also hit my worst losing streak in 7 years playing there.  Played quite a lot, through August and September, and Lady Luck kicked me square in the nuts, every chance she got. 

Here I could whine some about card dead, suckout beats, missed flops, etc., but you don't want to hear that crap any more than I want to tell it.  Finally got the bleeding stopped early in October, but let me tell you, a tourniquet is damned uncomfortable, and really painful.  Especially around your neck.

Now things are back to normal, meaning wacky but manageable.  Great games at DL most days.  Here are some of the hands I've played and misplayed lately.  Funny how so many of them were Aces.



Strong Laydown, but . . .


Pocket Aces under the gun, so I open raise.  Doh.  "A" and some other guy in the middle, and Captain Nemo, in the big blind, all call.

So four way, the flop comes 944 rainbow, and Nemo smacks the table with a handful of chips.  It's an uncharacteristic way for him to check, and I say to myself that he hates that flop, or else he loves it.  No in-between, I'm thinking.

I bet out, and "A" raises.  No problem.  Gonna raise his ass right back.  Guy behind "A" folds, but then Nemo calls.

Wait, what?  Calling two cold?  WTF?  I hesitate a couple seconds, and muck.

Yeah, I know.  Who folds Aces in that spot?  Not me, hell no, strong impulse to re-raise, 9 days out of 10.  

But after doing so badly, for weeks on end, I was trying to apply my DELTA Principle, and trying to do the opposite of what most players would do when they run that bad.

That means trying extra hard to play extra good.  You know, just like we should all do, every day.  The A game.  There's even this Mantra I use:

   Don't get stupid.
   Don't get stupid.
   Don't get stupid.


This time I just knew Nemo flopped trip fours, and later it turned out that he had indeed.  I silently congratulated myself for making such a good laydown.  Some players might even show their Aces when they muck it.  Me?  Never happen.

And it's a damn good thing that I'm Performance Oriented, a True Believer.  If I were Results Oriented, then I would have had to scream when that Ace hit the turn.  As it was I just whimpered, and bit my lip, and it only bled a little.


Dumb and Dumber



Ten Nine of Spades in the small blind, and I call a raise for five way action.  Two Spades and two bets on the the flop, four way.

Two bets on the turn, looks like Bill Hagen, original open-raiser on my left, made his straight. Then Deuce of Spades on the river makes my flush, ka-ching. 

But then before I can even do anything, Bill bets, out of turn, and Ducky raises.  Yeow.  36 bets in the pot, Bill mucks, out of turn, I make the crying-call, and Ducky actually turns over a smaller flush.  Hot Dog.  Ship It!

So I triumphantly and victoriously spread my Ten Nine of ... wait, WTF ... Diamonds?  How could I possibly have Diamonds in the hole and think they're Spades?  

Well, if you only peel up a corner, and only see the tops of the pips, they're both pointy, right?  And if you somehow went color blind for a moment, well . . .  OK, I know that's awfully flakey, but it's also the best explanation I can muster, so that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Everyone expressed great surprise when I tabled that hand with such a flourish, but none more than me.  Ducky thanked me most sincerely for the action.

Rocket 88

Little Richard raises from the middle, and I three-bet in the cutoff, with 8h8c.  But then Big Richard, on the button, caps it.  Help!

Flop comes A K T, all Hearts.  Looks pretty intimidating.  Little checks, and I decide— and this is NOT typical for me— that I should "bet, to see where I'm at." 

Big raises, and Little folds.  Ok, fine, so that's where I'm at.  Blank on the turn, I check and call, then bet, when the river comes a small Heart, and makes me a mediocre flush.  He calls, I win, and he asks "Did you really think 8 of Hearts was a good draw?"

"Well, yes, I was confident enough you flopped either top two, or more likely a big set, that Deuce of Hearts might have been a good draw," I wanted to tell him.  But I didn't.  I just gave a polite nod, as if to say "Yeah, you right; I'm a dummy, and got lucky." 


