While he may not have been the mathematician Chris Ferguson is, no one has ever showed a keener understanding of the human animal as poker player than Thomas “Amarillo Slim” Preston. World Champion, winner of millions, Slim made a living by running his mouth at the table, getting inside the heads of whomever he happened to be facing and explointing whatever he happened to find in there. These are his top ten keys to success, as originally published in his biography ‘Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People’:

1) Play the players more than you play the cards.

2) Choose the right opponents. If you don’t see a sucker at the table, you’re it.

3) Never play with money you can’t afford to lose

4) Play tight and aggressive; don’t play too many hands, but when you do, be prepared to move in

5) Always be observing at a poker game. The minute you’re there, you’re working.

6) Watch the other players for tells before you look at your own cards

7) Diversify your play so others can’t pick up tells on you
Choose your speed based on the direction of the game. Play slow in a fast game and fast in a slow game.

9) Be able to quit a loser and for goodness sake, don’t quit when you’re winning.

10 Conduct yourself honorably so you’re always invited back.

In my newsgroup wanderings, I just stumbled accross this article recently published in Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/connections/article/0,9171,1122029-1,00.html

This article strikes me as remarkable for two reasons: First, it signals the breaking down of gender barriers in the game, which has to be a good thing for any red-blooded male who can handle losing to a woman. I think a big part of poker’s former stygma routed from its exclusionary habits. No women, no children and a whole lot of secrets can go a long way towards convincing people of wrongdoing behind closed doors. The second thought is that poker is now mainstream enough that Time Magazine articles seem almost commonplace.

We’re staying at the party. The women are arriving presently. Enjoy the article.

gary@wisehandpoker.com

Having a blog is a good way to get one’s self warmed up for other writings. As I sit here, I’m preparing internally to write 1200 words on Stu Ungar for Bluff, the mainstream mag built to cater to the casual poker player. Once upon a time, my average article went 2000 words, so the count isn’t all that intimidating. Trying to cram Stuey into that small a frame is a little more daunting.

Stuey has to be my second favorite character in the poker world, following only Treetop Jack Strauss, his partner in seeking action who measured fifteen inches taller than Ungar. I think in part my affection for these characters stems from my inability to see them in action. Let me explain with an unusual comparisson.

The English royalty used to have a strangle hold over its people, but as communication technology has advanced, that hold has slipped. The reason for this is television’s humanization of the royals, who previously seemed larger than life to their subjects. Now, televised daily, gossiped about constantly in the English rags, the royals are human; frail, imperfect and entirely human.

Likewise, the stars we see on television today are humanized by our interaction with them. No, we don’t get to chat with Daniel and Doyle and Gus and Johnny and Howard, but we still get to see them up close, flawed. If they make a mistake, we see it first hand, filmed from multiple angles. No imperfection can go unnoticed.

Stuey and Treetop passed on before this modern age of poker began, and while no one is greatful for this, I’m glad their old legacies could be preserved. If Stuey were around today, he could be glorious, but he could also be constantly reminding us of the darker side of poker in a a way that would shame all parties involved. We could see him go on tilt, or bluff off half his stack, or verbally berate another player or dealer in his hyperactive way, and any of those things would shatter the image we have of him now; young, dumb and ful of…himself. A comet flashing above the poker sky. We wouldn’t like him very much, and not in the Phill Hellmuth love-to-hate kind of way.

ok, I’m ready to write now. Thanks for psyching me up.

gary@wisehandpoker.com

I’ve always loved reading about games and their players. Like most hardcore gamers, I grew up in a house of gamers and was taught that there’s more to a game than the mere playing of it. The playing brings a game to life. The recollections keep it alive.

Part of the reason I started writing about poker was the feeling I’d get when reading a poker text, something along the lines of ‘I could do that’. I understand the game, engaged in natural research in my following of organized play and had made a living writing about other games for a number of years. It wasn’t that the writing lacked quality, but it set the bar at a level I felt I could attain.

