The Poker Project (playing and writing about poker in the U.S.)
03-11-2014
, 03:41 PM
The Biggest Game, part three
[IMG]http://s2.************/r9wgukcvd/121011_FUT_Las_Vegas_Street_jpg_CROP_rectangle3_la .jpg[/IMG]
It would seem to be a motif in The Biggest Game...that the various "insiders" in Vegas are in many respects "outsiders" in relation to general society —Dr. TJO
While The Biggest Game appears to be about poker—and it is—the book is also a deeply personal exploration of loneliness, depression, and extremity. These are prominent themes, I think, because Al Alvarez has been thinking about them his whole life.
Early in his life, Alvarez struggled through a career change, a “disastrous” first marriage, and the suicide of his friend and almost-lover, Sylvia Plath. Although he didn't know it at the time, Plath was in the last days of her life when she came to him and asked for help. “I failed her on that level,” he said in an interview. “I was 30 years old and stupid. What did I know about chronic clinical depression?…I had been clinically depressed, but I didn't know what it was when I was in it.
(http://www.theguardian.com/books/200...oetry.features)
In 1974 Alvarez published The Savage God, a classic study of suicide. While the core of the book is an overview of Western attitudes towards suicide, it begins with an account of Plath’s final year and ends with a discussion of Alvarez’s own suicide attempt in his early thirties. In other words, two slices of life permeate the book and, in Alvarez's words, “keep it human” (http://www.connectingconversations.o...n_id=2&item=58).
Alvarez was also drawn to Plath because of her style. As the author of an essay on Alvarez/Plath/Hughes points out,
“In the 1960s Alvarez was a champion of what he termed ‘extremist’ poets. Alongside Plath, these numbered Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and Anne Sexton, a list as tragic as it is distinguished: lives, three of which were curtailed by suicide, blighted by mental illness, addiction, and unhappiness; the extreme, and extremely personal, nature of their work, it would appear, connected with the extreme lives they lived.” (http://camqtly.oxfordjournals.org/co...3/217.abstract)
Alvarez’s attraction to life on the edge—to risk—led him to not just “extremist” poets but also to rock climbing and poker. We already know that, despite his success, Alvarez has never “fit in”: he left the academy early on and has flourished as a freelancer writing in the margins. It’s no coincidence, then, that he’s drawn to the titanic and peculiar figures in The Biggest Game who, as Dr. TJO observed, are outsiders in general society.
While outsiders, misfits, and “lost souls” appear throughout the book—we're in Vegas, after all—they're given extended treatment in Chapter 9 when we meet David Sklansky, Mickey Appleman, and an unknown dealer, Ronnie. In addition to description, a sense of place, and quotation, Alvarez also uses juxtaposition to great effect. The Chapter 9 material is inconspicuous —it appears late in the book, after we’ve met Doyle, Johnny Moss, and Jack Strauss and before the start of the main event. The chapter might be easily skipped or forgotten.
Misfits
"His eyes unfocused, and for a moment he seemed lonelier than anyone I had ever met—as though loneliness were the element he moved in, like a fish in water.” (126)
The chapter revolves around Mickey Appleman’s comment that “a lot of people don't fit in where they are, but Vegas takes anybody.” And Vegas never comments. The city welcomes the hordes of sallow, grizzled regulars who hunch over their chips and snarl “Shut up and deal.” The city welcomes prostitutes. The city welcomes a fat man so obese that “his tiny, bald head seemed to belong to another body entirely; he looked as if he were trapped in an overinflated balloon” (124). And the city welcomes Ronnie.
The story of this wounded dealer has haunted me ever since I read the book. Ronnie reminds me of the insulted and injured characters from Russian literature or the southern gothic: people we’d rather ignore than meet. A few things jump out about the scene (posted above):
* The physical description is sensitive and intuitive. Just by looking at the “skeleton-thin” man in the corner, the narrator realizes that Ronnie is in pain. He has “hurt eyes,” and “hurt” is repeated at the end of the paragraph.
*"I guess you don't know who I am." I looked at his name tag again and said, “Ronnie.”
External signs and labels--a name, a tag on the front of one's shirt—doesn't capture a person's. "Ronnie" says nothing about who this man actually is. To know someone requires attention and care; it requires listening, to return to Alvarez’s key point about writing and voice.
*Even as he tells Ronnie's story, Alvarez may be suggesting that Ronnie is unknowable and that he'll ultimately be forgotten. The newspaper clipping—SEX CHANGE DEALER RETURNS TO BINION'S HORSESHOE—is provocative but rather meaningless. What’s the full story? Where can we get it? "Be sure to read it," Ronnie says about an upcoming article from the National Enquirer. “Of course,” Alvarez replies. Is he just being polite? Does he actually mean to read it? Either way, how can we, the readers, ever know Ronnie's story?
