I Got Mine (From Neteller)

Yesterday I reported that I filled out the necessary forms online to withdraw the funds in my Neteller account that had been frozen since the Feds cracked down hard and strong on everyone's favorite funding site.

On July 30, Neteller informed all of its US-based customers about how to claim any funds on deposit. I claimed mine the very same day.

I'm happy to report that those funds were transfered to my checking acocunt today, no more than 24 hours after I requested them.

It's like found money. I'm glad it worked out as well as it did, and I'm hoping every other US based customer has access to their funds as quickly as I did.

Sometimes speed doesn't kill. Sometimes it's wonderful.

BARGE—On the Bus With Poker’s Merry Pranksters

If you were playing Jeopardy this would be the answer: “It’s a zany, madcap poker party—part Monty Python, part Doo-Dah Parade (for non-SoCals, Doo-Dah is the annual pre-Thanksgiving spoof of the Tournament of Roses Parade, complete with such esoterica as the synchronized briefcase marching drill team), supplemented with a dash of the Marx Brothers, Ken Kesey’s merry pranksters, a Shriner’s Convention, the inmates let loose from the asylum in the classic film King of Hearts, an Ionesco play, and for good measure, the Stanford University Marching Band under the direction of Larry, Moe, and Curly.”

The question, of course: “What is BARGE?”

BARGE is the annual Las Vegas excursion of poker’s Internet community. It’s a big circle—or more properly, a Mobius strip—when you stop to consider it. Choose the beginning, the middle, or the end; it’s all the same. Like James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, or the movie Pulp Fiction, it is a circular tale—one that keeps coming at you from slightly different angles each time you think about it.

BARGE is an acronym for Big August Recreational Gaming Extravaganza, attended by poker’s online community who originally met on the Internet newsgroup rec.gambling.poker, though many BARGERs avoid RGP like the plague these days. Unlike cyberspace, BARGE is up close and personal, and not at all virtual. We BARGErs are viewed by some Las Vegas locals as computer geeks and cyber nerds, but most of us play poker pretty well, and of course our collective sense of absurdist humor is usually over the top of the same weird spectrum that includes the best of Dilbert and the worst of Monty Python. That’s a polite way of saying we make Benny Hill seem sophisticated, and the Three Stooges subtle.

BARGE is held each August at Binion’s in downtown Las Vegas’ glitter gulch, where the garish and the glitz and the Fremont Street Experience—a latticed-arch running the length of Fremont Street with a light show flashed across it every hour—all serve to reinforce a crazed state that sets in when you’ve lost any inclination to sleep, along with the ability to tell whether it’s day or night, and what’s more, you no longer care.

That’s right where I’m headed tomorrow, and I’ll be there through Saturday night and returning Sunday to reenter the real world, if I can recall where I left it.

They play Chowaha at BARGE. It’s a staple of the fun and frivolity. The game is a variant of hold’em, only it’s played with three flops, two turn cards, and one river card. Each player is dealt two cards, and both hole cards must play. Three flops are then spread—one on top of another. Two turn cards are dealt, one placed between the top and middle flop, the other between the middle and bottom flop. The top turn card plays with the top and middle flops, and the bottom turn card plays with the middle and bottom flop. There is one river card, and it plays with all available combinations.

If some dealers were confused by Chowaha’s intricacies, they loved the game’s fringe benefits, particularly the occasional cries of “mandatory toke,” which required each player to flip a dollar chip in the general direction of the dealer. These mandatory tokes quickly made Chowaha a dealer favorite. Another innovation, designed to liven up the “anyone-can-afford-it” $2-$4 limits, was the occasional multi-straddle, in which four successive players placed progressively larger blind bets.

Chowaha was such a hit that off duty dealers are usually eager to join in the fun and play. One of my endearing BARGE memories was the absolute incongruity of an announcement made at 4:00 a.m., in an otherwise quiet and mostly empty poker room, when a deep and somber voice on the public address system intoned: “Seating is now available in the must-move Chowaha game, table two.”

I’ll be reporting sporadically from BARGE, or at least that’s my intention. My radio show, Keep Flopping Aces, which is web cast on http://www.holdemradio.com/, will air as usual Thursday evening at 6 p.m., Pacific Time, and Amy Calistri and I will chat with leading poker theorist Barry Tanenbaum about his new books. Since Barry is another regular BARGE attendee, and Hold’em Radio’s studio is located adjacent to the tournament area at Binion’s, it’s a natural.

But I’m not making any additional commitments, except to have a bang-up time. I do every year.

Signing the Neteller Release

An anonymous comment asked whether I signed the release that's part of the Neteller withdrawal process.

I did sign it. I saw no reason not to. As long as I get my money back from Neteller, our relationship has reached a state of equilibium. I will have no money left on Neteller, no reason to transact business with them again until the law changes and they can fund online poker accounts again. I don't see myself having any other interaction with Neteller, so I signed the release and went on my merry way.

Neteller: The Check's (Almost) in the Mail

Today is July 30, the day Neteller is supposed to contact all of its US based customers, telling them how to withdraw their funds that have been frozen for months.

Today I received the email from Neteller that's shown below, fired up my account, and withdrew my balance of approximately $3,700 with no problems whatsoever. After working my way through Neteller's withdrawal process, the site told me to allow three days for them to process my request. Actually, I’ll be happy if the money is in my bank account within three weeks.

The withdrawal process forces you to withdraw all the money you have on deposit at Neteller, or make no withdrawal at all. It also routes your money back through the bank account that’s linked to your Neteller account.

That’s not an issue for me. I’m happy this process has run its circuitous route to the final chorus. For me, the Neteller fiasco was ironic, to say the least. Every penny of my money in Neteller was from writing about poker for European based publications, not from playing online poker.

Most players have relatively small sums on deposit on Neteller. But others have tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars frozen and unavailable to them for months. I’m glad to see this issue come to a peaceful resolution. While not having access to my money was a pain in the neck, there were myriad other outcomes that would have been much worse.

