Casino del LOL definitely not the softest! I actually didn't get to visit on this trip.

Who said anything about taking I-10?

Poker Faces in the Crowd: Ashly Butler

This month I talked to Ashly Butler about running, late-night poker with Russell Westbrook, and game theory optimal kickball strategy: http://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/i...hly-butler.php

Rick Bennet on The Baltimore Truth, Sequel to King of a Small World

I would never advise anyone to take up poker for a living, but to those who choose to, I'd say: live a whole life. Be connected to the world.

--Rick Bennet

I interviewed Rick Bennet about his new crime noir novel The Baltimore Truth (the sequel to GOAT poker novel King of a Small World) and his thoughts on surviving in the poker world.

Some very good advice on how to last in poker imo. I sometimes get messages from people wondering if they should give full-time poker a shot. Rather than offering my short answer


I usually pass along my conversation with squid face, and I think Rick offers similarly valuable advice.

One of Rick's comments about writing didn't make it into the piece, unfortunately, so I figured I'd include it here:

"I would say writing fiction, compared to writing non-fiction articles or technical writing, is like tournament poker compared to cash games. The big hits come in tournaments; the fame does; but other than the lucky few, the steady money is in the less glamorous work. Hundreds of novels are written for every one published; hundreds are published for every one that makes money. It's like playing satellites to get into the ME, and then again having to make the final table to get the real cash. There's skill involved, obviously, but more luck than anything else, and you only get a few shots at it."

Great analogy! I will be citing this.

Glad you enjoyed it, Zombie!

**

I'm planning a January Florida poker trip. Will be hitting Jacksonville, ft. Lauderdale/Miami (and key west which is overdue), Tampa. Any fun rooms that I should throw on the list?

Don't miss the Ebro Dog Track

You in NOLA this weekend, bob? Coming in for a (really) Irish Dance competition that my wife will be dancing in. Friday and Saturday are booked, but might try to get to Harradise on Sunday. Sunday nights of three day weekends good action there?

o no doubt, ebro will be my first stop

Yep I'll be here, won't be grinding much but would enjoy meeting up Sunday if you head to Harradise. Sunday nights are usually good action-wise.

hope your wife does well in the competition!

Thanks, mang! I'd be happy to buy you a beer. I'll likely head out to play after dinner on Sunday.

sounds good!

What About Bob?
Basketball

thank you the cockeyed court
on which in a half-court 3 vs. 3 we oldheads
made of some runny-nosed kids
a shambles, and the 61-year-old
after flipping a reverse lay-up off a back door cut
from my no-look pass to seal the game
ripped off his shirt and threw punches at the gods
and hollered at the kids to admire the pacemaker’s scar
grinning across his chest

—Ross Gay, "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude"

2002

Slinging a maroon duffel bag over my shoulder, I walked uphill towards Kirby Sports Center. The bag stored socks, shorts, sweats, shoes, and other stuff that announced, in gleaming white and maroon, that I was a Division I basketball player. But not anymore. Today I would surrender the bag and quit the team.

I hovered outside my coach's office. He gestured me inside, saw what I was holding. In that instant he knew.

Two years earlier, as a promising small forward from New York, I had joined five other freshmen recruits from Arizona, Missouri, Florida, Virginia, and Germany. A handful of others—including my roommate Mike, a lanky shooting guard from Pennsylvania—came to campus as walk-ons. They, unlike us, received no promises or perks. But we all had plenty in common. We had excelled in high school. We had poured in points, pounded on weak opponents, punched tickets to state and regional tournaments. We were drunk on the dream of college athletics.

On the first day of preseason pick-up, in a chilly gym a few miles from campus, the upperclassmen swaggered on the sidelines and told inside jokes. Then they pounced. We freshmen flailed wildly on the court. The next day, nursing sore torsos and sprained ankles, we fought for our livelihoods again. And again. And again.