* Is Alvarez compassionate or disdainful? I think mainly the former. Alvarez must see something of himself or Plath in Ronnie—a "lost soul," a lonely person plagued by pain and isolation. At the same time, Ronnie's story is called a “bizarre sexual sideshow” and a “freak show” that's set alongside degenerate gamblers and staggering obesity.
*There's something both redeeming and depressing about how Ronnie's story appears in the narrative. The story is there, on the page, and that means something. But we may be tempted—and the arrangement of the chapters encourages us—to skip over these paragraphs to read about big pots and bigger personalities. The implication is that some of the most powerful stories are all around us, easily missed, hidden in plain sight.
Poker misfits
[IMG]http://s23.************/yllfg5963/world_series_of_poker_jpeg1.jpg[/IMG]
Alvarez juxtaposes Ronnie’s story with two poker misfits, Sklansky and Appleman. Both are highly intelligent men who are unable or unwilling to live in traditional society. “In appearance,” Alvarez writes, “Sklansky is like one of Dostoyevski's intolerant student revolutionaries: broad face, trimmed beard, steel spectacles, styleless clothes” (131). Love this description.
Sklansky, of course, has been easy fodder for 2+2 mockery (and he contributes to his reputation as poker's eccentric intellectual: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/62...evenge-799962/).
Appleman earned an M.B.A. and left the business world to work at a drug rehab clinic in D.C. Then he left social work to play poker. Strangely—Alvarez calls his reasoning an “absurd psychological sleight of hand”—Appleman found more solace in playing poker than in working with addicted and underprivileged youth: “Gambling helped me more than analysis. I suffered from depression—I was so entwined with my inner world I never had a change to enjoy myself. For me, activity was the answer. I took up gambling after I finished with psychoanalysis, and the depressions never returned.”
Both men are somehow unfit for traditional work. They exist outside the system, enjoying financial and personal security from a game and, it seems, also questioning the principles on which they've grounded their lives. The narrator's attitude towards them--like the tone throughout the book--is one of detachment, compassion, and curiosity. Alvarez may not understand these men, but he respects them and, perhaps, sees a trace of himself in these outsiders of a different stripe.
In the end, The Biggest Game is both bleak and playful. Alvarez remains repulsed and enchanted by these colorful Vegas characters. The city has seduced him, too, and he loves the challenge of shaping his poker experiences into stories. It seems fitting to end with Alvarez himself (http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/In...w-Al-Alvarez):
What would your advice be to a young writer?
Have fun.
[IMG]http://s27.************/avh09upb7/2663536512.jpg[/IMG]
Cliffs: If you read only one poker book—fiction or nonfiction—read The Biggest Game in Town. Filled with both concrete detail and poetic description, the book is a joy to read. What makes Alvarez's approach so successful is that he knows his limits. As a professional writer (poet, essayist, novelist) and amateur poker player, he doesn’t write poker strategy. Instead, he crafts wonderful portraits of the Vegas gamblers of an almost-forgotten age—Jack Strauss, Benny and Jack Binion, Chip Reese, Bobby Baldwin, Amarillo Slim, Stu Ungar, Mickey Applebaum, and the godfather himself, Doyle Brunson.
***
Hope you enjoyed reading about The Biggest Game. Thanks for the feedback along the way. Always appreciated. The timing of this entry is pretty good, since I'll be heading to Vegas in two weeks and can (finally) see this crazy city for myself. Which means I'll have some live hands to post, too
.
[IMG]http://s2.************/r9wgukcvd/121011_FUT_Las_Vegas_Street_jpg_CROP_rectangle3_la .jpg[/IMG]
It would seem to be a motif in The Biggest Game...that the various "insiders" in Vegas are in many respects "outsiders" in relation to general society —Dr. TJO
While The Biggest Game appears to be about poker—and it is—the book is also a deeply personal exploration of loneliness, depression, and extremity. These are prominent themes, I think, because Al Alvarez has been thinking about them his whole life.
Early in his life, Alvarez struggled through a career change, a “disastrous” first marriage, and the suicide of his friend and almost-lover, Sylvia Plath. Although he didn't know it at the time, Plath was in the last days of her life when she came to him and asked for help. “I failed her on that level,” he said in an interview. “I was 30 years old and stupid. What did I know about chronic clinical depression?…I had been clinically depressed, but I didn't know what it was when I was in it.
