More About the World Series of Hold'em, errrrrrrr poker

My recent post here on this blog and on RGP about the World Series of Hold'em -- oooooops, I meant the World Series of Poker; excuse me -- generated lots of email. Almost all of mail I received agreed with my sentiments that the WSOP is running the risk of morphing into the World Series of Hold'em, and that's a shame.

While all hold'em, all the time, may be great for Harrah's bottom line, it does nothing to build and retain interest in all the other varieties of poker, such as mix games, 7-card stud, 7-stud/8, Omaha, Omaha/8, razz, deuce-to-seven, and even pineapple.

The all hold'em, all the time ethic is certainly in tune with the market and the ways in which television shaped today's interest in poker. But the WSOP is big enough, well-known enough, and significant enough to take a leadership position and work to make sure that other varieties of poker survive and thrive at the World Series.

After all, it's not like players are rejecting other forms of poker, and it's not like they've simply gone missing. Many of the game's newer players -- those who recently caught the poker bug by virtue of it's exposure on television -- may not even be aware of these other poker games.

Variety is the spice of life, and in the long run it's better for all concerned to have a broad spectrum of poker games available to the general public. Even Harrah's bottom line would benefit in the long run. If there's more interest in a wide variety of games, there will be bigger tournament fields for these events too.

Harrah's, if you're reading this blog, here's hoping you step up to the plate and do your utmost to rescue these other poker games before they're extinct.

Thoughts About the 2006 WSOP, and a schedule of events

This is a rather long post – one that includes the schedule for the 2006 World Series of Poker, along with my thoughts about the schedule and the event.

Harrah's announced their 2006 World Series of Poker schedule just a few days ago. It begins on June 26 and concludes on August 10. That’s seven weeks of tournament poker, held at the Rio, which was the site of last year’s event. The Rio will also host the Second Annual World Series of Poker Lifestyle Show July 27 through July 30, which highlights a broad array of new poker products, websites, books and clothing.

The main event begins on July 28 and runs for 14 days. Day One will be played in four heats, and Day Two will be played in two heats. All of the contestants will not be in the same room at the same time until Day Three, which is actually seven calendar days later, on August 4.

Two weeks is, in my opinion, an incredibly long period for a single poker event. While it’s not a problem for poker pros, many of the rank and file poker players, who take time off from their jobs to play in the WSOP’s main event each year, might not be able to get away for a fortnight in order to play.

Having said that, I certainly don’t have an alternative to Harrah's scheduling because I don’t know of a venue in which 8,000 players could be accommodated on 800 tables at the same time. Even if that could be done, I’m not sure where 800 dealers would come from. Maybe it can be done; I’m just not sure how. But if you could round up 800 or so dealers to cover all the play on day one, you’d only need 400 dealers, give or take a few, for the second day. This means that many dealers would be onsite for only one day of play, and that’s a money loser for any dealer who travels from any distance at all to pitch cards at the WSOP.

If you read down through the schedule of events, you’ll see how Texas hold’em has come to elbow aside all other forms of poker at the WSOP. There are five Omaha events, and just one event each for seven-card stud, 7-stud/8, razz, and deuce-to-seven lowball. Everything else is Texas hold’em.

I understand that the World Series of Poker is responding to their perceptions of market demand, and hold’em is by far the most popular form of poker played today. However, the WSOP is also a large enough force to exert some leadership and move that market in whichever direction it wishes.

If I had my druthers, I’d like to see the World Series of Poker be more than just the World Series of Hold’em. I’d like to see some mix games added – and if the truth be told, I would prefer a mix game to determine the annual World Champion. But I’m not naïve, and I don’t think that stands a chance in hell of happening. Still, I liken this to the Olympics, where the Decathlon winner is generally regarded as the “world’s greatest athlete.” In my opinion, a mix game would be a much better way of determining poker’s world champion than just hold’em. I wouldn’t care which mix game was used. Go with HORSE, CHORSE, CHORSE-L, or any other grab bag of games, but go with one of them.

