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Kill the Button Straddle!


[Content Disclosure: 100% Poker Rant]

I don't exactly know who was the idiot that came up with the button straddle but we have got to put a bullet in this brainless play. The button straddle is anti-poker, it is all about luck not skill, it creates an advantage for some players and disadvantages others and it re-penalizes the players who are already in jeopardy in the blinds.

If you want to play a game with an uneven advantage there are plenty of craps tables and blackjack games for you out in the casino. Hell, play Wheel of Fortune if that is how you want to redistribute your cash but stay the hell away from poker with your lame ass gimmick bets. The button straddle is no better than floor approved angle-shooting and it has to stop!

(end of rant, beginning of rational arguments on this dumb ass issue)

In most poker games, played with blinds, one or twice each round you are put at a disadvantage by having to post a small or big blind before seeing your cards. We all know that the games stagnate without blinds, so we accept them as part of the game because the blind burden shifts equally around the table among the players. To compensate for paying a blind bet, you get to act after all the other players in the pre-flop betting round. Now comes some incredibly perverse idea that a player on the button can straddle (double the big blind) and force the small and big blinds to act first. Suddenly the blinds are triple-disadvantaged by having to put up a forced bet and then having to act first and act behind a nutso raiser who will get another opportunity to raise again behind them.

Look, why not just put the jokers back in the deck instead of letting the morons play with the button! This is a stupid way to play a game of skill. You all remember that the poker community is making an argument before the governments of the U.S. and several other nations that poker is a game of skill. Well, the button straddle is not skill. If you want to play a home game then GO HOME!

(OK, so the rant really wasn't over)

Seriously folks, make your feelings known to each and every poker room manager and floor staff person you encounter. In fact, when it's your big blind, hold the chips in your hand until the dealer tosses out the first card; if someone puts up a button straddle announce you are sitting out the hand and will come in after the button. Then call for the floor and make your objection loudly while seated at the table. If you did that and the guy on your left refused to post a big blind and the next guy and the next... how long before your poker room banned the button straddle?

You see the issue is that not every player is disadvantaged or advantaged equally. I object to the button straddle universally. But I am only disadvantaged if the players one and two to my right actually make the bet. When it happens in other positions I actually may gain an advantage. It's like a random kill game. If I'm under-the-gun, I benefit because now I act third not first. If I'm in the cut-off seat, marginal hands that may have played for one bet have folded, which is sometimes a plus and other times a negative to my game, depending on what I am holding. Randomness has been introduced into a game that already has a definable amount of variation. Skill/knowledge has been diminished and luck has been increased; is that what a good poker player wants in the game?

The primary question simply is ... why?

Why add a gimmick to a game of poker?
Why add a gimmick that does not treat all players equally?
Why let the drunk moron on the button buy an advantage?
Why not just put the joker back in the deck? or let each player buy an extra card or follow the queen?

The answer is: because we are playing poker not bingo. We all know the rules and fairness is a constant but not with this stupid pet trick. So make your feelings clear to your poker room staff. Make it each and every time to take a seat. Be willing to get up and leave if they don't get the message. I have asked around for the past several weeks at over a dozen poker rooms and it appears to me that about 75% of the players don't like the button straddle. So why is it allowed? Whose game is this anyway?


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Transitions


[Content Disclosure: from poker to not...]

Weeks and weeks of visits to the Rio leave a mark. Sort of a cross between the pillow impressions after a long morning sleep and the welts from a lash. It really depends on how you approach the World Series of Poker. My green felt blemishes are vanishing quickly this year. 

"He had come to suspect early on that Scott Crane was the major local signpost to the castle of randomness--but only tonight, when Crane had mentioned having been a professional poker player, had he found any reason to be confident. Gambling was the place where statistics and profound human consequences met most nakedly, after all, and cards, even more than dice or the numbers on a roulette wheel, seems able to define and perhaps even dictate a player's . . . luck."

