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Luck or Freedom?

[Content Disclosure: 100% Poker, 43% Freedom]

I played a home game the other night, a real home game; no poker media, no one who had ever even played in a card room. Some 'Follow the Queen', a few wild card games, lots of beer. My buddy, who got me the invite, just had to mention my credentials and that meant I had to supply stories for at least part of the evening. Eventually, someone had to ask: "How much is skill and how much is just luck?"

But this post is not about luck, besides I have given my opinion on this issue often. In case you missed it: There is no luck in poker, there is, however, variance.

What bothers me about the luck question is when it is posed as: "Is poker a game or skill or luck?" and then courts make decisions about whether or not we can play poker based on some answer a judge drags out of his Sunday school upbringing. I really hate lawyers and judges messin' about with the skill or luck question because that is not the right question. Never was, never will be.

The question about legal or illegal poker is much more basic. The question is correctly phrased this way: "What the hell is the government doing telling me or anyone else how to spend our time, energy or money?!"

Forget the Skill vs. Luck question that just distracts the focus from essential issue that poker players are simply exercising their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of some basic enjoyment. Moralists, book thumpers and all those who do not enjoy a game of cards should enjoy their life as they wish and stop trying to control mine. If playing poker for money will in your system of beliefs lead you to hell then you probably should not be hanging out at a poker table; but the imposition of your myths on my life is the very thing that starts wars. Please just go away and let everyone else live their life as they deem appropriate.
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Poker Journalism?

[Content Disclosure: 100% Poker, 32% Journalism, 12% Style, 4% Stupidity, 2% Does it really matter?]

"Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's 'St. Matthew's Passion' on a ukulele." ----- ----- Ben Bagdikian

Journalistic Integrity. Some of us still expect that from the media reporting from the White House or Parliament, a court room, war zone or even standing in front of a weather map; but from a poker room?

Most of the information labeled "poker news" comes from writers who have little or no training in journalism. And why should they? You don't need any fancy degree just to write, certainly not to write about poker and definitely not to write a post on a random blog. I mean the essence of blogging is regular and irregular folks saying what they think, feel, hate or love. No credentials required.

On the other hand, poker players making a living, doing a job that has become entertainment and even news. They have some right to expect a level of professionalism from those who would call themselves "poker media". The casinos and corporations, who do business in poker, should expect some level of ethical reporting from those who seek to cover their business and certainly from those who might be critical of how they are doing their jobs. The turnover has always been high in the ill defined position of poker journalist. The qualifications have not and are still not particularly high and the paid positions are disappearing just like everywhere else.

But when will each new on screen video personality be measured by the level of their poker knowledge and not by the exposure of their cleavage? When will the WPT and WSOP television coverage come up to the level of the viewership? "A Queen and a Queen only" should never be uttered by anyone ever again. The goal everyone in poker journalism should strive for is, of course, Andy Glazer. Know the game, know the players, respect the game, earn the respect of the players and of your readers.

Every poker writer should have done some tournament reporting. You have to have stayed up most of the night waiting for the winner of a $1500 Razz bracelet or suffered through a never-ending Stud hi/lo final table to understand the game and the participants. You need to have been there for the really tricky floor calls and truly understand how critical or devastating good and bad floor staff can be. You must have written something actually interesting for your audience about the first day of a seven day tournament, where everyone knows that nothing happens on day one.

Sure poker players are not athletes. There are no rules on steroids or any other drugs. No big contracts, few if any late night firearm incidents but yes, poker players have a high level of degeneracy compared to the general public. It is gambling after all, no matter now much the corporate suits try to clean up the game. But what is and what is not fair game for reporting? A married player with a hooker at 3 AM, is that newsworthy? What about a WSOP final table player at the craps tables until dawn the day of his big shot?

To be a poker journalist, you must have at least thought about the audience consuming your words and about the players you are covering. What do you owe your readers? What do the players deserve? Those discussions usually take place at a bar, very late with other members of the media. You learn there are not always perfect right answers but clearly there some that are wrong. Either that or you are a blogger, there is a difference.
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Sixty-One

[Content Disclosure: Life 61%; The World 61%; Nomenclature 61%; Klondikes 61%; Wheelbarrows 61%; Wombats 61%]

Today's post is brought to you by the number 61, the Community for Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other forty-one American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history. Martin Sheehan came in second with 56%.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Jan. 9-11, 2009 finds 34% of Americans approving of the overall job George W. Bush was doing as president and 61% disapproving. Those same 34% were seen to be consuming peanut butter and cheese crackers.

Sixty-one is the sum of two squares, 52 + 62, and it is also a centered square number, a centered hexagonal number and a centered decagonal number. It is also a Keith number, because it recurs in a Fibonacci-like sequence started from its base 10 digits: 6, 1, 7, 8, 15, 23, 38, 61... A Keith number has absolutely no application in the real world.