Now I can wait peacefully on the sidelines, cash in hand, until the laws change and Neteller can once again go about its business of funding our online poker accounts.

If you are a Neteller customer, you should have received the following letter today.

Dear Lou,

The NETELLER Plc Group has announced that the distribution of funds to its US members will begin on July 30, 2007.
You are receiving this e-mail because our records reflect that you are a US member who may request funds from NETELLER.

As of July 30, you will be able to make a request for funds on NETELLER’s website by signing in to your account. In the meantime, you should visit our online FAQs for more information about the distribution plan.

Please note that US members will not be able to request funds from the NETELLER website after January 26, 2008.

NETELLER Plc Group.

Man Versus Machine at the Poker Table

John Henry said to his captain,
"A man ain't nothing but a man,
But before I let that steam drill beat me down,
I'll die with the hammer in my hand."

—American Folk Song

The man-versus-machine allegory is as old as time, or at least as old as the folk song, John Henry. But in a poker game between man and machine in late July, a software program running on an ordinary laptop computer fought a close match before losing to two professional poker players.

Billed as the First Man-Machine Poker Championship, the match pitted Phil Laak and Ali Eslami against Polaris, a program written by a team of artificial-intelligence researchers from the University of Alberta.

University of Alberta researchers created the program that won the world checkers championship in 1994. This year they trotted out a checkers program that could not lose, and at best could be tied. In short, they completely solved the game of checkers.

While chess has yet to be solved, in 1997 Deep Blue, developed by IBM researchers, beat then world champion Garry Kasparov. Given the complexity of chess and Kasparov’s copious skills, who at the time of the match was the highest rated chess player in history, it was a significant accomplishment. Ten years later, it still is.

But poker is not checkers or chess and is much more difficult to teach to a machine. Chess or checkers lend themselves to number crunching, which is why poker–a game of "incomplete information"–is hard to reduce to mathematics. While a computer can calculate the odds perfectly, it doesn’t know when a player is bluffing, or just on tilt.

Although computers can approximate these judgments by searching for tendencies after learning how an opponent plays certain kinds of hands in certain situations, it still hasn’t learned to handle incomplete information as well as it handles checkers and chess problems. Much of the artificial intelligence work currently being done with poker goes toward constructing algorithms that track opponents' betting habits.

The Man versus Machine Poker Challenge eliminated as much of the luck as possible by playing duplicate poker, in which one teammate plays the same hand as his teammate's opponent, and vice versa. By eliminating luck, duplicate poker reduces the game to its strategic fundamentals.

Phil "the Unabomber" Laak and Ali "the Prince" Eslami, edged out the University of Alberta's computer poker program Polaris by about $400 over the course of the two day match.

Because in there isn’t always one best move, the game tree approach is tough to use in poker. Expert poker players will also adjust their play to exploit other players’ style, and Eslami and Laak were able to adjust and adapt to Polaris faster and more accurately than the bot was able to handle the pros’ play.

More work remains to be done before Polaris or one of its next generation descendants is a sure fire favorite to beat a skilled human player. And it’s a longer way still, before a series of algorithms can solve the game of poker as adroitly as the artificial-intelligence researchers from the University of Alberta solved the game of checkers.

While today’s drilling machinery can hammer their way inside a mountain a whole lot faster, harder, and longer than John Henry, their poker playing cohorts still have a ways to go.

US Flip-Flopping in Trade Flap Against Tiny Antigua

Antigua requested $3.4 billion in commercial sanctions against the United States from the World Trade Organization (WTO). According to Antigua, the US did not comply with a WTO ruling that said US Internet gambling restrictions are illegal under WTO treaty obligations.

While the United States acknowledges that their online betting ban was ruled illegal by the WTO, the government is challenging Antigua's right to retaliate because they claim to be in the process of changing the details of its obligations under the 1994 General Agreement on Trade in Services.

The Feds also claim Antigua’s request is excessive.

US trade lawyer Juan Millan told the WTO that Antigua’s request was "unnecessary" because the United States was negotiating compensation with all interested WTO members.

That’s a 180 degree turnaround in the United States’ position, since the US first argued that it was exempt from sanctions or having to pay compensation.

The Antiguan government says it will target US trademarks and copyrights if Washington refuses to change its legislation, a move that’s perfectly legal under treaty obligations agreed to by WTO member nations. While Antigua, with it’s tiny population of 70,000 citizens, may be the metaphorical mouse that roared, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, India, Macao, Japan, and the 27 nation European Union have all joined Antigua in filing compensation claims as a result.

Support Growing for Barney Frank's Bill to License and Regulate Online Gaming

Support is growing for the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (IGREA), the bill that was introduced in April by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. IGREA, also known as HR 2046, seeks to license and regulate online gambling in the United States. Online poker and gaming companies licensed under Frank's bill would be exempt from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which was passed in October.

Support for this bill seems to have gotten legs, and five additional Congress members signed-on to sponsor the legislation. The list of co-sponsors now tallies 32.

Frank’s bill is not the only one that would deal with the issue of online gaming. Florida Congressman Robert Wexler introduced the Skill Game Protection Act. That bill would provide exemption for games of skill, such as online poker.

Wexler also asked poker players to involve themselves in the political process by contacting their local representatives: ".....what [players] ought to do is let their opinions be known to their member of Congress. One - let them know that they're aware of the current law that was passed by the last Congress, which hopefully they think is ludicrous. They don't need to spell out in specifics everything that needs to be done. They just need to tell the member of Congress 'We think the law that was passed last Congress is awful!'"

Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkeley sponsored a bill called The Internet Gambling Study Act that calls for a one-year study of the online gambling industry.

You can find previous reports on all three bills by entering the names of their sponsors into the search engine at the top of this blog.