Within twenty minutes of starting Aces and Kings: Inside Stories and Million-Dollar Strategies From Poker’s Greatest Players, I found myself thinking ‘I wish I could do that’. Beautifully written by Michael Kaplan and Brad Reagan, this book is a collection of essays taking an honest look at some of the major characters in the poker landscape.

No stone goes unturned. If you’ve ever heard a rumor at the tables in Vegas, from Men Nguyen’s cheating to Amarillo Slim’s indescretions involving his granddaughter, it’s discussed openly here. Kaplan and Reagen didn’t write about these things to stir controversy, instead doing so in order to provide a complete picture of their subjects. As if the topic matter weren’t enough, the writing is absolutely fantastic.

I learned a lot from this book. Nguyen’s godfather-like hold on many other Vietnamese players, Jesus Ferguson’s IRC Poker beginings, Puggy Pearson’s dominance at the begining of the 70s…fifteen essays, each as good as the next, give us a clearer look at the players we see every week on TV. If you like a good story and love poker, get a copy. Your understanding of the landscape will be incomplete without it.

Gary@wisehandpoker.com

Last night, while I was catching up on the adventures of Michael Scholfield and Linc the Sink (as in everything but the kitchen…) on Prison Break, my buddy, who shall only be referred to in this space as ‘the Prez’, was licking his wounds from a rough weekend by sitting down with a little ‘Las Vegas’.

I know the show has little to do with poker other than the occasional poker pro cameo, though those are usually priceless. In one early episode, a character named Michael Cannon (played by James Leisure), needed to explain what tells are to a fish, and he used the morons in the poker room as examples. They were played by Phil Ivey and Jesus Ferguson. That said, when we got together today, the Prez and I got to talking about our previous evening’s tv. When we got to Vegas, the conversation, as it always does, turned to Nikki Cox.

“Hers is the body against which all others should be measured, though my wife’s is finer still” Prez said, while sipping a cup of tea, pinky finger raised. Ok, that’s not really a direct quote, but we guys have to cover each other’s backs while maintaining a veneer of respectability regarding how women see us discussing them. I offered back that miss Nikki should actually be illegal.

For every car accident she’s caused by walking down the street, she should be illegal. For every time a woman has been made to feel insufficient in her shadow, she should be illegal. For redefining veluptuous, falsely heightening our expectations of Vegas hostesses, for making the devils in us surface while the angels run and hide, illegal. For reducing the ratio of flesh to material in the wardrobes of modern femal America…illegal

Nikki Cox is destroying the fabric of North American society. Wounding women, making men mindless, this bountiful curse on our existence is ruining everything. We should be worshipping women with freckles and warts and everything that makes them human. Instead, we’re stuck with Nikki Cox.

We’re doomed.

Today, I finally logged into Pokerroom.com for the first time. It was a long overdue move that I’d been putting off because my credit card bills look very much like a writer/poker player’s should nowadays, but with the site affiliated with Pokerroom, it seemed prudent that I at least try out the software. After spending the day in and out of their rooms, I’ll be heading back plenty.

When I start out at a new site, I’ll start with the small tables and work my way up. I logged into a $1/$1 no-limit table just to get a feel for the lay of the land, and proceeded to log this session:

Preflop fold: 35%
Net result +$332.45
Hands 101
Won 44
Split 2
lost 55
time: 50 min

In case you missed it, I was playing like a maniac. There were no two cards I didn’t like, I ducked and weaved my way to as many flops as possible and played around with as many of the options as I could. 50 minutes later, I left the table having multiplied my $100 buyin by 4.33 times.

The thing that really struck me about the site was how sleek it was. The cards came quick, the players were fast and loose, and that made for a lot of playing. Amongst the greatest advantages found in online play compared to live play is the number of hands per hour, usually around 75, but we got into three digits in fifty minutes. On top of that, the players were fairly awful. If I were a wealthy-to-the-point-of-boredom kind of guy, hunting for the thrill of competition, this wouldn’t have been my ideal table. As things are though, I play for money. This relationship is going to work out just fine.

