I read this several years ago. Here's my review:

It's a great choice for a bathroom reader in that it’s a collection of columns easily assimilated in 2-minute bites. At first I thought I wouldn't read beyond a few pages (the typos and amateurishness of this self-published book were grating) but I'm glad I continued. The voice is in the 19th-century country-humour tradition, as descended through figures like the Grand Old Opry’s ‘Duke of Paducah’

I found it reassuring reading Cinch on how bad the bad beats are in Omaha. And his “special theory of probability” at the end is worth the price of the book.

Can you give more details good and bad? What kind of amateurishness? Why were you glad to have continued? Who the hell is the Duke of Paducah? Are you a lit major? What did you think of Brokos review of it, where do you agree or disagree? Thx.

Good interview. What were some of the book "gems" you alluded to but didn't specify.

MUAHAHAHAH



I'm still processing Game 7. Lehhbron's block and near-dunk a few plays later were utterly ridiculous. I'm not a huge Cavs fan and don't hate the Warriors, but I was rooting for The King the whole time and am glad to see Cleveland get a title. As a huge Bulls fan growing up, I also enjoy the fact that Golden State can no longer claim GOAT thanks to their colossal collapse.

Now that Dee Rose is joining Phil and Melo in NY, I can switch my rooting interests to next year's inevitable champs! #Knicks2017

Thanks for sending, Russell. The book's on my list, and I should get to it in the next month or so and am eager to weigh in.



ty. I think you're referring to the interview with pure_aggression when we talk about poker lit? My top three "gems" would be:

The Biggest Game in Town, by Al Alvarez
Positively Fifth Street, by James McManus
King of a Small World, by Rick Bennet

Some others near the top:

The Noble Hustle, by Colson Whitehead
Poker Faces, by David Hayano
The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King, by Michael Craig

all of these have been discussed itt if you feel motivated to look around a bit.

When are you back in Tucson?

Just got in yesterday. You around for a CDS meetup?

How about Saturday?

should work. i'll text you to confirm, just need to make sure i can use the car.

I can prob pick you up it need be, though you'd have to stay later than you usually do

thanks for the offer, i should be good tho. gotta get my beauty zzzzzzs

I gave away all my poker books a couple of years ago (stacked them up on the table at my home game and let my friends have at them) so I can't go back to the text and answer in terms of specifics. As some one with editorial experience, I find badly edited and amateurish books grating -- but I can look past that when they entertain me. (Cf. the discussion above of Cards.)

I recall eventually being charmed and entertained by the persona that Cinch created. But I wasn't kidding when I said it was a perfect bathroom reader, great for quick hits. Cinch is good on anecdotes and I like that form. I don't know I would have enjoyed it as much if I'd read it straight through.



Not sure how that factors in, but, yes, if being a retired English prof qualifies ...

Interview with Wild Bill Phillips

This month I spoke with Wild Bill Phillips, the co-founder of Gulf Coast Poker. We discussed this summer’s WSOP, preying on weak opponents, Monkey's Minions, and bluffing balloon-wearing buffoons.

Best of luck to all you brave souls who are venturing to Vegas for the Main!

June Results


June was a busy and an enjoyable month. I flew into Vegas on May 30, went to live reporting orientation, and hopped into the fray.

[X] Cover WSOP Donkaments
As you can see from my eloquent writeup of the scene above, I clearly accomplished this goal.

There's lots about covering donkaments that I enjoy: watching (and sometimes meeting) elite players, cranking out content, and soaking in the WSOP atmosphere. I also think it's been valuable, from a logistical and maybe even a strategic perspective, to observe tournaments wire-to-wire.

There's one considerable downside that no one would deny: live donkament reporting is long, exhausting work. Of course I got sick immediately; apparently this can't be avoided. Staying in the Rio helped, and I focused on resting and exercising in my off time. I've gained lots of respect for the reporters who do this full-time. I'll be heading back for a final stint from July 9-16th.