"Every American,” according to Wexler, “whether they are Conservative Republican or Liberal Democrat, or anywhere in between should be asking themselves with all that is going wrong in the world, whether it's Iraq, whether it's Iran's nuclear quest, whether it's social security, not having enough money necessarily to make it through the next century, Medicare short falls, education problems… Why would Congress invest itself so to create this extraordinary prohibition of preventing consenting adults from playing poker on the Internet when we know in past experience prohibition doesn't work? The net result unfortunately will be people forced to play the Internet, playing poker on the Internet on offshore sites where they're not secure. They will be playing on Russian sites, or Caribbean sites. There will be no regulation by American governmental structures; there will be no revenue to American governmental structures. It's counterproductive and also in my mind it violates the very personal freedoms that we cherish as Americans."

Why Jerry Yang is the Right Guy at the Right Time for Poker

A site called Poker-king.com ran an article entitled “Why Jerry Yang's World Series of Poker Win is a Disaster for Online Poker Rooms.” They gave Yang props for being “…a really good person” and “…a devoted family man.” They went on to say, “He doesn't live the degenerate lifestyle, and has said that he will devote 10 percent of his winnings to charity. So what's wrong with Jerry Yang winning the World Series of Poker?”

That's the key question, and everyone I've spoken with has a take on this issue.

Their answer is probably true as far as it goes, but it didn’t go far enough. According to Poker-King.com, “Online poker rooms target the young male demographic, as these are usually the people who sign up for a real money online poker account. A God-fearing older man with a large family is not someone who younger men really want to emulate.”

If you look at this answer in terms of immediacy, in terms of liquidity gained in the next few days or weeks by online rooms, that’s probably true. But it’s patently wrong in the long run.

We all know poker is a long run game, and the greatest gain in online poker’s viability in the United States will come from poker’s greening in terms of acceptability by mainstream America and Congress. Only that will allow poker to take its rightful place among leisure time activities, untainted by those who consider it immoral, unethical, or just somehow wrong.

The United States, or at least major portions of its citizens and elected officials, needs an attitudinal sea-change in their perspective. We are a nation that has been shedding its sumptuary laws for decades, but we still have a long way to go. It used to be illegal in some states to purchase things on Sundays, and to marry someone of a different race or the same sex. The list goes on and on.

All of these sumptuary laws, crimes with no victims, are falling by the wayside. The vices these laws sought to prevent are as old as humanity. Gambling has been with humankind since the dawn of time. So has prostitution. So have mind-altering substances.

While I’d love to live in a land with a constitutional amendment forbidding any sumptuary law, I’m personally unconcerned with drug use and prostitution. But I do love to play poker, and so, I’m sure, does everyone else reading this blog.

To get a few new converts to online poker is one thing. To do so while pulling the collective morality of the United States along with us is a grander and more glorious vision. That’s what I’m hoping for. And a guy like Jerry Yang can be the poster boy for that effort. In my opinion, the online rooms rooting against Wang were very shortsighted. In the long run, it’s a guy like Jerry who will help us get where we need to go.

Jerry Yang, the (Poker) World Needs You Now

Congratulations Jerry Yang. You played aggressive poker and won the Main Event at the 2007 World Series of Poker. You embody the American Dream. An ethnic Hmong from Laos, you came to America and built a successful life. You’re a family man with six children who took up poker only two years ago and won the biggest and most prestigious tournament in the world.

You won it despite starting with a short stack of chips when the final table began. You won a hand destined to go down in WSOP lore when you reraised Lee Childs and caused him to fold his pocket queens face up, on a board of 7-4-2.

You won more than $8 million and a bracelet emblematic of poker supremacy for 2007.

You won the hearts of millions when you said you would donate ten percent of your winnings to charity.

But if that bracelet feels a little heavy, it’s the responsibilities that come with it. You have inherited the mantle of poker leadership for 2007. You are poker’s public face for the next 12 months. You are its poster child.

Poker needs leadership. It needs leaders that people can look up to and respect. Too many people who haven’t dug deeply enough, and have no idea what the poker community is all about, still see our game as a nefarious activity. Poker is mainstreaming with each passing day, but it cannot survive the kind of blows pro football has taken in past months. Poker doesn’t need a public face who cavorts like Pac-Man Jones, or behaves as Michael Vick is alleged to. Pro football can and will survive these scandals. Poker couldn’t.

In recent years Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem did much to advance the public image of poker. Last year’s champion, Jamie Gold, didn’t do much of anything as poker’s ambassador. He was caught up in problems of his own that began when he failed to honor an agreement to split his $12 million winnings. A court case loomed. Gold settled a case he should never have let go as far as it did. He was hired by Bodog as their representative. Then Bodog abruptly dropped him. These sorts of things hurts poker's reputation.

Gold, who is probably a better guy than his press and persona would have one believe, became the heavy rather than the hero after last year’s WSOP.

Jerry Yang, so far you’ve done everything right. You are humble. You did not rave about your poker skills. You thanked God and your family. You said you plan to put your children through college, allow your wife to quit working, and give back to the community.

You vowed to give 10 percent of his winnings to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Feed the Children, and the Ronald McDonald House.You said, "I had a strategy.” And that “The only way that I could win this tournament was by being aggressive from the very beginning and that's exactly what I did."

Jerry Yang, you said all the right things as you begin your reign as poker’s ambassador and public face for 2007.

Keep it up. Please. The responsibilities that come with that bracelet may be heavy, but we’re counting on you to do the heavy lifting. The poker community needs you.

Neteller Finalizes Agreement With Feds. Coming Soon: Your Money

Neteller, the leading payment processor used by online poker players to transfer funds to and from their accounts, announced that they entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (USAO).

This resolves the USAO’s investigation into Neteller. The USAO agreed to defer the prosecution of any federal charges and, as a consequence, Neteller will not be convicted of any federal crime as long the Company fulfils conditions of the DPA during the two year term of the agreement.

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York approved the deferral of the prosecution. As part of this agreement, Neteller agreed to forfeit $136 million to the United States.

Neteller will allow withdrawal requests as soon as possible and US customers will be able to sign in to their Neteller account to request the withdrawal of their funds by no later than July 30, 2007. The exact date upon which US customers will be able to make requests will be communicated to US customers via email and the Neteller website.