(http://www.theguardian.com/books/200...oetry.features)
In 1974 Alvarez published The Savage God, a classic study of suicide. While the core of the book is an overview of Western attitudes towards suicide, it begins with an account of Plath’s final year and ends with a discussion of Alvarez’s own suicide attempt in his early thirties. In other words, two slices of life permeate the book and, in Alvarez's words, “keep it human” (http://www.connectingconversations.o...n_id=2&item=58).
Alvarez was also drawn to Plath because of her style. As the author of an essay on Alvarez/Plath/Hughes points out,
“In the 1960s Alvarez was a champion of what he termed ‘extremist’ poets. Alongside Plath, these numbered Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and Anne Sexton, a list as tragic as it is distinguished: lives, three of which were curtailed by suicide, blighted by mental illness, addiction, and unhappiness; the extreme, and extremely personal, nature of their work, it would appear, connected with the extreme lives they lived.” (http://camqtly.oxfordjournals.org/co...3/217.abstract)
Alvarez’s attraction to life on the edge—to risk—led him to not just “extremist” poets but also to rock climbing and poker. We already know that, despite his success, Alvarez has never “fit in”: he left the academy early on and has flourished as a freelancer writing in the margins. It’s no coincidence, then, that he’s drawn to the titanic and peculiar figures in The Biggest Game who, as Dr. TJO observed, are outsiders in general society.
While outsiders, misfits, and “lost souls” appear throughout the book—we're in Vegas, after all—they're given extended treatment in Chapter 9 when we meet David Sklansky, Mickey Appleman, and an unknown dealer, Ronnie. In addition to description, a sense of place, and quotation, Alvarez also uses juxtaposition to great effect. The Chapter 9 material is inconspicuous —it appears late in the book, after we’ve met Doyle, Johnny Moss, and Jack Strauss and before the start of the main event. The chapter might be easily skipped or forgotten.
Misfits
"His eyes unfocused, and for a moment he seemed lonelier than anyone I had ever met—as though loneliness were the element he moved in, like a fish in water.” (126)
The chapter revolves around Mickey Appleman’s comment that “a lot of people don't fit in where they are, but Vegas takes anybody.” And Vegas never comments. The city welcomes the hordes of sallow, grizzled regulars who hunch over their chips and snarl “Shut up and deal.” The city welcomes prostitutes. The city welcomes a fat man so obese that “his tiny, bald head seemed to belong to another body entirely; he looked as if he were trapped in an overinflated balloon” (124). And the city welcomes Ronnie.
The story of this wounded dealer has haunted me ever since I read the book. Ronnie reminds me of the insulted and injured characters from Russian literature or the southern gothic: people we’d rather ignore than meet. A few things jump out about the scene (posted above):
* The physical description is sensitive and intuitive. Just by looking at the “skeleton-thin” man in the corner, the narrator realizes that Ronnie is in pain. He has “hurt eyes,” and “hurt” is repeated at the end of the paragraph.
*"I guess you don't know who I am." I looked at his name tag again and said, “Ronnie.”
External signs and labels--a name, a tag on the front of one's shirt—doesn't capture a person's. "Ronnie" says nothing about who this man actually is. To know someone requires attention and care; it requires listening, to return to Alvarez’s key point about writing and voice.
*Even as he tells Ronnie's story, Alvarez may be suggesting that Ronnie is unknowable and that he'll ultimately be forgotten. The newspaper clipping—SEX CHANGE DEALER RETURNS TO BINION'S HORSESHOE—is provocative but rather meaningless. What’s the full story? Where can we get it? "Be sure to read it," Ronnie says about an upcoming article from the National Enquirer. “Of course,” Alvarez replies. Is he just being polite? Does he actually mean to read it? Either way, how can we, the readers, ever know Ronnie's story?
* Is Alvarez compassionate or disdainful? I think mainly the former. Alvarez must see something of himself or Plath in Ronnie—a "lost soul," a lonely person plagued by pain and isolation. At the same time, Ronnie's story is called a “bizarre sexual sideshow” and a “freak show” that's set alongside degenerate gamblers and staggering obesity.
*There's something both redeeming and depressing about how Ronnie's story appears in the narrative. The story is there, on the page, and that means something. But we may be tempted—and the arrangement of the chapters encourages us—to skip over these paragraphs to read about big pots and bigger personalities. The implication is that some of the most powerful stories are all around us, easily missed, hidden in plain sight.
Poker misfits
[IMG]http://s23.************/yllfg5963/world_series_of_poker_jpeg1.jpg[/IMG]
Alvarez juxtaposes Ronnie’s story with two poker misfits, Sklansky and Appleman. Both are highly intelligent men who are unable or unwilling to live in traditional society. “In appearance,” Alvarez writes, “Sklansky is like one of Dostoyevski's intolerant student revolutionaries: broad face, trimmed beard, steel spectacles, styleless clothes” (131). Love this description.
