GROAN

05:56 pm: Review: "Ace on the River: An Advanced Poker Guide
Author: Barry Greenstein

I usually do my best to at least skim over everything in the genre of poker books, if just to see where some of the really terrible styles are coming from. Looking through the current slew makes me believe that poker literature has been set back at least a decade. The advice is so general, repetitive, and unexceptional that the obvious conclusion is these books saw print merely to cash in as quickly as possible on the poker phenomenon before it collapses, integrity of writing or pride be damned. There has been nothing in print that has added to Sklansky’s work of 20 years ago, save for the emphasis on no-limit games. Dan Harrington’s books are the class needed to address the needs for this market. The rest are pretty much just noise.

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03:50 pm: Blinking in Cyberspace
I’m sitting in my usual limit hold’em game. I have the 9h8h in the cutoff. Three players limp in ahead of me. I’ve got value here, as I know I can get sustained action from these particular limpers if I can connect. I consider a raise to knock out Barbara on the button behind me, but decide against it. What is giving me value in this hand is also greatly limiting my potential to steal, now or later. I’ll need to hit to win, so I might as well keep it cheap. So I limp. I watch Barbara to see what she is going to do. I know she is attentive and experienced. I track her as she surveys the situation. I follow her mind circling around the table, breaking down the limpers, readjusting her internal equations. It is an unusual amount of players limping for this game. I’m anticipating a window of opportunity to read her. I’ll know it when I see it.

And there it is - I see her hesitate for just a fraction of a second more than expected, and already I know what she is going to do. She is going to play her hand, and is going to raise. She has a great starter yet she does not have a big pair. She has AKs or AQs and that is it.

12:50 am: Review – The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time
Author: Michael Craig

This book focuses on The BIG Game of Andy Beal vs The Corporation, an interesting if obvious topic to write about knowing there is a public thirst for the details of these matches. I knew some of the details about stakes and players through various grapevines, but never a full picture, particularly from Beal’s side. Though the author himself states that he did not know all the results and sums, the ones he does include he stood behind as being sourced by either multiple accounts or a very reliable record. Craig provides enough of them and a strong timeline that one feels much more informed about this event than the piecemeal accounts elsewhere.
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01:55 am: Review-One of a Kind : The Rise and Fall of Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, The World's Greatest Poker Player
Authors: Nolan Dalla, Peter Alson

I’ve been hearing about this book for years now, always accompanied with the highest praise from those who had previewed it. I had high expectations going in.

There was a time where I read just about anything that had to do with gambling. This included Stu Ungar stories published in magazines, online, or by word of mouth (I even own that “Icon Magazine” issue mentioned in this book with the Stu Ungar interview and the black-and-white photos of his ghostlike image in a hotel room). My appetite for gambling material and history was insatiable. While my interests in life have changed, I was still looking forward to this new book to be the definitive work on the life of Stu Ungar and to reveal his history as never before. Did it satisfy?
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01:38 am: When Will the Bubble Burst?
We all know that poker’s growth is explosive right now. If you don’t believe it, Mike Sexton will tell you it is so in every article he writes for Cra pLayer from now on, ad nausea, in between praising both the greatness of the WPT and of Party Poker in his insightful, don’t-miss articles. We get it, Mike. Please go back to your pre-WPT days of writing about old poker players about to die from an incurable disease and how their bravery makes you all teary-eyed. Those didn’t get tiresome either. Where is Sexton’s Pulitzer? (Seriously, shouldn’t all of Sexton’s articles be marked with that “Paid Advertisement” tag somewhere at this point?)