Class was meaningless. Sometimes I staggered to my morning lectures, sometimes not. The real work started after lunch: workouts, pickup, lifting, massive meals to beef up my slender frame. The night before our first official practice, Mike and I jogged to the gym for one last shoot-around, feeding each other hundreds of shots in the corner, at the foul line, from the top of the key.

Practice. Countless hours of squeaking sneakers, rattling rims, slide-talk-slide drills.

As the season progressed, I found myself in the middle of the pack. I was clearly better than a few floundering freshmen (like Missouri and Virginia) but not good enough to earn playing time (like Florida and Arizona). My parents, traveling hundreds of miles to away games, gave me plaintive looks from the stands. I avoided eye contact and brooded on the bench.

I still hadn’t played a minute when, during a long December road trip, my coach summoned me to his hotel room. It was surprising, he said in a soft, lispy voice, that such a promising student-athlete like me was on academic probation. It was certainly surprising—he shifted to his real concern—that my progress on the basketball court was also lagging.

The message was clear: improve or I was gone.

I was condemned to double duty with the jayvee team, a collection of scrappy walk-ons like Mike, who'd been busting his ass for months, and underperforming recruits like me. Jayvee meant practicing before varsity practice, attending noon pickup, and scrimmaging bums in empty gyms. It meant twice the work with no reward.

In January we played a rag-tag community college squad and lost. Fuming in the film room after the game, our assistant coach eviscerated us one by one. Chris couldn’t dribble. Sam couldn’t shoot. Mike couldn’t defend. “And you, Bob,” he said, his stubby fingers jabbing inches from my face, “you’re worthless without the ball. You don’t move, you don’t screen, you don’t rebound. You’re worthless.”

He stalked outside and slammed the door. My teammates slinked away until Mike and I sat alone, cold and clammy, in the dark. Finally his weary voice punctured the silence.

“It’s a disappointment to be here.”



**

Throughout freshman year, as Mike and I managed our misery with playlists and ping-pong and Wawa runs, one thing was clear: we wouldn’t give up.

We practiced after practice. We watched more film. We tossed heavier weights onto the bench press. Soon I was earning playing time. Suddenly I was a starter. Sprinting downcourt inside Jadwin Gymnasium, I competed in front of 7,000 screaming fans. Who cared if they weren’t cheering for me? I snagged rebounds and drained threes and defended against Princeton’s vaunted backdoor offense. We lost, but I felt good anyway. I had played well. After the game our assistant coach—the one who’d called me worthless—gave me an approving nod in the locker room. I ignored him.

Mike was also doing well. Others had whined, transferred, and quit, but he’d kept his mouth shut and outworked everyone. He was rewarded with traveling privileges, gear to flaunt on campus, and a locker that had been occupied by another freshman, Missouri, who hadn't lasted the year. Mike was one of us now.

We had survived.

I went home for the summer to the Hudson Valley, Mike to Wilkes-Barre. We returned in the fall with swagger in our step. During preseason pick-up, we told inside jokes and pounced on weakness.

I began sophomore year as a starter. But something was wrong. In one game I played two minutes. In another I played the whole game. In another, I scored sixteen points in ten minutes and was benched for the rest of the half.

Who got benched for scoring too many points?

My coach had an ingenious basketball mind, but his coaching philosophy had befuddled his players—and even his assistants—for years. Like everyone else, I could only speculate on whether I was doing something wrong.

Mike had bigger problems. He was under the impression that, thanks to his improvement as a freshman, he’d earned a permanent spot on varsity. But no, my coach said. A new recruiting class was here. No promises were made. Mike would start on jayvee and maybe—maybe—he’d join varsity later in the season.

Bitter and confused, Mike and his parents—who had burned thousands of tuition dollars—explored transfer options. Plenty of Division 3 coaches were interested. At the end of the fall semester, I helped Mike load his stuff and said goodbye to my best friend. Returning to my dorm in the rain, I realized that in the eyes of his coaches, his teammates, and some of his friends and family, Mike would always be a failure—a quitter who couldn’t hang with the big boys.

It was bull****.