Sklansky, of course, has been easy fodder for 2+2 mockery (and he contributes to his reputation as poker's eccentric intellectual: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/62...evenge-799962/).
Appleman earned an M.B.A. and left the business world to work at a drug rehab clinic in D.C. Then he left social work to play poker. Strangely—Alvarez calls his reasoning an “absurd psychological sleight of hand”—Appleman found more solace in playing poker than in working with addicted and underprivileged youth: “Gambling helped me more than analysis. I suffered from depression—I was so entwined with my inner world I never had a change to enjoy myself. For me, activity was the answer. I took up gambling after I finished with psychoanalysis, and the depressions never returned.”
Both men are somehow unfit for traditional work. They exist outside the system, enjoying financial and personal security from a game and, it seems, also questioning the principles on which they've grounded their lives. The narrator's attitude towards them--like the tone throughout the book--is one of detachment, compassion, and curiosity. Alvarez may not understand these men, but he respects them and, perhaps, sees a trace of himself in these outsiders of a different stripe.
In the end, The Biggest Game is both bleak and playful. Alvarez remains repulsed and enchanted by these colorful Vegas characters. The city has seduced him, too, and he loves the challenge of shaping his poker experiences into stories. It seems fitting to end with Alvarez himself (http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/In...w-Al-Alvarez):
What would your advice be to a young writer?
Have fun.
[IMG]http://s27.************/avh09upb7/2663536512.jpg[/IMG]
Cliffs: If you read only one poker book—fiction or nonfiction—read The Biggest Game in Town. Filled with both concrete detail and poetic description, the book is a joy to read. What makes Alvarez's approach so successful is that he knows his limits. As a professional writer (poet, essayist, novelist) and amateur poker player, he doesn’t write poker strategy. Instead, he crafts wonderful portraits of the Vegas gamblers of an almost-forgotten age—Jack Strauss, Benny and Jack Binion, Chip Reese, Bobby Baldwin, Amarillo Slim, Stu Ungar, Mickey Applebaum, and the godfather himself, Doyle Brunson.
***
Hope you enjoyed reading about The Biggest Game. Thanks for the feedback along the way. Always appreciated. The timing of this entry is pretty good, since I'll be heading to Vegas in two weeks and can (finally) see this crazy city for myself. Which means I'll have some live hands to post, too
.
Last edited by bob_124; 03-11-2014 at 03:58 PM.
03-12-2014
, 02:57 PM
03-12-2014
, 07:09 PM
03-12-2014
, 07:24 PM
Have fun but not too much fun in Vegas Bob.
03-13-2014
, 02:42 PM
My buddy and I will play some 1/2. Any recommendations for poker rooms we should hit up?
03-14-2014
, 01:12 AM
03-15-2014
, 03:56 PM
Two play money hands that confused me.
Hand One
no reads. effective stacks 125ish. Hero overcalls a 3$ EP raise with 4
4
and four of us see a 4
5
3 flop (12).
The original raiser bets 11 into 12, hero raises to 36, folds back to villain who calls
*** TURN *** [2] (90)
Preflop and flop seems standard to me. Villain has 70 remaining. Is this a shove or a check/call?
Hand Two
V1 (106), loose/passive, limp for 1$ in mp
V2 (100), limps the button
Hero (100) completes with K J]
BB (100) checks
*** FLOP *** [J J3] (4$)
Hero bets 3, BB folds, V1 minraises, button folds, action to hero.
I prob raise this 60-70% of the time preflop but decided to complete here. I like to lead in this spot with value hands and semibluffs because villains are passive stations who'd rather call a bet than bet themselves. Is this a 3bet with the intention is getting it in? Villain could stack off with AJ, QJ, JT, we can also get value from a flush draw. A 3bet probably folds out midpair and def air.
Hero calls
*** TURN *** [2] (16)
Hero checks, Villain bets 10, hero calls
*** RIVER *** [JJ 3 2 7 (36)
Hero checks, Villain bets 11, hero...
Good runout but this spot is pretty meh. If we flat the flop, what's the best line going forward?
Hand One
no reads. effective stacks 125ish. Hero overcalls a 3$ EP raise with 4
4 and four of us see a 4 5 3 flop (12). The original raiser bets 11 into 12, hero raises to 36, folds back to villain who calls
*** TURN *** [2
] (90)Preflop and flop seems standard to me. Villain has 70 remaining. Is this a shove or a check/call?
Hand Two
V1 (106), loose/passive, limp for 1$ in mp
V2 (100), limps the button
Hero (100) completes with K
J]BB (100) checks
*** FLOP *** [J
J3] (4$)Hero bets 3, BB folds, V1 minraises, button folds, action to hero.