Over the remainder of the day, I played about three hours of two-table 3/6 shorthand, finishing up another $500. That’s $800 plus about one-third of the raked hands needed to get my $200 bonus for signing up through this here site. I’ve had bigger days then that, but seldom while risking so little, and seldom in the comfort of home.

I know that promoting pokerroom is part of my business, but I wouldn’t be writing this stuff if it were untrue. This site is dressing me up as a poker historian, and that makes my credability a valuable commodity. Keep that in mind when I tell you Pokerroom.com is a good site to invest your online money in. I’m playing there under the ID ‘Gary Wise’, and I expect I will be most days for quite a while. Come find me there: I’ll try to leave you some bus fare.

gary@wisehandpoker.com

ESPN Classic was showing reruns of the 2003 WSOp today and I was struck by how powerful the 20th-10th place finishers were. Included in their number were Howard Lederer, Scotty Nguyen, Freddy Deeb and most memorably, Phil Ivey. It’s a remarkable group of players who, had things gone a little differently, could have seen poker history go their way. or could they?

Part of poker’s boom has to be route from Moneymaker’s everyman quality, a presence that would not have existed had any of the above, Sam Farha, Dan Harrington or any of a number of other pro players had won. Ivey lost a chunk of his stack to Deep when Deep turned his third king to beat Phils flopped set of sevens, and thenlost his stack to Moneymaker because Chris rivered a full house against his worse full house. Think about this: If the dealer flexes one muscle any differently then they did in any shuffle of the deck, Moneymake might not get his ace, Ivey takes the pot, Moneymaker eventually gets smashed with the short stack, Ivey dominates the final table and history as we know it is no more. It’s the little things in life…

I don’t know that there’s really any point, but these are the things the mind wonders to when studing the record of our game. We define greatness by the random turn of the card, and should that ace not come, Moneymaker would just be another piece of dead money-driftwood in the professionals’ river. The WPT ratings might be hurt by that, the show might cancel after a year and we never have our boom. I know in that course of speculative events, I’m not writing this now. In some minute way, that turn of the cards has affected all of us.

I guess the thing is, Ivey couldn’t control the cards, and neither can you, and when that bad beat comes, you need to remember there was nothing you could do to avoid it and get ready for the next hand. After all, it’s just one hand in an evening of hands in a lifetime of evenings. Even if that card costs you the World Series, there will always be more hands to play, and who knows, maybe in some strange way, you’ll benefit: Ivey may have made more money by losing to Moneymaker then he would have if he’d scared the world away.

gary@wisehandpoker.com

I have no clue what the best hand I ever played was. I think one of my greatest strengths and weaknesses as a player can be found in my hand to hand emotional detachment. It enables me to recover quickly from beats, but at the same time, it results in incomplete pictures of my past relationships with other players. Once a hand is done, the details are gone.

Apparently, I’m not the only one. “I approached all of those players to ask them about the best
hand they ever played, some several times.” says Steve Rosenbloom, author of ESPN’s release The Best Hand I Ever Played. “Some said they don’t have a best hand, others said they wanted to think about it but never gave me
an answer.” He told me this when I pointed out he hadn’t included hands from Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein or Chris Ferguson. He pointed out that further omissions included John Juanda, Andy Bloch, Huck Seed, Ted Forrest and John Hennigan.

Containing fifty-two hands, one for each card in a deck, The Best Hand I Ever Played is exactly what it sounds like: An in depth look at the hands that 52 professional players of some reknown consider their best. ‘Best’ is a loose definition: For some, it means ‘important’, for some, ‘most beneficial’, and for others yet, it means a turning point, a realization, the opening of the path they walk today.

One problem with studying poker history is the lack of recorded information, and as a result, many poker books today have started recycling information. The Best Hand I Ever Played stands out because it presents information that, to this point, hadn’t been published yet. Each hand is two pages long, and in a game where the casual player can sum up the reasons for their actions in a short sentence, that’s one hell of an in-depth look at the thought process that made these hands play out the way they did.

Rosenbloom reports from the source, allowing for poker slang by providing sidebar explanations for those used. After each story is told, he does a good job of analyzing what went right and the lessons to be taken from these examples. It’s an easy and fluid read, but it’s hardly simplistic; it’s a serious look at a serious game. Fortunately, it doesn’t forget games are fun.