That quotation comes from Last Call by Tim Powers. The book was lent to me by one of my poker buddies, who himself has become substantially more thought-provoking of late. From the dust jacket blurb:

". . . troubling nightmares about a strange poker game he once attended on a houseboat on Lake Mead are drawing him back to the magical city. Because the mythic game did not end that night in 1969. And the price of his winnings was his soul. And now a pot far more strange and perilous than he ever could imagine depends on the turning of a card."

An intriguing transition indeed, from the world of poker and the books of poker to my next project tinged with dark forces and twists of fate, all wrapped up in an impending chautauqua in a cube. 

More on all of this over the next several months and many states; geographically, psychologically, spiritually and literally. Off we go into the mild, grey mists of tomorrow.

Oh and happy b-day Janet.
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Picking Up After the Series


[Content Disclosure: Reorientation]

The World Series of Poker is on hiatus for four months, so it is time to reenter the non-poker world. The final few of my poker buddies board the airplane today and Las Vegas returns to semi-normal. There has been a fair amount of poker playing the last week or so and lots of lunches, dinners and drinks. We managed sushi, german, steampots full of ocean bounty, barbeque, french and I was on the limited dining plan. One more tournament to go, I landed a seat in the the Binion's freeroll tomorrow from a final table chop sometime this past week. 

What this all means is that Keeping Your Head in the Game will once again go back to more non-poker content and for at least the next four months a bit of a travelogue. I am going to be hitting the road, mooching off family and friends for accommodations until November or thereabouts. This will also allow me to avoid making the actual decision about where I am going to live next.

There will also be discussions about the "next" book; some of my travels will be to converse with my future potential co-authors and outline some realistic timelines for a book or two. Speaking of which, Amy has a new website up for Checking-Raising the Devil give it a look, we could use the google ranking.

As for the blog here, I will keep divulging the recesses of my mind. I admit to being addicted to such disclosures and besides . . . writers have to write every day; why not be read by someone while blathering away.
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My November Nine Picks



[Content Disclosure: WSOP November Nine]

Some degenerate in the media pool decided to challenge us to pick our final nine in the main event before the start of yesterday's play. So we had 64 runners to whittle down to our own personalized November Nine. Below are my choices. A Willy Wonka Golden ticket to the first reader to discover the amazingly insightful selection criteria I used to pick my nine.



Darvin Moon
Billy Kopp
Phil Ivey
Steve Begleiter
Ludovic Lacay
Antonio Esfandiari
Tommy Vedes
Antone Saout
Ben Lamb

(Addendum: I must admit to the success of my endeavor, as the thoughtless selection of the nine chip-leaders led to my winning the media pool; however, not without a four-way, six-level tiebreaker.)
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The 6,495th Player


[Content Disclosure: a wee bit of math]


Monday Prologue: (An autographed copy of Check-Raising the Devil to the first reader who correctly identifies the seminal theme of this impending post. All intelligent guesses and most wild speculations should be made in the comment section below. Decision of the judges will be semi-final. Duplicate correct or partially correct answers will participate in a run-off drawing overseen by an intelligent female poker commentator, who does not show cleavage on camera. Full post with brilliant analysis and cogent quips will go up in twenty-four hours.)

(some fine guesses were submitted but none hit the mark.)


The 6,495th Player

I am going to go with some hard facts today. Hard from the perspective that they are grounded in solid, empirical mathematical theory and "hard" in that they may shake your faith in the list that reads: Eastgate, Yang, Gold, Hachem, Raymer . . . Moss, Moss.

Here is my thesis: If a 6,495th player had been allowed to register for the main event this year, the members of the November Nine who will be determined tomorrow night would be different. And the eventual WSOP champion would be someone else, not the name we will all remember following Peter Eastgate. You see with all the skill versus luck conversation that goes on around poker, the mathematical facts are that if you add one more player or allow one less entry you drastically change how the fourteen days of the tournament play out. 

This additional player need not have been the 2,810th entry on Day 1D, nope a 874th player on Day 1B would have had the same effect with a different result. We are talking "pebble in the pond" math here. One more player means their initial table plays differently, breaks differently and players move throughout the tournament differently. One more 30,000 stack of chips is distributed throughout the Day 1 and then the Day 2 and the ripples grow. 