Aces Calling Dark

AA, I raise from the middle, and only Smilin' John calls, from the blind.

Flop comes KK9, I bet, John calls, and I'm thinking I *may* be in big trouble.  But with John, you never know.

So I'm either way ahead or way behind, sense it's the latter, and check behind him on the turn.

John exclaims loud disappointment that his check raise failed, and bets the river dark.  And for the second time in my life, I act dark too, and push out an 8 chip stack, right alongside his.

Then the river comes, but I'm watching him, not the board, and he turns over his King Rag.  Ok John, you got me with trip Kings.   

But he didn't.  I got my dumbass self.  Ace on the river, and I blew my chance to raise him. 


Crimes and Misdemeanors

This was months ago, way before the LA trip.  Real late Friday night, like after 3:00 a.m., and I'm Small Blind, in seat 7,  with Mr. Contemptible in the Cutoff, seat 5.

Actually they just call him Mister C, but I'm sure that's what it stands for.  It is so incredibly ironic that this guy wants to be addressed with respect, as Mister, after being 86'd for a year for throwing his cards in the dealer's face.  (To her extreme credit, she then threw the entire deck right back at him.)


Mrs. Rock and I were discussing the word "contempt" one night —— it actually came up in conversation 
 and after we had the exact meaning pinned down, I asked if she felt contempt for any of the DL players.  She allowed as how she does have her own short Atlanta Braves roster, and could admit to some moderate dislike for a couple particular guys, but contempt?  "No," she said. 

But then after a few minutes she remembered this one guy: "Almost forgot because I haven't seen him lately.  Thankfully," she says.  Then she named C, explaining that this comes from the two times that she watched him twist around in his seat and spit onto the carpeted cardroom floor. 


Then we have Roman Fingers, on the Button in seat 6, between C and me.  Here's an ethically-challenged poker player presumably trained and named in Atlantic City, and also a highly experienced dealer, so should know better, who likes to put his hands into the the pot, the muck, or another player's cards.

  
Say a player bets, on any betting round, gets no callers, and wins.  Dealer pushes the pot, player releases his cards.  But then before the dealer can take those cards, Roman might reach out and help himself to a peek.  Or grab and look at cards even after they're in the muck.

If you let slip the F word, or break the English Only rule, or throw your cards off the table, well, those are hardly capital offenses.  Not even felonies.  In my experience at DL,  you'd just get a warning the first few thousand times.

At the other end of the spectrum, if you got caught holding out cards, or stealing chips from the pot, there surely would be no warnings involved.  You would be sent away, probably barred for life.


So I ask you:  Where should this unfortunate offense of stealing a look at another player's hand fall on that spectrum of crime severities?  Minor?  Major?


Roman doesn't have a monopoly on it.  There's another unscrupulous reprobate or two at DL doing the same thing, and the act has sadly become so common, and in my view degrades integrity of the game so egregiously, that I just can't tolerate it any more.  But that's not the crime in question here.  Sorry I digressed.  Back to the hand in question.

Contemptible's chips are racked, this is his last hand, in the cutoff, and he mucks.  Yes, he paid the blinds, and is walking away from the 5 more hands he paid for and is entitled to.  I never said the guy was a genius.

So he folds, and stands up, Fingers raises on the button, and before I can look at my hand, C and Fingers start a non-English conversation.  These guys come from two different Pacific Rim nations, and speak two different languages, so I'm not quite sure how that works.  But in any case, C says a few words to Fingers, then Fingers says a couple words in reply, then another back-and-forth exchange, none of it English, and all the while I'm looking back and forth between them and the dealer, hoping she might get the hint, and say something.  Nope.  Nothing.

Last year, my Conflict of Interest post about Non-English said . . .


I personally am not too worried about non-English conversation during play at DL. [Most] of the time, they're not talking about the hand in progress anyway.  They're just talking about ... something [else] completely innocent.

And I said that just because it's what I sensed from the context, and the players' demeanor, most times it happens.  

