Good Game Stars

I signed on to PokerStars today to convert my remaining Frequent Player Points to cash. Having purchased a $4k Supernova bonus shortly before Stars closed shop to US players, I only had a few hundred dollars worth of FPPs to convert. When I opened the cashier, I was surprised to see almost a thousand dollars sitting in my account. Thanks to Stars’ quick agreement with the Department of Justice, I had been able to cash out my previous balance within a week of the US shutdown. So why was there money in my account? Because Stars is the best.

The PokerStars VIP program is built around milestone bonuses, where you earn a few thousand dollars every hundred thousand points or so. Since I was caught between milestones with 8 and a half months left to play, they prorated the bonus and deposited the cash into my account. While this seems like the logical course of action, few online poker sites would make good on their promised rewards in this fashion. But Stars does the right thing.

I’m saddened that due to my government’s rectal-cranial inversion, I can no longer play poker on the best site on the internet. What will happen in the future? Who knows. Maybe Stars will fight the DoJ and win. Maybe regulation will come in the form of legislation. Maybe the smaller sites will learn from Stars’ example and pick up their game. But for now, it’s good game Stars.

Good game.

Patriotism Is A Character Flaw

“USA! USA! USA!” the crowds chanted outside the White House. “USA! USA! USA!” the crowds chanted at the ballpark. What few of these people realize is that this feeling they have coursing through their veins as they shout their brains out - that’s the feeling that inspired the murder of everyone in the World Trade Center. That feeling is the cancer that has had the human race destroying itself for all of recorded history. It’s us against them. They call it patriotism. I call it disgusting.

I wrote a piece about my views on patriotism. Read the rest here: http://www.freeassn.com/drupal/node/39

Bin Laden Is Dead

Can we focus on something important now, like explicitly legalizing online poker? To be honest, I find it hard to care about world politics and missions of vengeance when U.S. domestic policy is so embarrassingly hypocritical.

Speaking of embarrassing, I wrote a little piece about Mason Malmuth's recent behavior on his internet forum: http://www.freeassn.com/drupal/node/32

Yesterday was my birthday, so I took a day off from the live grind. I ate lots of vegan banana cream pie, too. Now it's up to Foxwoods for a two day session, back home for music practice, then down to Atlantic City for another two day session. Then it's time to make some poker videos over the weekend. It's not a bad life, but I could do without the travel. Some explicitly legal live poker in NYC would be nice. But I guess I'll have to settle for dead terrorist leaders on my birthday.

Live Poker

Back when the Neteller fiasco hijacked the online poker money train, I decided there was no way I was going to give up the game. Still, I came up with a back up plan that can be summarized in two words: Live Poker.

The consensus among online professionals seems to be that live poker is either boring or torturous, depending on the cards and the company. I'll admit that there are a lot of negatives to playing poker in person:

• Fewer hands per hour
• No shorthanded tables
• Smelly/obnoxious neighbors
• Having to wear pants

I've played thousands of hours of live poker in my life, largely because I appreciate many of the positives:

• More laid back
• Weaker players
• Physical tells
• Interesting folks to meet in person
• The feel of the cards
• Dragging a big pot and stacking the chips
• Carrying racks upon racks to the cashier
• Getting paid in crisp hundred dollar bills

Now don't get me wrong, I haven't given up on playing online. Black Chip Poker looks like a solid option for the US player. But I'm not going to throw five figures back on to a site until things cool off a bit. For now I'll play a few sessions here and there. I'll be spending the majority of my working hours in casinos and card clubs, though. Playing live poker.

Happy 420

I don't smoke pot. I never have. That's not to say I'm opposed. It's just not my thing.

The fact that the majority of my friends and previous girlfriends were potheads meant that every day at 4:20 there would be giggles and high fives and the refrain of "let's go smoke a bowl." I would roll my eyes, not because the smoking bothered me (it didn't), but because having some official time, like it was a holiday to get excited about - well, it just struck me as arbitrary and annoying, like somehow that was more their time than it was my time.

But I get it now. For almost a hundred years, marijuana has been criminalized and scandalized. And for what? Alcohol is a harsher drug, but that's legal. Cigarettes can kill people who don't even smoke them, but they're allowed. I've always been in favor of legalization. I even sponsored a bill in mock congress when I was 14. (When it lost 6-6-1, I literally fell backwards out of my chair in frustration. Ironically, the one dude who abstained from the vote didn't abstain from drugs. But I digress.)

What I understand now, on 4/20, is that when you're a group that's been fighting for your rights for the better part of a century, it helps to have a rallying cry. A rallying time. A rallying place.

It may be 4/20 today, but now is the time for poker players to rally as well. Now is the time and this is the place: Free Association

Villain's Lament Dot Com

After months of incubation, my band finally has a humble new internet abode. Right now, villainslament.com is nothing more than a glorified collection of social media links, but it exists and it functions. And isn't that what life's all about?

Detachment (PCA Day 2)

January 10, 2011 – Paradise Island, Bahamas. It’s 5:45 PM on Day Two of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. No more than 280 players remain out of the 1560 who entered the $10,000 main event. Only 232 of those players will walk away with money, the minimum payout being something like $15k or $17k.

With blinds of $1500/$3000 and antes of $300, I’m sitting on a $50k chip stack. That’s not quite small-stack life support, but my chances of a decent payday are fast dying off. In the past hour, my table has become quite aggressive, leaving me few chances to attack the blinds or even attempt to resteal. Every pot is raised and re-raised before the action gets to me. But not this hand.

I’m under the gun and look down to find a pair of black jacks. I make it $7500 to go and only the small blind comes along for a flop. He’s got close to a million chips, so he’s eyeing my stack like it’s an appetizer. The flop comes out 986 with a couple clubs and he checks to me.

My hand is strong enough that I’d like to get all of my chips in the middle, but shoving $43k into a pot of $20k seems unlikely to get my opponent’s chips in there keeping mine company. This guy has been very aggressive, so I try to bet small enough to give the illusion of fold equity – I want him to think he can push me out of the pot.

Before my $12k chips are even out of my hand he declares himself all in. The rest of my chips make it to the middle before he’s even reached for his. He flips over a queen and a ten. I flip up my jacks and ask the dealer not to give me a set. The king on the turn is safe, but the queen on the river ends my tournament.

I feel nothing. I’m not talking about that numb feeling where you’ve lost everything and your dog’s just died. I mean nothing. A double up would have almost guaranteed a cash for $15k or more, but the river Q elicits not even a blip on my emotional radar.

I shake some hands, exchange some “good game”s, and walk away from the table. I turn back to the table and quip to the dealer, “He had me covered, right?” This is worth a cheap laugh from the table and lets me feel good about how well I’m taking the loss. The tournament was fun (and a freeroll for me), and I now had six days of vacation in Atlantis, so there’s no reason I should have felt too bad. But shouldn’t I have felt something?