I prob raise this 60-70% of the time preflop but decided to complete here. I like to lead in this spot with value hands and semibluffs because villains are passive stations who'd rather call a bet than bet themselves. Is this a 3bet with the intention is getting it in? Villain could stack off with AJ, QJ, JT, we can also get value from a flush draw. A 3bet probably folds out midpair and def air.
Hero calls
*** TURN *** [2
] (16)Hero checks, Villain bets 10, hero calls
*** RIVER *** [J
J 3 2 7 (36)Hero checks, Villain bets 11, hero...
Good runout but this spot is pretty meh. If we flat the flop, what's the best line going forward?
03-15-2014
, 09:48 PM
Quote:
Two play money hands that confused me.
Hand One
no reads. effective stacks 125ish. Hero overcalls a 3$ EP raise with 44 and four of us see a 4 5 3 flop (12).
The original raiser bets 11 into 12, hero raises to 36, folds back to villain who calls
*** TURN *** [2] (90)
Preflop and flop seems standard to me. Villain has 70 remaining. Is this a shove or a check/call?
Hand Two
V1 (106), loose/passive, limp for 1$ in mp
V2 (100), limps the button
Hero (100) completes with K J]
BB (100) checks
*** FLOP *** [J J3] (4$)
Hero bets 3, BB folds, V1 minraises, button folds, action to hero.
I prob raise this 60-70% of the time preflop but decided to complete here. I like to lead in this spot with value hands and semibluffs because villains are passive stations who'd rather call a bet than bet themselves. Is this a 3bet with the intention is getting it in? Villain could stack off with AJ, QJ, JT, we can also get value from a flush draw. A 3bet probably folds out midpair and def air.
Hero calls
*** TURN *** [2] (16)
Hero checks, Villain bets 10, hero calls
*** RIVER *** [JJ 3 2 7 (36)
Hero checks, Villain bets 11, hero...
Good runout but this spot is pretty meh. If we flat the flop, what's the best line going forward?
Hand One
no reads. effective stacks 125ish. Hero overcalls a 3$ EP raise with 4
4 and four of us see a 4 5 3 flop (12). The original raiser bets 11 into 12, hero raises to 36, folds back to villain who calls
*** TURN *** [2
] (90)Preflop and flop seems standard to me. Villain has 70 remaining. Is this a shove or a check/call?
Hand Two
V1 (106), loose/passive, limp for 1$ in mp
V2 (100), limps the button
Hero (100) completes with K
J]BB (100) checks
*** FLOP *** [J
J3] (4$)Hero bets 3, BB folds, V1 minraises, button folds, action to hero.
I prob raise this 60-70% of the time preflop but decided to complete here. I like to lead in this spot with value hands and semibluffs because villains are passive stations who'd rather call a bet than bet themselves. Is this a 3bet with the intention is getting it in? Villain could stack off with AJ, QJ, JT, we can also get value from a flush draw. A 3bet probably folds out midpair and def air.
Hero calls
*** TURN *** [2
] (16)Hero checks, Villain bets 10, hero calls
*** RIVER *** [J
J 3 2 7 (36)Hero checks, Villain bets 11, hero...
Good runout but this spot is pretty meh. If we flat the flop, what's the best line going forward?
Hand 2: I think flatting is acceptable but I'm probably raising about .4. Not too hard to get away from if he comes over the top, I guess.
03-15-2014
, 10:43 PM
03-15-2014
, 10:47 PM
03-24-2014
, 10:51 PM
Vegas, Baby!
Had a fun weekend in Vegas watching March Madness and touring the city. Made a point of wandering into some of the poker rooms and saw a few pros in the Bellagio. Played <3 hours the whole weekend, though. I can only think of two notable hands from a short session at Binion's.
Hand One
Hero (300): hasn't played a hand, I've folded about two orbits
Button (300+): loose geezer, stacked off light and showed a few bluffs.
In general the table was loose/passive, stacks are between 200-400
Hero limps 67 in EP, folds to geezer who makes it 8, folds back to hero who calls.
Not a fan of playing this so passively pre but I was anticipating a bunch of limps
Flop 885, hero c/raises 15$ cbet to 35$, villain folds
Hand 2
same table, button straddles to 11. Hero (300)$ makes it 25 from EP with 55, button and sb call.
Flop AT4 (80)
Hero bets 40 into 80, sb calls.
turn 3, check/check. river A, check/check and mhig vs KJ
A good reminder of how passively some LLSNL villains play draws.
Had a fun weekend in Vegas watching March Madness and touring the city. Made a point of wandering into some of the poker rooms and saw a few pros in the Bellagio. Played <3 hours the whole weekend, though. I can only think of two notable hands from a short session at Binion's.