This time, I sensed exactly the opposite.  This time I sensed that Mr. Despicable was talking about the hand in progress, and probably telling Fingers what he had folded.  Can I be sure, or prove it?  No. 



But I stopped the action anyway, called for the floorman, described the prolonged non-English conversation we had just heard, and  demandded  politely requested that he declare Fingers' hand dead!

Fat chance, right?  But I was trying to make a point, so also  demanded  politely requested that he record my complaint in his events log, so management would see it.

Unfortunately, the least competent (most clueless) floorman ever was on duty, so neither of those things happened.  Nothing happened.  But stay tuned; my next post will dish up some new dirt on Mr. Contemptible.


Don't Talk to Me !

I love the DL 20/40, and don't usually sit in the smaller game while waiting.   Most times I just surf the web with my Sony P688E mini-laptop.  But the other day I was doing that when the floorman came over and asked if I'd like to play $8/16 while I wait.

"Do you recommend it?" I ask him, jokingly.

"Well, you could help me out," he says.

"Oh, I see. In that case, OK, sure."  He wants to start a game, and wants me be an unpaid prop. :-)

So I take seat 8 in this new 8/16, and within ten minutes, manage, without even trying, to make the guy next to me in seat 7 tell me, angrily, "Don't talk to me!"  Ouch.  I'll call this guy Grouchy Joe.

HAND 1:   Joe's the button and I'm small blind, with 97 suited. 3 or 4 limpers, including Joe, I call, and flop comes 983 rainbow. I check, expecting to probably raise or fold when it gets back to me, depending. Checked to Joe, he bets, I raise, he 3 bets, and I cap. Heads up.

In my pocket notebook there's one page where I wrote: "Note to self - DO NOT Try to Run Over These Guys !!"  but on this flop I failed to heed my own advice.  My weak hand and weak position probably made my play here, well, over-aggressive.  Ya think?

Turn is a blank, bet and call. River is a 9, making me trips, bet and call.  He had pocket tens, and didn't protect his hand as well as he might have (Delta!) and was pretty unhappy when I showed down and he saw the suckout.  I didn't say anything to rub it in.

HAND 2: I raise from late position with QJ suited, after a few limpers. Flop is Jack high, with two of my suit, and is capped! Awesome. 

Make my flush on the turn, then an offsuit Queen on the river, and while betting, I say "Two pair."  

I guess in some rooms there's a rule about losing any claim to the pot if you lie about your hand AT THE SHOWDOWN.  Like say you turn over, and say "Straight!" but it isn't really a straight.  And say your opponents hears and believes you, and doesn't look closely enough, and mucks his two pair.  Some older house rules would say that your lie on the end "disqualifies" you, and you forfeit any claim to that pot. 

I don't think such a rule is in effect much these days, even if maybe it should be.  Certainly not at Diamond Lil's; I see guys lie about their hand at the showdown all the time.

And anyway, I jokingly said "Two Pair" while betting, not at the showdown, and actually held a BETTER hand than I announced, not a busted draw.  So I was surprised when Joe, who wasn't involved in the hand anyway, complained that my announcement had somehow been unethical.  I didn't respond.

HAND 3:  This time Joe open raises, and I three bet with JJ.  Heads up, he's first, and he check-calls my flop and turn bets.  On the river, the board is scary enough that I check behind him.

So now it's showdown time, but Joe doesn't table his cards.  He picks them up, holds them like a draw hand, and shows them just to me.  99.  "I can beat that," I tell him, but it's still his turn to show down, and he hasn't done that yet, so I wait.  Yes, I'm that much an asshole.  My policy:  Act in turn.  And the guys at the other end of the table are entitled to see his hand, just like I'll want to see it when I'm at the other end.

Finally, the dealer tells him to table his hand, he does, I show, and win, and stack the chips.  Even though I had told him "I can beat that" right away, he starts whining about being slowrolled. I try to explain, politely, but he's having none of it, and says "Don't talk to me!"  