Surely it's easy to see if say we remove Ivan Demidov from last year's tournament. Take Sammy Farha out of the Moneymaker 2003 win, or Eric Seidel that year or David Williams or Steve Dannenmann those years. But the math tells us that it need not be a final table figure who doesn't register or a big name player who was left out in this year's Day 1D shutdown. One more or one less player in such a large field must inevitably change the tournament and the longer you play it out the greater the change.

One more entrant in Day 1C would not effect Day 1A or 1B or 1D or 2A, the effects begin immediately for 1C and then for 2B but Days 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and November each have magnified implications based on the extra runner. In fact, just a bit of extrapolation would lead us to the conclusion that one more or one less player on each of the Day 1's would mean no amount of math or analysis could lead us to any conclusion except that the November Nine would be nine completely different players than what we will see tomorrow night.

So the next time you get involved in the Luck vs. Skill argument. Remember this. Once you start playing the game, It's All Skill; but leading up the the biggest tournament in the world, it's all the luck of the draw and the ineffable math of big numbers in the registration queue.
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Poker Mind In Depth Part XVIII: Finale

[Content Disclosure: Poker Mind In Depth series]

It's a wrap! No, not the main event; there are still 408 players with a bracelet dream still alive. But the 2009 WSOP run for Matusow, Negreanu and Hellmuth has come to an end. Phil busted last night with of all hands -- pocket aces. So I will wrap my "Poker Mind In Depth" series with a few thoughts.

First of all, thanks to three players who took the time to answer many not always easy questions. Not once in the past five weeks did anyone back away from a question or give me a lightweight response. In fact, several times one of the players did a second take when they thought they had not given a complete response to my questions. I appreciate that I was able to have access to the first three players on my wish list for this series, my only regret is that #4 was such a privacy pussy.

Yes, as some have asked, there is a potential book being considered. What would you think of a group of 12 or so top professional poker players being completely open and honest about the psychology issues they face in their poker lives and the compensations they make outside of poker to play the game? I have a partial line-up of interviewees in mind and an interested publisher but suggestions for additional players are welcome.

The WSOP is not over, so I will be shifting my emphasis for the next few days to other parts of the Amazon room and maybe a few places outside the main event. Thanks for following along, hope you enjoyed my series within the Series.
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Phil Hellmuth: Poker Mind In Depth Part XVII

[Content Disclosure: Poker Mind In Depth series]

Today is Day Four of the main event, with 789 players still in the hunt out of 6,494 starters; Phil Hellmuth sits in a very comfortable 75th place with 485,000 chips. As you may remember Phil made a deep run in last year's WSOP finishing 45th. Now we all know that predicting success based on a Day Four or even a Day Five position is folly. Chip leaders will come and go and disappear many more times in the next several days. So what makes 2009 different for Phil?

First, I want to say that catching up with Phil for any kind of in-depth session is really not in the best interest of his game right now. Phil can and does get incredibly focused each day before the event begins and I respect that focusing process. I can give you my observations based on Phil's play and some brief encounters.

This year, at least the main event, is different for Phil. He reports to being incredibly calm, which is a departure from his condition in the last five or six years at the main event. There is no doubt in my mind that this more low key approach is leading to better play. Not that with Phil's record he actually needs to elevate his game, but better is better, so why not. You will notice once the ESPN shows begin to run, there are no Hellmuthian blow-ups. Sure there is camera time, as someone wise once said: "You don't put me on the TV table to be quiet." But the 2009 version of Phil is really under a lot more control. He has been more aggressive in spots where he would have folded in previous years and yet I have seen four big lay-downs that saved him 50% or more of his stack. Very few players would not have gone broke in those four hands.

What does this mean for the next 3 days? Well, we all know that aces do run into kings and runner, runner, perfect, perfect suck-outs happen. No one has a clear path to the final table this early. About all we can say today, is that most of the field has a shot at the money, we will be "in the money" about midday today. 

What I can observe is that Phil is once again in position for a deep run in the main event. Once again! I will keep a close watch on him and we will have a Part XVIII & XIX to this series, if . . .
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