Even if they continued to use the $10,000 buy-in no limit hold’em tournament to determine the world champion, but were to add a selection of HORSE-type games at a variety of buy-ins, the WSOP would at least provide an opportunity to players who play all games well to demonstrate their skill at the tables.

Between now and June, I’m hoping that Harrah’s will address many of the issues that plagued last year’s event. The number of restrooms was woefully inadequate for the short period of time allotted for bathroom breaks. The aisles were so crowded that it made media coverage virtually impossible, especially during the early days when the room was filled with players at all tables and you literally could not see from one end of the room to another.

The pressroom was great – at least it was up until the main event. Then media from all over the world descended on the Rio and the pressroom was not adequate at all. Maybe this year the entire convention center can be given over to the WSOP, and some of the area where other groups were gathering during last year’s WSOP (there was a cheerleading convention – I think – that was taking up much of the rest of the convention center) could be used for WSOP related activities.

Another difficulty is that it’s tough to eat during the dinner breaks. There are literally thousands of players all looking to grab some food at the same time, and it’s more than the adjacent restaurants can handle. While I realize that Harrah’s can’t provide bathrooms and food facilities sufficient to handle this kind of crush of players, something has to be done so that people can eat and go to the bathroom in an orderly fashion, and do so without missing out on part of their events.

If this sounds like I’m dissing Harrah’s, I’m not. Considering that last year was their first year, the Rio did a great job, but logistical issues increase significantly as you add more players to the tournament field. With a year’s worth of experience under their belt, I’m assuming they will have made some progress on these issues by the time the WSOP rolls around. We’ll see…………

26-Jun-06 Monday 12 noon
1 Casino Employee No-Limit $500.00

27-Jun-06 Tuesday 12 noon
2 No-Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

28-Jun-06 Wednesday 12 noon
3 Pot-Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

29-Jun-06 Thursday 12 noon
4 Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

30-Jun-06 Friday 12 noon
5 Short Handed (6/table) $2,500.00 No-Limit Hold'em

1-Jul-06 Saturday 12 noon
6 No-Limit Hold'em $2,000.00

2-Jul-06 Sunday 12 noon
7 Limit Hold'em $3,000.00

3-Jul-06 Monday 12 noon
8 Omaha Hi-low Split $2,000.00

4-Jul-06 Tuesday 12 noon
9 No-Limit Hold'em $5,000.00

5-Jul-06 Wednesday 12 noon
10 Seven Card Stud $1,500.00

6-Jul-06 Thursday 12 noon
11 Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

6-Jul-06 Thursday 2:00 PM
12 Omaha Hi-low Split $5,000.00

7-Jul-06 Friday 12 noon
13 No-Limit Hold'em $2,500.00

8-Jul-06 Saturday 12 noon
14 No-Limit Hold'em $1,000.00 w/re-buys

9-Jul-06 Sunday 11:00 AM
15 Ladies Event No-Limit $1,000.00 Hold'em 1 day event

9-Jul-06 Sunday 12 noon
16 Pot-Limit Omaha $10,000.00

10-Jul-06 Monday 12 noon
17 No-Limit Hold'em $1,000.00

11-Jul-06 Tuesday 12 noon
18 Pot-Limit Hold'em $2,000.00

12-Jul-06 Wednesday 11:00 AM
19 Seniors No-Limit $1,000.00 Hold'em 1 day event

12-Jul-06 Wednesday 12 noon
20 No-Limit 2-7 Draw $5,000.00 w/rebuys

13-Jul-06 Thursday 12 noon
21 No-Limit Hold'em- $2,500.00 Short handed 6/table

14-Jul-06 Friday 12 noon
22 No-Limit Hold'em $2,000.00

15-Jul-06 Saturday 12 noon
23 Limit Hold'em $3,000.00

15-Jul-06 Saturday 2:00 PM
24 Omaha Hi-low Split $3,000.00

16-Jul-06 Sunday 12 noon
25 No-Limit Hold'em $2,000.00 Shootout

17-Jul-06 Monday 12 noon
26 Pot-Limit Omaha $1,500.00

18-Jul-06 Tuesday 12 noon
27 No-Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