OK, fine.  So I STFU and said not another word until they called me for the 20 game, half an hour later.

Roots


I was born in East LA, raised in West LA, then got drafted into the Army, and grew up in the Signal Corps.

So I felt pretty much right at home driving into Los Angeles last May 28, to observe the National Card Throwing Championship Finals, at the LA County Center for the Emotionally Disturbed, aka Commerce Casino. 


We stayed SIX WEEKS at the co-located and formerly very nice Crowne Plaza Hotel.  I say "formerly," because while we were there they were renovating the place, and so along with your $128+tax casino rate hotel room came a free 7 a.m. wakeup service:  The sounds of hammering to break up concrete, the clanking of scaffolding being erected, cutting, drilling, the works.  That part sucked.


Apart from that, the trip was also quite different from any of the 150+ other trips we took to Reno, Vegas, or LA over the last 24 years.  All those other times, I had a J-O-B, and a scheduled return date.  But usually I didn't want to leave, so I often delayed our return, extending a trip a few days, or even a week, or two, or three.  And this sometimes bought me some heat back home, at work.

This trip was different:  I had no such obligation, so we just stayed.  And stayed.  Then stayed some more.  Too damn long.


The 20/40 game at Diamond Lil's has been our poker home for the last 7 years running.  And it's been great, too.  But after a week in LA, Mrs. Rock and I both started thinking we should MOVE back to the city of my birth, and Commerce 40/80 should become our new poker home.  Or at least turn the LA trip into an extra long vacation; rent a place, give it a year, and see what happens. 


So I spent some time on Zillow, then Craigslist, looking at rental listings in West LA.  That's a 20 mile drive to Commerce, but I thought it would be fun to hang out in my old hood.  Then we took a drive out there one day, looked at two depressing and disgusting $1795 rentals, and did a drive-by of a couple places I used to live in.  Turned out those streets, now with iron bars and gates on all the windows, doors, stairwells and parking areas, were depressing too.


Looked at a couple more rentals in that same price range, K-Town and West Anaheim, so got a good idea what $1795 will get you around there.  Bottom line:  No thanks.


Then came the really rude surprise that I guess I knew all along, but just never thought about, until somebody mentioned it one day.  If I moved home to California, then my Army, Boeing, and SSI pensions would all be subject to (please pardon the filthy language) State Income Tax!  


Screw that.  Nice place to visit, maybe get a sublet or something for up to 5.99 months a year, but it turns out we won't want to live there after all.  OK fine.  



Weird Aces


Commerce 40/80, on the last night of the six week stay.  Pocket Aces, the board comes AK4,8,7 rainbow, and a guy with 56 off chases me down to river the nuts.  Nothing remarkable.  Happens all the time.


But this time, well, it was just defied all sense and logic.  This time, the culprit was a pro we'd seen every day, and who seemed solid, until that hand.  And this time, he raised and re-raised like a guy who had slipped in the cooler, and knew what was coming to take me down.  I mean, we got head up on the flop, and went five or six bets on every round.  I left the table shaking my head after that one, wondering what that was all about, and I'm still wondering, months later.

Burnout

We started the stay in Room 520, but after ten days of approaching/increasing construction noises, we moved to Room 301, around back, far end, down low, and quiet.  For a while.

By Friday July 11, they'd worked their way around to us, and at 0900 that morning were erecting scaffolding right outside.  Not too early, except we'd only gone to sleep 3 hours before.

And by then I was so burned out, but no way to sleep now.  I jumped up, said "Can't take this any more!" started packing, and got loaded up, checked-out, and in under an hour we were Northbound on I-5.

But we only went 42 miles.  Burned out is burned out, and I was a hazard to myself, and everyone else on the road.  Have Mrs. Rock drive?  No way.  After 6 weeks of nonstop Commerce, she was just as fried as me.  

