Dear jenium:

I was thinking of commenting on his flawed comparison of poker to chess, (he seemed to skip over the fact that chess is a game of complete information while poker involves having to make decisions based on incomplete information), but your comment is good enough.

Former DJ

This tilted me quite severely.

The idea that he's only just realised this tilts me to an angle that is grossly unhealthy for my back.

If the concept of chance didn't enter your mind when comparing chess and poker, what were you comparing? What the queens and kings look like?

Edit: And I know very little about Vanessa, but I'm sure if she ever wants an ego boost then reading the comments on this blog would be a good place to start.

NOOOOOO! I am in desperate need of humor, please, we should encourage everyone to read it! I loved the new Intro where he says he changed the blog and apologized to Vanessa:

and then said:


I mean, how funny is this? I think my favorite image is "cum-banks." LOL!

Next thing you know, he'll be stalking her EBay account!

Since when did it become acceptable to say and do terrible things as long as you give an insincere apology within an appropriate amount of time?

CP better get rid of his blog.

Some people can get away with mistakes, even huuuge personality flaws (e.g., Tiger Woods, Charlie Sheen), but that's because they are actually talented and people liked them in the first place. I don't think an obnoxious losing poker player can expect the same forgiveness...especially bc his apology is such a joke.

While I obviously question the merit of him having a CP blog, I kind of don't have a problem with them leaving up the post-- because really it just makes him look bad. If it is taken down, perhaps more people would forget about it, and he wouldn't have to live this down for the rest of his poker career (how ever long that lasts lol).

His "apology" post was pretty lol:

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-blog...so-who-s-right

He claims to have looked at a lot of Vanessa's HHs-- which further distances him from being a good player since so many bluffs that look audacious on paper can suddenly become great plays when you factor in reads.

Also he says:

"For every player like Vanessa who has found success at the tables with her style of play, there millions more of you out there who will be losing players..."

If there are millions out there following "her style of play" then why would her style be so worthy of writing an attacking blog post about and then having to issue an apology because you have offended thousands of people? There are, on the other hand, millions of players that would never 4-bet bluff (obv the camp that Bernstein falls into), and millions who apply a hyper-aggro style without having any of the necessary skills to back it up-- which is obv not the camp she falls into.

Good post. I meant drop him as a Blogger in general. Although, maybe we each earn a Sklansky buck for every player who is influenced by his blog, lol.

This will make you LOL...

When I read the piece yesterday morning, I was so thoroughly flabbergasted that CardPlayer would run such a thing, and tweeted something to the effect of "I can't believe CP ran this piece of ****" along with a link. It got a good number of @ replies and retweets, so much so that I instantly regretted giving him the free publicity and increased traffic.

MJ went to the effort to seek out my email address and wrote me, denouncing my "personal attacks" on him in the interest of "keeping things civil in the writing community." I wrote a short response telling him that I did not call him a piece of ****, that I called his article a piece of ****, and that he'd lost the respect of that particular community.

I couldn't even get through his reply, although he led off by saying that he "didn't care about having their respect", and that I must be incredibly insecure to be offended by his tone.

Apparently the degree to which he doesn't care is on some ridiculously advanced mathematical level that I cannot comprehend, since I don't otherwise understand why he'd spend the time composing a 1,000-word email to a poker writer.

hj314:

I've been spending time the past few days carefully reading volume II of Dan Harrington's cash game book and specifically the section on LAG play. MJ is (possibly) correct that "millions" of players play a hyper-aggressive "Vanessa" style of play. Not that I'm a "world class" player - or anywhere close - but I have ran into only one LAG, who just happens to be a professional dealer, that plays a LAG style well. This guy is so good at applying pressure that he even had a major cash - of close to 150K - for an in-the-money finish at the Main Event of the WSOP several years ago. I had played against a lot of LAGs prior to playing against "Andy," but most of these players (sooner or later) took a beat, lost half their stack, and promptly melted. Andy, on the other hand, has the rare talent (for a LAG) of sensing and knowing when he's run up against a real hand and should slow down or get away from the hand. Most "hyper-aggro" LAGs don't have that discipline - they seem to blindly believe that non-stop aggression always works. Accordingly, they are vulnerable to a very patient, crafty, (and highly disciplined) TAG. That's the point that MJ seems to be missing: There are lots of LAGs imitating Vanessa's style, but very few of them (Thank God!) are doing it as well as Vanessa.

Also, I viewed a brief video clip where Vanessa was describing what went on with that 8-4 hand. It was very clear from her comments that she had been watching her opponent (and his betting patterns) closely. Based on her opponent's previous bets - I think this kind of analysis is called the "metagame" - she had a reasonable expectation that her opponent was (again) overplaying a weak hand and a daring bluff might work. The fact that she "got lucky" was beside the point. Every player who wins a poker tournament (any poker tournament) has to "get lucky" at least once - if not several times. (I digress.) Anyway, like most really good players, she had been watching and picking up on the habits and betting patterns of her opponent, so the play was not totally unjustified. I'm sure Vanessa will get caught with her hand in the cookie jar many times in the future, but how many times will there be when her high-pressure style has the rest of the table cringing in fear and folding like cheap paper bags? As Dan Harrington points out, playing against a skilled LAG can be very hard.

This is solely a personal observation on my part, but I get the impression that MJ may have a "Vanessa problem" rather than any disagreement about her playing style. All of that stuff in the way of attacking her personally was uncalled for. Those are the kind of comments that, had he addressed them to a man, there likely would have been an exchange of words and maybe an invitation to take it outside.