19-Jul-06 Wednesday 12 noon
28 Seven Card Stud $5,000.00

19-Jul-06 Wednesday 2:00 PM
29 Pot-Limit Hold'em $2,500.00

20-Jul-06 Thursday 12 noon
30 No-Limit Hold'em- $5,000.00 Short handed 6/table

21-Jul-06 Friday 12 noon
31 No-Limit Hold'em $2,000.00

22-Jul-06 Saturday 12 noon
32 Pot-Limit Hold'em $5,000.00

22-Jul-06 Saturday 2:00 PM
33 Seven Card Razz $1,500.00

23-Jul-06 Sunday 12 noon
34 No-Limit Hold'em $1,000.00 w/re-buys

24-Jul-06 Monday 12 noon
35 Seven Card Hi Low Split $1,000.00

24-Jul-06 Monday 2:00 PM
36 Limit Hold'em $1,500.00 Shootout

25-Jul-06 Tuesday 12 noon
37 No-Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

26-Jul-06 Wednesday Satellite Day

27-Jul-06 Thursday Media/Celebrity Event and Satellite Day

28-Jul-06 Friday
38 No-Limit Texas Hold'em $10,000.00 World Championship
28-Jul-06 Friday 12 Noon Day 1A 2000 play down to 800
29-Jul-06 Saturday 12 Noon Day 1B 2000 play down to 800
30-Jul-06 Sunday 12 Noon Day 1C 2000 play down to 800
31-Jul-06 Monday 12 Noon Day 1D 2000 play down to 800

1-Aug-06 Tuesday 12 noon A + B 1600 to 700
2-Aug-06 Wednesday 12 noon C + D 1600 to 700

3-Aug-06 Thursday Day off for main event

3-Aug-06 Thursday 10:00 AM
39 No-Limit Hold'em $1,000.00 1 day event

4-Aug-06 Friday 12 noon ABCD Play 1400 down to 600

5-Aug-06 Saturday 12 noon Play 600 down to 300

5-Aug-06 Saturday 10:00 AM
40 No-Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

6-Aug-06 Sunday 12 noon Play 300 down to 150

6-Aug-06 Sunday 10:00 AM
41 No-Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

7-Aug-06 Monday 12 noon Play 150 down to 60

7-Aug-06 Monday 10:00 AM
42 No-Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

8-Aug-06 Tuesday 12 noon Play 60 down to 27

8-Aug-06 Tuesday 10:00 AM
43 No-Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

9-Aug-06 Wednesday 12 noon Play 27 down to 9

9-Aug-06 Wednesday 10:00 AM
44 No-Limit Hold'em $1,500.00

10-Aug-06 Thursday 12 noon Final Table

General Information:

Super Satellite Schedule:
$230 buy-in Super Satellites will take place daily at 3 p.m.

$1060 buy-in Mega Super Satellites will take place nightly at 7 p.m.

Super Satellite Days on July 26 and July 27: $230 buy-in Super Satellite will take place at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

$1060 buy-in Mega Super Satellite will take place at 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Second Chance Tournament: $540 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournaments will take place daily at 5 p.m. $225 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournaments will take place nightly at 11 p.m.

Good Hands Fail to Hold Up at Dick Van Patten Celebrity Charity Poker Tournament

I played in the Dick Van Patten celebrity charity poker tournament this weekend, which was held at Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, to benefit the families of marines stationed at the 29 Palms Marine Corps Base.

The format involved preliminary rounds on Saturday and a final round on Sunday. To accommodate all 300 registrants at the ten tables available for the tournament, the preliminaries were run in three heats. A shootout format was established, with each table of 10 entrants playing down until only three players remained at each table. Those three players moved on to the final round of play on Sunday. It didn’t matter where you finished among the top three, since each player began the final round of play with the same amount of chips.