Luckily, all the points we'd earned at Crowne Plaza, and on the Hotel Group Visa, were starting to show up, and we had the 30,000 needed for a free room night at the Holiday Inn Express in Santa Clarita.  So yes, we checked out of one hotel, drove an hour, and checked into a different hotel.  And at the time, it made sense.

Next morning we were recharged, at least some, got back on the road, and it turned out to be a really busy Saturday.  By the time we got to Oregon, and started looking for somewhere to stay the night, every hotel was No Vacancy.  

So we just continued North, checking hotels here and there, and, long story short (or is it too late for that?) wound up just driving home to Seattle, finally arriving 21 hours and 1100 miles later, at 0630 Sunday.  It was brutal, and I will never again hit the road without a planned destination, and a room reservation.

Once home we pretty much hibernated for over a week, while also trying to plan a return trip.  When?  Stay where?  Not sure yet.  Just sure we won't want to run up another marathon hotel bill.

Homer Flintstone


Wanted to blog about the Commerce game and players, but I wasted so much time shopping apartments that nothing got written.

So until we get back there, I can only mention this one Neanderthal: he looks like Homer Simpson, and acts like a caveman.  The dealer accidentally sent one of my cards closer to him, then she reached out to correct herself, and sent it to me.  Homer didn't like that at all.  He grabbed both my cards out of my hands, put them with his cards, mucked all 4, and declared a misdeal.  And got away with it, too!

See, Commerce went to considerable effort posting these fancy signs all over the property:



Thing is, they were just kidding about Zero Tolerance; they actually meant Total Tolerance.  Lots of Commerce players do all those things, some again and again, over and over, with never any more penalty than an occasional empty warning.

So what do you call it when they post "Zero Tolerance" and then tolerate everything listed?  Ironic?  Hypocrisy?  Lies?  Maybe some combination of all those, but I just call it pathetic.

Sorry I didn't describe hands, or get more real poker, into this post.  I do have plenty to tell, in final draft, and coming in new posts momentarily.








Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Royal Flush Fever

I got super lucky on New Years Day.  A straight-flush wheel beat my quad Aces, and paid me half of Diamond Lil's Super Bad Beat jackpot.  Nice payday.  Real nice.

But the bad beat was not the jackpot I had in mind when I came in to play that day.  When I got there, first thing I looked at was the Monte Carlo board, to see if anyone had hit the Hearts Royal Flush, or if that progressive was still up over $10,000.

DL has separate Monte Carlo progressives for each suit on the Royal Flush and straight flush "Steel Wheel" jackpots.  They increase a couple hundred bucks a day, until somebody hits it, then they reset to $2,000.  Most times they get hit at around $5K, or less, but occasionally one of them gets stubborn, holds out, and climbs up high enough to get everyone's attention.  

And that was the case on January 1, when the Hearts Royal was up over ten thousand.  Thing is, STILL AIN'T NOBODY HIT THAT SUCKER, and right now the Royal Flush Monte Carlo board is:


  • Spades:   $  2,240
  • Hearts:   $ 28,526
  • Diamonds: $  2,888
  • Clubs:    $  4,136


So when Tommy Fastplayer open limps on the button for the first time in 15 years, doesn't want to just win the blinds, wants to see the flop, what he got?  Broadway Hearts?  Ya think?  

Couple years ago my Queen Ten of Hearts flopped a Royal, and I posted about how relatively easy it seemed to figure the probability to FLOP it like that:  one time out of-

 50/3  x  49/2  x  48/1  =  19,600

Ok, fine.  But what if you don't flop it?  What if you turn or river it, or just flop one, and need runner-runner?  What's the overall probability for suited broadway holecards to just MAKE a royal, any which way you can?

Where I didn't break a sweat figuring probability to flop it, that overall probability thing made my head hurt.  You've heard that a man should know his limitations?  I found mine right there, and spent a couple years just thinking about it now and then, trying to find a way to approach it.  

Hearts Royal being way up there right now got me thinking about it again, and Saturday night it hit me.  As is often the case, the solution turned out to be not so complicated after all.