Ron Martin, Neteller’s President and CEO, said “This agreement resolves the USAO’s investigation relating to the Company’s former US business activities. We believe that this settlement is in the best interests of Neteller and its shareholders.

“Our customers, employees and shareholders have all patiently waited for this resolution. We anticipate within the next few weeks that we will have fully implemented the plan for the return of funds to our US customers and are hopeful that, by that time, we will have restored the Company’s shares to trading on AIM. We can now begin to refocus our efforts on building and strengthening the Neteller business in the growing markets of the European and Asia Pacific regions. I look forward to sharing further information about the Company’s progress over the coming months.”

Jerry Yang Defeats International Field to Win WSOP

Jerry Yang, a 39-year-old psychologist and social worker from Temecula, California–a man virtually unknown to the world of tournament poker–won poker’s largest and most prestigious event, the World Series of Poker’s $10,000 buy-in, no-limit hold’em tournament.

For Yang, it was a long journey metaphorically as well as physically. Originally from Laos, Yang emigrated to Thailand and then to the United states, where he is now a citizen residing in southern California. Married with six children, he started playing poker only two years ago, and won his seat into the main event in a satellite held at Temecula’s Pechanga Resort and Casino. The socially-conscious Yang pledged 10 percent of his winnings from this tournament to three charities: the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Feed the Children, and Ronald McDonald House.

At the final table, he played aggressive poker from the get-go, winning 30 of the first 80 hands that were dealt. Although he began play that day with the second smallest chip stack, he quickly built a lead he never relinquished, and held a commanding chip lead when heads-up play began.

But he had to overcome a bit of adversity along his road to the championship. Once Jon Kalmar was eliminated in fifth place, each of his opponents took turns doubling-up in confrontations with Yang.

Jerry Yang, Alex Kravchenko, Raymond Rahme, and Tuan Lam–the final foursome–battled it out for seven-and-a-half hours. After 107 hands, Kravchenko, the Russian businessman with a scintillating reputation on the European poker circuit, was first to fall. Three-handed play didn’t last very long. Raymond Rahme, a retired South African bed-and-breakfast operator and the final table’s oldest participant at 62 years of age, was eliminated two hands later when his pocket pair of kings met defeat at the hands of Yang’s A-5 and an ace on the flop.

That left it heads-up between Yang and Tuan Lam, who was born in Vietnam but now lives outside of Toronto, Canada. Yang entered the heads-up phase with a 5-to-1 chip advantage, a huge edge by anyone’s standards. Yang wielded his chip advantage like a club and bludgeoned Lam to the point where Yang’s edge was nearly 12-to-1.

But Lam struck back, doubling up when his 4-3 flopped a four and defeated Yang’s A-9. But that was Lam’s high water mark, and following 16 hours at the final table, Yang won it all on Hand 205.

Here’s how it played out. With $100,000 antes and the blinds at $400,000-$800,000, Jerry Yang raised to $2.3 million on the button. Tuan Lam moved all in for $22.2 million. Yang called after pondering his decision for about 10 seconds.

Yang showed 8c-8d. Lam had Ad-Qd. It was a race situation, though one that favored Yang. Lam had to improve to stay alive. Everyone was standing. The crowd was chanting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" and "Canada! Canada!"

The USA contingent was silenced when a Qc-9c-5s flop gave Tuan Lam a pair of queens and the lead! With top pair, Lam was a big favorite to double up and make this match a lot closer than it had been. Now it was Jerry Yang who needed help. He needed to catch an eight or two running cards to complete a draw.

The 7d turned, giving Yang a gut-shot straight draw. He could win by catching an eight for a set, or by catching a six, which would give him a nine-high straight. Although he had six outs for the win, Yang was nearly a 7-to-1 underdog at that point.

The river card was Yang’s miracle, the 6h, which completed his straight and gave him the 2007 WSOP Championship, $8.25 million, the coveted bracelet emblematic of his victory and stature in the world of poker, and a custom designed Corum watch.

Tuan Lam’s second place finish was worth $4.84 million.

From the first event to the last this was a unique World Series. It begun in chaos, with long lines, cards no one could read, a hot, windy tent area that looked at one point like it was going to blow away. But things smoothed out, and within a few days of the start, the WSOP was running smoothly.

This year’s WSOP featured 55 events, and no one could play them all. Two events per day, one at noon and the other at 5 p.m., were scheduled most days. Weekends saw $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em events that seemed to set records for attendance each time another was played.

The WSOP threatened to be the province of the very young, with players in their early twenties winning events with regularity. But if youth was to be served, it wasn’t served well in the main event. Of the nine players at this year’s final table, only one player, Hevad “Rain” Khan, at the final table was in his early twenties. His youth was certainly offset by a 62-year old retired South African bed-and-breakfast operator Raymond Rahme, and none of the other final table players could be called kids by any stretch of the imagination.

This year’s main event winner, Jerry Yang looks to be a breath of fresh air for poker. A man of two continents, a socially conscious family man with six children and a commitment to donate a significant portion of his winnings to charity, Yang will be the face of poker for the next twelve months.

Thoughts About Neteller and the World Series of Poker

While the World Series of Poker rushes headlong to conclusion with a cast of players very few people recognize, two of the most notable members of the online gaming community, Neteller founders Stephen Lawrence and John Lefebvre, pled guilty to the use of wires to transmit interstate and foreign commerce bets and wagering information. It will cost each of them at least $100 million.

In addition, they each face a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 when sentenced in late October.

Lawrence and Lefebvre each admitted that they conspired with others to promote illegal gambling by providing payment services in the United States to offshore internet gambling businesses.

Although the Neteller case put the kibosh on the ability of online poker players to fund and withdraw money from their online poker accounts, the Neteller case against Lawrence and Lefebvre has nothing to do with poker, and nothing to do with the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA). The transmission of interstate and foreign commerce bets and wagering information referred to Wire Act violations, primarily sports betting.