The season dragged on. My playing time slipped. I dreaded practice. Searching for wisdom or encouragement from the upperclassmen, I found nothing. All the seniors wanted, it seemed, was to reach spring semester and have a “real” college experience that didn’t involve 8 a.m. Saturday workouts.

A familiar question tormented my mind: why am I doing this?

In February I called my mom and told her that I would finish the rest of the season. “Then I’m done,” I said.

There was a pause. I couldn’t tell if she was crying.“What will you tell your father?” she asked.

I didn’t know.

In March we lost to Navy in the first round of the Patriot League Tournament. Half-watching from the end of the bench, I felt relieved and anxious.

Only one step—the hardest one—was left.

The next morning, on my birthday, I packed my duffel bag and drove to the gym. I told my coach about everything that had been lost in the last year—my desire to play, my respect for the program, my friendship with Mike—and that I needed to quit.

Smiling sadly in his office, my coach said nothing. He’d heard plenty of rants and rationalizations from disgruntled players. Maybe that’s why he didn’t disagree or lecture or negotiate: he just listened. I respected that. Despite tirades that lit his face on fire, despite his fondness for Coors Light on the rocks, despite a cutthroat approach to coaching—despite all of the things, he still seemed like a gentle man.

We shook hands. “Thanks for the opportunity,” I said.

“Good luck, Bob,” he said.

I glanced at the maroon duffel bag on the floor. Then I left.

You around tonight? Getting my teeth kicked in on table 8 at the moment.

Did you get my pm? I gave some money away earlier. How were the games?

What About Bob?
Australia

"Here’s to Bobby, he’s true blue! He’s a piss-pot through and through! He’s a bastard so they say! He shoulda gone to heaven but he went the other way! He’s going down! down! down! down! down!
—Australian drinking song

2003

Booming bass shook Jacksons on George.

Frustrated and a little worried, Eric shimmied through the packed club to the bar. The night had started innocently enough, back on campus at Macquarie, celebrating Bob’s twenty-first. A few shots, music, cabs into Sydney. And then more shots—tequila, rum, whisky, it hardly mattered—which gave his friend a bright idea: one per year.

Bob had just downed #20, a flaming concoction of tequila, sugar, and sludge—hopefully chocolate—called The Cookie Monster. Now he slumped on a sticky table in the corner, his face hidden under a sweaty mop of blond hair, tapping his fist in rhythm as he slurred, “One more. One more. One more.”

That was the thing about Bob, Eric thought to himself. When his mind was set, he was one stubborn dude.

The problem was that their three female housemates—the self-proclaimed Tri-Squad—were policing the bar. Things had gotten out of control, they said. No way would they keep feeding shots to someone who was nearly blackout drunk.

What was he supposed to do? Of course Eric didn’t want to hurt anyone. But he also didn’t want to be the guy who’d cockblocked a 21st birthday shot. He didn’t want the story to go, Remember the night Bob did twenty shots on his twenty-first birthday? Couldn’t quite get that last one. What a shame.

One more try, then. Eric wedged himself between two beefy brunettes and yelled over the deafening bass at a bartender. Suddenly a hand whirled him around.

The Tri-Squad.

“We need to take—care—of—him!” Mariah said, spitting each word at her housemate.

“Yeah!” said Kelly.

“Yeah!” said Amanda.

“I know!” Eric lowered his voice. “Give me a water shot. He won’t know the difference.”

Mariah flashed Eric a dirty glance and turned to the bar. Once it was ready, Eric snatched the shot and escorted Bob into the bathroom—the only place for some peace.

“This is it!” Eric said with forced enthusiasm. Rather than gulping it down immediately, Bob brandished the shot above his head, wobbled triumphantly across the metal pee trough, and babbled about birthdays and basketball. Finally he took the shot, paused, and examined the empty glass like a skeptical jeweler.

“This is water,” he said.

Bob gunned the shot glass into the pee trough and marched to the bar.


**

It was tough to top Bondi Beach.

Lounging alone, my ankles covered in warm sand, I watched my friends frolic in the ocean. My gaze settled on Monica, a fellow MacQuarian whose thighs blended into a bronze bikini that hugged her ass.