I played to survive, which resulted in my playing only two hands to the river during that session. My key hand came when I was down to about $7,500 in chips (we began with $10,000 but the blinds escalated dramatically, beginning at $100-$200, then doubling, and doubling again every 20 minutes.)

I was in the small blind at the $400-$800 level with a pocket pair of deuces. Five players called and I was getting 11-to-1 on my money to see if I could flop a set. I got lucky when I flopped a set and then turned quads. I wound up tripling my stacks, which enabled me to just about coast through as one of the final three players at the table.

My wife also played in this event, and was playing at the table behind me. At one point a roar went up at that table and I turned around to see Deirdre walking away with an I-can’t-believe-what-just-happened-to-me look on her face. She was dealt a pocket pair of queens and raised, only to be called by both blinds and comedian Shecky Greene, who was playing almost every hand and thriving on a run of inordinately good luck. The flop was Q-J-4 of mixed suits. Deirdre bet, Shecky Greene raised, and the two blinds folded. Deirdre reraised all-in and Shecky called.

It was set over set, with Deirdre’s Q-Q trumping Shecky’s J-J. The turn was a rag, but the river was the case jack and Shecky Greene’s quads destroyed Deirdre’s full house and she was relegated to sweating me for the next 90 minutes.

Poker’s a funny game. Sometimes you do everything right and you still lose. While it’s comforting to realize that, it’s never comforting at the moment it happens. Then it’s just frustrating. Still, I’m not without my sympathetic side. I only charged Deirdre a single dollar to listen to her bad beat story, even though she repeated it three times in my presence and by all rights should have had to pay me a buck each time she repeated her tale of woe.

I returned Sunday to play in the final event, but went card dead through the first five rounds. Finally, with the blinds at $1,000-$2,000 I was on the button with a pocket pair of eights, the best hand I’d been dealt all day. Dick Van Patten called from under-the-gun, but Dick was calling with just about anything and calling most time, too. He was catching cards, had a huge stack of chips, and an under-the-gun call from him could represent absolutely anything — even nothing at all. I was down to about $9,000 in chips and it was going to be now or never if no one else entered the pot between Dick’s early call and the time it was my turn to act on the button.

No one else entered the pot, so I raised all-in, and was glad to see the blinds get out of my way. I believed chances were good that I had the best hand right now, though I wouldn’t have minded at all if Van Patten folded and I won the blinds as well as his initial call.

But he called my raise. We turned our cards face-up. He had 9-7 offsuit and I was feeling pretty good about my pocket eights. But the first card in the flop’s window was a nine. I never caught the eight I now needed to leapfrog him, and I was unceremoniously eliminated.

This event was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it. Van Patten said he plans to make this an annual event, and I’m planning on playing again next year. So is Deirdre. Maybe next year our hands will even hold up.

Irreverent picture of the week. Like so many of these odd photographs, they come from my good friend, poker player Barbara Enright. 

Prospect Theory -- a must-read article by Barry Tanenbaum and Dr. Rachel Croson in Card Player

Although I no longer write for Card Player and haven’t since earlier this year, you have to give credit where it’s due, and they deserve some applause today.

The current issue, Vol. 18/No. 10, October 18, 2005, contains one of the most thoroughly original and compelling articles I’ve read in ages. It’s entitled “Understanding Poker Errors Through Prospect Theory,” and is the first in a two-part series by Barry Tanenbaum. The series is coauthored by Dr. Rachel Croson, an associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Rachel has been attending BARGE for years, and each summer she usually administers a questionnaire to the players in attendance. Over the years she has documented how poker players differ from the general population, and how they are similar.

Their article discusses common poker errors that are similar to errors made by the general public when confronted with evaluating risks in real life. Rachel and Barry discuss these errors and provide advice about exploiting them in others and overcoming them in your own play.