Government anti-gaming efforts effectively drove Neteller from US shores and froze money in player accounts that won’t be released until Neteller works out the details with the US Attorney.

There’s some bitter irony involved in all of this too, because Neteller provided financial intermediary services for services other than gambling, and that money is also in a state of suspended animation. I’m a good example. All of the $4,000 some-odd dollars of mine that’s currently held by Neteller is unrelated to online gaming. In my case, it’s money for magazine articles and related writing for overseas clients. All I did was write about gaming, and in this case, I’m not guilty of anything.

Nevertheless, I’m sure the US Attorney’s actions were aimed at crushing online poker, something they seem bound and determined to stop. By attacking and crushing the means and mechanisms by which money could be moved from player to game site and back again, the Feds effectively cut the heart out of the growing online poker community, while cutting down on the proliferation of tournament poker that occurred because players were able to win their entry into high-cost tournaments in traditional casinos through online satellites.

Case in point: While the World Series of Poker experienced record turnouts this year, attendance was down for the $10,000 buy-in, no-limit hold’em main event because fewer online players entered satellites and registered to play.

I wonder if the government realizes what an ultimately futile effort theirs is. Trying to stop online gaming at this point is an exercise in squeezing toothpaste back into the tube. Gambling has been with humanity since the dawn of time, and the ability to take responsible risks when the circumstances favor success is one attribute that has continued to advance the species.

People will gamble. The internet is just the newest media that provides the games people play. The online gaming community will ultimately succeed and government repression is doomed to go the way of Prohibition.

Crashing: How I Busted Out of the 2007 WSOP

For me, the World Series of Poker is over, and I’m just beginning to climb out of my suicidal phase. I hate losing. It’s a blow to the gut, and I’m doubled over. What’s worse is that I hate the walk of shame out of the tournament area, where I feel like every eye is on me, watching me leave in silence, shame, and despair.

In reality, no one is looking at me, and that’s even worse. They are consumed with their own hands, what they think their opponents’ have, and what they think their opponents think they have—a never-ending cycle of analysis. When it comes to figuring out poker, there are wheels within wheels.

As I exit the Amazon Room at the Rio, my WSOP in shambles, I am merely ignored, just like all the other bust-outs, another loser heading to the door.

I made a run into the second day, but it was far from good enough.

It wasn’t always that way. Day 2A began with 1,034 players, with approximately the same number scheduled to play on Day 2-B. I was 421 out of 1,034 who were playing on Day 2A.

Things started nicely enough. I was the big blind on the first hand played and won on a walk when no one called me. Just a few hands later, I raised $5,000 with J-J and picked up one caller. I bet $10,000 into a 9-9-8 flop and my opponent folded.

At 10:40 Alan Smurfit, who won a bracelet earlier in this year’s WSOP, is knocked out at my table when his pair of sevens loses to A-A. The guy with the pocket rockets flopped a set, turned a full house, and to add insult to injury a third seven fell on the river, giving Smurfit a full house too, but it was too little, too late for the native Dubliner who now lives in Miami.

A minute or two later, Nolan Dalla announced that TV personality Montel Williams, who was the chip leader for quite a while on Day One, was just eliminated. At the end of the first hour of play, another player at our table is eliminated. I take a beat too and am down to $45,000.

At 1:15 Dalla announces that 2005 WSOP champion Joe Hachem was just knocked out. The remainder of the second hour was uneventful for me. I was treading water and entered the break with $43,600.

When we returned from the break, I was moved to a new table. The blinds were $600-$1,200 with $100 antes. It’s not the blinds that eat you alive, it’s the antes. It is a nine-player table and there is now $2,700 to shoot for on every hand. Just about every pot is raised, and many are reraised. That pot is an attractive target, and everybody with a decent hand seems willing to take a shot at it.

At the new table, the player to my immediate right has a lot of chips and is making small raises just about every hand.

I’m not dealt anything, and if I want to come over the top of one of his raises, it will have to be on a pure, naked bluff.

Finally, I reraise $15,000 with Ad-4d. I’m hoping to win the blinds and antes, and his $3,600 raise, which would give me a nice $6,300 pot. He calls. I don’t like that at all. But I’m saved when the flop is three clubs, giving me the nut flush. He checks, I make a large bet. I’m hoping he will think my large bet is really a bluff and that he will call me with something like top pair or an overpair.

But he doesn’t even think about it. He folds.

By the time the third level comes around, I am down to $37,000, and wondering if I will survive until the dinner break, never mind hoping to make the third day. I lose two more hands and I’m down to $18,000, which is not at all where I want to be.

I know I have to make a stand and I’m looking for a hand to play. The trouble is that I’m not finding anything, no pairs, no Ace—not a thing. I’m still facing raises by players to my right, and one player is raising almost every hand. I know his range of raising hands is extremely broad unless he’s being dealt the best run of big hands ever dealt to any player, anywhere.

The fact that he’s raising with a wide variety of hands give me substantial folding equity, because he is very likely to release the majority of his weaker raising hands to a reraise, particularly a reraise from someone like me, who has not played many hands. Finally, with the blinds $800-$1,600 and $200 antes, he raises and I push my remaining $18,000 to the center of the pot. I have Qc-Jc and I’m really not looking for anyone to call. But I’d rather reraise with this hand than a weak ace because I am essentially out of domination range, unless he has A-Q or A-J. If he has either of those hands, I’m looking for a three-outer or a flush or a straight. They’re all long shots, and I’m hoping he folds. But he has been raising with lots of hands, and I might even have the best hand right now.

My reraise gives him pause. He stews over his decision for a long time. Perhaps if I made that raise with a load of chips in reserve, he would have folded. But he can’t be hurt beyond the chips I’ve already wagered and he has me covered with plenty of chips to spare, and if I win, he’ll only damage his stack by about 15 percent or so.