The weather was lovely, the view was exceptional, and my hangover was fading. Life was good.

I could only recall fragments of my birthday fiasco, but Eric had filled me in: confronting the Tri-Squad, drinking a 21st shot—whatever it was, it wasn’t water—arguing with a cabbie about his vomit-caked door. Now I could add “puking out of a moving cab” to my list of illustrious achievements.

These days, without basketball consuming every waking hour of my day, a question lingered now and then among the parties and the travel: what next?

I glanced at my sand-battered copy of Ulysses. My three literature classes were reminding me of how much I enjoyed reading when I was younger, before my high school English teacher, announcing my turn to the dark side, dubbed me Darth.

Maybe I could get accepted into a literature program. A tiny problem was that, during my first two years of undergrad, I had majored in basketball and minored in ping-pong. My grades sucked. I had been rejected by all but one study abroad program. How could I get into grad school?

One possibility was to write an honors thesis. I had no clue what I’d write about, of course, but maybe I could bull**** my way into someone’s good graces. dear professor, you dont know me but trust me im really disciplined and studious. my passion for literature is overflowing! despite weak grades and no academic accomplishments would you be willing to oversee my senior honors thesis? i like william faulkner the great gatsby and hobbits.

A frisbee floated towards me and rested on the sand with a satisfying puff. Eric and Monica were laughing, pointing at the waves, yelling something to me. What was it?

“This...is...water!”

I got up, dusted off my sunburnt frame, and jogged into the ocean.

Is this a nod to David Foster Wallace?

The accounts of your past have been very entertaining. Thanks for sharing!

Haha, could be I suppose. I see it more as a mocking reference to my comment in the bathroom. Eric still breaks out "this is water" every now and then!

Glad you're enjoying, I've enjoyed writing them

Exploring the Uncapped Buyin Structure at the Beau Rivage

This was a fun topic to explore. The piece touches on
1. buy-in strategies in uncapped games (CLIFFS: always have 2X the amount of every other player for ego purposes; I prefer 3X the second-biggest stack)
2. recreational players and the poker economy.

I considered including a few related subjects--aggressive seat- and table-changing, deciding whether to always cover a whale, creating a positive vibe at the table, short-term vs. long-term profit strategies--but this proved to much for one article. Hoping to keep thinking through how this stuff impacts the overall "health" of a poker room.

Until the advent of internet poker almost all big bet games were uncapped. I have an old friend from Houston that I see at the WSOP most years. He played in huge underground uncapped games back in the day, and he just hates capped games. I've more or less adjusted to them but I'd still prefer uncapped.

But I have to say (as I told him) capped games are IMO perhaps THE primary reason that there are no-limit games all over the country now.

I feel like we talked about your Houston friend/the uncapped games. Why does he like them so much?

Yeah they seem crucial. When I talked to Adam Nash (one of the Beau managers) he mentioned that Johnny Grooms was very keen on talking to players about establishing proper caps at MGM (Grooms was at the Beau; now he's at MGM). Sounds like they've settled on 200-250 BBs for many of the limits up there, if I remember right.

Also seems like there's a tension between the interests of individual players--like your Houston buddy--and the long-term health of a poker room. Even when I've talked to players who acknowledge that caps are good in the long run, when I ask the obvious follow-up ("So are you in favor of capping the games?" ) they can't bring themselves to say yes. It must be tough to pass up a massive deep-stacked edge at, say, the Beau in the name of sustainability.

Possible to conclude that you were granted the right to submit a thesis on William Faulkner by an Australian professor. My read is notably ethnocentric, of course!

Poker Faces in the Crowd: Chad Holloway

A veteran of the poker media, Chad Holloway has been covering the game in Las Vegas, and across the country, since 2010. When he shipped a WSOP bracelet in 2013, Holloway cemented his status as a talented player-writer with much to say about the poker world. Our recent email conversation covers Chad’s new role in poker media, the piece he’s proudest of penning, the highlights and lowlights of law school, and bike theft in New Orleans.