Developed by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman — Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in this area — Prospect Theory formalizes certain errors many poker players will recognize. They include Loss Aversion (the agony of defeat far exceeds the thrill of victory), Asymmetric Risk Preference (preferring to gamble more when behind than ahead), and Misestimating Probabilities (believing that low probability events will occur more often than they figure to).

Every thinking poker player owes it to him or herself to read this article as many times as it takes to come to grips with how Prospect Theory might affect their own game, and how to use it to assess an opponent’s play. It’s an amazing article. Give it a read.

Dick Van Patten Celebrity Poker Tournament, October 21-23

Dick Van Patten is hosting a celebrity poker tournament at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino this weekend, October 21-23. I posted about this a week or two ago, but want to give it another mention since the tournament is right around the corner.

This weekend’s event features a $50,000 no-limit Texas hold’em poker tournament and celebrity celebration banquet, with proceeds from the banquet benefiting the families of the nearby 29 Palms Marine Corps base. Fantasy Springs will host a special Christmas party for the spouses and kids of Marines from the base who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, with Van Patten as the honorary Santa Claus.

The Dick Van Patten Celebrity Poker Tournament kicks off with a VIP player cocktail party from 7:00 PM to midnight on Friday October 21 in the Fantasy Lounge. Play begins at 10:00 AM October 22 and the finals begin at 10:00 AM Sunday, October 23. The tournament will be followed by a celebrity celebration banquet from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.The tournament’s total purse is based on 200 entries at $250, and the entry fee includes a seat at the banquet. Extra banquet tickets are available at $75 per person.

To confirm a seat, visit the Fantasy Springs poker room or call the resort box office at 1.800.827.2946. Fantasy Springs is located just north of Interstate 10 at the Golf Center Parkway exit, approximately 22 miles east of Palm Springs.

I’m not sure of the celebrities who will attend, although Dick mentioned that Mira Sorvino, Jennifer Tilly, Dom DeLuise, Vince Van Patten, and Jerry Buss will be there. There are more too, but those are all I recall from a brief conversation we had at a local radio station.

I’m planning to play in this tournament, and if you decide to play too, please come by and say hello. I’m always interested in meeting blog-readers in person. Additional information is available at www.fantasypringsresort.com.

Who Is the Dumber Son of a Bitch?

I'm playing poker online earlier and some guy raises from under the gun with 9-6 offsuit. Not a very bright move in any game, and especially silly in this one since a lot of players were calling raises at this particular $10-$20 table with all manner of hands. I wasn't involved in the pot so I sat and watched the hand play out.

The guy who raised UTG with 9-6 went on to win a big pot by making two pair when his kicker paired on the river, and beat a guy who had top pair with a big kicker. The guy with top pair says something about "...this is proof that this site, an all other sites located on the Mohawk reservation (Kahnawake Territories) in Canada are rigged."

As an aside, In case you're not familiar with the term, The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC) is the governing body that regulates online gambling operations in the territory. Kahnawake is a First Nations (Mohawk Indian) reservation located outside of Montreal, and is home to the KGC's servers - the computers that host online casino web sites operated by KGC licensees. The commission was created in 1996 and licenses 14 online casinos under gaming regulations similar to the Australian online gambling model.

I asked him what kind of proof he had about the site being rigged. His only response was that, "...in a $10-$20 game, now one would ever raise UTG with 9-6." I told him that I've seen players do all sorts of illogical things at $10-$20, $20-$40, 30-$60 and $40-$80 tables online and in traditional card rooms too. I added that players online also err because in the heat of battle, especially when playing at three or four tables simultaneously, it's easy to push the "raise" button by mistake when you really wanted to press "fold."

I told him that his anecdotal statement was not evidence at all; just an assertion that he believed but couldn't prove. He told me to visit a site called pokerconduct.com, which he posts at regularly, and is a site dedicated to perpetuating the myth that all online poker is rigged.

Once again, all the assertions on this site are anecdotal, and there's not a shred of evidence that sites are anything other than honest and forthright about how they conduct their business.