But the Pyramid Scheme of poker growth must collapse at some point. Only so many new people can turn 21 (or 18) every year AND master the complexity of NetTeller to join poker’s ranks. And the fact that those in the middle of the Pyramid or lower pay those above them a great deal of money in tribute coupled with the unending battering winds of the Rake, and the current rapid growth in height of the Pyramid must stop and topple at some point. The middle and lower sections of the Pyramid are holding for now, but economic reality must set in at some point. The question is, in what year will we see the pinnacle of poker growth occur, and actually see it start to contract?
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02:57 am: Script
Here is the script I was talking about in my previous two blog entries. I am no longer sending out properly formatted scripts. Here it is in mangled livejournal form. I have no idea why LJ doesn't like centered text or an easy way to get the proper formatting back in. Thanks to all who were interested and provided feedback.
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PHIL HELLYOUTH’S SECRET SYSTEM
CHAPTER 7 – ENDORSEMENTS

Written by
GROAN
DRAFT ONE - June 14, 2005



FADE IN ON

INT. PHIL HELLYOUTH, dressed in usual uniform of sunglasses, casual pants and shirt, jacket, and baseball hat. He is behind his usual poker table like all previous Chapters, and starts to address the camera.
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07:20 pm: My own breakdown of the Bill/Phil Script
Thanks to all who were interested in reading the script. Bigger thanks to those who gave me some kind of input on what they liked or disliked, even if it was just a sentence or two. I always find that interesting and wish I could have gotten more feedback compared to the number of scripts sent out.

Here is my own breakdown of the script and some writer’s notes for those who are interested in the thought process and the final results.
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03:11 am: Star Wars Episode III review
If there was only one poker game in town and you knew every time you played there you were going to get cheated, how many times would you continue to go before logic got the better of you? I’m disappointed in myself because I guess for me the answer is at LEAST three times. Even though I saw Star Wars Episodes I and II and knew what utter crap those movies were, I still found myself sitting in a theatre watching Episode III. I guess I really don’t mind being cheated, even if I know for sure it’s going to happen.

George Lucas cannot write dialogue. Its almost criminal what he tries to pass off as words real people would speak. I literally cringed at so many parts of the film, including just about any time Padme and Anakin were the only people on screen, too many to recall individually. There was also a sequence where Obi-Wan says “Palpatine is EVIL!” and Annie replies “But to me, the JEDI are!” I really thought they were going to devolve into a “no you are” “no YOU are” type of bickering. It was just that lame. And of course Vader’s “NOOOOOOOO!” literally bust up the room in laughter. Reminded me of McBain from the Simpsons when his movie partner got shot in the bar (obscure reference).

Hayden Christiansen is the worst actor I’ve seen since that guy from “Tilt”. But it might not all be his fault - even respectable actors could not escape the verbal farts they had to commit to film. If a guy with so much built-in cool as Samuel L Jackson comes off like a giant turd, you really failed in character development and dialogue.

Who had more sexual chemistry on screen, Annie and Padme or R2D2 and C3PO? Yeah, I vote for the gold guy and the dildo on wheels too. And why did Darth Wooden love Padme so much since she seemed to bitch at him about opening up to her or order him around in just about every scene. I’m convinced that if they stayed married and she was that much of a shrew to him throughout, he would have turned to the Dark Side anyway. George Lucas’ message (which he actually might have gotten right) – don’t get married and have children, or you will lose yourself and your identity and end up wanting to kill everyone around you (especially your single friends who can still get lap dances at the Jedi Council’s Champagne Room).

But of course there probably isn’t a Champagne Room at Jedi HQ. Was anyone else disturbed by the whole Jedi / Catholic connection? You know, a bunch of guys wearing monk costumes and sworn to celibacy, yet keeping a room full of ‘younglings’ around locked up in a room for their amusement? I guess “Padawan” is code for fresh buttocks.

Darth Vader was the ultimate bad guy for decades, because he had mystery about him. But now that the curtain has been pulled back and we see that he was really just a dumb guy who had a “scary” dream and then showed himself to be more easily manipulated than a steering wheel, it’s totally damaged the first three films beyond repair.

I’m actually a bit pissed off. Lucas has taken an icon of pop culture and completely imploded it in front of our eyes. And he gets to take hundreds of millions to the bank as a reward. The scene with Annie going into the room of younglings and slaughtering them is a perfect analogy for what Lucas has done to many in my age group’s childhood memories of Star Wars and what it meant to us then, and what it now means to us after these three atrocious films. It’s like learning that your wife, who you’ve devoted a lot of love and attention to, was actually a dude in disguise all along. F You, George.