Hand One
Hero (300): hasn't played a hand, I've folded about two orbits
Button (300+): loose geezer, stacked off light and showed a few bluffs.
In general the table was loose/passive, stacks are between 200-400
Hero limps 6
7 in EP, folds to geezer who makes it 8, folds back to hero who calls. Not a fan of playing this so passively pre but I was anticipating a bunch of limps
Flop 885, hero c/raises 15$ cbet to 35$, villain folds
Hand 2
same table, button straddles to 11. Hero (300)$ makes it 25 from EP with 55, button and sb call.
Flop A
T4 (80)Hero bets 40 into 80, sb calls.
turn 3
, check/check. river A, check/check and mhig vs KJA good reminder of how passively some LLSNL villains play draws.
03-27-2014
, 05:46 AM
03-27-2014
, 04:02 PM
Quote:
Hero limps 67 in EP
03-30-2014
, 10:05 AM
Random thoughts on Vegas
spent a lot of the weekend wandering from sportsbook to sportsbook watching and betting on the games. How many people really "beat Vegas" over the long run? Is this even possible? Even if you win, you get paid something like ninety cents on the dollar. Seems like a pretty tough hurdle to overcome. The same goes for every other game in the casino, of course. All that said, the three of us still managed to finish up on the weekend. Pure skillz
I have basically no clue how the Vegas poker games play since I logged like three hours. The games didn't seem any tougher/less tough than other places I've played. I do agree with the idea that regs should try to have a good time with fish/tourists: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/10...anize-1423757/
when I sat at the Wynn for a short session, my table was all grizzled grinders, like 5 youngish guys 2 older guys. No one talked. Then a 40ish guy showed up and was chatting up the table and splashing around, it transformed the mood and the action. I tend to be quiet at the table but try to banter with players when I can. I always enjoy doing so but I have more trouble paying attention.
stripburger was good: http://stripburger.com/. the waitress's fiance was a professional sports gambler ldo.
Enjoyed the random Stars Wars characters wandering the strip. I got a pic with Chewbacca and we saw Darth, stormtroopers, and an evil-looking Yoda.
Stayed with a friend's parents in Henderson. The area reminded me of where my parents live--south of Tucson--but it has the casinos, Red Rocks, shopping and dining galore. For responsible adults (read: people who won't gamble away their retirement) Vegas seems like an awesome place to live. Lots more than just the strip/gambling, which I'm sure I realized on some level but it helped to see this firsthand.
The Venetian waterways/boats are ridiculous. in a good way.
spent a lot of the weekend wandering from sportsbook to sportsbook watching and betting on the games. How many people really "beat Vegas" over the long run? Is this even possible? Even if you win, you get paid something like ninety cents on the dollar. Seems like a pretty tough hurdle to overcome. The same goes for every other game in the casino, of course. All that said, the three of us still managed to finish up on the weekend. Pure skillz
I have basically no clue how the Vegas poker games play since I logged like three hours. The games didn't seem any tougher/less tough than other places I've played. I do agree with the idea that regs should try to have a good time with fish/tourists: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/10...anize-1423757/
when I sat at the Wynn for a short session, my table was all grizzled grinders, like 5 youngish guys 2 older guys. No one talked. Then a 40ish guy showed up and was chatting up the table and splashing around, it transformed the mood and the action. I tend to be quiet at the table but try to banter with players when I can. I always enjoy doing so but I have more trouble paying attention.
stripburger was good: http://stripburger.com/. the waitress's fiance was a professional sports gambler ldo.
Enjoyed the random Stars Wars characters wandering the strip. I got a pic with Chewbacca and we saw Darth, stormtroopers, and an evil-looking Yoda.
Stayed with a friend's parents in Henderson. The area reminded me of where my parents live--south of Tucson--but it has the casinos, Red Rocks, shopping and dining galore. For responsible adults (read: people who won't gamble away their retirement) Vegas seems like an awesome place to live. Lots more than just the strip/gambling, which I'm sure I realized on some level but it helped to see this firsthand.
The Venetian waterways/boats are ridiculous. in a good way.
03-30-2014
, 10:49 AM
04-01-2014
, 05:10 PM
Double Down (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)
Gambling was joy for us. We were stepping out of our mundane lives. We liked hanging out, talking to, laughing with the players, the dealers, and the strange, slightly unsavory types who worked the pits and managed the floor, the lifers in the casino business, even though their company cost us dearly. We liked masquerading as people who could afford to do what we were doing—gambling with this money and losing the way we were losing. As it happened, we could afford it, but only because our father was dead. As recompense, the whole experience took us into itself, created a new world, fresh, dangerous, and private, every time we went (87).