So I asked this guy why he played online if he thought the games were not on the up-and-up. He never answered my question. I asked him again. He still didn't answer.

I finally typed this in the chat box: "There are only two possibilities here: that this site is rigged or it's not. If it's on the up-and-up, each of us will obtain results that reflect our playing ability in the long run . If it is rigged, we won't. Because I believe this is an honest site, I'm going to continue to play here. But if you believe it's rigged why do you continue to play here?

He never responded. So I finally said, "I guess I'll leave it up to the other players in the room and I'm asking for a show of hands: One of us plays every day in a game he believes is stacked against him and is a losing player. The other plays in an honest game and is a long-term winner. Who is the dumber son of a bitch?"

Party Poker's Stock Dives as it Cuts the Affiliates' Cord

Party Poker’s Stock Drops as it Separates Itself from its Affiliates
Party Poker will no longer allow players from affiliates such as Empire Online and Coral Eurobet gamble at the same tables as their own clients. Party’s new platform will be for the exclusive use of its nine million customers, but the result of this decision was that shares in Party slid more than 10 per cent.

Empire’s Stock Takes an Even Bigger Hit
Empire took a bigger hit, however, and lost one-third of its market value. The genesis of this collapse began when Party Gaming, the world's largest online poker group, said it was moving Party Poker.com players to a new operating platform. This move was undertaken to facilitate the cross-selling of gaming products — such as blackjack and betting on card colors — to Party Poker players.

Party’s own players account for about 80 per cent of their customer base, with the rest generated by third-party sites such as Empire. These sites, or skins, direct players to Party’s platform and take a share of the fees paid by participating players.

What the Skins Say
It was “too early...to accurately assess what, if any, impact” Party’s move would have on its short-term financial performance, according to Empire. Their plans include reducing any reliance on Party. They also acquired two new gaming brands, which they own outright.

The Word on the Street from UK Gaming Stock Analysts
UK gaming industry analysts stated that Party’s decision to move to a new platform exclusively for their customers, “… risked alienating its affiliate partners, who could take their customers to other operators.”

“It looks churlish, frankly,” said Paul Leyland, an analyst with Seymour Pierce. “Someone at the top seems to have decided they need more control of their value chain, but they haven't thought through the full implications.” He added that Party had not “… covered themselves in glory” in the last quarter.

Here’s My Take on the Situation
Party’s shares have fallen more than 30 per cent since stating last month that player growth rates had slowed.

Empire said the number of new players on its sites had increased 24 per cent between the second and third quarters. The number of new players increased 62 per cent during last year's third quarter. While that is a slowdown in growth, a 24 percent increase in any quarter is enviable, while a 62 percent quarterly increase seems unsustainable in any business.

How this plays out is anybody’s guess at this point, and with former Party skins a potential merger target for other online poker operators, it’s quite possible that Party might have just cut off its nose to spite its face.

Editing Never Ends

I finished editing my new book yesterday, and spent hours on the phone with my coauthor -- and agent -- Sheree Bykofsky posting all of our changes to one copy of the manuscript. We also had to respond to the numerous editorial queries that came from the publisher. We're on time with our book, and it's on schedule for publication in March, 2006.

I have this very inexpensive phone service called "Penny Talk," and it's terrific for lengthy, long-distiance phone calls. They charge 50 cents per connection and then a penny a minute, so to review all the editorial changes to our book in a three-hour phone call, the cost was only $2.30.

In the limited channel surfing I did Saturday, it seems to me as though no teams are able to stop the spread formations now so popular in college football. Neither UCLA nor Cal could stop each other, and if USC ever puts two good halves of football together on a single Saturday, they seem fully capable of hitting triple digits. If they don't kill you with a combination of White and Bush gaining 300 rushing yards between them, they have great wideouts, and lately they've been completing passes to their fullback too, who is iusually left alone by teams that have to double cover their speed threats.

I can't wait for USC-Notre Dame, and would love to see USC play Texas for the national championship.