05:52 pm: Script intended for Bill Fillmaff's Secret System
In a previous post, I mentioned that I would love to have a crack at writing a chapter for this guy: http://www.planetstacked.com/fillmaff/ because I think he has a good idea that is just so-so in execution. After posting that comment, I went ahead and wrote about 8 pages of a script, mostly for exercise and fun. Though it was not yet completed, it was shaping up and I thought that it might actually be shoot-able even on a very low budget. So I wrote to “Bill” and asked if he might consider outsider submissions, for free as long as there is a writing credit somewhere. He cordially replied that he was not interested in doing many more Chapters and thus would probably finish up himself.

Since I don’t like to leave projects unfinished, I went ahead and completed the script as I was enjoying it anyway. I went ahead and sent him the first draft to see what he thought, but have not heard back from him.

Yesterday, I finally got my head out of my ass and looked up what his host site was all about. Well, fuck me. I had no idea who the hostmasters were of that website or the names associated with it. I really thought that ‘planetstacked’ was just another hosting company for public leasing of web space. I guess I just see the word ‘planet’ and assume it’s a data center, like these guys: http://www.theplanet.com/ among others. Just seems like it’s a common association, at least in my mind.

Anyway, I doubt I’m much appreciated or welcome by Bill or his hostmasters. Nevertheless, I do have a completed first draft of a parody script that was meant for him. Now that I know its never going to see the light, I’m giving it out to anyone who wants a copy.

It’s about 20 pages, but written in screenplay format so there is lots of dead space due to formatting. It reads more like 10 pages. I would just post it here but livejournal has an annoying way of taking out formatting it considers ‘wasteful’ and destroys the readability of the screenplay, particularly if you are used to seeing that type of format for a script. So instead I will email it out in its best form to individuals who are interested. It is Microsoft Word format, about 90Kb in size.

Out of respect for Bill’s creation, I also went ahead and changed the name of my lead character.

Remember it’s a first pass. I’m the first to say that it is not perfect, and there are specifics I am not happy with and would rewrite in a second pass. Lots of what I had planned changed as I was writing it, including full characters and their roles (anyone who writes creatively knows this organic process). I worry about a few sections’ payoff and would consider axing them too if it doesn’t play well on camera. What I would like is for others (writers and non-writers) who are interested to read it and provide feedback. I would love to see if others spot what I consider the weak points, or find new ones. Breaking down this draft might prove instructive as an exercise for all who are interested in writing or just want to critique. After all, poker is not the only interest I list in my profile.

For a copy of the screenplay, either leave a comment here with your email address or just send me an email at this address and I will reply with an attached copy: mystomachhurts_ouch@yahoo.com

12:53 am: Unintentional Comedy 002 – WSOP Edition
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Photo #1: http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/poker/photoview.php?image=1434

Caption: Former XXX film star Harry Reems takes time out from the Adult Entertainment Expo to participate in this year’s World Series of Poker. Glad to see at least someone is trying to revive that distinctive 80’s look of an open shirt, exposed furry chest, and porn-stache. Way to go, Harry!


Photo #2: http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/poker/photoview.php?image=1598

Caption: “Is that burning fish I smell coming from Men The Master’s room upstairs?”


Photo #3: http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/poker/photoview.php?image=1553

Caption: Who said that thin-haired, un-athletic, pasty-faced, middle-aged bookworms couldn’t look appropriately stylish and hip in youthful, urban sports jerseys? Oh, that’s right – I did. At least they left their gold plated Mercedes-symbol neck chains at home. This time.


Photo #4: http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/poker/photoview.php?image=1547

Caption: Meanwhile, this guy gets to dress like he’s about to play 18 holes at the exclusive Whites-Only Country Club. Did some prankster switch the nametags around on the Full Tilt lockers?

04:52 am: RGP, stealing, Bill Fillmaff, and the UB meeting
A question I get a lot in email: Have I abandoned RGP? Why?