[16] Play 20 hours of poker
Though I expected to be rusty and not in the mood to play, the exact opposite happened: I felt alert and clear-headed in the 5ish sessions that I played, and my results were very good, only problem was lolsampelsize.
[] spew off excessive buyins at the LLSNL 1/1 game/meetup
Had a great time meeting/reuniting with the LLSNL crew, but didn't stay too long because of exhaustion + I was elevenhanded with a table full of crushers!

[X] Frolic across N Cali/Oregon
This part of the trip couldn't have gone better, we had perfect weather the whole time (apparently the coast is often foggy/overcast; I know nothing) and hit some awesome spots. Some hilites:

Crater Lake. Aside from the Grand Canyon, most amazing natural wonder I've seen.

Snoopy. Who knew a Peanuts museum existed in Santa Rosa, CA?

Portland. Really liked the city a lot. Part of the reason for heading north from San Fran was because I'd never been to the Pacific Northwest, and I enjoyed it a bunch. I went full nerd in Portland: (1) strolled into Powell's, which is by far the best bookstore I've ever seen, and discovered a beautiful 1928 illustrated edition of perhaps my favorite book ever, The Brothers Karamazov. Incredibly, this pristine edition cost a mere 11 bucks! With my new treasure in hand, the next stop was (2) a vintage arcade bar in which I flaunted my Tetris skills and was then crushed by a plane game whose name I can't (or don't want to) recall.
Seattle. Also solid.

[] Buy JRR a beer
We missed each other in Vegas, but I should be able to remedy this tomorrow!

Crater lake looks epic, nice shot!

Amazing pic! Was that point and click, or you busting out the photography skills?

I still possess Three Novels by James M. Cain in hard cover (First Reprint Edition January 1946), which I purchased for $4.95 at Powell's in 1999.

July Goals

[ ]Cover WSOP Main
[ ]Play 30 hours of poker
[ ] Read and write stuff

I'll be returning to Vegas for a final round of donkament reporting and will sprinkle in a few playing session as well. I have a few more days in AZ visiting my folks, and the time to rest and read has been very nice. I've been plowing through Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan novels, which I'd highly recommend. I also love the fact that, in our age of (over)sharing, nobody knows who the hell she is.

thanks phellas! I have a decentish camera, nothing amazing, that I used for the shot.

Was nice to finally visit Powell's myself. Their selection is amazing. Something very satisfying about browsing a good bookstore and finding rare stuff.

Bob sat in the 2-5 game Saturday in Tucson, and won enough to buy me a drink as promised Also caught me 3 betting light against him and shoved over the top to take it down.

Glad we could catch up! I would've enjoyed showing 56sooted or some such bluff, but I just happened to have a hand and didn't think you'd 3b/fold vs my stack.

My favorite moment of the night was after JRR raises an open with KK and stacks a 4bettor, then another player says to him, "Don't know why that guy's four-betting, you always have a hand there because I know you just flatcall AK to that first raise." And JRR slyly looks at me and grins.
#fakeOMC
#LAG

Interview with Miikka Anttonen about Once a Gambler



I interviewed Miikka Anttonen about his memoir Once a Gambler. Topics include bankroll management, game selection, and adapting to current live and online MTTs.

I may have more to say about the book as a whole (I've only read Part 1 of 3; part 2 comes out soonish) but I enjoyed the opening section and look forward to future installments. There are certainly strategy tidbits to be gleaned from Once a Gambler, but make no mistake: this is a nonfiction bildungsroman, not a poker primer. For those of you familiar with Anttonnen aka Chuck Bass, there are plenty of juicy stories inside. For me, the most valuable part of the book was getting a deeper sense of what it's like to be gripped by compulsive gambling addiction:

"I land at McCarran International Airport at around nine o'clock in the evening. I have to walk past at least two hundred slot machines before I can even collect my luggage. Temptation, so much temptation. The Las Vegas slot machines look so much more enticing than the Finnish ones. They have bonus games and free spin promotions and jackpots. They have music and funny themes. There's an Elvis slot machine near the baggage claim area that starts singing Love Me Tender just as I walk past it. I have $10,000 in my pockets, the maximum I'm allowed to bring to the country without having to declare the money. I have another $5000 on my bank account that I can withdraw anytime, and I've left myself a $1000 emergency fund at home in case I manage to go broke. I want to start gambling immediately. I can barely restrain myself from shoving a $100 bill down Elvis's mouth. It's going to be a long couple of weeks resisting the temptation."

As someone with literally zero desire to play slots, sports bet, etc, it was edifying (and troubling) to follow the narrator's gambling binges. I had no idea how pervasive slots are in Finland, and some of the most troubling stuff is right at the beginning, when a teenage Anttonen is stuffing his paychecks inside slot machines at the mall.

I'm currently reading Anttonen's book. Like you, I have no personal desire to play slots or bet on sports (no 'degen gene' here), but Mikka's memoir certainly offers some vicarious thrills. I'm not too far into the book yet (I'm currently in the section where he's literally flipping burgers as a teenage school dropout after blowing thousands on sports) but I'm enjoying every paragraph.
I think the writer's choice to use the present tense was interesting, as it gives the reader an ability to almost travel through time with the narrator. When he mentioned albums he was listening to on his discman while trudging through the snow, it was like I was re-experiencing my own youth. I'm quite excited about getting to the poker bits, as I think it's gonna be a wild ride.

Yeah, me too. There's some poker in the first part, but apparently parts 2 and 3, when Our Hero is traveling around the world playing MTTs etc, are more poker-cenric.

I'm in Vegas for two more days. The last week has been a blur. I'll prob poast some highlights when I get home; there are definitely some amusing moments. I saw Phil Hellmuth absolutely lose his ****, I saw a guy forcibly removed by security in the worst possible way, I saw flopped quads vs a rivered boat and a lower setting quad up on the river and a big pro FOLD quads on a KJ7x7x 9board (fine, I only heard about that one), I saw that Nathan Gamble, Daniel Cheater, Dmitri Chop, and Andre Crooks are real people who finished in the top 200 of Main Event weeeeeeeeeee

WSOP Recap



Early in the summer, the top story had to be Jason Mercier's bracelet bet with Vanessa Selbt (and subsequent Twitter flaming). Thankfully for Selbst, Mercier (barely) failed to win three bracelets. I'm sure winning Player of the Year is a decent consolation.

It's hard to imagine someone crushing a summer harder than Fedor Holz. The guy's cashed for 10 mill this summer alone! Perhaps as impressive is his mature perspective at such a young age. I just stumbled on this interview that's a must-read for anyone interested in self-improvement/the mental game. A few highlights:

How did you fall amongst the TGK crew? [Holz's group of poker friends]

“This gravitation is natural. I am like a sponge. I am not an inventor. These guys are smarter than me in a lot of areas, particular when it comes to creating something. What brings us all together is we all have something special to bring to the group. My part in it is bouncing certain ideas, and being very comprehensive in lots of different areas. I grasp things very quickly. But I won’t be the guy leading the discovery and finding new things. I think that’s why people like to talk to me. They become smarter and more efficient. This is how our group works so well. We bounce ideas around, and we get to a point much quicker than we would working on our own.”

How does financial freedom affect your motivation?

“Society clearly teaches us the wrong value system. Money is overvalued, and freedom has very little to do with money. We always think that money is connected to how we feel but it’s a very short-term feeling and what I have learned through coaching, and giving back to people, I realised that this is the only thing that gives me joy. That’s why poker is not the thing I want to pursue. It only takes. It’s very selfish. There is no lasting place for it in my life to do this for a living.”