As I'm writing this, it's 8:30 AM in California on a Monday morning, which makes it 4:30 PM in London -- not prime poker playing time by any means and yet there is a full, six-player $50-$100 no-limit hold'em game on Royal Vegas Poker with five players waiting and 164 railbirds watching. Poker's growth and popularity, even during times when you't think most players aren't playing poker, never ceases to amaze me. I haven't checked the other sites, so I don't know if the Prima Poker Network is the only one getting this big a game at this odd hour, but it would still be amazing to see that level of poker at this most unlikely hour.

New Definitions

This has been making the rounds lately on the internet, but it's so clever that I thought I'd post it here, for any of you who have not yet seen it:

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.Here are this year's {2005} winners:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

This wasn't on the list, but I got motivated and added one of my own:

19. Hobosexual (n.) Someone who's a real bum fuck.

I haven't posted a picture in a while. I took this jellyfish at the Long Beach Aquarium a year ago.

Jellyfish at Long Beach Aquarium 

Two Wolves

A friend of mine sent me this. I usually don't care much about these metaphorical stories that make their way along the internet, but this one has such a strong poker connection, and is so true of life in general, that it's really worth passing along:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between the two wolves inside us all. One wolf is evil; it is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

"The other wolf is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf will win the battle?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Editing

People sometimes ask me what I like least and most about writing. It sounds strange, but it’s the same thing: editing.

I’m now sitting with a 293 page manuscript in front of me. It’s my latest book, which will be out later this year or early next year, entitled Secrets the Pros Won’t Tell You About Winning Hold’em Poker, which Sheree Bykofsky and I are writing. It’s in dire need of editing. Editing is really stressful for me. There’s always so much to review and never enough time to polish it the way you’d like to. And when it’s not polished to perfection, mistakes creep in.

Regardless of whether it’s for a small publisher like ConJelCo or a major publisher like John Wiley or Barron’s — and major publishers have their own teams of copy editors too, compulsive, anal-retentive English majors who, for the most part, can spot an error in syntax or punctuation at 100 yards — that on the day the book hits the stores someone will email me describing a typo or error they caught. I can live with small typos. What really bugs me is to pick up a book six or eight months after I’ve written it, read a section, and wonder to myself how in the world I wrote it that way, when this way would be so much better.

One of the biographies about William Butler Yeats describes him working one entire summer editing a single poem. One poem? All summer long? That really floored me. After all, Yeats was a prolific writer. Between his poetry, short stories, criticism, essays, and plays his output was enormous, so for him to agonize over one poem for three months seemed almost incredulous to me. It also taught me that editing is one of the things that turns adequate writing into very good, or even great writing, and I suppose the more time one has to dig into first, second, or third drafts, the better the product figures to be when it finally hits the presses.

But this is a poker book, an instructional, and it doesn’t really require the degree of crafting that Yeats was after. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Novelists, poets, and playwrights often do. Poker authors, or folks who write instructional non-fiction books of any kind, never dream of literary honors of even the most routine sort, never mind becoming a Nobel laureate. But I still want everything I write to read well, to be easy and clear for anyone picking it up to make sense of it, and ever since I began writing, I loved the opportunity to edit my way to clarity, and to edit in order to make my writing come alive for readers.

But the sad reality is that I’ve never picked up anything I’ve written and thought, “That’s it. That’s perfection.” I always see ways it could have been better. Unfortunately, I always see them too late.

That’s what I’m up to for the next few days. I haven’t even ventured outside except to go to the mailbox or have a cup of coffee on my patio. I’m sequestered in this corner room right next to the garage, and there I’ll stay until I complete this task. No poker for me, and on a weekend full of great football matchups, I won’t see a single game. I didn’t see USC come back to beat Arizona State yesterday, and I won’t see any NFL games today either. I won’t see the baseball wildcard races play out, and I didn’t see Antonio Tarver beat Roy Jones, Jr. last night either.

Nope. None of that. I’m locked in this editing room grinding through page after page. I’m about half way through it now. See you in another 150 pages.