We’ve all been there a hundred times, listening to players lament or celebrate their most recent beat or victory. The Best Hand I Ever Played is a collection of those convrsations with players who know what they’re talking about, and Rosenberg’s an author who understands and respects his topic matter. An excellent read, this is one of the best poker books released since Moneymaker’s win made the scene explode.

Gary@wisehandpoker.com

I’m distressed to say that my mother, of all people, sent me the following in an e-mail just now. Enjoy:

Two couples were playing poker one evening. John accidentally dropped some cards on the floor. When he bent down under the table to pick them up, he noticed Bill’s wife Sue wasn’t wearing any underwear!

Shocked by this, John upon trying to sit back up again, hit his head on the table and emerged red-faced. Later, John went to the kitchen to get some refreshments. Bill’s wife followed and asked, “Did you see anything that you liked under there?”

Surprised by her boldness, John courageously admitted that, well indeed he did. She said, “Well, you can have it but it will cost you $500.” After taking a minute or two to assess the financial and moral costs of this offer, John confirms that he is interested. She tells him that since her husband Bill works Friday afternoons and John doesn’t, John should be at her house around 2 PM Friday afternoon.

When Friday rolled around, John showed up at Bill’s house at 2 PM sharp and after paying Sue the agreed sum of $500 they went to the bedroom and closed their transaction, as agreed. John quickly dressed and left.

As usual, Bill came home from work at 6 p.m. and upon entering the house, asked his wife abruptly, “Did John come by the house this afternoon?”

With a lump in her throat Sue answered, “Why yes, he did stop by for a few minutes this afternoon.”

Her heart nearly skipped a beat when her husband curtly asked, “And did he give you $500?”

In terror she assumed that somehow he had found out and after mustering her best poker face, replied, “Well, yes, in fact he did give me $500.”

Bill, with a satisfied look on his face, surprised his wife by saying, “Good, I was hoping he did. John came by the office this morning and borrowed $500 from me. He promised me he’d stop by our house this afternoon on his way home and pay me back.”

Now THAT, my friends, is a poker player

When I started blogging a month ago, I promised pop cultural reviews, but in my constant reading of newsgroups, researching of hands and playing of games, I’ve been lax in my reading. That ends now. Yesterday I finally went out and purchased David Kushner’s ‘Jonny Magic and the Cardshark Kids‘, a tome detailing the life and times of Jon Finkel.

I say finally because I experienced a lot of the events detailed within. The book, which got a last minute redo after Dave Williams made top 2 at the ‘04 Series, focuses its first seventy pages on Jon’s foray into Magic: the Gathering, the game through which he, Williams, Thunder Keller et al. became acquainted. Having been involved with the game, I saw a lot of the events that Kushner wrote about.

History is a story told by the winners, and the book exemplifies that. Kushner props up his heroes in dramatic fashion, suggesting they could do no wrong in the black and white world that emerges from his pages. The reality of course, is that the world is toned in shades of grey. I don’t think reality was the priority here.

Kushner writes about Magic like a man who plays it, but to the educated eye, it’s obvious he doesn’t. His poker knowledge is more extensive, and he’s happy to admit his relative shortcomings where blackjack and sportsbetting are concerned relative to Finkel’s expertise. My real problem, though, is the inacurate picture he paints of the characters involved with the story. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought they were fictionalized. The reality is that, in part, they were.

There’s not as much poker in here as I thought there’d be. There’s a little bit about Dave Williams and even less about WCOOP champion Jordan Berkowitz, but frankly, it feels like it was forced into the narrative. Finkel’s is really a story in three parts: Magic, card counting (a sequel to the M.I.T. kids) and sports betting, all of which serve as the backdrop to the real story; his emergence from awkward boy to confidant man. His is an intellect the gaming world will eventually know about, and should aquaint themselves with, so I’ll give the book a marginal recommendation. I probably would have liked it a lot more if I didn’t know the real details of the story.

gary@wisehandpoker.com