Turns out that flopping it is really no different than all those other ways to make it!  Why did it take me forever to realize that?  Why did I make it more complicated than it needed to be? 

You need for 3 particular cards to land in any of 5 positions on the board.  If they land in spots 1, 2 and 3, well, awesome, you flopped it.  Good job.

But having those 3 cards land in any other combination of the five spots should have that same probability.  That was my epiphany last Saturday.  So I made this list of EIGHT ways your Royal cards can appear the board:

1.   x x x o o   flop it
2.   x x o x o   turn it
3.   x x o o x   river it
4.   x o x x o   turn  it
5.   x o o x x   runner-runner
6.   o x x x o   turn it
7.   o x o x x   runner-runner
8.   o o x x x   runner-runner
9.   x o x o x   MISSING
10.  o x x o x   MISSING

Then I went from there, thinking that suited broadway should MAKE a royal EIGHT times out of 19,600.


A Humbling Experience


David H. happened by, and I showed him my work.  He took a quick look, thought about it for three seconds, and said, politely, "There should be 10 ways to make it, not just 8."  

He saw 3 royal cards landing in any of 5 board positions as a combinatorial, 3C5=10, which it is.  I know how to spell that, but don't know the math well enough to do it, so I just too quickly made my sloppy, incomplete list of  [what I thought were the 8] ways to make the royal.  Should have been more careful.

Then David looked at my list of 8 and IMMEDIATELY told me 9 and 10, the two I had missed.  Recognizing and working with patterns like that is a whole 'nother kind of measurable intelligence, and all this goes to explain why he's a professional, and I'm an amateur.

OK, so now we know that suited broadway holecards will make a royal TEN times in 19,600, or once in 1,960.  Next question:  How often are we dealt broadway hearts?

Easy.  (52 x 51)/2 = 1,326 possible starting hands, and ten of those are broadway hearts.  So you'll get them, on average, once every 132.6 deals. 

So then the chance for you (or anyone) to be dealt broadway hearts AND make the royal, on the next (or any) deal, should be:

1/132.6 x 1/1960 =  1/259,896

Sure, I could have looked this up on Wizard of Odds, or some other website.  But that's no fun.


NOTE:  You can make a royal with one (or zero) cards in your hand and four (or five) cards on the board.  That doesn't pay any jackpot, and was not considered at all in this discussion.









Thursday, January 09, 2014

Drawing Dead And Getting Paid

One thing we all learned in Hold Em Boot Camp is to always know this:  What's the Nuts?

Right?  When cards hit the board, don't you need to figure out what the best possible hand is?  

Sure.  And I do that, most times.  But on New Years Day, my favorite holiday, a little before midnight, I caught a hand that made me lose sight of that principle, and it probably cost me a couple extra bets on the end, but I got over it.

Two players limp from early and middle position, I find Pocket Aces, on the button, and raise.  I think 4 players took the flop.

Flop comes A 2 4, all Spades, and at that point I should be asking myself "What's The Nuts?" 

But no,  I haven't really studied the board yet, and am just hoping nobody flopped a flush, or is drawing with a big Spade.  I'm just wanting to see no more Spades, and please pair the board.

I also barely considered that if anyone else had a smaller set, and if the board did pair, there'd be that TINY chance I could be facing quads.

But forget that, when the turn came, and did pair the board, way better than I ever hoped, and now I'm sitting on four Aces!  I got them now.

But LyLy, who open limped early, checkraises me, and we cap it.  Then we cap it on the river, too.

I never for a moment considered that I might be beat.  Four Aces sent my brain into vapor lock, and I just kept pushing chips in, never gave the board another look.  

But LyLy came in with 5s 3s, had exactly one chance in 19,600 to flop the Straight Flush Steel Wheel, and hits it!

Then Sarge, at that point completely toast and with one bogus "out" to quads, hits that too.  
Well, if this hand isn't the epitome of drawing dead and getting there, please tell me what is.