The answer is pretty easy – I have not willfully abandoned it, but I don’t read it anymore and haven’t for quite a while. I still believe in it as being the only place where unrestricted discourse can occur, topics that might be viewed as highly detrimental to the poker industry. It's necessary to have a forum to balance out the inevitably sterling, PR-manufactured words that dominate the poker landscape in print and in other poker-sponsored websites. It's an overall good to have a place where anyone can be heard and judged based on his post’s merits. Otherwise the structure of controlled messages or even censorship is too powerfully in favor of industry, with no recourse for players other than the much slower (non-Internet) word-of-mouth. Checks and balances and all that.
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05:11 am: Unintentional Comedy in the World of Poker 001
Time to mine the world of poker for High Order Unintentional Comedy.

Candidate #1 – The previous UB print ads with Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke leaning against each other, back to back, with the words “Size Doesn’t Matter!” splashed in 40-point fonts. Found in Cra pLayer magazine and others I’m sure, as recently as 3 months ago (don’t know if its still running as I haven’t seen CP in a while.) It’s a play on the tall Hellmuth standing against the much shorter Duke, but…
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07:40 pm: "Steroids for Poker" – The First Performance Enhancing Drug for Mental Competition?
I am a person of science. It takes a lot of convincing evidence for me to believe in something, particularly when it comes to topics involving enhancing mental facilities. I have read plenty of books and articles on the current state of developing ‘smart drugs’, and the mechanisms by which they work and the path the future holds for this kind of research. For thoroughness and amusement, I also studied a lot of the grayer areas in mental enhancement, from the mystical to the all-natural techniques. Since I am also a steadfast believer in experiencing things to augment and validate knowledge gained from books (as is necessary, just like in poker), I have tried some very strange concoctions or techniques that profess to enhance mental abilities, all with negligible effects.

Caffeine is already well documented as a very short-term memory/alertness booster, which the body quickly builds a tolerance for and requires greater amounts to produce this small effect. It can quickly become a mental enhancing negative, as one might need great amounts just to feel normal – not a good situation for long mental activity. Harder drugs, such as the amphetamine class, can no doubt increase energy and alertness, but to a hyper state, where the newfound charge is not useful to playing “quiet” mental games like poker. They usually leave a person so jittery and disjointed that it too quickly becomes a very negative “dishancement”.
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11:19 pm: Valentines Day Special- Poker and Love
(A discussion of poker and love. Adapted from my journal from many years ago. It’s rated “B” for Boring.)

Player A: “What makes someone a good poker player is exactly the same thing that makes that same person terrible at the dating game. In poker, discipline, cautious preservation, and patience are strong keys as a player. But these same characteristics actually screw you when it comes to meeting women and experimenting. If you are ‘lucky’ enough to be born with the personality traits that make for a good poker player, I think you most likely will see those same traits as a curse to being social and learning. Why else do you think that an unusually large proportion of successful poker players have such poor social skills?”

[Note: this conversation took place well before poker was mainstream and ‘cool’. Undeniably the culture of poker back then was slanted towards geeks and misfits.]
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05:49 pm: Recap and Review of "TILT" on ESPN, S01E01
Thanks to the power of reruns and Tivo, I finally saw “Tilt” on ESPN. Since I have no doubt that this series will soon be off the air and hopefully never makes it to DVD, I present this written recap with commentary of the first episode, for posterity.


We hear a voice over describing a hot streak in his best Mike McDermot impersonation:

“You know what it feels like. Everything is going your way. You can’t make a wrong decision if you try. You bet Pass, the shooter rolls a Seven. You stand firm on twelve, the dealer busts out with a face card. At the Hold’em table, you start every hand with Big Slick.”


“And then it happens. Your wife calls on the cell phone with a problem at home. The waitress spills a beer on you or some mook in the anchor seat hits on 15 and takes the last big card in the deck. Suddenly the world shifts – anger overtakes you, confusion, pain. You can’t think straight. You call when you should raise, you bet when you should fold. You can’t win for losing. Its what the house counts on. The pros too. You’re off balance, you’re out of your right mind. And on TILT.”
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