Then, on the other hand, there's Phil Hellmuth. We're all familiar with The Brat's rants but, for my part, I had never seen them firsthand. That changed when I covered Day 1 of the Little One for One Drop. Hellmuth and Negreanu were a few tables apart, and both enjoyed a strong early start. Phil started running bad, though, and his table talk gradually devolved into an f-bomb fueled tirade. Let me be clear: there was nothing funny or sarcastic about how he treated his tablemates; his tone was outright malicious. What's more, he wasn't "playing to the cameras"; there was no one around (except lil ol me, and I hardly had the time to camp out at his table).

The rant ebbed and flowed for a few hours until he busted KK < AK, which prompted a furious tirade that ended when he jogged out of the Pavilion room. I previously considered Hellmuth to be a likable buffoon, but now my opinion of him is decidedly negative.

I'm thrilled that Cliff "Johnnybax" Josephy is leading the Main. If I could pick a single person to win (leaving aside close friends or myself ), Bax would be on the shortlist. I got into online poker right when he was becoming an online legend in the mid 2000s, and the fact that he's an older guy, a family man, and generally a good dude is a big + for ESPN's November Nine coverage. That said, the rest of the table is filled with a bunch of twenty-somethings so I doubt this year will offer any substantial ratings boost .

I really enjoyed covering the Main and being around for a good chunk of the WSOP. After some inevitable hiccups, I felt comfortable doing live reporting and can imagine picking up gigs here and there. The key to this summer, for me, involved getting out of town for some much-needed R&R and returning motivated for the final push. If I'd grinded the full seven weeks, I wouldn't have been happy. As PGC sage etm. puts it,

I also shipped the media freeroll. Good times!

Thanks for linking to the Fedor interview, as I'd missed that one. He's so inspirational and mature. It kind of scares me how someone half my age can give valuable life lessons.

Congrats on shipping the freeroll!

The High Is Always the Pain and the Pain Is Always the High

by Jay Kang: http://www.themorningnews.org/articl...lways-the-high.

"Pain in poker comes in many forms. There is the loss you feel about living off of the dregs of a societal illness. There is the gambler’s moment of clarity when you realize you have become just like the old, sad men that you ridiculed in your younger, luckier days. There is the tedium of sitting at a filthy felt table for hours, sometimes days, feigning a studied intensity. There is the anxiety over explaining to a loved one exactly how you lost $30,000 in the course of a weekend. There is searing unease that comes from watching that same loved one twist uncomfortably whenever you give them a gift bought with the spoils of gambling. But none of poker’s daily pains are deadly or instructive, really. What’s more, all of guilt’s iterations can be cleansed by one monster score. Hit a set of 6s on a J-6-2 rainbow flop against the Donkey at the table, the one who is wearing a fake Versace rayon shirt whose outrageous patterning is the only thing taking attention away from his Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and the poor, doting, usually underage girlfriend who sits behind his right shoulder, awash in the illusion that her boyfriend is Paul Newman from The Hustler—well, win $5,000 off a guy like that and you stop worrying about ethics and your misspent youth."

"I could tell you that during a 36-hour period in July of 2006, I lost $18,000 in Las Vegas. Or I could tell you I once picked through every corner of my car, including the grating underneath the spare tire, for five dollars of spare change so that I could make the minimum bet at a blackjack table (a bet I lost). And my interest in divulging these details would not be to instruct or to edify, or even to elicit empathy from fellow addicts. My interest would be to rip open my suffering heart and show you its beautiful beating, and in this way, I might think of myself as having been more alive than you, my hopefully horrified reader, were at a similar age and time."

"Conspicuously absent from the deluge of divulgences, however, are the degenerate gambling stories. Books have been written about gambling, but the lion’s share are either strategy handbooks or glitzy tales of careerists." I can think of a few counterexamples (Bob the Gambler, Cards) but this seems to be largely true.

Glad you enjoyed the interview, Arty, and thanks for the good wishes! I'm eager to see where Fedor goes from here.