He calls and turns over 9-8. I do have the best hand. The flop is T-9-3 with one club. He has a pair of nines, I have a straight draw, a backdoor flush draw, and if I catch one of the three remaining jacks or three remaining queens, I’ll win unless he improves to two pair or trips. When you count it out, I have 14 outs. I’m now favored to win this pot, though it’s as close to even money as you can get. With 14 outs, I have a 51.2 percent chance of winning, which makes me an odds-on favorite.

Even though my fold equity went right out the window when he decided to call, I still have a shot. But the turn is a trey, the river is an ace, and I’m done for, finis, eliminated, and knocked out. My goose is cooked.

For me this feels like the air has been let out of a balloon and all at once I am incredibly tired—I could fall asleep right on the spot—very hungry, and in no mood to stick around the Rio any longer than necessary.

I drive out of the Rio lot, down to the Strip, turn left and pull into the Wynn parking lot. I grab a sandwich in the bakery right near the poker room, and sit there staring off into space as I eat.

I’ve been staying the past week with fellow poker writer Jim Brier. I go back there, turn on the television in the guest bedroom, fall asleep within minutes, awaken at midnight, get undressed and get into bed. In the morning Jim and I have breakfast and by 9:00 I am on the road back to Palm Desert, a 240 mile drive that takes me about 3 ½ hours going the back way, through Kelso, Amboy, 29 Palms, Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, and Morongo Valley before dropping down from the high desert into the Coachella Valley for the short ride through Palm Springs and Cathedral City to Palm Desert.

The thermometer in my swimming pool reads 88 degrees, so I grab a floating chair, jump in and stare up at the palm trees swaying in the afternoon breeze while thoughts of hands played and misplayed swirl through my head.

I beat about 5,000 of the 6,000 players who entered this event. But it wasn’t good enough to suit me. I’ll have to do better next time. But that’s a year away.

Day Two of the WSOP Begins in a Few Hours

I woke up this morning to a news item on Las Vegas television telling me that this year's World Series of Poker had 6,358 entrants. That's far less than the more than 8,000 players who entered last year, and a drop off was to be expected, given that online sites could no longer preregister players and the effect of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was to reduce the umber of entrants under any circumstances.

The news story also said that first place this year would pay $8 million or more, plenty of money by anyone's standards.

I survived Day One, which was a grueling affair. We played from noon until past 3:30 AM, which is more than 15 hours of poker. I'm hoping Day Two is a bit more humane and that I continue to play into Day Three.

If I survive today, I'll have a day off tomorrow and will post to this blog as soon as Iawaken. If I'm knocked out, I plan to drive home and post from there. Stay tuned.

Is Barney Frank Shooting Himself in the Foot?

What in the world did Congressman Barney Frank do, and why did he do it? Frank’s bill, designed to reform online gambling in the United States, is in danger because he added language to his bill promising a billion-dollar fix for affordable housing.

When the Massachusetts Democrat introduced HB 2046, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (IGREA) it was aimed at reversing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that forbid American banks and credit card companies from processing payments to and from online gambling sites, thus making it more difficult to fund online poker cash transfers, and essentially tightened a noose around online poker.

Frank’s IGREA would create a process by which the Government could license, regulate, and tax online gaming while requiring safeguards to prevent underage and compulsive gambling, as well as money laundering.
Frank, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, advocates stopping home foreclosures. The rider he attached to his bill seeks one billion dollars to build affordable housing.

The sense in Congress is that this bill will not pass with the affordable rider attached to it. Even members of Frank’s own party are against it.

Just another day in poker’s continuing soap opera.

Into the Wee Hours: My Day One at the WSOP

I knew there’d be no chance, absolutely none, of recalling much of the details surrounding my play in the main event, so I tucked my Moleskine notebook—it’s advertised as the notebook of Van Gogh, Picasso, and Hemmingway—into my back pocket with a promise made to myself to record my thoughts and feelings after every significant hand, or every half-hour.

Doing so, I hypothesized, would help to focus my thoughts and efforts, which is no small task when you’re playing in an event that begins at noon and figures to end somewhere around 3:30 or 4:00 AM.

I had a plan too, and was hoping the note-taking would keep me on track there too. Unless I was shortstacked, I did not want to go all-in before the flop unless I had pocket aces or otherwise knew I had the best hand. The way I figure it, early days are all about survival and the downside of going all-in and losing so far outweighs the upside of winning an all-in confrontation that I wanted to avoid taking risks for all my chips if at all possible.

I planned to play few pots, have the edge in those I played, and survive until Day Two. My plan will change later, but first I have to make it to later, and that can be difficult, the best laid plans of mice and poker players notwithstanding.

Day One begins for me with a whimper. I fold the first five hands I’m dealt, although somewhere in the room a player is already knocked out on the second hand he plays. My table is full of players I do not recognize, with the exception of David Williams, who finished second here a few years ago, losing to Greg Raymer in the main event.

I’m in an area of the room filled with name players, and I see Sam Farha, Bill Chen, Patrick Antonius, Tony G, and David Singer at adjacent tables.

My table is aggressive. Every hand is raised, and by 12:30 PM Williams has a big stack and is playing a lot of hands.

A half-hour into the event I have played two small pots and won both of them. At 1:00, an hour into the event, I’m in the profit zone—barely. I now have $20,500, a mere $500 above my starting stack, when I have A-T, flop two pair, and have no callers into my $300 bet.

At 2:30 we’re back from our first break and entering the second level with the blinds now $100-$200. I’m in the small blind and raise the big blind (we’re the only ones active) who has only $900 remaining. He calls, and shows K-Q. I’m ahead of him with A-8 and he is gone when I flop trip eights.

The next half-hour is dead for me: no cards, no opportunities, so I just sit back and establish my image as a selective, aggressive player. I have not called a hand before the flop yet. I’ve either raised coming in or folded.

At 3:45 I wake up with a pair of aces on the button. The guy in the cut off seat raises and I reraise him. To my surprise, he moves all in. I call. He shows me A-K and I have him severely dominated with pocket aces. I win and double my stack to about $46,000.