Ever heard of Donald Barthelme? He's a big name in the literary world--a "postmodern" minimalist who wrote wacky, powerful short stories and established one of the best creative writing programs in the country at the University of Houston. Turns out his younger brothers are excellent writers too. Double Down is Rick and Steve Barthelmes' account of what it's like to lose more than $300,000 over a few years and be indicted for cheating as well. A lot of the money lost they had inherited, and they also tell the rueful story of their parents' deaths and the end of what they consider an exceptional family. http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/11/2...28harsiet.html
Why Gamble?
For these two English professors teaching in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, a life of stability had grown stale and even false. “What we didn't like about the academy was the falseness: conservative people presenting themselves in Che Guevara suits, digging hard for career advantage while settling hearty congratulations all around for assigning radical authors to their students to read, thus threatening the established order. Soon they would take their SUVs into the mountains” (104). Gambling on the gulf coast--especially at the Grand Casino in Gulfport--was a “life-affirming, adrenaline-rich euphoria” that introduced that to an people of an entirely different stripe. Simple, "ordinary," honest, these people were fun to chat with or, for writers like the Barthelmes, to idealize: “It was not that we liked our fellow gamblers, the dealers, the pit and floor people, the cocktail waitresses. It was more that we loved them, at a respectable distance, the same distance at which one loves characters in books or on television shows” (71).
We've heard the story before: two curious, wide-eyed newbies enjoy a few early wins that lead to bigger losses; they concoct wacky strategies for beating unbeatable games like blackjack or the slots; then, as the losses pile up, they realize that they're addicts and gamble anyway. The distinctive part of the book is the way in which this somewhat conventional gambling narrative intersects with the Barthelmes' family history, especially the brothers' efforts to cope with the grief caused by the death of Don (in 1989) and, a few years later, both parents. They needed coping devices, strategies of forgetting that could dull the grief. Enter gambling: “At the casino, as long as there was money to play with, we never had to think about anything but the cards, and in the cards, everything else disappeared” (198).
Rick and Steve were also mourning the loss of an illusion--the illusion of perpetual childhood. Gamblers, they noticed, resembled children: “concentrating on play, oblivious, intense, yet at ease.” Rick and Steve were children, too: they had dogs, girlfriends, and wives but no children—no families of their own. “In our lives, with no children, no future, just a permanent present, we believed in the illusion that we could ignore this loss, that the family was abiding, still mattered” (197). When both parents died, the illusion was shattered.
The book nicely weaves together the gambling and family narratives until an ominous third story takes over: the brothers' indictment. They're charged with conspiring with a dealer, and ultimately the charges are dropped.
Addiction
Many addictions, from exercise to letter-writing, are pretty benign. But something is malignantly addictive if (1) it causes real problems for the addict, and (2) it offers itself as relief from the very problems it causes. David Foster Wallace, "E Pluribus Unum: Television and U.S. Fiction"
David Wallace is talking about TV in the quote above, but his definition of malignant addiction seems to apply to how Rick and Steve treat gambling—as an escape from grief that ultimately bring them more pain and loss. Throughout the book, neither brother denies that he has a gambling problem. Their attitude's more like--so what? They had the time and money to blow, and they enjoyed their chosen addiction a lot. What's the big deal?
This question isn't really answered since their gambling doesn't end from guilt or bankruptcy, but from the uncomfortable truth that they may spend time in jail. Double Down might have been scarier if the brothers hadn't been indicted, since it seems that they might have gambled themselves into the poorhouse. In the end they lost a few hundred grand of their father's inheritance. But they gained a good story.
Notes and Questions
Gambling and the "why" question. Gambling and health. Is it always unhealthy? Mickey Appleman: “Gambling helped me more than analysis. I suffered from depression—I was so entwined with my inner world I never had a change to enjoy myself. For me, activity was the answer. I took up gambling after I finished with psychoanalysis, and the depressions never returned.”
Is gambling synonymous with poker? How would the Barthelmes' story be different if they were playing poker instead of blackjack?
The people blur together along with the wins and losses (44)
“one night.” a good chapter that reads like a short story.
***
Cliffs: Double Down is a well-written memoir that offers a gripping account of gambling, guilt, and addiction. The brothers are at their best when they discuss gripping nights at the casino rather than their family life or, towards the end of the book, their indictment.
***
I plan to read Rick Barthelme's Bob the Gambler (1998), which he wrote shortly before his own gambling mishaps.