Former DJ

+1, yes that was the point I was trying to make.

Yeah, one might be willing, almost, to think that if millions of players try to mimic her style and lose that perhaps, just maybe, she's actually doing it a hell of a lot better than them.

Again, not that I know much about her, but it's such a terrible article that I want to rip it to shreds.

And it's not like you have to watch much high stakes poker to find someone like Dwan making these kinds of seemingly insane plays. But would he dare write an article about how Dwan sucks? No. Because every muppet with a TV wants to hug Dwan's nuts.

My real point being about durrrr being that plenty of people watch, admire, and respect (he's just the obvious example off the top of my head, I really don't want to look like I'm a fanboy) his style. And he is at least strong evidence that you can play hyper-LAG in the right spots and be successful.

Seems like he went for what he thought was an easy target thinking people would go with it. I'm pleased that most people just see it as a lame hatchet job mixed with bouts of gibberish.

If you disagree with hands someone's played, talk about why in your blog. But going off on a "Godammit I hate these LAGs making crazy shoves!" is only a slight rephrasing of "I hate playing fish they don't respect my raises".

Best response Vanessa can give is to take down this tournament & that's lookin pretty locked atm. What a boss.

Um, so, yea, Vanessa just shipped the NAPT main again....
Pretty ridiculous that she ships the same event back to back.
Can't really think how there can possibly be any doubt whatsoever about her ability and talent. Very well played Vanessa. Really happy for you

Katie:

I wonder if somebody from Card Player has approached Vanessa and asked her for an interview? Anyway, kudos for Vanessa - she gets the last laugh on this one.

Former DJ

True, Congrats Vanessa!

Dude is a tool and sucks at poker to boot.

Obviously the author is an idiot.

I want to point out a larger point that people seem to be missing: that one hand doesn't make a player. A lot of people here that are defending Vanessa are trying to defend her play in eg. the 84s hand. That hand may have been played well, or it may have been played poorly. I personally suspect it was played poorly but I wasn't there and I can't know. In fact, no one can know for sure because like most things in poker, it is player (and game flow) dependent. From talking to other players, it was likely played poorly.

But I didn't come here to flame Vanessa. She is an excellent player, and her play in one hand is largely irrelevant; even if the 84s hand (or some other hand one highlights) was played bad, it doesn't really say a whole lot about Vanessa's poker skill/abilities. It only says a little. In a similar vein, winning a tournament doesn't say a whole lot about one's poker abilities -- plenty of donks have won tournaments; some even twice. Although, winning a few poker tournaments does say a little bit.

But what says a lot about Vanessa's skills is what other good players (good enough to differentiate players apart) think about her play -- and they think highly of her. However, I don't think anyone should make a big deal out of MJ's blog for being wrong. No one cares what he thinks anyway, and he has nothing new to say.

Double Ice:

This goes to the very heart of playing the LAG style. Dan Harrington discusses the LAG style (in quite a bit of detail) in Volume II of his cash game book. One of the key points "Action Dan" makes about good LAG players is that they tend to get more action (and get paid off on their good hands more often) because of the very fact that they're playing more hands. Also, as Dan points out, if you're up against a LAG with good poker instincts - especially a LAG who is good at picking up betting patterns - such a player can be very tough. Vanessa occasionally gets caught with her hand in the cookie jar, (and doesn't draw out a miracle), but the very fact that she's capable of shoving it all-in at any moment puts a lot of pressure on her opponents.

Most people I know (including me) can't play the LAG style well. I can fire an occasional second barrel, (and occasionally bluff outright on the river for all my chips in a tournament), but routinely firing the third (and fourth) barrels is really hard - especially on a stone cold bluff with nothing. Vanessa can do that - and the fact that you never know (for certain) if she's doing it with 8-4 suited or pocket Aces makes it frightening to call one of her all-in shoves. When you add the fearlessness and aggression she brings to her game and put all those components together, that makes for one intimidating presence at the poker table. Vanessa really brings the fear factor to the table - you can just sense it.

I have great admiration and respect for Vanessa and her play, but one thing I hope is that I never find myself at the same table playing against her. That would be like getting caught in a tornado.

Former DJ

I was going to bring this up. I wonder if there is a gender issue here? IOW, if a an XY LAG has done this to him, would he be frustrated but gotten past it? Is it the fact that an XX did it, the thing that has pushed this guy over the lifetilt edge?

I don't think anyone but his mom, BFF and a lot of losing players can possibly view his blog as anything but a glorified bad beat story and an uber-whine. (And the BFF is iffy.)

vanessa is one of the best poker players in the world male or female. She doesnt need to care about what some writer thinks about how she played an isolated hand.

I don't want to say it's a gender issue because to me it seems like too serious of an accusation to make, and I certainly can't back it up. The fact that Vanessa is a female is likely incidental.

What I do think is that he chose what he saw as an easy target. He didn't go for a "mainstream" player in his rant, he chose someone that's a lesser known character still making a name for themself.

Hence his lame apology pretending he realised he stepped over the line. He just didn't expect that people would rip apart his post. Presumably because he's an arrogant git.

lol @ the whiny dork butchering Erik Seidel's name.

In dealing with poker’s representatives, I believe we should every so quietly take players like Vanessa R. (no matter what mainstream appeal she might have) out of the spotlight and replace them with people who have had success as a direct result of their obvious poker understanding. Some players that come to mind are Daniel Negreanu, Eric Siedel and Phil Ivey.

also: by-the-book dudes criticizing the new generation of aggressive players are destined to be left the f*ck behind.

bump