Possible indeed! In the end, my efforts consisted of firing obsequious emails to my college profs back home, which resulted in a senior thesis about modern fantasy lit--in other words, on hobbits.

My buddy feels strongly that he has a major advantage over weaker players (recs and regs) when the money is really deep. And he does (or at least he did back in the day) -many players are very reluctant to put say 500 bigs in the middle without close to the nuts, but he has no such reservations.

I think the tension between individual interests and long term game preservation that you mention is real, and the house mainly cares about keeping the games going and the rake coming in.

Like I said, I "grew up" in uncapped games and prefer them personally, but caps do keep the game alive.

It is a decent compromise IMO if the cap is at least 200 bigs.

I'm interested to see whether/how table caps change in the near future. The more I'm around and talk to players in Gulf Coast games (which are uncapped or "match the big stack"), the more the I hear a narrative of decline: the games are getting worse, there's less action, less $ on the table, etc. If casinos care about rake and keeping the games going--which is exactly what they care about!--then it's entirely possible they'll enforce stricter caps.

On the other hand, it does seem like most players, myself included, prefer deeper games. I've noticed that Vegas, for example, has tended towards slightly bigger caps for many of its 1/3 and 2/5s. Players' opinions do and should matter, at least to some degree.

My guess is that we'll more often see a happy medium of 200-250BB capped games.

February Goals, Florida (Poker) Road Trip

[ ] Play 50 hours
[ ] Write (as in actual time spent writing ****, not reading or researching)
30-40 hours
[ ] Survive Mardi Gras

I'm currently in Miami on a much-anticipated road trip through Florida. I've hit five rooms so far. Here's a quick and dirty summary

Ebro Dog Track

action is always good here. I was here on a Tuesday, and there were two 1/3s running (max buy $400).

BestBet Orange Park

I'd been to the BestBet Jacksonville and wanted to check out this one. It's smaller by comparison and the 2/5 (100bb cap) played pretty small. A lot of players minbuying for $100 and trying to run it up (certainly not a bad thing).

Daytona Beach Kennel Club

Very nice room with healthier caps (2/5 up to $800) and I sat in a great game with two whales where this hand happened:

OMC ($500): 35 UTG
Whale 1 ($700): FLAT MP
Whale 2 ($covers): reray one fitty otb
OMC ship
Whale 1 ship
Whale 2 snap

OMC tables KK, Whale 1 shows 46. flop K69, turn 2, river T

Whale 2 does a BOOMSHAKALAKA and tables 78o

Palm Beach Kennel Club



Dammmmm, this room is hoppin! Was packed at 4-5pm on a weekday and the promotions are better than anywhere I've seen (high hand every 20 min for $400/$800).

The 2/5 was capped at $500, and I believe there was a $5/10 running as well.

Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood

Beautiful enclosed two-level poker room. Deep 2/5 offered. Regs who do this:

limp, limp, hoodie-reg 25 (covers all), fish flat otb ($500), Bob reray 110 with KK from the BB, only reg calls.

Flop Q77 rainbow ($260)

Bob $75, reg $190, Bob flats

turn A
Bob check, reg ship $200, Bob fold, reg proudly tables

So as you can see, I still suck at poker. Been getting punished on this trip (0-5 so far) but feel ok about my play, and the action has been solid on every stop. Will be hitting 2-3 more rooms on the way back.

I have, of course, been doing other things. Like observing America's greatness as the only tent-camper in a sea of RVs

and observing Hemingway's Key West study

and frolicking on North Beach (this is NOT a pic of the nude bathing area where dozens of old men flaunted their tanned asses )

You heard about this prop bet bob, writing a poker novel in 11 days :

https://www.highstakesdb.com/7582-jo...-prop-bet.aspx

Did you meet any of the local regs at PBKC? My "I want uncapped" buddy from Houston lives around there these days and I'm pretty sure he plays PBKC at least some.

He's an OMC like me, about 6'4 or 6'5 and looks like an old hippy with longish hear and usually a scraggly beard.