Gambling was joy for us. We were stepping out of our mundane lives. We liked hanging out, talking to, laughing with the players, the dealers, and the strange, slightly unsavory types who worked the pits and managed the floor, the lifers in the casino business, even though their company cost us dearly. We liked masquerading as people who could afford to do what we were doing—gambling with this money and losing the way we were losing. As it happened, we could afford it, but only because our father was dead. As recompense, the whole experience took us into itself, created a new world, fresh, dangerous, and private, every time we went (87).
Ever heard of Donald Barthelme? He's a big name in the literary world--a "postmodern" minimalist who wrote wacky, powerful short stories and established one of the best creative writing programs in the country at the University of Houston. Turns out his younger brothers are excellent writers too. Double Down is Rick and Steve Barthelmes' account of what it's like to lose more than $300,000 over a few years and be indicted for cheating as well. A lot of the money lost they had inherited, and they also tell the rueful story of their parents' deaths and the end of what they consider an exceptional family. http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/11/2...28harsiet.html
Why Gamble?
For these two English professors teaching in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, a life of stability had grown stale and even false. “What we didn't like about the academy was the falseness: conservative people presenting themselves in Che Guevara suits, digging hard for career advantage while settling hearty congratulations all around for assigning radical authors to their students to read, thus threatening the established order. Soon they would take their SUVs into the mountains” (104). Gambling on the gulf coast--especially at the Grand Casino in Gulfport--was a “life-affirming, adrenaline-rich euphoria” that introduced that to an people of an entirely different stripe. Simple, "ordinary," honest, these people were fun to chat with or, for writers like the Barthelmes, to idealize: “It was not that we liked our fellow gamblers, the dealers, the pit and floor people, the cocktail waitresses. It was more that we loved them, at a respectable distance, the same distance at which one loves characters in books or on television shows” (71).
We've heard the story before: two curious, wide-eyed newbies enjoy a few early wins that lead to bigger losses; they concoct wacky strategies for beating unbeatable games like blackjack or the slots; then, as the losses pile up, they realize that they're addicts and gamble anyway. The distinctive part of the book is the way in which this somewhat conventional gambling narrative intersects with the Barthelmes' family history, especially the brothers' efforts to cope with the grief caused by the death of Don (in 1989) and, a few years later, both parents. They needed coping devices, strategies of forgetting that could dull the grief. Enter gambling: “At the casino, as long as there was money to play with, we never had to think about anything but the cards, and in the cards, everything else disappeared” (198).
Rick and Steve were also mourning the loss of an illusion--the illusion of perpetual childhood. Gamblers, they noticed, resembled children: “concentrating on play, oblivious, intense, yet at ease.” Rick and Steve were children, too: they had dogs, girlfriends, and wives but no children—no families of their own. “In our lives, with no children, no future, just a permanent present, we believed in the illusion that we could ignore this loss, that the family was abiding, still mattered” (197). When both parents died, the illusion was shattered.
The book nicely weaves together the gambling and family narratives until an ominous third story takes over: the brothers' indictment. They're charged with conspiring with a dealer, and ultimately the charges are dropped.
Addiction
Many addictions, from exercise to letter-writing, are pretty benign. But something is malignantly addictive if (1) it causes real problems for the addict, and (2) it offers itself as relief from the very problems it causes. David Foster Wallace, "E Pluribus Unum: Television and U.S. Fiction"
David Wallace is talking about TV in the quote above, but his definition of malignant addiction seems to apply to how Rick and Steve treat gambling—as an escape from grief that ultimately bring them more pain and loss. Throughout the book, neither brother denies that he has a gambling problem. Their attitude's more like--so what? They had the time and money to blow, and they enjoyed their chosen addiction a lot. What's the big deal?
This question isn't really answered since their gambling doesn't end from guilt or bankruptcy, but from the uncomfortable truth that they may spend time in jail. Double Down might have been scarier if the brothers hadn't been indicted, since it seems that they might have gambled themselves into the poorhouse. In the end they lost a few hundred grand of their father's inheritance. But they gained a good story.
Notes and Questions
Gambling and the "why" question. Gambling and health. Is it always unhealthy? Mickey Appleman: “Gambling helped me more than analysis. I suffered from depression—I was so entwined with my inner world I never had a change to enjoy myself. For me, activity was the answer. I took up gambling after I finished with psychoanalysis, and the depressions never returned.”
Is gambling synonymous with poker? How would the Barthelmes' story be different if they were playing poker instead of blackjack?
The people blur together along with the wins and losses (44)
“one night.” a good chapter that reads like a short story.
***
Cliffs: Double Down is a well-written memoir that offers a gripping account of gambling, guilt, and addiction. The brothers are at their best when they discuss gripping nights at the casino rather than their family life or, towards the end of the book, their indictment.
***
I plan to read Rick Barthelme's Bob the Gambler (1998), which he wrote shortly before his own gambling mishaps.