By the beginning of Level Three I think it’s time to make my tight image pay off for me and I steal the first hand back from the break.

At 5:50—we’ve been at it for six hours now—I win two pots in succession, one with a full house and the other with the nut straight. I’m up to $55,000, and feeling good but tired. I don’t like feeling tired because I know we still have a long way to go before this march ends.

At 6:00 PM David Williams is eliminated. He is drawing dead by the turn and is up and out of his seat before the river card is dealt.

Sometime around then, Nolan Dalla announces that Day 1a had 1,287 players, and today, Day 1b, had 1,545. At that dinner break the average stack size was $27,248 and 1,134 players remained.

Dave Scharf, from Saskatoon, is down here and will play on Day 1c. He has a dinner plan and I love it. Dave will get to the restaurant about 15 minutes before the dinner break, order dinner for all of us—Dave, poker journalist and radio show co-host Amy Calistri, and me—and tomorrow night, when Dave plays his first day, I’ll return the favor. It works just as planned. I have a full hour or so to eat, though I have to get up and leave the table while Dave and Amy are still sitting there, enjoying themselves.

Barbara Enright and Max Shapiro drop by out table to say hello. Barbara was just inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, the only woman ever accorded this honor, and it’s well-deserved. Barbara and Phil Hellmuth were the only 2007 inductees.

During the dinner conversation, Dave told me that he believes players become much wilder when returning from dinner, and that the poker table takes on an entirely new dynamic.

“Maybe,” he says, “they reassess their play during dinner, and decide they need to play more aggressively in order to build chips. Maybe it’s the result of eating. Who knows? But they do tend to get wild.”

AT 9:45 PM I’m moved to a new table. I don’t recognize anyone there. Two players look like they’re on the verge of falling asleep, and I’m card dead. I decide to wait out the fallow period.

At 10:45 my new table is also broken and I’m moved again. I have no feel for this table, but it soon becomes clear there are two very aggressive players to my right. I steal a pot by reraising one of the aggressive players who doesn’t go through the motions of trying to decide whether to call me or not. He immediately pitches his cards to the muck when I reraise.

At 11:15 PM a player to my left makes a standard raise of $1,800. I’m in the big blind and call $1,200 more with 7-7, intending of taking him off the hand if the flop is small and ragged. I’m lucky enough to flop a set on a safe board—no possible straights or flushes—call his flop bet and checkraise him off his hand on the turn.

By 1:15 we return from our last break. There’s one more level to play. I have $58,000, which proves to be my high eater mark for the day. By the time we wrap things up, I’m bagging $54,500 and looking forward to playing in Day 2 on Tuesday.

I was very tired during the last level of play, and it was just an endurance test to survive intact. I had been up early, to attend the Saturday morning Poker Discussion Group breakfast—I always try to make it to this weekly breakfast when I’m in Las Vegas—but that meant I was going to be up nearly 24 hours by the item I finished playing.

My other gripe is the chairs. They are surely two-hour chairs, the kind designed for use in banquet rooms and convention centers, where two hours of comfort is about all you really need. But all day in one of those chairs playing poker makes me long for something with back support, adjustable height, and all the other amenities civilized poker players have come to expect.

Thanks to all of you who have emailed or phoned to congratulate me on surviving Day 1, and thanks too for all your well-wishes for the days to come. Poker is big surf. Waves of energy, people, cards, chips, plays, bluffs, strategies, tactics, dealers, bad lighting, worse chairs, a feeding frenzy of fans and media, all come at you simultaneously. If you catch the wave just right, you can dig right into its curl and ride it all the way to shore.

I’m gonna try my best to do just that.

WSOP main event starts today; Lifestyle Show a dog

The World Series of Poker’s main event, the $10,000 buy-in, no-limit hold’em tournament, kicks off at 12 pm on Friday. Day One is spread out over four days worth of flights. I’m not scheduled to play until tomorrow, Saturday, July 7, a day that also promises to be the biggest wedding day in history as couples all wanting the luck that is supposed to accrue from 7-7-07 rolling their way.

I hope a little will come my way. So far it’s been mixed. I’m at table 107, Seat 3. The table is in that tent that nearly blew away in the high winds of a few weeks ago. But I like seats at the end of the table, and my seat is right there.

All of the registration lines seem to have disappeared, or at least they did when I registered. I arrived in Las Vegas on July 4th, and trundled over to the Rio to sign up at about 8:30 or 9:00 PM. There was a short line for satellite registrants, and only one person ahead of me, and all he wanted to do was ask a question of the registration clerk. So my stay in line was under two minutes. I signed up, plunked down my money and I was good to go.

Yesterday was different. There were long lines of last-minute hopefuls in line to register for satellites in hopes of winning as seat in the main event.

Yesterday was also the first day of the Lifestyle Show. I think this is the third year for that extravaganza, and this year’s show really paled by comparison to the previous two. The room was not sold out and there was empty space in some areas. Also, last year’s big players, such as Pokerstars, Doyle’s Room, Full Tilt, and Party Poker were nowhere to be seen. There was far less energy, fewer people, and it had the look and feel of a flea market that wasn’t all that well attended.

If you’re at the Rio, take it in; it’s free, and you might run across something that interests you. But as for making a special trip just to go there? Fuggetaboudit.

Doyle Brunson Seeks Eleventh WSOP win today

Brunson Can Tie Hellmuth With Victory Today

Coming into this year's WSOP, Doyle Brunson was in a three-way tie with Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth, Jr. for the most World Series of Poker wins with ten each. Who would be the first player to win gold bracelet Number 11 was one of the major storylines at the start of the World Series.

Two weeks ago in Event No. 15, Hellmuth became the first player to reach the 11-win milestone.

Today Doyle Brunson is a finalist in this afternoon's $10,000 buy-in pot-limit Omaha world championship, and begins his quest for a record-tying eleventh WSOP gold bracelet victory.

Two-time world poker champion Doyle Brunson remains at the top of the game—cash games and tournaments alike—despite his age and the huge fields of competitors.