The chemical element with the atomic number 61 is promethium, is the element with the secondary lowest ordinal number, which does not possess any stable isotopes. Prometheus is a known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals for their use. Zeus then punished him for his crime by having him bound to a rock while a gryphon ate his liver every day only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day. The Gryphon was said to also be fond of fava beans.


The code for international direct dial phone calls to Australia is 61. But Skype is free to Brenda and Uma in the Blue Mountains West of Sydney.

61 years of age: Alice Cooper, James Taylor, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Steve Winwood, Elton John, David Letterman, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Arlo Guthrie

The Highway 61 Blues Festival occurs in June in Leland, Massachusetts. Highway 61 Revisited is a Bob Dylan album

At age 61, President Richard Nixon, resigned the presidency in 1974. He was succeed by Gerald Ford, also age 61. I used to celebrate this event annually until I realized there actually were worst things than Nixon as President. I know, for those of you old enough to remember The Dick, that is hard to believe, but true.

Oh and the picture at the top is a 61 zone zonohedro. No really!
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Work, Labor, Job, Calling


[Content Disclosure: 89% Musings, 0% Poker, 56% Work]

"The overfull litter baskets suggest abundance rather than squalor." -- Ian McEwan

We humans see things differently. We also tend to debate, argue and exhort one another over these differences. Lately I have noticed that often the verbal combatants are unaware of the true nature of the "other's" position. Most commonly we fail to recognize when the other person is expressing not an opinion or a position but a belief.

You don't change beliefs by piling up a mound of oppositional facts. Beliefs do not live in the empirical world of rhetoric or science. Beliefs are rooted in a place entirely different. I was brought to this pondering today by some thoughts on work and jobs in this time of economic uncertainty. The question, of course, is do we live to work or do we work to live; and further, do some of us truly understand the gift it is that we have such a choice to make.

"I signed up with a temp agency, and much to my dismay they actually found me a job. It had been a couple of years since I'd worked in an office, so I thought I should prepare for it. I went to the YMCA with a friend and had him tie me up in a burlap sack and sink me to the bottom of the pool. Just as I was about to suffocate, he yanked me up and gave me a lunch break." -- Martha Kelly

Yes, there is a dark side to work. A drudgery, a burden, the incessant wheel of oppression. Hence, communism and Ziggy.

"When we truly discover love, capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary." --Will O'Brien

Ah, the joys of the rewrite: "When we truly discover compassion, capitalism will be revealed as putrid and vile; while socialism will just seem silly." -- me

"I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money." -- Pablo Picasso

This one needs no rewrite, it has already been said: "Live simply, so that others may simply live."

"The deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price." -- Khalil Gibran

Ah they joys of being an artist, but Gibran was not wealthy nor given to a harsh critique of conventional reality. He just wasn't willing to sell his soul.

"There is no easy formula for determining right and wrong livelihood, but it is essential to keep the question alive... We have to stop pretending that we can make a living at someting that is trivial or destructive and still have a sense of legtimate self-worth. A society in which vocation and job are separated for most people gradually creates an economy that is often devoid of spirit, one that frequently fills our pocketbooks at the cost of emptying our souls." -- Sam Keen

To my friends and readers, who find truth in these last words; I can only say -- prepare for hard times but keep the faith. To my other friends, who find this sheer nonsense, I love you anyways.

(I humbly bow to The Sun magazine for these quotes on work and labor.)
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Poker Shrink Returns

[Content Disclosure: 100% Poker, 44% Writing]

My weekly column Poker Shrink returns to PokerNews.com today!

Back in '06 & '07, I wrote forty-four Poker Shrink articles for Poker News and today I pick up with number forty-five. All the back articles are archived there so if anyone wants to immerse themselves in all things shrinkage, be my guest.

The idea in these columns is to explore an aspect of psychological theory as it applies to our favorite pasttime. Hopefully the read is enjoyable and you pick up a tip or two about your game and the possibilities for your opponent's moves too.

For now, expect a new Poker Shrink article every Monday at PokerNews.com
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Sonoma Valley

[Content Disclosure: Arrival 93%; looking forward 12%]

I am, at least temporarily, residing in the Sonoma Valley north of San Francisco. Specifically, I am living for a time in Tina's Hut, while she spends time in the desert southwest. I have already encountered five of my neighborhood cats; always a good sign. Having been told by a very close friend that I always sound happier when I am in California, this seems another good omen. From her lips to the ears of local spirits and sprites.

Chaos and confusion have been drifting about my world lately, I expect some of that was just the twitterings of the move but so much more seems just jiggering out of reach. Perhaps I will explore some of those sinkholes here soon, but for now I am going to enjoy a glorious sunny day in Sonoma and see how many more of the feline pack I can encounter. Followed by a long, leisurely evening of fiction.
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Neither Here nor There

[Content Disclosure: Exclusively Pictorial]
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