Then, God Bless Diamond Lil's and her Super Bad Beat Jackpot that I also never thought about.  When the new management came in last year, they changed up the High Hand and Monte Carlo bonuses and Bad Beat Jackpot, suspended some for while, then brought them back, "bigger and better," on a fancy electronic signboard.

But one thing they left out there, unchanged, was the old Super Bad Beat, on a separate static signboard, where for at least the last six months (more?) the Jackpot has been frozen/capped at US$ 65,000.  

They said it had no backup, and would simply go away, replaced by all those other promotions, just as soon as somebody hits it.  
All you gotta do is make Quad Eights, or better, and then get beat.  

OK, fine.  No problem.  I can do that.

So when LyLy turned over her Steel Wheel, then I turned over Quad Aces, eight players jumped up and started cheering, while I just sat there, like a rock, completely dumbfounded.  

Give me an F for Situational Awareness here; I was by far the last one at the table to realize what had happened.  Then I was just in shock, paralyzed, and it was a while before I could manage to say, quietly, "Damn, all that practice finally paid off!"

You know the drill:  I get half of the jackpot, she gets a quarter, and the other 7 players chop up the remaining quarter.

Ka-Ching, what a payday.  As I am neither a tournament nor a no-limit player, this was by far the biggest win of my gambling career.   Happy New Year!  

So I got a big check, and a big Form W2G to match, and next day made my deposit at the bank kiosk in the supermarket right by DL.  The teller looked at the check, looked at me, and said "Wow, did you hit the jackpot?"

And please, no cracks about my opponent open limping early with that hand.  God Bless her too.  

Dealer Doug pointed out to me how very lucky I am that she did come in with that hand, and how if she hadn't, then I still would have made 4 Aces, and won the same $371 Monte Carlo, just not my 32.5K piece of the Super Beat.

This was the first time I ever told a Bad Beat story, or ever wanted to.  Thanks for listening.


Reality Radio


Do you watch Reality TV?  Some of my friends do, but not me.  And is that actual reality, or just some staged bullshit?  Just because something gets a label like that does NOT make it so.

I mean, can Clean Coal ever be truly clean?  

Are Books on Tape really books?  

Does a Head Butt actually have anything to do with your butt?  

No, No, and NO!  False Advertising!  And so-called Reality TV is the worst fake of all.


But the internet stream that I've been listening to truly IS reality, as real as it gets, and in real-time, too.  I call it Reality Radio.

For many years, radio hobbyists, journalists, crooks, ambulance chasers, police groupies, and various other weirdos with nothing better to do, have used VHF and UHF radio scanners to monitor Police, Fire, EMS, Air Traffic, etc. frequencies, and listen to all the chatter.

Now many scanner outputs are uploaded to a website that streams it back out over the internet, and you can listen with the free Scanner Radio app.  (Android & iOS)

Here's page one of their Top 50 menu, ranked by how many listeners each stream has:



A normal person — you, for example — might find it interesting for a few minutes.  But me?  Maybe not so normal.  I was born and raised in Los Angeles, but grew up in the Army Signal Corps.  Radio communication:  Morse code, voice, teletype, Ham Radio, MARS Radio, Shortwave, Microwave, AM, FM, Sideband, Repeaters, Multichannel, you name it. 

And I'm still into all that radio stuff, and am just fascinated by the LAPD Dispatch stream, from my old neighborhoods and hangouts, familiar streets and locations.  I can sit in the 20 game for hours, earbuds in the Note II, listening to the all the LA action.  To understand everything they say, you have to know all the codes.   


LAPD gets some poor press, and doesn't have the greatest reputation.  Deserved?  I don't know.  But on radio dispatch across the 18 divisions heard on this stream, these people have got it going on, taking care of business, night and day, busy, busy, busy, and they do they have their act together.

Calm but fast-talking, confident, professional, proper procedure, by the book, just the facts, Ma'am.  

It's impressive.  It's entertaining.  Sometimes it's funny, or poignant, or scary, or sad.  But it's always Reality Radio.