The Final Table Looks Tough; the Road Won't be Easy

Down to the final nine players, Brunson arrives fifth in the chip count with 510,000. The current chip leader is Tommy Ly with 1.8 million. Other finalists include Robert Mizrachi, Rene Mouritsen, Patrik Antonius, Jonas Flug-Entin, Marco Traniello, Stephen Ladowsky, and Steve Sung.

Nothing against the rest of the filed, but I’m sentimental; and I’m rooting for Doyle. Aren’t you?

Neteller's cofounder Stephen Lawrence Pleads Guilty

Neteller cofounder Stephen Lawrence entered a guilty plea this past Friday to illegally transferring money to online gaming firms and agreed to cooperate with US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York. That agreement includes forfeiture of $100 million.

He admitted his guilt in front of Judge Kevin Castel, saying: “I became aware that the US had legislation barring certain transactions online. With this knowledge, I came to understand that providing payment services to online gambling businesses serving customers in the US was wrong.”

Sentencing is set for October. At that time, Lawrence faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Neteller told the London Stock Exchange that it was cooperating with the US attorney’s investigation and that they hope it will be complete by July 13.
The case of Neteller cofounder John Lefebvre is still pending.

Venetian Extends Deep Stack II Through July 10

People—poker players in particular—are voting with their feet this summer in Las Vegas. The World Series of Poker, which has set a number of attendance records this year, has added another Day One to their schedule, making four, first-days of play for the growing player flights that will compete in this year’s $10,000 buy-in, no-limit hold’em tournament.

Deep Stack II, the Venetian’s tournament series that began June 1 and was set to conclude on July 1, was extended through July 10, with $1,060 buy-in events every day. With a popularity factor beyond the expectations of the Venetian’s poker room manager, Kathy Raymond, it’s easy to see why they decided to extend their tournament series. I blogged about thie event earlier, dubbing it, Poker's Little Engine That Could. I'm not sure what kind of attendance they expected for this tournament series, but it was enough to convince them them add ten days to the series!

Things are going great guns downtown too. Binion’s Poker Classic has been attracting record crowds for their low buy-in series that mirrors the events at the World Series of Poker.

Everyone loves poker, and people have crowded into Las Vegas this year in record numbers. There are still a few good weeks of poker remaining in the tournament season, and even if you don’t fancy tournament poker, there are plenty of side games all over town.

My Trip to the WSOP's Main Event

OK, it’s not exactly an eleventh hour decision, but it did come late in the game. I’m leaving for Las Vegas this Wednesday to play in the WSOP’s main event, the $10,000 no-limit hold’em tournament.

While I don’t expect attendance to eclipse, or even come close to last year’s record crowds, I do anticipate a pretty good crowd. So does Harrah’s; they just added another Day One to the schedule.

I don’t care how many people show up to play. It’s insane to look at the size of the field and think that you’ve got to beat them to win the WSOP. You just have to concentrate on the players at your table, since you can’t do anything about those sitting at other tables, or those opponents who are playing their Day One on another day.

You can’t do anything about anyone else until you’re closing in on the pay ladder. Then you can take one of two tacks: You can tighten up, hope for others to bust out before you, and back your way onto the pay ladder, or you can get very aggressive and raise most of the time, knowing you’ll probably be able to fold any opponents who are not playing really big stacks and are looking to limp into as WSOP payday.

The proper strategy depends. It depends on your own objective for the WSOP—do you want to win it, or will you be happy just to make the money—how big a stack you and your opponent each have, your relative playing skills, and a variety of other things too. That’s a bridge I’ll cross when I come to it—if I come to it.

I have a love-hate relationship with the WSOP. I love what’s it’s done to advance poker, but I don’t enjoy big crowds. I have an agoraphobic side to my personality and I abhor crowded malls, airports around Thanksgiving, and I don’t much care for the encroaching throngs that make it difficult to move anywhere in the Amazon room during the WSOP.

But I’ll deal with it, and I’ll do so in a way that’s good for my poker. I’ll zero in on my table, my game, and whatever I think I have some ability to control or influence, while I try to ignore everything else around me.

That still may not be enough to survive to the final table, to survive to the pay ladder, or even to survive Day One. While I know that much of what happens is out of one’s control, I still hate losing. The Walk of Shame as you get up from the table and leave the tournament area embarrasses me. Yet everyone endures it; everyone, that is, but the one guy good enough and fortunate enough to win it all.

I’ll blog about my experience at the WSOP in days to come. But I’m not there yet. I’ll throw my clothes and laptop in the back of my car on July 4 and drive across the desert the back way— from Palm Desert through 29 Palms, Amboy, Kelso, Cima, then Morningstar Mine Road and ultimately Nipton Road, which eventually links up with I-15 and the short glide from there to Las Vegas. It’s a deserted series of back roads, which even includes a stretch of old Route 66. You won’t find many rest stops, or gas stations, or even any other cars, except for the occasional highway patrolman, parked on the edge of the desert, looking for another victim to feed on.

I know. I usually wind up going to traffic school about once a year to wipe those speeding tickets off my license.

For me, the main event is a free roll. My buy-in was paid by a company in Israel I’ve done some work for. It was a generous thing for them to do. Now I’ll have to repay them by making every right play I can to justify their confidence in me and help promote their site.

Stay tuned.

WSOP Sets Another Attendance Record

Nolan Dalla reported that he World Series of Poker set another attendance record today as the largest number of poker players ever to enter a preliminary event packed into the Rio on June 30. Event No. 49 of this year’s WSOP attracted a whopping 3,151 entries, making it the busiest day in the 38-year history of the WSOP.

The record number shattered the old high mark of 2,998 set during the first week of the World Series. The previous record was set in Event No. 3, a $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em championship, won by Ciaran O’Leary from Ireland.

The $1,500 buy-in events each weekend have attracted huge fields. This event is expected to last three days. First place will pay $722,914 to the winner. Overall, 324 players will receive prize money out of a total pool exceeding $4.3 million.